Skagway

Thursday, June 17 -- We hit the Al-Can Highway about 8:15 this morning.  There is very little traffic on this highway, we might meet a vehicle, usually an RV, every 3-4 miles, with an occasional semi thrown in.  There are lots of lakes, rivers, and creeks, and some have some interesting names.  We crossed "Screw Creek" this morning, which Joe thought was noteworthy.  We've seen very little road kill in Canada, but this morning we came upon 3 ravens eating 3 dead ravens in the road.  Must be a story about the three dead ones, maybe they were all deaf or something.  Since I posted the wrong bridge picture for Hazelton, I have another bridge picture for Eric.  This is the Nisutlin Bay Bridge, longest water span on the Alaska Highway at 1,917 feet.  This bay  flows into Teslin Lake.

We drove for many miles along beautiful Telsin Lake, which is 86 miles long.  This lake averages 2 miles across and has an average depth of 194 feet.   It was laying like glass, Joe thought someone should be waterskiing on it.  You can see the reflection of the clouds and mountains in the water.

Then we made a "pie" stop for Dave at the Yukon Motel & Lakeshore RV Park.  It was over-advertised regarding the pie -- they only had 2 pieces, and one of them was burnt, which Dave had and got for free.  But it also had a Wildlife Gallery, which was very nicely done.  Cody, the picture of the polar bear is just for you -- in case Grandpa doesn't get to see a real one (or get a picture of a real one).

I really like the stuff bear on the porch.  I told Joe I really wanted it, but he didn't think it would fit on our dash.  Then, inside, I found a moose I really liked too, but Joe gave me the same answer.

At this point, the decison was made about Skagway.  Joe and I ventured off on our own Excellent Adventure to Skagway, and Dave and Collins and the M&M girls headed to Whitehorse, in the hope that we will rejoin them tomorrow night at Haines Junction.  So we split off at Jakes Corner (yes, Canada has a Jakes Corner too).

We finally crossed a river with a marina and boats, and we saw one boat heading out, so somebody does occasionally use these rivers.  The road was good, with just an occasional gravel patch, and the scenery got better and better.

We had lunch at a beutiful rest area at Bove Island in Tagish Lake.  This picture is taken from the table inside the RV (Brenda, see the tea glass).

The scenery got even better from then one.  Beautiful mountains, the lake, and then river beside us for miles, so left-over structures from old gold-mining sites.

The mountains in front of us were striped with snow -- Joe called them "zebra mountains."

Then we came into an area called "tormented valley," a rocky desolate "moonscape" of stunted trees and small lakes.  Our pictures don't do this justice, it was very pretty and very interesting.  Joe thought it looked like volcano rock, or the renmants of a glacier hundreds of years ago.  The Milepost states that "the subalpine landscape represents a transition zone between the treed lower elevations and the true alpine above treeline.  The small, twisted alpine firs are shaped by a combination of heavy snow burying their lower branches and icy winds sculpting their upper branches."There were numerous waterfalls on the other side of the highway, pouring into creeks that ran into these small lakes.

Then we got to Skagway, a very small, touristy town.  There were 3 cruise ships in port.

 
We hit some of the gift shops and drove out to an old Gold Rush Cemetery.  Then we found another out-of-town road that went back to some historic site, so we took that one.  The road looked like something out of Deliverance, and there was an old one-lane wooden bridge, that I didn't think we should cross.  Joe said, "get over it, Wilma, the water isn't that deep."  That wasn't very reassuring.  There was a sign that pointed us down a side road to some tidal flats, so we thought we should check that out for John and Bridgette.

However, Joe redeemed himself by finding me a BEAR!!!  Our first sighting of a grizzly, and we got to watch him for probably 15 minutes.  He first crossed the road in front of us and went into some evergreen trees, but then we saw him come out of those trees, and then he got into a little pond and was eating the roots along the bank, or he was taking a bath.  It was extremely cool.  He finished his time in the water then started grazing toward some more trees.  There was a dog sled camp at the end of this road, and the dogs must have gotten a whiff of the bear because they ALL started barking, which spooked the bear.  We got to see him take off running across this little road (I screwed up the camera and didn't get any pictures of that).  But it was all very exciting.

