A Beary Good Day – Haines to Whitehorse

We got off around 8:20 this morning, 40 minutes ahead of schedule.  Waved goodbye to Joyce, owner of Oceanside RV Park which we give full thumbs up to.  Joyce “MAKES” the park, she set the tone, is a very hard worker, good socializer, and you can tell that she loves her RV Park. 

Realizing that I had forgot to brush my teeth, take my high blood pressure pills, get the car information for the boarder crossing (yep, stopped again, but more on that later), we stop at the turn out for the eagle preserve and I take care of business.  Off we go, and soon the Chilkat River crosses to our right, and its largest tributary, the Klehini River, is alongside the road to our left..we are now at the northern most part of the Eagle Sanctuary.  The Klehini is the second largest gathering of eagles along an Alaska River in the winter months, and it is much more rocky than the Chilkat this time of year…it is truly a Glacier River.  As we drive along I glance out onto the rocky riverbed…and I see a bear.  I tell Marcia, who gets the camera ready, and I pull over.  As I take the camera and get a shot (top picture) I say, “See them, there are two of them…”  She replies, “No, there are three of them!”  Sure enough, there are three bears…a mama and two cubs.  The third cub is running a bit behind, and in the first picture you can see mama looking back…I have seen that look before, that cub is IN TROUBLE!

      

Finally it catches up, and they run off into the woods on the other side of the river.  Well, this is going to be a very beary day!   About 10 minutes later, we are at the border…and the bubble is burst again.

Above is a Google Maps picture of the Canadian Border.  We pull up, right where the white truck is above.  The kindest border guard comes out, she has a nice friendly smile, and gives me a friendly greeting, which I kindly return as I hand her our passports.  She asks about liquor, money and guns, and says she will be right back…goes to the back and gets our license plate, and vanishes inside.  After 5 minutes Marcia says, “I think she is calling the Canadian Mounted Police, and they are going to come and surround us!”   After another 5 minutes I wonder if Marcia might be right.  Before the next full five minutes go by, she comes out.

“Have you had troubles getting across the border before?”

“Yes,” I answer…”the first time was coming through in Idaho where they searched us.  Skagway wasn’t too bad, but in Beaver Creek the guy said that someone has the exact same name, but different birth date than mine.

“Not only is it the same name, but the birth date is only different by the month…the day and year are the same," she said.  "I am sorry, but you will face this each and every time you cross the border from now on.  I hope you understand, but we are just doing our job…” 

“I understand,” I said, “I did not know that the birth dates were that close…the guy in Beaver Creek just said it was a different birth date.”

“Well, I probably told you too much myself…but I felt you should know.”

After that the three of us talked about how the guards live right there along the border in Government housing.  She told us how she has been to Australia and to England…that she would like a family some day, but for now she is satisfied doing what she is doing, which allows travel each year.  We must have talked for another 10 minutes after she brought back our passports…and we would have talked longer but another motorhome finally showed up behind us.  For nearly 30 minutes we were the only vehicle crossing the border.  And now we know why it is so hard for us to pass through into Canada each time come to a Canadian border.

For the most part the rest of the trip was just fine.  Hit some heavy ground fog/clouds for a few miles, came across some wild Indians (actually it was a hostel), saw a few more Trumpeter Geese (no pictures though), and had a few more construction patches which were a piece of cake compared the real rough ones earlier on the trip…and we were in Whitehorse.  Went to the Vet to get some food for Skruffy, went into Walmart to get more insulin and needles for Skruffy, and over to the Canadian Superstore to stock up on food for the next 7-10 days before we will be near a “real” grocery store again.

     

Tonight we are back at the Pioneer RV Park, where for $160 Canadian I filled up our fuel tank ($140 before discount for staying in the park), and full hookups at the park.  We stayed here on our way to Alaska, and the lady who operates the park remembered me.  Tomorrow we head towards Watson Lake, but turn south on highway 37, the Cassiar Highway towards Hyder.  Most likely we will stay at the Baby Nugget RV Park like we did on the way…which had terrible Internet.  Not sure how much Internet we will have going down the Cassiar Highway…it does not look good.  If you don’t hear from us for a few days, that is why.

Eagles – Young and Old, Haines Alaska

“Hey, see that guy over there with the camera…you go high, I’ll go low and we will bomb the heck out of him…” 

Well, that did not happen, but with all the birds flying around these coastal cities, I am surprised I have not gotten hit so far.  These two juvenile Bald Eagles were feeding, along with some older Bald Eagles and lots of Ravens, on some left over fish that someone left along the bank…heads, bones, tails.

