Valdez, Haines Junction, Haines, Skagway
(posted from Watson Lake, YT)
(This post covers 13-18 August, 2008)
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Monday, 18 August-
This morning we had a few little things to do before our ferry trip to Skagway. We picked up a real-estate brochure for a friend who may be interested in moving to Alaska, gassed up, visited the sani-dump, and visited Alaska Indian Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to reviving Tlingit art. The artist we met yesterday, Wayne Price, is a key figure at Alaska Indian Arts and we wanted to see more of his work. Besides totem poles, Wayne also makes prints and drawings and several were on display. The organization also has a 35-foot totem pole under construction in the workshop for a camp in the Adirondacks. None of the carvers were working today but we were able to see the nearly-completed pole, their working drawings and their tools.
We drove to the ferry dock where we showed our confirmations and were given a lane assignment. We were amazed at the number and size of vehicles the ferry accommodated. While waiting in line the crew checked all the vehicles for propane tanks and if they had tanks, the workers would double-check that the valve was turned off and then put a piece of red tape on the outside of the compartment to show it had been checked.
After a loading and checking process which took nearly an hour and a half, we took our one-hour ferry ride to Skagway. We had good weather for our little trip and stayed out on deck the whole time but did not see any whales or other sea life. We had been loaded near the end of the loading process so were among the first off in Skagway.
We parked Mocha Joe a block off the main street and spent the rest of the afternoon walking the town. There were four cruise ships at the dock and downtown was quite crowded. The main street extends about 20 blocks from the cruise-boat docks and it’s lined solid with stores and there are more stores on the streets branching off the main one. The stores tend to be tourist-stores, i.e., lots of souvenirs and high-priced craft work. We were surprised, though, to find an interesting little Alaskan history museum in the back of a souvenir shop. With all the touring we’ve done here in Alaska, it was the souvenir-shop museum where I learned that the last shots of the Civil War were fired in Alaska. A southern gunboat, the Shenandoah, had been sent to Alaska to sink Yankee whalers and had done just that. But it didn’t get word of the war’s end until two and a half months after Lee surrendered!
Labashi wanted a slice of pizza so we looked around for a pizza shop and happened onto a good one called ‘Port of Call’. We had what I think was the best pizza we’ve ever had. It had artichokes, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic-oil, and a perfect crust. It’s a good thing we can’t get those at home—I’d have at least three a week.
I checked on wi-fi but it’s the same deal here as Haines... expensive, slow, and unreliable. These folks need to take a drive to Whitehorse where we had good and free wi-fi at the coffee shops.
Late in the afternoon we visited the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park where we saw a good movie about Klondike history. It had very good historical photos and did an excellent job of covering the highlights of Klondike history in 30 minutes. I was surprised to see it had been made in 1973.
After a final walk through a few back streets, we elected to get out of Skagway but then saw a sign for the Gold Rush Cemetary at the edge of town. We walked up to nearby Reid’s Falls and then saw the graves of Soapy Smith and Frank Reid. Smith led a gang of ne’er-do-wells who made Skagway a ‘hell on earth’ according to one account. When the townspeople tired of the gang, they met to plan a vigilante action but Smith got wind of it and tried to enter the meeting. He was met by Reid and the two shot each other—Smith dying immediately of a bullet to the heart, Reid dying 12 days later of a bullet to the groin.
Once out of Skagway our road paralleled the famous White Pass and Yukon Railroad tracks and had many turnouts with historical information signs as we climbed White Pass. We crossed the border into British Columbia a few miles later. At the 64K mark, we found a camping spot at a picnic area and boat launch for Tutshi Lake and had dinner.
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Sunday, 17 August-
This morning we were fogged-in at our overnight pulloff near the Haines Ferry Terminal. We could have driven but it was a good excuse to sleep in a little on this Sunday morning. As the fog was starting to lift Labashi pointed out a young bear just on the other side of the road from our pull-off. It was eating berries and would step into the woods when it heard or saw a car coming, then come back out after it passed. We’re not sure if this one was a brown-phase black bear or a brown-bear. It didn’t appear to have the characteristic hump of the brown-bear but on the other hand it was young and lanky—maybe it hadn’t developed the hump yet. But the coat looked a little too shaggy to be a black bear. Maybe!
