Clam Digging in Alaska

Clam Digging in Alaska

We are making more checks on my

Bucket list!

One thing I have always wanted to do is go clamming.

Another is crabbing, but that will be another time.

We started our day at 4 am, everyone dressing 

and getting ready to go, all 7 of us.

The drive was about 40 minutes to get to 

Clam Gulch.

We unloaded the shovels, buckets, and dogs,

then the vehicles had to up the hill to be parked, and we started our

walk to the edge of the water.

At 6 am was when the tide was lowest,

so we wanted to be there at the lowest tide to start digging.

The light wasn't quite ready when we arrived.  It was hard to

see the little open holes in the sand.  

But as the sun started coming up we started finding our little holes.

So here's what you do.  

Find a open mini hole, dig really fast, and find the clam.

It took a few holes to figure out what we were

doing, because clams are fast!

We dug Razor clams.

Once we got the hang of it, Dana and I would look for holes,

Gabe with us, find a whole, Dana would dig really fast

and find the clam in the middle of all the sand.

We learned a few things,

Clams can dig fast when they know they are in 

danger, and they do, down or to the side,

you don't really know which way.

So the key to finding them is

to dig fast, and have a person going through the

sand and find the clam.

Here is a Razor Clam in Gabes hands

.

I always thought that you would go to the beach, 

there would be rocks with little pools of water

and you would go find the clams in the pools of water.

This was not my vision, but it was so much fun.

We walked the sand bars together, finding 

holes, digging, picking clams,

filling our bucket, and then on to

finding more holes.

We all worked together in teams looking for holes, 

then digging and putting our clams in our buckets.

Here you can see all the holes that we have dug,

not that you find a clam in every hole.

We spent 3 hours digging for clams,

dug 105 clams, Razor clams, and Butter clams

The boys went swimming,

the dogs ran, and ran, and ran everywhere.

It was very adventurous!

Today, we cooked and opened the 

clams, cleaned out the meat,

and froze the stash.

We ended up with 8 cups of cleaned clams.

I made my favorite clam chowder, 

which everyone LOVED!

And, we had a blast

with our kids and grandkids

making memories 

we won't forget.

And another item off the Bucket List!

Hugs to you all,

Robin