      

Eagles and Ravens were just about all we saw the past two days…except for the black bear that looked just like Bubba.  As we drove over to Chilkoot Lake, my dad called.  Within a half of a minute, this young black bear comes out of nowhere, runs across the road in front of us about 30 yards away.  We both thought that it was Bubba for a moment, the bear was just slightly larger than Bubba, and they both run nearly identically.  Before we could even think of getting the camera out…it was gone.

This guy here was sitting out in front of the motorhome this morning…I opened up the window to get the shot.  Love all these eagles around here.

The Oceanside RV Park has a little over 20 sites which all face the ocean, more specifically, the Chilkoot Inlet.  You can see our car parked in front of our motorhome there on the left.  The sites are close, but the view just can’t be beat…equal to that of Seward in my opinion. 

Of course, it looks much better when the clouds are covering up the view!

There is room for one Cruise Ship at the docks in the Haines Harbor.  This is to the right of where we are camping, and can be seen if you walk out to the edge of the property leading down to the water.  The Cruise Ships that arrive here typically have about 400 people on them, so they don’t overwhelm the city at all.

Haines has many totem poles around the community.  This one is on the Chilkoot River leading towards Chilkoot Lake, where we went yesterday (Thursday) for a short day trip.  We took Skruffy, but left Bubba in the motorhome.  This is also when we saw the young black bear that looked just like Bubba…we thought he had decided to follow us.

Along the river they have this fish gate.  If you look closely, you can see that it slightly “V” shaped.  All of the Salmon are forced into the “V”, and State Park staff count the salmon as they pass through the gate.  At the moment it was lunch time…but we talked to a Park Ranger who told us about it, and said they were there all morning, and will be there all afternoon.  I think they figure out a daily hourly rate, and then multiply that by 24 hours to get a day’s count.  He said that nearly 300 had already passed through during the morning.

    

On the left is a look at the river as it flows down toward the inlet.  On the right is a look at the river as it is flowing from Chilkoot Lake.

Chilkoot Lake is good size, fairly protected from the winds, and is a favorite with Kayakers. 



Along the river on our way back we spotted this eagle sitting in a tree looking over the river.  Soon the river will be loaded with Salmon, slowed by the fish counter, and many of the Salmon become fresh meat to the many eagles and the many Grizzly Bears that live in the area.  The State Park Ranger told us that they have not seen any “Brown Bears”, as they call them up here, for a number of weeks…but soon they will descend upon the river, along with lots of tourist.  It gets nasty…and his job is to help keep everyone under control and safe.

After our drive over to the lake, we dropped Skruffy off and we headed over to the Chilkat Restaurant & Bakery for a late lunch.  I had a burger, and Marcia had a Reuben Sandwich…along with a Lemon Bar to take home.  It was real good, homemade buns, and real friendly staff member who recently moved to Alaska with her parents from a small town in Missouri.  This will be their first winter in Alaska…good luck with that.

    

Today we headed out to Chilkat State Park for another quick day trip.  Skruffy really likes these trips…Bubba, well, he will sleep just about anywhere, and he sure won’t get up on our laps, he is not a lap dog.

This is the Chilkat Inlet, on the other side of the Chilkat Peninsula from the Chilkoot Inlet that we are parked along its shores.  Both the Chilkat and the Chilkoot are two of the three Coastal Tlingit tribes that once controlled this land which is now around Haines Alaska.  The third tribe is the Taku Tlingit tribe, which is over on the other side of Juneau…Juneau is about 90 miles from Haines via the Fast Ferry.

This is a view of the Chilkat Inlet looking out to the Pacific Ocean.  It has a narrow opening, and there are no large ports or cities for Cruise Ships to come to.

This is a view of the Chilkat Inlet looking towards the Chilkat River.  The road to Haines runs along the Chilkat River, and the Eagle Sanctuary is along the river.

There is a small harbor for fishing boats, and that building across the water is the Haines Fish Packing plant, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, fish packing plant in Alaska.  Makes us wish we had a larger freezer.   

Just had a have a picture of this old boat, and especially this old truck camper.  Wonder if my good brother-in-law Arny could fix this old camper up for us if we brought it back?   It sure is a mess, but I have seen him turn a mess into a gem many times.

 

   

The road in Chilkat State Park ends here at Lehunua Island.  The island, in the top picture above, is really not an isolated island, since the road connects to it…but before the road I guess the island would be isolated during high tides.  The pictures below show the inlet to the left and to the right of the island.

Wish it was a clearer day because there is a nice waterfall coming off Rainbow Glacier just to the left of the island.  But we won’t be going back there even if nice weather arrives before we leave…the actual road in the State Park is real bad…full of large holes, rough ridges, and it is no wonder that the nice campground was totally empty.

That pretty much covers our activity the past two days.  It has been a nice, relaxing, and a bit colder few days…but it sure sounds better than the heatwave much of the lower 48 seem to be going through right now. 

