Please sign the appropriate logbook!
The cache will be found on foot. You will start at the coordinates, and then work your way through the clues below to locate the container. This geocache has been placed with permission from the USFWS and Groundspeak. Finding this cache is easy! Just read below and come on in the front doors!
Admission is Free!
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge has made a commitment to inform and educate the public about the natural treasures in the Refuge and in nature around you. Your visit to the Visitor Center is always free. As it can be very difficult to visit the distant lands of the Alaska Maritime Refuge, you can take a virtual tour!
The Visitor Center hours vary. Please visit our website for current hours. (Closed Federal Holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years Day)
Sign the log, make some trades, and help a Travel Bug or Geocoin move along to its next cache. If the trade swag is getting low, let the folks at the desk know. If you are letterboxing, use the separate stamp logbook, and enjoy adding our stamp to your own logbook! Please leave the stamp with the cache. It is not a trade item!
You will start your search for this Letterbox Hybrid at the coordinates above.
To start your wild goose chase, cross the wooden bridge, and enter when you see the old Dory used to help the recovery of the once-endangered Aleutian Cackling Goose. These sturdy wooden boats transported biologists through the remote islands and rough waters of the Alaksa Maritime National Wildlife Refuge up until the 1970s. This is the boat that Bob “Sea Otter” Jones used many years ago to help remove foxes, reintroduce sea otters, and help the Aleutian Cackling Goose.
Either take the elevator or stairs down, and you have entered the sea floor at low tide. Look around and notice the shells and other objects stuck in the sand. At your left, you will see a life-sized replica of an adult bull Steller Sea Lion. Cast of resin, this model shows how large bulls can be—up to 2500 pounds! A majority of Stellar Sea Lion haul-out sites and rookeries are located on Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge lands.
To your right, you see the Visitor Center Desk. Stop by and say hello to the staff and volunteers! Continue into the exhibit hall, straight ahead.
Hear that noise? Smell the smells? That’s the seabird theater. Here you will see a nesting colony as if you were on an island in the Refuge. Some colonies support more than 1 million birds nesting on precarious ledges on steep windswept cliffs. There are more than 120 sculpted seabirds in the exhibit hall. Birds found on these cliffs and sea stacks include red-legged kittiwakes, thick-billed murres, common murres, crested auklets, least auklets, red-faced cormorants, tufted and horned puffins.
Walk past the Aleut baidarka (or kayak), stone and bone artifacts from the Refuge, and look out! There’s an Inupiat boy gathering seabird eggs above you! You don’t want to get egg on your head!
On your left, don’t be startled by Orville, our resident fox trapper. He’s been here since the 1930s, and he can tell you a little about the devastating effects that some activities have on marine wildlife, including the geese that used to be abundant on his island.
On your right, you will see events and historic milestones laid out in a timeline. As you look it over, don’t be startled by the sounds of war coming from the bunker behind you. World War II was fought right here in Alaska on what is today commemorated as the Aleutian Islands WWII National Monument . 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Attu and Kiska Islands from the Japanese in 1943. There were also military installations and testing performed during the Cold War.
You’ll next have an opportunity to hear from some past researchers on our Refuge, like Olaus Murie (1930s), Karl Kenyon (1960s), and Bob “Sea Otter” Jones (1960s). As you move on to your right after hearing from them, you’ll be able to take a virtual tour with today’s Refuge biologists. See their field camps, and learn why they spend months in remote areas, working under harsh conditions, to study seabirds. You’re almost to the cache!
Stop in the corner where you see an Aleutian Cackling Goose in a cage. You can touch one of the actual, original yellow backpacks and transport cages used to move geese and goslings to their new homes. You're almost to the end of this wild goose chase!
Now, glance to your left. The crate there can show you, with help of binoculars, how to identify seabirds by their bands, or identifying tags on their leg (tarsus). You must have a keen eye to see which bands are on which birds—but you’re a great observer! So good in fact, that you notice a wooden cabinet below. Be discreet! You don’t want to disturb the research going on around you!
Sign the log, make some trades, and help a Travel Bug or Geocoin move along to its next cache. If the trade swag is getting low, let the folks at the desk know. If you are letterboxing, use the separate stamp logbook, and enjoy adding our Canada Goose stamp to your own logbook! Please leave the stamp with the cache. It is not a trade item!
If you enjoy the cache, please post a Favorite Point!