Journey to the Far North

Struggle and seduction in the Bering Sea

	INTERACTIVE GALLERY
A fuzzy Northern fur seal

By Jack Hamann
Special to CNN.com

In this story: Witnessing the wildlife 'Never ending drama' RELATED STORIES, SITES

Editor's note: Correspondent Jack Hamann and his wife Leslie spent several weeks exploring some of the breathtaking boundaries of the Far North, including the Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands and the Arctic Ocean. This is the first story in a four-part series.

ST. PAUL, Pribilof Islands, Alaska (CNN) -- The humiliation is public; the rejection, complete.

In a remote outpost of Alaska's vast Bering Sea, fur seal suitors are spurned, scorned and shamed. A summertime soap opera of passion and pettiness, jealousy and betrayal is played out each year in one of North America's most remote and starkly beautiful outposts: the Pribilof Islands.

FAR NORTH SERIES Monday - Bering Sea Tuesday - Kodiak Island Wednesday - Top of the World Highway Thursday- Arctic Ocean     RELATED STORY The sexiest ride in the skies     TRAVEL TIPS Click for practical information for visiting the Pribilofs     MESSAGE BOARD Where in the world would you like to travel?

For most of each year, 1.5 million Northern fur seals swim the cold waters of the North Pacific in search of food. Come summer, they respond to ancient urges, and almost every fur seal north of the equator heads straight for one of the two inhabited Pribilofs: St. Paul or St. George. There, they give birth to the present year's pups and breed for next year's. It is a timeless cycle seen only by those few human travelers fortunate enough to have the time and resources to witness one of nature's greatest wildlife displays.

We arrived on St. Paul, a speck of land 270 miles north of the Aleutian islands. The island is actually west of Hawaii (it's even west of parts of Russia!), and if the International Dateline didn't zigzag for political and practical purposes, we'd already be in tomorrow.

But wildlife, not food, is the draw at St. Paul, and it attracts plenty of visitors. Most book through the St. Paul Island Tour Company, fully owned by Tanadgusix (TDX), an Alaskan corporation. Booking a tour is about the only way to guarantee a seat on the airplane and a room at the hotel.

Once on the island, guides provide comfortable vans and small buses on trips to almost every corner of St. Paul. You're generally free to head off on your own, although access to most marine mammal and seabird breeding colonies is restricted without a tour guide. To go on your own, you must request a permit from the local National Marine Fisheries Service office.

The majority of Pribilof tourists are "birders," people who come to see puffins, auklets, murres, cormorants and gulls. On occasion, serious birders even get a chance to see feathered creatures blown off course from their usual grounds in North Asia and Siberia.

Hundreds of arctic foxes live on St. Paul, including dozens that shadow tour buses looking for handouts or for a place to mark their scent. The only other land mammals are an elusive herd of wild reindeer imported decades ago as a food source.

And, of course, the fur seals call St. Paul home. Giant bulls begin arriving in early May, fighting for control of prime beachfront property and pushing aside younger, smaller males. By mid-June, females start to come ashore to give birth, stubbornly heading to the best spots on the beach while generally ignoring the bellows of the big fellows carving the turf.

The pups emerge, coal black and hungry, and begin nursing almost immediately. Battles large and small continue around the clock, in a never-ending drama of passing genes to future generations.

Pity the poor new mothers: only one week after delivering their pups, the dominant bull in their stretch of rocks moves in and yes, they are pregnant again.

With some advance planning and a little luck, tourists can get a genuinely close look at St. Paul's beachfront visitors. A group of younger residents heads out a few times a summer to "disentangle" any fur seals caught in pieces of abandoned fish netting. Using a sharp knife at the end of a long pole, they saw away netting trapping a seal's neck or flippers. By all reports, the freed creatures seem genuinely grateful.

But not all visits to St. Paul may end so happily for the fur seals. Locals also kill a couple thousand young male seals each year for food. If you are not a native, you'll need to get permission from TDX to go along. The seal meat is generally available only to the Aleuts, though it is losing popularity among younger generations.

Most Aleuts are likely too busy to spend much time with visitors. Most are fishermen, and in summer, it's a treat to head down to the docks next to the Trident plant and watch huge halibut (200 pounds or more) lifted out of the holds of fishing boats. In mid-winter, some fish for crab, a singularly dangerous and difficult profession. Recently, the snow-crab population in Bering Sea plummeted, leaving St. Paul's small economy in a bit of a crisis.

Still, St. Paul struggles on. A giant new breakwater is being built at the entrance to the harbor, which St. Paul hopes will help attract more fishing boats and processing ships. Summertime tourism may help the economy, but the island can still handle no more than a handful of vigorous outsiders at a time. Like wannabe fur seal bulls, we staked out a little territory for a few days, and ended up very glad we did.

If you'd like to ask Jack Hamann a question about his trip, send him an email at cnnjack@aol.com

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