Still in Haines

Our visit to Haines is ending.  This small town offers so much to see and do.  A highlight for many is the bears that frequent the area of the Chilkoot River near the lake and weir.  We saw at least seven different bears, some with cubs, during our time here.  It is fun to see the bears coming down the river and the fisherman hurrying out of their way.  Several bears fish the fish-counting weir daily and we were able to plan to see them each day.  The interaction between the mother bears and cubs was so touching to watch.  One sow gave her little one the responsibility of carrying the “take-home” fish across the road.  He dropped it partway and batted it back to the side and then she had him pick it up and bring it back again.  We also went to a stream out of town filled with spawning salmon and watched a very large grizzly boar catch and eat many fish in a very short time.
A beautiful old cannery has been reopened and processes salmon and halibut.  You can watch the fish unloaded from the boats into an icy slush and wheeled to the processing area, and observe through glass windows as the fish are filleted, deboned and packed for the freezer.  I arrived at lunch time and thought they were closed.  A peek through the windows showed a spotless work area with not a sign of fish.  They obviously clean the area thoroughly before leaving for lunch and beginning the afternoon shift.  Within just a couple of moments big king salmon were shoveled onto the table, deheaded, and moved toward the filet and deboning maching.  There are even workers with tweezers who carefully examine each piece of fish for any pinbones missed by the machines.  We bought halibut and sockeye salmon to add to the store in our freezer.
Two glaciers are visible near the cannery. The entire town is surrounded by soaring, snow-capped mountains.  Cruise ships sail pass on their way to Skagway and two days a week cruise ships are in town.  The shops in Haines are a delight to visit.  Unlike neighboring towns the stores are all locally owned and offer a charming variety of merchandise.  One of my favorites is Dejon Delights which has a wide variety of gourmet  foods, including the best smoked salmon around.
We traveled to Skagway on the Fjordlands Express.  The Express travels between Skagway, Haines and Juneau, stopping for whales and other wildlife along the way.   The captain/owner of this boat is very skilled and knowledgeable.  I took my favorite seal photos ever along the way and was happy even if the whales dived too quickly for me to get good photos.
This trip we didn’t visit many of the other places in town, including the American Bald Eagle Foundation, Kroschel Wildlife Center or the museums and galleries in town.  There is just so much to do and we spent a lot of time just relaxing.
Monday we will load the car and motor home onto the ferry for the next stage of our trip south.

Seals on Mussels and Kelp

Cannery

A Very Large Bear

Fishwheel

Fishing Grizzly

Haines

This Week in Haines

We have spent the past week in Haines, Alaska and will be here for a few more days.  There is so much to do in this beautiful town.  I may have said it here already but Haines holds everything I think of when someone says "Alaska".  There are eagles, moose and bear, wildflowers, mountains, totem poles, northern lights, glaciers and fishing.  The town is small and friendly but has small museums and great little restaurants.
The salmon are running right now on the area's two main rivers and the bears are very visible. There is an area in the river north of town where salmon are counted on their journey upstream and a parade of grizzlies go through to get the salmon that are trapped there.  We have been entranced by the moms and cubs.  The cubs, of course, are cute and cuddly looking and the moms are so devoted and caring.  They seem to actively teach the cubs throughout the day as they are finding food.  The top photo below is of the largest grizzly we have seen.  We would have missed him hiding in the shadows along the stream had we not slowed down for one more look into the salmon stream.  He was a really huge bear and ate several salmon in the short time we were there.
We know some really great and caring people in Haines and they have been so very kind.  Ron has taken us to numerous places to photograph and he and his wife have had great suggestions for things to do.  Jacque has a very productive vegetable garden and it is amazing just how many vegetables come out of her raised beds.  She is an excellent cook and we enjoyed a delicious meal at their house.
We were taken out to raise Dungeness crabs by a very generous couple. My those crabs were good!
Yesterday we rode with Ron and Jacque into Canada to look for ptarmigan.  We had seen willow ptarmigan before but never long enough to photograph.  There were a lot of ptarmigan there and several swans.  I finally have good photos of a ptarmigan!

The Northern Lights!