Haines Alaska

Last night two cruise ships past by along the inlet headed out of Skagway to the Pacific Ocean.  In all, four cruise ships sailed through last night, and two today, along with the one which docked here in Haines.  For every dozen cruise ships that go into Skagway, Haines gets one…which does not bother us at all.  It is nice seeing them sail on, but the tourist that get off of them don’t need to be dealt with by us. 

      

Here are three of the Skagway Cruise ships above…the two last night are at the top, and you can see them in the first picture way above.  The third one came through this evening.  When we were in Skagway nearly seven weeks ago, we saw each of these three ships…or ones like them.

The above map is a “Kayak Route” between Skagway and Haines.  The two cities are only a dozen miles apart as the crow (or should I say Raven) flies, but by car, unless you load the car on a large ferry, it is 350 driving miles away.

One would think that they would connect these two cities by some sort of road.  In fact, there is a partial road which leads from each city toward the other…but they end way short.  The map to the left shows, in red, the area which still needs to have a road.  The blue shows the road and the ferry route.  The map above is the current road map between the two cities…which is a long 350 miles, going into British Columbia, into the Yukon, back into British Columbia and back into Alaska.  Some people, especially those who are not in a large RV, will load up on the ferry.  For us, it would cost around $350 for the RV, car, and both of us.

Above is the “Fast Ferry” which connects both cities for pedestrians only (and bicycles) which only cost $71 round trip…extra $5 for a bicycle each way.  The trip takes about 40 minutes once it leaves the dock.  The fast ferry also goes from either of these cities to Juno too…for $170 you can get a day package which includes a trip to a glacier outside of Juno.

We really like it here at Oceanside RV Park in Haines.  It is a relaxing time.  The lady who owns and operates the park is the greatest!  Just after we got setup yesterday, our new neighbors Pat and Ron and their dog Murphy, came by.  (That is them sitting out along the water above.)  Pat came first and knocked on our open door. 

"Hello, you don't know me but..." We have all been there before, right?  Makes you wonder what is coming next, right?? Well here it is....

"...you don't know me, but, I have been praying for this little one (Skruffy who is at the screen door looking out at her), I have been following your travels through Alaska, we have missed each other but have been to the same places, and I am just so glad to be able meet this little one and know she is doing well...I have prayed and prayed, and when I read the "breath in, breath out" blog you posted, tears came to my eyes, I thought you had lost her, I am so glad she is ok..."

She added that at first she wanted to slap me after she read the post because while reading it she thought we must have lost poor little Skruffy and she cried all the way through it…but she said she understood the emotions we were under, and really appreciated the post.  Come to find out that they travel in their Roadtrek Motorhome Van, but live in a 5th wheel just 30 miles away from our condo in Florida.  What a small world it is, what a nice couple they are…and Murphy too.
 

Haines is known for the many bald eagles that live here during the winter.  Around mid-October there will be some 200-400 eagles around the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines.  The river remains above freezing during the cold winter giving eagles access to food…lots of food when the chum salmon run in October.  Some eagles stay year around, while other take off, returning in the fall.  This guy above was right along the beach area in front of the RV Park.

Above is a monument to those who lost their life, mostly on the waters, a totum pole, and the cruise ship that came into Haines this morning.  The wording on the monument is as follows:

"AS ALASKANS WE STRIVE TO MEET THE CHALLENGES
   OF THE SOMETIMES HARSH AND UNFORGIVING
      ENVIRONMENT OF THE LAST FRONTIER.
THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF
  OUR LOVED ONES, WHO HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES
   FACING THOSE CHALLENGES IN A PLACE THEY
       LOVED AND CHOSE TO CALL HOME.
THEIR VOICES ECHO ON THE WIND, THEIR SPIRITS
   SOAR ABOVE THE CLOUDS AND THEIR LOVE
   SURROUNDS US IN THE BEAUTY OF ALASKA.
THEY ARE GONE BUT WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN."

This is a shop of the small harbor…the RV park is just beyond the harbor.

    

Above, the boat Nightingale greats you at the entrance to the harbor (walking or driving), and right is a Keystone Driller used in the gold mining industry back in the early 1900’s.

Drove along “Beach Road” to the south of Haines and got this picture of the Taiya Inlet to the north…it is that break in the mountains in the center of the pictures.  Skagway is on the northern end of this inlet, and the cruise ships come and go through this inlet, right past Haines, which is to the left just out of the picture.

    

As the last ship leaves from Skagway, and the ship that was here in Haines meet out in the inlet, it is time to call it a night.  Well, it will be night in another few hours (10 pm and still very light outside).  Tomorrow we hope to visit a few of the state parks that are in the area, weather allowing of course.