Me and my boys chartered a boat to take us to a remote Alaskan island where we camped and explored and beach combed an amazing rugged and beautiful island in resurrection bay. One the island we discovered a common medicinal herb growing along side the most deadly plant in Alaska. One can heal you, the other can kill you. But can you tell the difference? Foraging mistakes that could kill you.
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TravelTranscript
00:00Luke, Tom and Nate here at the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and today we're at
00:08Miller's Landing just a little south of Seward, Alaska and we're about to get on
00:13this boat to go out there. We're gonna be camping and fishing, exploring for a
00:18couple days. Miller's Landing is one of several water taxis here in Seward and
00:22they'll take you, your kayaks, your gear, whatever, drop you off various locations
00:27around the bay and it's really affordable way to get out and explore
00:31kind of off the grid, out in the wilderness areas in Prince William Sound
00:36and Resurrection Bay and that's exactly what we're gonna be doing today.
00:47So Tom, you're on whale watching duty? Oh that's pretty cool man. A couple weeks
00:53ago me and Nate took a water taxi out to Cain's Head to explore a secret
00:58underground World War II abandoned army base. Did a video on that. We'll put a link
01:02in the description below.
01:23There we go guys, that's the island we're going to be on.
01:39Are you excited? Yeah. We're here bud. Wake up.
01:47Enjoy. Oh, thank you. Nathan, can I give you the fishing rods?
01:53You got those?
01:55Good to go? You got everything? Alright, thanks guys.
02:01There goes our boat man, that's our ride home. You think we're gonna be okay? Yeah.
02:05Let's go find a spot.
02:10All right, we're here on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay in Prince William Sound
02:16in Alaska. We are really in it. This island is steep and rugged and just
02:23full of mountains and cliffs like that and there's a little spit of land that
02:28goes out in the ocean and that's where we're gonna see if we can't camp and
02:33maybe catch some fish. Look at this. Oh yeah, big old jellyfish. All right guys,
02:39shall we explore a little bit? Let's see what's on this island. That's one of
02:45those tiger striped ones. Look at that one. Oh yeah, this is a funky type of
02:52seaweed. Look at that. I've seen this before. Not sure what it's called, but
02:57it's creepy looking. Rotten bull kelp bulb. That's a fish? No, that's a bulb on a piece of kelp.
03:07This is a piece of bull kelp. It's all rotten. Yeah, but when it's not rotten, you
03:15can eat it. But you see it's got a big, it's got the roots and the big bulb and
03:18then on the end is a ball that makes it float up in the water and it gets
03:24long. It gets really long. That's a small one. Just saw a fish jump out of the
03:28water right there. Oh, you guys found another jellyfish? Well, there's one. Oh,
03:32here's a jellyfish here. Oh, this is the biggest one we've ever seen. Look at this
03:39sucker. He's huge. Yeah, he looks pretty dead. Hey guys, look at this. This is the egg of a
03:59giant skate. These things get like five, six feet across, but they're full-grown.
04:03Yeah, look at him. See, look how he's going. Swim little guy, swim. This is another egg.
04:21Yeah, it looks like a baby hooligan. The ocean's right over there on the other
04:36side of that berm. There's this big, huge tidal pool right here. This whole thing.
04:42Oh, let's see. This is the skeleton of a sea urchin. All the spines are falling off. That's
04:55cool. This is a place we could build a fire and put a tent. All right, guys,
05:03we'll get a fire started and the camp put up and then we'll do a little fishing here. See
05:08if we can't catch maybe a halibut or something.
05:38Well guys, what do you think? Is this a nice little place to get out of the rain? Here you
05:43guys go. All your leftover from last night. Me and mommy went on a date to Texas Roadhouse last
05:48night. We just need a fire now, don't we? All right, let's see if daddy can build a fire in
05:56this rain. It's been raining here for four days straight, so everything is soaking wet. So I'm
06:02going to bust out all my mad skills here to see if I can build a fire in this rain. All right.