At mid-morning we drove out past Fort Seward toward the Chilkat State Park. Note that yesterday we were at the ChilKOOT State Park and today it’s the ChilKAT State Park—they’re on opposite sides of town.
Along the way we parked at a pulloff and enjoyed the morning. I had picked up a very good mocha at the Top Frog (a drive-up espresso shack) on the way through Haines and was happy to sit nursing it while Labashi photographed a hanging glacier across the Chilkat River. By the time we made it to the state park it was lunch time.
After lunch we noticed a small trail opening in the trees at the boat-launch and thought we’d try it. At first it just seemed to branch out in many different directions and we thought it might be a game trail. But we found a wider trail at the top of the ridge and followed it through a magical-dark woods to the point. From the point we could see two glaciers, both of them blue, one down low and one high up the mountain with a waterfall streaming from it. We had a 270-degree view of water from this point and could see small fishing boats (aluminum skiffs) and sea kayaks. And on the way back from the open point to the edge of the dark woods, we saw an adult bald eagle in a tree.
We then drove to the American Bald Eagle Foundation center, our major goal for the day. The Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve is a 48,000-acre sanctuary lying between Haines and the Canadian border. Each November, thousands of bald eagles gather in this valley to feed on the chum-salmon spawning run. By the end of December, they’re gone- the rivers are frozen over. The Foundation hosts a Bald Eagle Festival the first week of November and it’s very popular with nature photographers. One of the informal contests for photographers is to capture the most bald eagles in a single tree. The record currently stands at 58. The Center we visited today has taxidermy mounts of the animals, birds, and fish of the Chilkat Valley and shows an hour-long film showing the gatherings of up to 3000 eagles.
After the museum we hung out at the soccer field. Today had been overcast most of the day but now the sun was out and we soaked it up. I had parked on one of the few paved surfaces (other than streets) in Haines so took advantage of that to try to figure out what is making the metal-on-metal screeching sounds we hear when I first accelerate, particularly up a hill. As I poked around and then tapped the muffler and catalytic converter, I saw stones bounce up. As I felt around the catalytic converter, I pulled out five or six stones, one of them the size of a large marble. The sound wasn’t metal-on-metal—it was stone on metal. And that stone and another in a wheel were the culprits.
We had almost skipped Haines and Skagway because of those stones. We were 260 miles from Haines and 220 miles from Whitehorse with no mechanical services in between when the odd noises started. At one point we made the decision to go to Whitehorse because we knew it had the mechanics and parts we’d need if it was a universal joint or a bad wheel bearing. But my conversation with the gas station guy at Haines Junction had changed my mind and we came to Haines.
After our break we drove to the Lighthouse Restaurant on the harbor for supper. We shared a ‘Captain’s Platter’ of seared salmon (sockeye), halibut, snapper, and shrimp.
After dinner we picked up some necessities from the IGA and then drove back to the Chilkat State Park campground. We took a short walk on the Seduction Point Trail near the campground and then read and blogged the evening away.
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Saturday, 16 August-
This morning we woke to brilliant sunshine at Kathleen Lake. As we continued our drive south, we realized how special this area is. Since Haines Junction the road has been much better and we have the wonderful Kluane National Park mountains on our right and beautiful lakes on our left. There are very few structures and where there are, they tend to be cabins or something unobtrusive. Every so often there’s a ‘lodge’ or ‘roadhouse’ which will have gas, perhaps a café, and a few small cabins for lodging. Unfortunately, many of them are closed. It’s apparently tough to make a living in this business.
A few hours south we began to see mountains on both sides of the road and it was in this area we experienced one of the highlights of our trip--- a grizzly bear. The grizz was feeding near the road as we came upon it. Its full attention was on its feeding and it was walking along quickly, ripping plants as it went. It completely ignored us, never once looking at us or in any way reacting to our presence. It had a magnificent coat, mostly a darker brown with lighter-brown patches and silvertip hairs. Its coat was extra-shaggy around the shoulders and front legs.