Finally we headed back to go down to the ferry to book our reservation to Haines tomorrow, and then we had dinner (halibut again).  We leave at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow, have to be at the dock at 5:50 a.m.  Fortunately, today we are in Alaska timezone, so we gained an hour, which we will lose when we cross back into the Yukon tomorrow. But it never really gets dark here, so we are having a little trouble getting to sleep.  We spent some time today trying to darken the bedroom by hanging some dark towels over the windows.  We'll see if that helps tonight.

Haines to Haines Junction, Friday, June 18

Friday, June 18 (I think) - We headed down to the ferry first thing this morning, and got in our appropriate lines.  Joe loaded at 6:15, and I followed shortly after.  I think the name of our ferry is Malaspina.  The Carnival Spirit cruise ship was heading into port, followed by Island Princess (Hamilton) and then a little one, Spirit of Discovery.  Then a fourth big one, Amsterdam (Holland America) came in on the other side of us, so Skagway should be full of tourists today.

Joe and I cruised on Carnival Spirit several years ago, out of Miami, so those big ships do get around.  We spotted an eagle cruising high overhead.  Getting on and off the ferry was very organized, and we had breakfast as we sailed.  It was very cold on that ferry though, but the scenery was great.

The sights we have seen on this trip have just been magnificent.  Everything continues to exceed any expectations we had, and we haven't even gotten to real Alaska yet (although Skagway and Haines are both in Alaska, but we are back in the Yukon tonight).  The drive from Haines to Haines Junction was very different than any we have had, but equally beautiful.  This was more "tundra," an alpine valley for miles and miles.   We continue to follow rivers, creeks, streams.  Alaska has 34,000 miles of coastline, more than all of the lower 48 states combined, and provides more than half of all the seafood in the U.S.

We came upon a fish wheel next to the road, so we stopped to check it out.  There was a second one a few hundred feet in front of us, and two guys were working that one, so we waited a little while and they pulled up at the one we were at, and checked it out.  We never did see a fish actually in the wheel, but they open some hatch and pulled out some fish, one by one (we watched 3).  They looked like silver salmon, but we don't know that.

On down the road, we went through an eagle sanctionary (I don't think that is exactly what it was called), and we stopped and checked it out.  We finally saw one eagle flying overhead.  During different times of the year, there are thousands of eagles nesting here.

Then we saw a moose, right beside the road.

The moose seemed a little confused -- he came right toward us at first, then stopped, then came at us again, then headed off into the brush.

Next up, we saw 3 white swans in a small pond beside the road.  We believe they were trumpeter swans.  When we went through Customs at the border shortly after that, the Officer there said they probably were trumpeter swans.

We continued on our excellent journey, our necks constantly swiveling so we didn't miss anything.  There are countless little creeks that just come crashing down to the rivers.  Very clear water.  And we are still beside the zebra mountains.

Then we got into an area that looked like tundra, right next to the road.  This is the alpine valley area, and it was just beautiful.

The road was in very good shape on this drive, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  Here is the road ahead in this stretch.

I thought this was particularly beautiful, with the tundra, the shelf of bare dirt, and the pine trees.

Then we saw another bear!!  This one was a black bear, and we didn't get a very good picture of him, but we did get something. 

As we were coming up to Haines Junction, we were driving next to Kluane National Park.  It is part of an area of 4 huge parks that stretch across Alaska and Canada.

We met up with our group in Haines Junction, and I did laundry this evening while I posted by blog (I couldn't get Wi-Fi at the camper).  There is a bicycle race from Haines Junction to Haines tomorrow, so the southbound highway that we traveled north on today will be closed.  We lucked out that we made this trip today instead of tomorrow.