06:10The inside is pretty dry, so let's get some of these limbs.
06:17Nathan, you gathering water? Yeah. That'll be good for your cup of noodle.
06:35When everything is wet like this, it really pays off to be able to split some logs. This
06:49log is soggy and rotten on the outside, but dry as a bone on the inside. So if we can split that,
06:54we can get to dry wood. We just got to make sure our wood doesn't get wet in between the time we
06:59split it and catch it on fire. So we're going to split it and immediately stack it under the tarp.
07:04Pick that up and put it under the tarp, buddy. Good job, buddy. Come here.
07:27Boy, can you pile this with the other dry firewood?
07:36Well, the rain has stopped for just a second or two, so I'm going to try to build the fire now,
07:45and hopefully we have enough kindling. All right, we're going to put some shredded up
07:52jute inside these wood shavings. There we go. Nice reference, Tom. Here, just give me a second,
08:09buddy. Because everything's wet, everything has to dry out before it can light up,
08:23so you pile up your wood around your fire close and let it dry out. Unfortunately,
08:27when you pile up this much wood, you start to smother the fire, so you need to put blow
08:31on it a lot and fan it. Little bits of plastic like this nylon fishing rope, though, can be
08:38good fire starter in wet conditions, because that'll melt and burn for a long, long time.
08:46Well, it started to rain again, and I want to protect my fire a little bit,
08:49so I'm going to build an awning for my fire.
09:00Got a little bit of a rain awning over our fire to keep the rain from putting it out.
09:08I think it's time to start fishing. I would love nothing more than to catch a big,
09:17fat halibut or a rockfish or, frankly, anything. I'd be excited. Supposedly,
09:23there is a shipwrecked barge within casting distance over there. We're going to see if
09:28we can't fish around that. Made a little dropper loop with some 60-pound mono, put a big old
09:47four-aught circle hook on it. We're going to check that out there. Got some herring here.
09:52When you're casting long distances, your bait can get messed up, so I'm going to use
09:56this little bait button here. Basically, you slide that onto the point, and you put it just
10:02like that. Keeps things where they should be. The bait won't fly off the hook as easy.
10:07Oh, that's deep. That was falling for a long time.
10:26All right, got two rods out. One of them's bombed way out there,
10:30and the silver one's a lot closer. I don't know if we need to be out all that far. I'm seeing
10:35herring jump within a rock throw distance of the shore. We'll just see what happens.
10:47There you go. I caught it. Oh, that's warm.
10:55There you go. Guys, what do you think? Are you having a good camp out so far?
10:58Yeah. What's in my tea kettle?
11:02I'm making a lot of Kool-Aid. Wait a minute. What's in my bottle?
11:08It's more Kool-Aid. Let me see your fingers.
11:13I think you may have a Kool-Aid problem. Well, we got a little break in the rain,
11:18so I think we'd better set up the tent. A little bit of a level spot that isn't covered in rocks.
11:31Have you guys gotten into the Kool-Aid mix? Let me see your hands, Nathan. Oh my goodness.
11:40You guys are just spooning it out like little drug addicts. Okay, no more Kool-Aid. No more Kool-Aid.
11:54What you got there, Nate? Ramen noodles.
11:57You like cup of noodle? Yeah, my favorite.
12:00Well, my rods have been in the water for a couple hours now and I keep checking my baits and
12:04untouched. Not even crab marks. So that's a little disconcerting. So I'm trying to recast in
12:11different spots and see if maybe I can find like a little reef or something or a seaweed bed where
12:15maybe there's some fish. All right, we're gonna make Sapporo Ichiban. We're gonna make Tonkatsu
12:23Ramen, man.
12:45I'm gonna go nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. Use your knives.
