Kwethluk River Field Camp

I just got back from 9 days in the field. I was on the Kwethluk River, where we have a project to estimate the abundance of juvenile chum salmon migrating from the river. I wasn't supposed to come home for another couple days, but the fish counts were winding down, so we decided to end the project for the year.

We work out of a camp that is established for the Kwethluk River weir (where they count adult fish going upstream). That crew came in as we were leaving. We had a cook tent and several sleeping tents, so it was pretty comfortable. We even had a phone (regular...not sat phone) with a Kwethluk phone number.

I was in camp with Wilson, Sean, and John. Wilson and I were the day crew and Sean and John were the night crew.







We had a mix of weather. One day was as good as it gets...sunny, just warm enough to wear short sleeves, and a slight breeze to keep the bugs down. Sunset was after midnight (see proof below).





The mosquitos were bad on a couple of occasions.











Here is a panorama of the river in front of camp (Click to see it on my flickr page and look at the large version).




I was dreading going in the field for this trip. I don't really like to count fish but I had a good time and I'm looking forward to going out again, next year!