Its feeding course took it across the road and we thought it would disappear into the woods. But apparently whatever plants it liked were growing along the far edge of the mowing line and a few feet into the woods. It just continued feeding along this line as we watched for a good 20 minutes. In fact, come to think of it, as we left, it was still feeding along this line.
In the last few minutes of our watching the bear, another vehicle came along and parked nearby. We met the people at the next pulloff. They were a European couple from (as it turned out) a town about 40 kilometers from the home village of my 7th great grandfather.
Continuing south, we soon crossed from Yukon Territory into British Columbia and came to the Chilkat Pass, one of the mountain passes used by the Klondike prospectors. The summit seemed low to us because we were approaching from the north. But from there we had a spectacular descent through the snow-covered mountain tops. We don’t need a flightseeing trip; this was very much like flying.
At the bottom of the pass we crossed back into the U.S. and Alaska and 42 miles later we were in Haines.
One of the first things we did in Haines was to find the ferry terminal and determine how easy it was going to be to get the ferry to Skagway and that would determine how much time we’d have in Haines. We learned the daily 2200 sailings are easy to book (as we had guessed) but we were lucky enough to get a slot on the 1145 sailing on the day after tomorrow—perfect for our visit to little Haines.
We then visited the Sheldon Museum, a very nice little gem, particularly on the subject of Tlingit culture. Though it’s a local museum, the exhibits were extraordinarily well done and we enjoyed learning about the incredible Tlingit people. One of their trade goods was an oil extracted from fish and they traded this oil (and other goods) far into the interior. They fiercely guarded their trading path through the Chilkat Pass and it wasn’t until the gold rush that they were unable to hold it any longer. At one point they sent warriors 300 miles to a competing trading settlement at Fort Selkirk and destroyed it.
The lower portion of the museum had similar-quality displays about the pioneer days of Haines.
After the museum we went to the local library but it was closing in a half-hour so we didn’t stay long. It’s a beauty, though. It was named the ‘Best Small Library in America” in 2005. Unfortunately, it only has pay wi-fi and I’ve had very bad luck with that so I’ll wait for something else. Free wi-fi can be a hit-or-miss thing but when you pay, you should get what you pay for and that’s often not the case. I’ve had too many situations where a paid wi-fi connection didn’t work or was so slow it was unusable but there was nobody to complain to—the answer is always, ‘Sorry about that but we don’t manage the wi-fi, we just let them put their antenna here. You’ll have to talk to the provider about anything wrong with it’. Besides, the pay wi-fi in Haines is only a 256K connection if it is working.
We then drove to the Fort Seward area of town to look around. Fort Seward was an early-1900’s Army post which closed after World War II and its buildings were sold to locals. One of them had a bakery and as we drove by we noticed someone working on a large totem pole on the side porch. In the bakery we bought a few small items and met owner Sherry Price. In our conversation we asked about the totem pole and learned it’s being carved by her husband, Wayne. She invited us to meet Wayne and see the totem pole up close. Wayne is a Tlingit master carver. The pole is being carved for the new Thunder Mountain High School in Juneau. The bottom figure on the pole is an ‘auntie’-figure, a teacher. She is transferring knowledge to the two children carved in relief above her and they are climbing the tree of life. Atop the pole is a falcon, the chosen symbol of the high school.
Wayne was an absolute delight to talk with as he worked. Besides talking about the carving, he told us of hunting sheep up on the mountain across the bay, of making his adze blade from the leaf spring of a ’63 Chevy, and of using his little 16-foot boat year-round out on the bay, including the seal hunt in January. He has a great sense of humor and we laughed quite a bit in our conversation. Labashi was so delighted she had him sign her log-book…in totem-carving pencil. The pencil is a special one he uses to mark the designs on the totem pole before using the adze to carve it out.
