Wild Horses of Summer's Bay, Unalaska

Mare's Gone Wild- Summer's Bay, Unalaska

Rule Number One:

While visiting or living in Unalaska, never ask a local to take you to see "the horses". It's code for, "Wanna go on a date?", and makes you immediately suspect. Same goes for the question, "Hey, wanna go for a hike?" In Unalaska, it's all just a badly concealed come-on.

Summer's Bay- 12/2010

So, if you want to see the wild horses of Summer's Bay, you gotta go by yourself. Unless someone really does just want to see the horses and they ask you first. Either way, go. The drive up Summer's Bay road from the city of Unalaska immediately pitches you into the rugged beauty of the island, and austere collision of velvet, mountain tundra and the dynamic coastlines of the Aleutian peninsula, teeming with marine life.

Looking south toward Dutch Harbor from Summer's Bay 11/2010

The lure of the horses may get you in the car, but, as the saying goes, the journey is the destination. Any free time I had while working on Deadliest Catch was spent exploring the fecund coastline or plodding in my Xtra-Tuff boots over the soft tundra moonscape panning out from the road.

Summer's Bay- lava rocks and steady swell. 12/2010

How the "wild" herd got there is a source of constant debate, and since- as I said- talking about them also seems to qualify as trying to hit on someone, you're not likely to get a straight answer from anyone who really knows, since they're too busy running away from you. But they seem to have arrived within the last 20 years, and they aren't really "wild", just feral. Feral, that is, but desperate for Cliff Bars, granola, apples and anything else you have in your pockets. That being said, approach at your own risk. I took my friend (and boss) Bill Pruitt out there a few weeks ago and his friendly approach to one tempermental mare earned him a swift kick and a Charley horse.

Pretty, but packs a punch. 11/2010

11/2010

1/2011

1/2011

1/2011

12/2010

But in a land where boats set out to fish in frigid, 30 foot seas, remote populations go weeks without oil deliveries and pilots land planes in winds that's whiten even the most weathered welders knuckles, getting kicked by an agitated mare is getting off easy. And, who knows, you might never see them at all, after all, they're wild. Sort of.

1/2011

My last sighting 1/2011

Feb 20, 2011