The journey from Fairbanks to the Canadian border was thick with smoke from the several wildfires in the region. It was a disappointing way to leave Alaska. The smoke was as thick as a heavy fog and we couldn't see the trees, mountains or lakes in the area. 
From the Canadian border to Destruction Bay the road had deteriorated over the summer and was very bumpy. We were able to brake for most frost heaves but one surprised us and it was quite a bump. Later I discovered that all of the clothes in the closet were on the floor.
We stopped at Kluane RV Park on the drive down.The views on the lake were stunning and the sunset was spectacular. It made up for the 15 amps of electricity, just enough to keep the freezer going.
The Haines Highway was beautiful with many new pullouts and areas to be explored.
We are now at Haines at Haines Hitchup RV Park. This is a beautifully neat and clean park with wide grassy spaces. The poor dog is so excited to finally see grass. Free cable and wifi are a real plus. 
Our friends here in Haines have made sure that we know where all of the eagle's nests, grizzly haunts, and scenic spots are to be found. The salmon are running and fisherman and bears line the river. 
The night we arrived we were so excited to see stars!  We haven't seen a dark night for quite some time.  We went out to a pullout and took photos of the night sky.
Last night our friends called at 2:30 am for us to meet them at a pullout for the northern lights. Oh my! They were so very beautiful. We photographed from 2:45 to 3:30 a.m. when the rising sun lightened the sky too much for us to see the lights. It was an amazing night. I look forward to many more adventures before we board the ferry on August 26.

Tailgater from Chackbay

The Cabin Nite dinner theater is definitely worth the price. I don't think I would have begrudged the $63 per person rate if we had not had a 2 for 1 ticket.  The all-you-can-eat  meal of ribs, salmon, vegetables, biscuits and berry pie, was very good.  The salmon was baked with a buttery lemon and dill topping and was the best item there.  The servers were energetic and enthusiastic and managed to make each individual there feel welcome.  The performance was the best of all.  Both Breland and I would love a CD of the songs, especially the opening one.
We went there for Breland's birthday, a day early but it was August 8 in Louisiana by the time we were served. We were seated right in front of the stage.  A couple we met in Seward were there with us also.  They are from Ohio and the rest of the table, coincidentally , were also from Ohio.  We laughed and sang with the performers all night.  A great show.
The next morning we made the fairly short drive to Fairbanks.  Breland washed the RV at the campground to remove all of the salt from Homer and the calcium chloride from the road construction.  We stocked up on groceries in preparation for our trip south.  We won't see any more large grocery stores for a while. Sam's Club seemed like a good choice. It was so similar to the one at home and so different.  There were huge tubs of dried food, everything from dried strawberries to powdered milk to something called Month of Meals, food for when weather would cut a family off from trips to the grocery.
We got another reminder of the special concerns of living in Alaska when we stopped at Petco for Clark's food.  There was a sign posted to tell you how to arrange for the pet food to be delivered by bush plane.
A trip on the Haul Road, the Dalton Highway, was on our bucket list.  All of the talk about the hazards of the road on the forums, the show "Ice Road Truckers, and the lengthy preparation list the Bureau of Land Management posts made the trip sound a bit intimidating.  Friends took the road just a few weeks ago and urged us to go, with details about the best stops along the way.  We decided to take the trip to the Arctic Circle and beyond a bit to keep the trip to a single day.  Fires to the west of us caused the skies to be quite dark, with the sun showing through a dimly lit orange.  The road was MUCH better than the rough areas of the Alaska Highway, paved in some areas and well-graded dirt and rock in others.
It was still a bit challenging and the trucks roared as they passed us.  Commercial vehicles have right-of-way on the Dalton Highway and we pulled over to let those big trucks by often.  One small truck stayed on our tail and started to worry me a bit.  No matter how slow we went he did not pass.  Finally we pulled to the side to let him by. and were greeted with "Where ya'll from?"  The man in the car was from Chackbay, Louisiana and headed to hunt at Antigun Pass on the Haul Road. He asked us lots of questions and seemed to be homesick for our Louisiana accents.  I wish we had asked him how he ended up living  in Talkeetna, Alaska.
At the Arctic Circle we received certificates to show we had crossed that meridian and had our photos taken by the campground host.  It has been so very warm here (Fairbanks has had 39 days over 80 degrees this summer) that everything was lush and green.  I expected a bit of ice and snow but the ground was covered wild berries and lichen. Not an easy trip, 13 hours and our car was covered with grime, but worth it.