We then drove across town to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation area where we had heard we might see bears along the Chilkoot River. We didn’t see any bears on the way up so drove through the campground to see if we could get a site for the night but they all were taken. Salmon-fishing season is in and the lower part of the river was lined with fishermen. On the way out, though, we saw a brown-bear sow and cub on the far side of the river. We managed to get some photos but they soon attracted the attention of some very noisy tourists and the bears soon disappeared back into the underbrush.
We then drove back toward the ferry dock and found a large pulloff for the night. After supper we spent the evening—you guessed it--- blogging and reading.
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Friday, 15 August-
This morning we continued southbound on the Alaska Highway. At the Alaska-Canada border there were only three vehicles ahead of us but there was apparently only one agent. He finished the car two vehicles ahead of us and then disappeared. We thought he must have been on a break or something but after ten minutes or so we saw him come out and put a seal on a semi trailer. It seemed odd that staffing would be so thin. We had no problem passing through. The shotgun was not an issue. I merely gave him our passports and the Firearms Declaration Form I had gotten when we first entered Canada a month and a half ago (it’s good for 60 days) and he asked a few questions (How much ammunition do you have? Do you have any handguns? Is the shotgun loaded? Where in the van is it stored? Where in the van is the ammunition stored?) He also asked whether we had pepper spray and I said yes, bear spray. He asked if it was marked for use on bears (because pepper spray designed for self-defense against humans is illegal in Canada).
After the border we were bound for Haines Junction and everything was routine until our lunch stop at a rest area about 140 miles above it. As I pulled out of the parking lot I heard an odd sound, a metal-on-metal screech with each rear wheel rotation-- but it went away after a few rotations. As we drove, we thought we could hear an odd sound sometimes but it was hard to tell. This section of highway is the worst we’ve been on for never-ending frost heaves and pavement breaks (stretches of gravel road) for more than a hundred miles. With the bad road and the possibility of a wheel bearing or universal joint problem, I drove no faster than 45 miles per hour.
We checked the GPS for a garage but there was nothing until Haines Junction. And an interesting coincidence happened shortly thereafter. We came up on a tow truck towing a Ford van, about a 1989 model. At a construction zone we stopped behind him and since the pilot car was nowhere in sight, we both got out. I asked him where he was towing the van and he replied ‘Silver City’ (not far) and told me the van was his now. The owner had had a rear-wheel bearing failure and, because he was towing it behind another truck, did not know it until the axle broke. The axle broke and somehow took out the rear panel. The owner had abandoned the van, i.e., he had signed over ownership to the wrecker guy to pay the towing bill.
When I said I had a noise of my own, he said Ford vans are well-known for rear-wheel bearing failures and of course I had to wonder if that’s what I have going on.
Finally, we made the Junction by 1630. I spoke to the garage guy there who immediately said he doesn’t have a mechanic right now and they don’t have a parts run from Whitehorse (100 miles away). But then he asked about the symptoms. Since I didn’t have any obvious overheating of the wheels or universal joint and the rear-wheel seals weren’t leaking (a seal usually goes if there’s a rear-wheel-bearing problem because of the overheating), it may simply be dirt buildup in the rear brakes or a stone somewhere it shouldn’t be—like between the drum and backing plate. In any case, I felt better about it.
In Haines Junction we visited the Kluane National Park Visitor’s Center. This park is the twin to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. It’s just one very, very huge park with an international boundary through it. In 1979 the two parks were named a World Heritage Site. Like Wrangell-St. Elias, there’s very little access by vehicle. Access is by float plane or bush plane or, of course, flightseeing plane. Costs for flightseeing are: $115 (per person) for 40 minutes, $150 for 60 minutes, $200 for 75 minutes, $250 for 90 minutes, and $325 for 120 minutes.
After Haines Junction we turned toward Haines, Alaska (we’ll have to cross the border again) and drove about 20 miles to Kathleen Lake Campground for the night ($15.70 for the night). While Labashi made supper I jacked up the van and took off the rear wheels but didn’t find anything. Afterwards we walked down to the beautiful lake,f framed by the King’s Throne, a huge cirque dominating the mountain above the blue lake. With the blowing about 20 knots, the lake had whitecaps and the entire scene was fantastic.
