ALASKA / PACIFIC NORTHWEST : Alaska’s WILD KINGDOM : SEALS: ‘BEACH MASTERS’ AND THEIR HAREMS ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS

The seal slithered toward us with surprising speed, propelled by flippers built primarily for swimming. Awkward but determined, it hopped and waddled across the boulder beach, toward our viewing blind.

Stopping just short of the platform’s plywood wall, it looked toward the opening through which I was looking out. It was a 300-pound male with long whiskers, small, tightly rolled ears (evolved to keep water out) and big brown eyes (the better to hunt down prey at night).

Inches apart, the seal and I observed each other for several moments. Then the seal turned and waddled away, stopping once to turn and bark, showing its sharp predator’s teeth.

My close encounter was with one of several hundred thousand northern fur seals that inhabit St. Paul Island each summer. Fourteen miles long and eight miles wide (with 45 miles of coastline), St. Paul is the largest of the five Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea about 300 miles from Alaska’s mainland and nearly 800 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Born from suboceanic volcanoes, the remote Pribilof archipelago is summer home to a million or more northern furs--more than two-thirds of the world’s population. About 80% of the Pribilof seals congregate at St. Paul’s 14 rookeries and non-breeding resting spots. The remainder gather at St. George, the chain’s second largest island, about 45 miles south.

Not surprisingly, the Pribilofs are sometimes called the “islands of the seals.” But they could just as easily be called the islands of the birds. They are a birder’s paradise. More than 200 species of birds have been identified on St. Paul and St. George (the only two Pribilof islands inhabited by the human species). The islands also are home to Arctic foxes and sea lions. Whales are occasionally spotted off their coasts and a reindeer herd roams St. Paul. From late June through mid-July, millions of wildflowers brighten the tundra.

My group--two Alaskans and two Californians--had come to St. Paul to see both seals and birds and learn about the island’s native culture. St. Paul is home to the Aleut people, whose ancestors migrated from Asia to Alaska during the last ice age. Most of St. Paul’s 800 people are native, making it the world’s largest Aleut community.

Visitors to St. Paul usually stick with tours, but we decided on a low-budget alternative--mountain bikes. We’d been told biking was a great way to see the island, as long as we didn’t mind wind, rain and generally miserable weather.

Fine, we said. We’ll take our chances. So, mid-June, we boarded a flight from Anchorage, packing bikes, heavy-duty rain gear and lots of warm clothes. The island’s average daily June temperature is 41.5 degrees. Weather service records show that the thermometer once dipped to 16 in June (the month’s record high is a balmy 62). June snows are always a possibility.

Given this chilling data, we were delighted to touch down on St. Paul Island in the middle of a Bering Sea heat wave. Instead of fog and drizzle, we got bright sunshine and temperatures in the 50s. In a normal year, St. Paul might get a half-dozen clear days. Already they’d used up their annual quota. Very strange, the locals said.

I figured the weather would revert to its usual form, but sunny weather blessed us for the next six days, with only brief spells of fog and drizzle. Of course, the wind hardly ever let up, but, with the sun blazing overhead, I found it more refreshing than chilling.

The island’s low profile is largely covered by tundra; trees are as scarce as buildings. St. Paul, the island’s tiny port, is the only settlement. There are some low hills in the center of the island, but the landscape’s only drama lies in the deep walled cliffs at the sea’s edge.

We spent most of our time in the good bird-and-seal-viewing spots near St. Paul. Mid-May to mid-June is prime time for Pribilof birding trips. Some birds spotted here have migrated from as far away as Argentina; others are year-round residents. Occasionally, Asian vagrants--such as the Siberian ruby-throat and Eurasian skylark--are blown to the Pribilofs by strong western winds.

Birders get excited about this Asian fallout, but more spectacular is the seabird population. Each summer about 2 million nest in the Pribilofs. We saw all the major seabird attractions: thick-billed murres (an estimated 1.1 million nest here each year), red-legged kittiwakes, auklets, cormorants, guillemots and gulls. Like most bird-watchers, my favorites were the puffins, with their penguin-like coats and Chaplinesque waddle.

However, seal-watching was best of all. Visitors are discouraged from walking among them in their rocky shore-line rookeries, but St. Paul’s two viewing blinds got us close without disturbing them.

Built on the edge of a beach above two prime gathering spots, the blinds are within easy biking distance of town.

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Northern furs begin arriving at the Pribilofs in May, after spending their winters at sea. Large male “beach masters” show up first and quickly establish territories, which they aggressively defend for up to two months, while building harems of as many as 100 females. Females, pregnant from the previous year’s matings, arrive in June. They usually give birth to a pup within 48 hours; then mate again within a week, while still nursing.

As they establish territory and accumulate harems, breeding bulls usually don’t leave their turf for several weeks, not even to eat or drink. A 450-600 pound mature bull may lose up to 25% of its body weight during this fast.

Such fasting, combined with intense competition for females, inevitably makes the bulls irritable. The effect of June’s prolonged sunny period--a blessing to us--only served to aggravate an already tense situation. Built for watery environments, fur seals much prefer fog or rain while hauled out on beaches. Too much sun overheats the seals with their blubber and dense fur--300,000 hairs per square inch. (Dense enough to be waterproof, the short, warm fur is what made the species so popular with Russian and American fur traders in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.)

A couple times we watched vicious fights explode between rival beach asters. Heads bobbing and weaving like two heavyweight boxers, they feinted, ducked and jabbed. But instead of throwing punches, they came at each other baring flesh-tearing teeth. With lightning reflexes, they snapped and counter-snapped, pulling out clumps of hair and gashing each other. It gave new meaning to the phrase “the fur is flying.”

