“That’s not a sea lion, Mom, because it doesn’t have ears.”
Indeed my 5-year-old son was mostly correct. And he was a quick study, because only a few pages prior in the new book by photographer Mark Kelley and author Nick Jans titled “Once Upon Alaska, A Kids Photo Book” the big two-page sweeping photo had shown a cluster of sea lions. They were packed upon a familiar buoy haulout in Stephens Passage, backdropped by the Mendenhall Glacier. One unlucky member of the group wasn’t going to find room.
“They’re not being very nice,” my son had said. “They should share.”