The lake has Kokanee Salmon. These are sockeye salmon which don’t make a sea run. They don’t make a sea run because thousands of years ago their route to the sea was blocked by a glacier and they adapted—they use Kathleen Lake as their ocean and they spawn in nearby Sockeye Lake. By the time the glacier melted and opened up the way to the sea again, the salmon had lost their ancestral ‘memory’ of going to the sea.
After our walk we blogged and Labashi worked on her ‘salmon story’.
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Thursday, 14 August-
It rained lightly much of the night but my little thermometer said it was 60 degrees when we woke around 0700. A fog bank lay on the waters of Port of Valdez and another hid the mountain-tops from us. As we watched, a fog bank rolled in and quickly covered the pipeline terminal.
After a leisurely breakfast we drove back in toward Valdez and saw a small black bear along the road, attracting a crowd of tourists. This bear and several others (we heard) are hanging around the hatchery area because of the many dead salmon after their spawn.
We then drove to the Crooked Creek Salmon Information Center we had visited yesterday. Labashi wanted more information about the hatchery’s background and operations and this turned out to be a great resource. The center had an amateur video recently shot inside the hatchery. We saw how the workers strip the eggs from the females and the milt from the males, then clean and fertilize the eggs, then monitor and manage the growth process. When the fry are big enough, they are transferred to a floating pen in the bay from where they are released. Two years later, approximately 4% of them return (compared to a 1% return rate for naturally-spawned salmon).
When the salmon return, the first boats allowed to fish them are under contract to the hatchery. The first catches pay back the operating costs of the hatchery. Once that’s done, the fishery is opened to commercial and sport fishermen. The commercial fishing boats fish right in Port of Valdez, the Valdez Narrows, or just inside Prince William Sound. The hatchery is a non-profit organization supported by the fishermen’s organizations.
We then dropped into Valdez to mail some letters and browse through a sporting-goods store. The clothing of choice for the fishing industry is Grunden of Sweden, maker of heavy rubber rainwear. Their ‘Herkules’ bib-pants run about $110 and the raincoats about $95. Helly-Hansen makes a competing product but for every non-Grunden set you see, you’ll see at least ten Grundens. There’s also a good bit of Woolrich and Filson wool clothing, including some interesting Woolrich bib-overalls called ‘Malones’. The material looks and feels like felt liners made for boots. But I bet it feels good under a cold, wet rubber rainsuit.
We headed out of town but stopped at Robe Lake to make lunch. The weed-harvester guy was still at it. Among the floatplanes there, I spotted a very interesting homebuilt. Though it was only about the size of a Cub, it had full-wing-length ailerons as well as some type of flap or lift-booster on the front of the wing—like something you’d see on a commercial jet. I’d love to see that one in action.
We headed north and soon climbed past waterfall after waterfall up through the spectacular Thompson Pass. In another hour and a half we passed the turnoff to McCarthy and shortly thereafter Glenallen before making the turn for the Tok Cutoff.
The Cutoff road was good-enough asphalt but had many frost-heaves. But the scenery was great. Again we’d have mile after mile of stunted-growth black spruces characteristic of poorly-drained soil. And among them would be (naturally) many small lakes. Whenever we’d come to higher ground, we’d see willows and aspens, some of them showing hints of turning color already.
There are many cabins in this area. We stopped at one where a guy who calls himself ‘The Knifeman’ sells handmade knives. His are a bit too massive for me but I liked seeing the workmanship. His knives had ivory, bone, antler, or whale’s-tooth handles. Something like a hunter’s knife sold for $180 but the fancy one (Damascus steel blade, carved whale’s-tooth handle) goes for $2600. As I turned to leave he asked whether I’m interested in guns and he showed me several he has for sale, including a very good-looking 1895 octagonal-barrel lever-action rifle he’s selling for $2500.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the Tok Cutoff road, finally reaching Tok and the Alaska Highway at 1700. Labashi had a hankering for pizza and we had a good one at Fast Eddy’s Restaurant before gassing up ($4.68 per gallon) and moving on.