 Tomrrow we head toward Tok on our way to Haines Alaska.

Not Long Enough

We thought three days at Teklanika would be long enough.  It wasn't and we were so very sad to leave.  Teklanika is a campground that is 30 miles into Denali, 15 miles further than you can travel by car. When you reserve a campsite there you are given a road pass that allows you to travel in and then you must remain parked at your campsite for three days or until the end of your reservation.  There are no hookups there, just wide camping spaces separated by trees along the Teklanika river.  Your only transportation is by foot or by walking to the main highway and catching one of the shuttles along the park road.

Breland and I took turns taking the bus so that we did not leave Clark alone for the length of time it takes to do the bus trip.  We each saw lots of wildlife and met many interesting people along the way.

Our campground was full of people from Louisiana.  In the few spaces near us were five couples who either lived in Louisiana or had grown up there. We had a great time around the campfire or on the bus together swapping stories  One of the other couple and I pooled our resources to help a young French man who had torn his ACL.  His pretty little wife was heartbroken but left him alone while she went on a 13 hour bus trip.  We were able to give him ice, heating pads, medication and a knee brace. He offered to babysit Clark so that I could go hiking with another couple.

Now we are back on the outskirts of the Park and will go out to dinner tonight to celebrate Breland's birthday.

Breland Trying Caribou Antlers

A first!  Taiga Spruce Grouse

I love the water pouring from his antlers.

Mother Grizzly and Two Playful Cubs

Both Peaks of Denali

Road to Denali

The High One!

Our trip to get the steps repaired went well and by noon we were heading out of Anchorage toward Denali.  We started seeing Denali seventy miles away.  THE mountain was out in all of its glory. At each pullover we saw groups of people enjoying the view of that beautiful mountain and the others in its range.  We drove into the campground at 8pm, too tired to drive out to investigate the Park Road.

This morning we woke early in the hopes of seeing Denali again and of seeing some wildlife.  You can only drive a car thirteen miles into the park.  If you want to go any further you have to take one of the many buses that travel the single road deep into Denali National Park.  Today we decided just to take the car and linger along the road.

The drive through the park was beautiful.  The mountain was out again, shining in the morning light.  We didn't see any wildlife for the full 13 miles but the views were so wonderful that we were content.  At the turnaround point we looked longingly at the buses that were allowed to go further along the road but contented ourselves watching the Dall sheep on the mountainside.

While at the pullover we talked to several people, including two doctors who did their residency in New Orleans and were touring Alaska with their four youngest children.  We were talking with a ranger who was based along the Louisiana Coast for several years when a motor home sped toward us with a woman leaning out of the window yelling, "There's a grizzly right behind you!"  I thought she was kidding but there WAS a grizzly just walking quietly along very near us.  He continued down the path, past the picnic tables toward the river.  We started frantically photographing the bear who ambled up from the river to the road and then came back toward us along the side of the mountain.  Big excitement!

On the drive back the road was blocked by a tour bus on one side and a car on the other.  Another grizzly was walking down a dry river bed toward us.  We took lots of photos again.  The bear went into the thick shrubbery along the river so I drove on a bit and turned around in the road, hoping for another view of him.  This time there were a line of  buses looking into the river bed.  The bear scooted across the road between two buses.  We drove on and turned into a campground, curious if we could fit into any of the spaces there.  Halfway around the loop the camphost came running over to tell us to stay in our car, a grizzly was in the campground and two moose.  I drove around again, hoping to see the moose but no luck.  All in all, an exciting day!  Tomorrow we take the shuttle bus all of the way to Kantnisha.  Clark's babysitter has come over to meet him and we will be able to spend a long day in the park knowing he is in good hands.

Four Miles High!

A Very Near Bear

Walking Along the Road

Dall Sheep

The River Bear

Denali and other Mountains in the Range

The High One in the Morning