Yukon 1

Wednesday, June 16 - We awoke to our second morning of sunshine!  Collins didn't appear to have any after effects from his dip in the lake yesterday, so we all headed up the last part of the Cassiar Highway.  It got narrower, with a lot more potholes and gravel patches, very bumpy in some places.  Joe did a lot of 30/40 mph driving today.  We passed lots of beautiful blue lakes, very large lakes in this part of the country, surrounded by pine trees and mountains, with no one fishing on them!  We saw one brown "black bear," but when it saw Joe's scary face, it ran back in the trees.  It is in this picture but you can't really see it.

We stopped at the Princess Jade Mine Gift Shop at Jade City, the mines provides 90% of the jade in the world.  Very pricey little shop, though.  They had a cutter outside who was very informative.  They had a beautiful chess set made out of jade and I forget the name of the pink stone.

We finally made it to the Yukon Territory today, and the Al-Can Highway, a major milestone in our trip.  We are at the Continental Divide Campground, heading toward Whitehorse.  Tomorrow we will reach the junction to Skagway and we need to decide if we are going to drive the RVs down there and take the ferry over to Haines, or drive the car down there.  The cost of the ferry will be a determining factor, if we can ever find out that cost.




Collins went fishing again this evening, but this time he didn't hurt any fish, and he didn't get hurt.  He did realize he lost his hat in yesterday's mishap, but he didn't figure that out until he was getting ready to go fishing tonight, and we didn't have to go back to try to find it.  Although when we were on our mission yesterday, Mazie's swimsuit happened to be in our car, left from the days we were in hot springs areas, and Joe kept trying to get her to go diving for the glasses.  I guess we could have taken her back tonight (about 214 miles, bumpy road), and she could have dove for the hat tonight.  Oh well, too late for that I guess.

Dease Lake

We made 200 miles yesterday.  This morning we were fueled and on the road by 8:30, but we had a low tire again so getting that fixed was on today's agenda.  Back up 37A to hook up with Collins and Marilyn, through more beautiful mountains and waterfalls.  We saw one bear, and then we caught a glimpse of another bear, barely, just before a semi spooked him.  We also saw a moose.  Didn't get any pictures of any of those, they just didn't cooperate.  But, in case you all are not yet tired of this scenery, I did take a few more pix of those mountains, the river, and the glacier that came all the way down to the lake.

About halfway up the Cassiar Highway, the road deteriorated somewhat, but not too bad.  There were no longer center or side markings, almost no shoulder, and some areas where gravel had replaced the concrete, but traffic was very light so it wasn't too bad.  We had some 8% grades up and down, and one had a hairpin curve at the end of it.

Joe does not know if Canadian 8% grade is the same as a U.S. 8% grade, but anyway.  We got to Dease Lake and located a campground, and Joe got directions to a tire repair shop, Charlie's.  Charlie found a nail in the tire (inside rear on driver's side), and he fixed it, but he charged us dearly.  Then we fueled and paid the highest price so far, $1.239/liter, which figures out to about $4.68/gallon.  Joe is ready to get out of this little burg.

But we did have an excellent adventure today.  Well, Collins might not think it was so excellent.  He bought a fishing license yesterday, and while we were getting our tire repaired today, he found a small lake nearby that is stocked with brook trout so he went fishing.  Mazie fixed dinner for the group tonight, and he wasn't back when it was ready so we ate without him.  However, he came in, all wet, and reported that the fish had gotten away, but he made a valiant effort to net it and had slipped on moss in the water and fell in the lake.  And lost his glasses.

Marilyn took him home and dried him off, and Joe offered to go back and try to find his glasses.  So the rescue team assembled (Joe, Wilma, Collins, and Marilyn and Mazie (the M&M girls)), and off we went.  Joe put on his waders and I put on my dairy boots, and Collins led us all back to the scene of the crime, I mean accident.  We wanted Collins to reenact the event so I could capture it on film, but he refused.

