SELENE
On 11 May, Silver Moon docked at Kodiak. An Alaska port day usually goes like this: the ship docks in the morning, we walk ashore, and return aboard in the evening. We did not go far that day — the dockside, the processing plant, the harbour and the bears were all of it.
A Morning of Docking
Just before ten in the morning we were still aboard, looking from the balcony at the crab-pot yard by the dock: metal cages stacked in rows, a forklift and a small boat beside them, a hillside behind. Kodiak is a fishing port, and a scene like this looks more like Kodiak than any postcard.
At half past eleven we went ashore. Silver Moon's midsection lay against the dock, two Petro Marine tankers parked on the wet asphalt, their reflections under the hull. When a ship docks, the pier has its own rhythm: refuelling, line handling, everyone busy at their own job.
Seen from the stern, the ship's white canopy decks rose in tiers, dock workers handling the mooring lines, the wet asphalt mirroring the hull. We like this angle: the ship is not a postcard ship, it is a ship in the middle of docking.
Walking the Dockside
Walking along the pier, the ship's side carried orange-and-white lifeboats, with the gangway at the far end where people went up and down. Up close the lifeboats are bigger than expected, the orange vivid against the white hull.
Closer still, the lifeboats and the gangway in detail, dock workers busy at the ship's side, the wet asphalt mirroring the whole ship.
By the pier stood a yellow school bus, a Passenger Shuttle sign on its front — in Kodiak the shuttle is a converted school bus, clouds pressed on the hillside, the rain only just stopped.
At the processing plant, the hull of STAR OF KODIAK stood beside the Pacific Seafood building, blue containers and parked vehicles in front. This is not a sight to see; it is where Kodiak works every day.
From the green-bench overlook the whole harbour lay open: another small white ship to the left, a wooden house in the middle, the bow of STAR OF KODIAK at the right edge, vehicles coming and going across the wet asphalt car park.
The City of Bears
Bears are everywhere in Kodiak. A roadside Bear A-B-Cs board sets out the rules for living with bears: A is for access to food, B is for best behaviour, C is for common sense — on bear ground, people mind the rules.
Beside the path stood a giant black bear statue on its hind legs, a row of bear paw prints along the red walkway. The statue towers over a person; standing before it, Kodiak's bears stop feeling like legend.
In the exhibit hall, three life-size brown bear sculptures fished for salmon in a stream model: a mother bear and cubs around the water, salmon bright red in a row. The Kodiak day ends with this group of bears.