12:53Well, we got all the firewood chopped and dinner finished and the weather actually
13:02is half decent. So we're gonna walk the beach and do a little beach combing all the way to
13:07the end of the spit. Dude, that's a pretty good looking Mikan. We could totally wash it off and
13:18eat it. I think we could. It feels perfect. It's a sea Mikan. Yeah, that's a bone. Look at that.
13:28No, that's a bone.
13:42Look at those mountains. Aren't those something?
13:44This island is called Fox Island and it's called Fox Island because about 120 years ago a guy let
13:52a whole bunch of foxes loose on the island to try to raise them. What he'd do is just let them be
13:58free range and he had a big pen where he'd dump all their food every day and the foxes would get
14:06used to coming there for the food. And when it came time to harvest them, he'd skip a few feedings
14:11and when they were nice and hungry he'd dump a bunch of food in the pen
14:16and then shut the door and there you go.
14:22Oh, oh yeah. Look at that. Look at.
14:28This is nice. I say we go get our sleeping bags and mats all pumped up and ready to go.
14:41Man, look at this view. This weather's really turned the corner.
14:49You're a transformer. What do you got on your sleeve?
14:52These are my guns. Oh, I see. Those are your guns, huh?
14:58I think this looks a little bit like one of my tent pegs.
15:05All right, guys, it's bedtime. Well, check it out. I got the boys a new air mattress. I got
15:10the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Uberlite and do you guys like that? Yeah, this is my favorite kind
15:16of mattress ever. It's so puffy. Yeah, and they're kid size. I mean, this one's a little short for
15:23Tommy, but it's the perfect size for Nate. Yeah, yeah. Your feet barely hang off, but that's not
15:29a big deal. Well, the boys are in bed and I'm straightening up and doing some dishes and
15:35yeah, just having a great day.
15:47Well, good morning. According to my phone,
15:50this is six mile per hour winds and 50 degree weather. Neither one of those things are true.
15:57It's cold and windy right now. The boys have gone deep, buried real deep.
16:08Yeah, it's windy. All right, I need to get things ready for the boys. I need to build
16:14a different type of shelter. The wind's the problem today, not the rain.
16:26So
16:57I'm just going to make some hot chocolate and breakfast. It'll take a little while for the
17:10pancakes to get ready. You want me to just come back here and let you know when they're ready?
17:15Okay, I will. All right, guys, I'm going to show you something that's really important if you're
17:19going to get into wilderness foraging. Check this out. This right here is a plant called yarrow.
17:25It's a medicinal herb and a seasoning and perfectly fine to eat.
17:32This right here is water hemlock and it's one of the most poisonous plants in Alaska. This can
17:39kill you. Here's the yarrow. Here's the water hemlock. Side by side. Dang, that's close, isn't it?
17:46The way you tell is the leaves. Yarrow has these light feathery leaves. Water hemlock
17:54looks like carrot. Here's another example of water hemlock. You can see how it's usually
18:00there's multiple buds on one branch. Yarrow doesn't do that. Both water hemlock and yarrow
18:07are both kind of fragrant and aromatic, okay, but they smell different. Yarrow smells a little bit
18:13more like medicine and water hemlock smells like fresh cut celery, but it's close. If you don't
18:20know what you're doing, it's a real easy plant to get confused.
18:39That's fun.
18:50So
19:15that's mine. That's yours.
19:21Oh, yeah.
19:33Yeah. Here. You guys want some spam in the tent?
19:41You guys hang out here for a little bit.
19:43This wind is cold and aggressive, so I got the boys just hanging out in the tent so that they
19:49aren't miserable, but I got to start packing up here. The boat's going to pick us up in a little
19:54bit and it might take a little while to get everything done with this wind, so better get started.
20:12Watch out, Tom. Watch out. Don't get your boots wet.
20:28Well, the boat's a little late because of the weather, but they're here. They didn't forget us.
20:36Yeah, you got it.
20:55Tommy, you getting wet?
21:06Wake up, bud. There you go.
21:20Listen, we guys, we had a great time. Did you guys have fun? Yeah.
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