So here we go, traipsing after Collins, on our mission to rescue his glasses.  He actually had walked quite a little ways through the woods to his fishing spot, but the water was really clear so we thought we had a shot at it.  We were all scanning the water with great intent (this was not a posed shot).

  I waded out as far as my boots would allow, and Joe went out in his waders.  Collins pointed out where he thought he was when the mighty fish took off on him, and we all scanned the lake bottom as far as we could see.  Suddenly, eureka, Joe spotted the glasses!!!  And Mazie miraculously came up with a stick immediately for Joe to fish them out of the water with.   Joe plucked them out victoriously!

And they were not even scratched!  Joe was the hero.  Collins was still mad that tomorrow night's dinner had escaped him, but he was glad to have his glasses back.  We really are not sure how he managed to get himself back to the car, and then to the campground, wet, hungry, practically sightless.  But it all worked out and the event came to a happy conclusion.

Here we go back to the car, mission accomplished!

Cassiar Hwy 1

Monday, June 14 -- Woke up to rain again this morning, but the sun peaked through about 8:30.  While we were getting unhooked, three deer showed up for breakfast.

We had a low tire on the RV this morning so we stopped at the entrance to our campground and aired it up.  Dave provided the air compressor, Collins provided the electricity and inflator, and Joe and I provided the muscle.

Then we were on our way, back to Terrace and then up the Cassiar Highway.  Joe checked the tire pressure when we fueled in Terrace and it was good, so he thinks it was just leaking around the valve stem.  He'll keep a close eye on that situation.

We had scattered showers most of the day, lots of misty clouds hiding the mountaintops.  We met several trucks hauling logs that were dripping water.

John and Bridgette, I tried to show the tide pools left in the mud.   Prince Rupert and the North Coast of Canada experience some of the world's largest tides.  These 24-foot tides equate to a 4-foot change in water level every hour.  There are two high and two low tides each day, and the times they occur change about 45 minutes a day.

The drive from Terrace to Prince Rupert (and back) is like driving through a rain forest, very dense trees and brush, and water pouring off all rock walls after last night's rain.  The mountains are sprouting waterfalls all over the place.  The white streaks in the picture below are waterfalls.  I did see a bear on this road, and Mazie spotted a baby bear (that Joe and I missed).

After our stop in Terrace for lunch and fuel, we headed up the scenic Cassiar Highway.  Our first stop was at Gitanyow, an old Native village that has 23 totem poles.  However, these totem poles all seemed pretty old, did not have much color to them anymore.  But they were interesting, some were very tall, and some were very detailed, with different things on the very top (animals, birds, people).

Then we drove up to the turnoff for Stewart, B.C., and Hyder, Alaska.  That drive was absolutely spectacular.  Glacial mountains on one side, and moss-covered, waterfall mountains on the other. 
Stewart is Canada's most northerly ice-free port.

One of the glaciers came all the way down to the glacial lake below.  We should get a better picture tomorrow when we drive back to the Meziadin Junction where we pick up Hwy 37 again.  Collins and Marilyn stayed at this Junction, at a provincial park, so they did not make the drive down to Stewart/Hyder with us.

And there are still waterfalls on the other side of the road.

And then we came upon two black bears right beside the road!

We did come up with the answer to an age-old question today -- do bears poop in the woods.  The answer is no, they poop on the road.  We must have seen a dozen little piles today, right on the edge of the road.  So there you are.  This area is really supposed to be "bear country," so we hope to see some more in the next few days.

We stayed in Stewart tonight, and toured the town (that didn't take long), and then crossed the border into Alaska.  We found a "bus" that served halibut, and we had a very good meal there.  It was different, but it had a very clean sitting area in a building, and the cook fixed the food (fish) in the bus.  It was delicious.  She said her husband had caught the halibut today, but he's getting ready to leave tomorrow for 10 weeks to go crab fishing.  Maybe he'll be on Deadliest Catch!