Bill Wagner wins 2016 Alaska Bearfest photo contest

Bill Wagner of Redding won the 2016 Alaska Bearfest photo contest held annual in the City of Wrangell in Southeast Alaska.
The winning entry was announced July 31 during the week-long celebration that also features a berry pie contest, marathon, concerts and guest speakers
Wagner’s photo was of an Alaskan coastal brown bear coming up empty after trying to snatch a pink salmon from the waters of Anan Creek.
Bears have been coming to Anan for hundreds of years as the creek swells with several hundred thousand pink salmon coming home to spawn each summer.
The U.S. Forest Service maintains The Anan Wildlife Observatory located 30 miles southeast the of Wrangell, which is on the island of the same name. While on Alaska’s mainland, the Anan Creek is only accessible by boat or float plane.
Anan Creek has the largest run of pink salmon in Southeast Alaska, which in turn attracts both black and brown bears. In addition, the area is a favorite spot for bald eagles, which also feast on the salmon.
It is one of the few places where brown and black bears “fish” for salmon as they bulk up or a winter of hibernating.

Bridal Veil Falls a hidden gem

Bridal Veil Falls is a picturesque gem in the foothills just south of Canada’s Highway 1 outside Chilliwack, B.C. east of Vancouver.
It was billed as being right off the highway. True. And the hike to the falls was little more than one-half mile. Also true. Alas, it was pretty much straight up.
The hike was well worth it.
The falls cascade some 200 feet over smooth rock, creating the effect of a veil.
The area was designated as a Provincial Park in 1965. Before that, the falls were used to generate electricity in the early 1900s for the Bridal Falls Chalet. According to the park’s Web site, the area is where Popkum, an ancient village, was located with records going back to the 1700s. Popkum is a First Nations word meaning “puff ball,” a plant that grows in the area.
The park is located on the south side of the Fraser River, 16 km east of Chilliwack. Take Exit 135 off Highway 1 and follow the signs. The nearest communities, towns and cities are Bridal Falls and Chilliwack.

Grant's rise started at Fort Donelson

By Bill Wagner

Auspicious is not the definition for the North’s initial efforts at the outset of the Civil War in 1861 into 1862.

President Abraham Lincoln quickly discovered to his dismay that leadership was lacking. As the Union forces suffered setbacks at the hands of the Rebels, Lincoln tried to find a leader to stem the tide.

Winfield Scott, George McClellan, Don Carlos Buell and Henry Halleck all came up short.

One of Fort Donelsopn's "big" guns overlooks the Cumberland River

The outlook was bleak when an unknown general out in the West (Tennessee in those days) started winning battles, making a name for himself, and in the process changed the history of the United States.

Ulysses Grant (the S came later) proved to be the man Lincoln needed to lead the Union army.

Grant began his ascent along the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers at the then little-known sites of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

“The soldiers and sailors who fought here, on both sides, were volunteers who did so because they were fighting for what they believed in, and those reasons are numerous,” said Doug Richardson, chief of resource education and visitor services at Fort Donelson.

“Soldiers walked, slept, fought, suffered, and died on this land, a major battle in this most important war that created who we are as Americans today,” he said.

Fort Henry on the Tennessee River fell to a Union Gunboat attack on Feb. 6, 1862, but 2,500 rebel soldiers scrambled away 12 miles to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River before Grant’s troops could slog their way to the action.

Militarily, Fort Donelson was a much better spot for the Confederates. They had eight 32-pound seacoast artillery pieces and several other big guns to control river access. They fortified an outer defense line and waited.

Grant was slow to leave Fort Henry, and then his 15,000 troops were hampered by the weather and soggy ground as they plodded toward Donelson.

Thanks to the Confederates concentrated efforts to fortify their position, Grant’s troops were able to advance unopposed and encircle the fort.  The battle began on Valentine’s Day 1862. This time the Confederates held their own against Union gunboats, but were no match for Grant’s force that grew as reinforcements continued to arrive.

Fearing a total defeat and capture, Rebel generals John Floyd, Gideon Pillow and Simon Buckner, the southerners massed their troops on the Union’s right flank in an attempt to break out and escape to Nashville.