The fighting only gets worse as the breeding season progresses, peaking in July. Even females, one-fifth the size of the males, are sometimes ripped apart by bulls fighting to increase their harems. Researchers suspect this violence explains their choice of breeding grounds: boulder-filled beaches can hide newborn pups from marauding bulls.

Though incredible spectacles, the fights were thankfully rare. Mostly the bulls napped or watched over their harems, warning off challengers with a variety of groans, grunts and growls. In fact, I cataloged an impressive list of seal-speak. Sometimes they huffed and chirped, sometimes they bleated like sheep, sometimes they whined, occasionally they gargled gutturally. The talking never stopped; from dawn to dusk, the beaches rang with seal song.

We only traveled once to St. Paul’s northeast end, about 13 miles from the village. Even then we went the easy way, joining a bus tour. While taking us to some good bird-viewing spots, the guided tour, offered by a local Aleut organization called Tanadgusix also gave us some insight into the island’s Aleut culture.

“For tourists to get the real [Pribilof] experience, they need to understand our history,” said Aleut tour guide Margaret Kauffman. “Most people don’t realize what we’ve had to do to survive here, how hard it’s been. Heck, there was a lot I didn’t know until I started doing the tours.”

The Aleuts’ local history is inextricably tied to the northern fur seal. They have lived with and harvested the animals here since Russians forcibly relocated several hundred Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands to the Pribilofs after Russian explorer Gerassim Pribylov’s “discovery” of the islands--and their huge seal colonies--in 1786. A small number of Russian fur traders also remained on the Pribilofs to “manage” the seal harvest.

Ironically, it had been Aleut stories of distant seal islands that prompted Pribylov’s search for the colonies. Aleuts had known about the Pribilofs for centuries--their traditional name of the archipelago means “related land”--but considered them uninhabitable. Before being forced to work the Pribilofs as seal harvesters, the Aleuts had visited the islands rarely and only in summer.

The prevalence of Russian names and the importance of the Orthodox Russian faith on both St. Paul and St. George are reminders of the people’s mixed Aleut-Russian heritage and unhappy past. “Our people suffered their own holocaust,” said Larry Merculieff, an Aleut and former St. Paul city manager. “Our culture was almost wiped out after the Russians arrived [in the Aleutians] in 1742. We lost 80% of our population over the next 50 years, from genocide, starvation and disease. It was from the remnants of our people that [Aleuts] were brought to the Pribilofs.”

Today, the local economy is increasingly dependent on commercial fishing and, to a lesser degree, on tourism. Hundreds of birders, photographers, wildflower enthusiasts, or “generalists” like the four of us, now visit the Pribilofs each summer.

St. Paul’s subdued terrain makes the island easy to bike and unpaved roads--covered with locally dug volcanic cinders--crisscross most of it. Of course, it didn’t seem so easy when we were buffeted by 30- or 40-mph head winds or swallowed by dust clouds. And the first couple days crunching along on the gravel-like cinders were hard on lower body parts.

While bikes solved most of our tour-and-transportation needs, lodging offered its own special challenge. St. Paul’s only hotel is usually filled with package-tour customers and no camping is allowed on St. Paul or St. George.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast run by Lillian Capener, a transplanted Montanan who came to St. Paul in the late 1960s to do missionary work with her husband, Alvin. A widow for the past decade, Capener opens up several spare rooms (and a couch, when it’s crowded) in her home in summer as a B&B;, though she remains “first and foremost a missionary.” After breakfast, Lillian makes her kitchen available to guests, so we made our own lunches and dinners there, avoiding the high prices of St. Paul’s only restaurant.

On our last day, a low pressure system arrived to replace the sun with a steady, daylong downpour. Spoiled by then, we rented a van rather than pedal through the rain to visit the seals one last time. Chilling winds and driving rain soon drove us from the open-topped blinds back to shelter, soggy but satisfied. As for the seals, I noticed several raise their head high and bark, as if giving thanks for this fortuitous change in the weather.

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GUIDEBOOK: Pribilof Perspectives

Getting there: From Anchorage, Alaska Airlines and Reeve Airways offer three-days-a-week service to St. Paul Island, $770 round trip.

When to go: Migratory birds and marine mammals are most abundant from mid-May through August. Mid-May to early June is best for Asian birds. June-August is best for seals and sea birds. Wildflowers peak from late June through mid-July. Summers are cool and wet. Bring rain gear, warm clothes.

St. Paul Island tours: Late May-late August. Packages range from two nights ($735 per person) to seven nights ($1,495 per person). Includes round-trip air fare from Anchorage, ground transportation, lodging, guide services and daily sightseeing trips; no meals. For more information: Reeve Aleutian Airways, 4700 W. International Airport Road, Anchorage, AK 99502-1091; telephone (800) 544-2248.

St. George Island tours: One tour scheduled in 1996: July 8-14 ($2,395 per person). Includes round-trip air fare from Anchorage, ground transportation, lodging, guide services, daily sightseeing trips, meals and two nights in Anchorage. Information: Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, P.O. Box 655, Vashon Island, WA 98070; tel. (206) 463-5383.

On your own: No camping is permitted on either St. Paul or St. George Island. Each island has one hotel: St. Paul’s King Eider Hotel, P.O. Box 88, St. Paul, AK 99660; tel. (907) 546-2477; $80 per person. St. George Tanaq Hotel, P.O. Box 939, St. George Island, AK 99591; tel. (907) 562-3100; $89 per person. (The hotels are usually booked when tours visit the islands.) There’s also Lillian Capener’s B&B;, P.O. Box 105, St. Paul Island, AK 99660; tel. (907) 546-2334; $80 single occupancy, $85 double, including breakfast.

For more information: St. Paul city offices, tel. (907) 546-2331. St. George city offices, tel. (907) 859-2263.

--B.S.