The rebels were actually in the process of making this all work when they were inexplicably ordered back to their original defensive positions.

Pillow and Floyd turned over command to Buckner, took a couple thousand troops and high-tailed it for Nashville. Other Rebels went with Lt. Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

However the bulk of the southern forces 5,000 men, were left in an untenable position. Buckner asked Grant for terms of surrender.

The Answer:  “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.” Buckner was none too happy, but in the end, he had no choice but to give up.

The capture of the two forts was the first major victory for the North. A new – and much needed – hero materialized — Ulysses “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

“Our visitor center receives over 40,000 visitors per year. When you include those folks, plus those who come to walk trails, run, nature-watch, picnic, visit the National Cemetery, it adds into the hundreds of thousands,” said Richardson.

Richardson is in his 23rd year with the NPS, arriving at Fort Donelson in September 2010 as part of a career goal to work at a national park where he could further study and understand Ulysses S. Grant.

For more information on Fort Donelson, visit www.nps.gov\fodo

Moose hunt ends in success in Anchorage's Kincaid Park

The long hunt for a moose photo in the wild is over — sort of — thanks to Jack at www.anchorage.net/visit-anchorage, who pointed us to Kincaid Park in Anchorage.

The 1,500 acre park in western Anchorage backs up to the Knik and Tunagarin arms of the Cook Inlet on two sides and the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. 

It’s not exactly the wilderness or the wide open spaces, but moose travel through the park on a regular basis and some actually reside there.

The park has trails for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter.

Originally it was used as a missile storing site during the height of the Cold War in 1950s. Eventually, Anchorage got the land around 1980 and created the park. Still, visitors can see the concrete missile silos that are now used for storage of more mundane items.

Over the years, we’ve seen moose in the distance and have captured a few shots of cows, a bull moose has been elusive.

We’ve been traveling to Alaska for more than decade, spending more than a few hours on the Stikine River and in the waters southeast of Wrangell.

Despite all that time, a bull moose sighting was not in the cards.

Kincaid Park was an answer. Early on a drizzly morning we had just entered the heart of the park when a moose of the male variety strolled across the road to find a better spot to munch on the foliage.

He nibbled, I shot and voila! Bull moose checked off the animal photos bucket list.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping an eye out for one of his really big cousins.

Overlooked World War II relic hidden in plain sight above Hoover Dam

The World War II machine gun nest sits atop the hills on the Arizona side of the dam.

By Bill Wagner

Each year Hoover Dam attracts more than 1 million visitors.

But only a very few are aware of an interesting historical tidbit that is hidden in plain sight.

The solution to the mystery is a machine gun bunker in an inaccessible spot high on a rocky bluff above the overlook on the Arizona side. It’s a remnant of the post Pearl Harbor hysteria that gripped the nation as the U.S. was plunged into World War II.

Seven decades ago, it was added for security. Today, the abandoned remote location is probably just a home for rattlesnakes and other critters.

“I’ve talked to long-time Las Vegas residents who have been visiting Hoover for years, who never knew the structure was there until I told them where to look for it,” said Pat Hicks, Ph.D., an archaeologist for the Bureau of Reclamation.

In addition to Hicks, Patrick R. Jennings, Ph.D, a military historian for the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, and Jim Bailey, Ph.D. a Bureau of Reclamation senior historian, were able to answer most questions about the bunker or MGN, machine gun nest, as it is also referred to by governmental entities when it was being proposed and built.

Hicks described the bunker as “built of cast-in-place reinforced concrete and covered with a veneer of native rock camouflaging. This camouflaging serves to blend the structure into its surroundings so it is difficult to see from the air and the ground.”

The fact that there was a turret, bunker or machine gun nest (take your pick) on one side of the dam begs the question “What about the Nevada side?”

“Evidently there were two turrets, one on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side. Details are sketchy at best on the Nevada-side turret, I could not find any info, and not sure if one was even built there,” Bailey said.

“The rumors that there is another pillbox at Hoover Dam start with a map drawn by a Reclamation employee during WWII, who had registered concerns with the FBI and others about security measures at the dam,” Hicks said.

The hand-drawn map has a cross on the Arizona side that is labeled “MGN” where the WWII machine gun bunker stands. It also has another location on the Nevada side of the dam west of the main switch yard complex that’s marked with another cross. That has led to speculation that pillbox/bunker existed on the Nevada side. 

“We've done surveys out in this area and haven’t located another formal pillbox/bunker structure,” Hicks said.

“Some of the other historic documents we have indicate there were a number of guards/sentries stationed in various locations around the main switch yard complex … so it wouldn't surprise me in the least that there was another machine gun emplacement out in this area, but I suspect it was a simple informal ‘nest.’ ” 

The bunker was occupied only for a short time as “those in charge figured out the Western Defense Command would not allow Japanese bombers to fly 200 miles inland to take out the power houses and switch yards,” Bailey said.

Christine Pfaff, authored an article in the summer of 2003 for the National Archives Prologue Magazine Summer — “Safeguarding Hoover Dam during World War II” http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/summer/hoover-dam-1.html.

Reports such as Pfaff’s indicate concern over defending the dam was lukewarm at best among Army officials and at high levels within the Roosevelt administration.

“Truth be told, the U.S. Army never considered the dam under any credible enemy threat,” said Dr. Jennings. “The Army only reacted when forced to by Nevada Senator Patrick McCarran, who offered legislation proposing a fort be built in Boulder City.”

“The army decided to kill two birds with one stone, and created Camp Williston (initially named Camp Siebert) as a Military Police training post. The trainees, in turn, could guard the dam before shipping off to war,” Jennings said.

A long-standing debate over who actually built the bunker wasn’t resolved until a couple of years ago, more than 70 years after construction.

Hicks said the questions were answered when she spotted a notation in the “Boulder Canyon Project Annual Project History” for 1941 (Vol. 12, Page 146) in a section titled “Miscellaneous Protective Features.”

The details included: “…(c) Concrete pill box near Arizona East gate. …”

“So, it’s pretty safe to say now the WWII pillbox at Hoover Dam was built by Reclamation forces at the request of the U.S. Army immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war on Japan.”

Hoover Dam is a modern marvel. Looking over the spillway is breathtaking, but history comes alive if a visitor looks up instead of down.

For more info on the dam and the tours that are offered, visit http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/.

United Airlines poor service as inevitable as death and taxes

Poor customer service and horrible operations management by United Airlines. It’s as inevitable as death and taxes.

The latest fiasco involved a return flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco (April 26) with a late night connection to Redding. The flight was delayed and then delayed again and again — the final delay being a late arriving crew. The counter reps continuously assured us we would make our connection — the last flight of the day to Redding.

Even on board they announced that we would make our connections — that info having been texted and otherwise communicated to the folks at SFO.

Naturally, we landed at the furthest gate from the main unit area at SFO. We ran across the airport, arriving at 10:30 p.m., the original departure time.

Guess what? The flight had not been held. Door closed with the plane sitting there.

Why was it still there you ask? It was waiting for our luggage. Our luggage (with my prescription medicine) made it to Redding, but we didn’t.

What happened to the luggage having to be on the same plane you were on?

The biggest question is why the flight to Redding couldn’t have waited. They knew we had landed. The flight goes to Redding and the plane sits overnight. There was no reason it couldn’t have waited 15 minutes.

The same flight was nearly two hours late a couple of weeks ago.

Our reward for trying the unfriendly skies was having to wait 14 hours until Monday afternoon to get home.

With jet service restored to Redding, we tried to fly out locally. 

Big mistake. We’ll head to Sacramento in the future.

Thought cats were curious? Here's Georgia, a coastal Alaskan brown bear, checking the outhouse at the Anan Bear and Wildlife Observatory in southeast Alaska.

It's a great place to get close to both brown and black bears as they gorge themselves on pink salmon that jam Anan Creek in July.

Only access is by water or float plane. We usually stay in Wrangell and take a jet boat tour.

If you're interested in going, just check with John and Brenda Yeager at Alaska Charters and Adventures at www.alaskaupclose.com.