For 47 miles we had pavement breaks and loose gravel and took a few stone hits on the windshield. One of them gave us another star-crack, one of the worst of our six windshield chips and cracks of this trip.
In another few miles we entered the Teslin Wildlife Refuge for camping for the night and had a great site away from everyone else — and it’s another freebie. We spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Wednesday, 13 August-
Today is supposed to be rainy but it’s a light rain this morning—just enough to put the wipers on. We departed our campsite on the McCarthy Road early (about 0700), hoping to see a wolf. One had been spotted recently around milepost 13.
We didn’t see any new wildlife on our bouncy trip back to the hard road but Labashi took photos of fishwheels in action at the Copper River. Fishwheels are only permitted in certain places and they are considered tools for subsistence fishing (as opposed to sport fishing) so can be used only by Native-Americans.
Back on terra asphalta we drove out through Chitina and then 33 miles to the turnoff to Valdez. This is one of the few areas where we’ve seen farms. It’s a little odd to see log-cabin farmhouses.
We spent the next few hours traveling down the Richardson Highway. In this area it’s a scenic road, trending down and down through mountains with occasional views of the Alaska pipeline off in the distance. Then we climbed up a final pass (Thompson Pass) above the snow-line (meaning there were patches of snow still remaining from last winter along the road) and by the Worthington Glacier before making a long descent to Valdez.
Just outside of Valdez we turned off to Robe Lake and had lunch. We parked beside an inlet teeming with salmon—‘pinks’ or ‘humpbacks’ we later learned. These had reached the furthest point of their long swim and were spawning. And on the several-hundred-acre lake was an odd sight—a weed harvester. It looked like a floating backhoe. The cab looked like the tractor cab of a backhoe, complete with rooftop air conditioner/heater but where you’d normally see tires there were wide, finned wheels to push it forward or backward in the water. Up front was a cutter and arms to pull the cut weeds aboard to a conveyer belt which carried them through to a collection basket. Every so often the operator would paddle on over to the edge of the lake and dump the collection basket ashore, apparently to be trucked away later.
After lunch we drove out a side road to a campground along the bay. Along the way we saw hundreds of salmon trying their best to get past a fish weir at the hatchery but many dying off after the attempt. We later learned these were fish born at the hatchery and therefore imprinted with the smell of its water. But the hatchery already has all the eggs it can use so the weir blocks the fish from entering.
After visiting the campground running along the bay, we were surprised to see the road ahead blocked off. This was the Alaska Pipeline’s Valdez terminal. We could see the tops of eight (I think) storage tanks high on the hill. The pipeline can either fill the tanker ships directly or fill the storage tanks and then gravity does the job of filling the ships.
Back on the Richardson we stopped at a salmon-viewing station and watched a live-action camera’s underwater view of humpies and chum salmon in the creek nearby. We could also walk outside and watch them from above. We learned this year’s salmon run started on July 19th and runs into September.
We then did the driving tour of downtown Valdez, a town of 1400 folks. After stopping at the visitor’s center for logistics info, we went to the harbormaster’s office for showers and to a nearby fishing-charter shop for block ice for our cooler.
At the library we attempted to use their wi-fi hotspot but it was having problems and we thought we’d have to give up connecting for a few days. But we checked again at the visitor’s center and they suggested the local community college—Prince William Sound CC. That worked out fine—we picked up our email and posted the blog update.
Labashi then decided she wanted to compose an email so we drove back to the library and she did that while I read the Anchorage paper and some magazines.
We felt we had ‘done’ the town of Valdez but swung through for a few more pictures. We saw a life-size replica of one of the ‘barndoor’ halibut the area is famous for. Incredible!
We drove out to the campground beside the pipeline terminal and picked a site overlooking the bay ($12) and had supper. As we watched through the evening we saw seals and sea otters at play nearby and had spectacular views of the mountains ringing the bay. The sun even made an appearance. As the wind died, the bay went glassy and made for a picture-perfect evening.
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(posted from Watson Lake, YT)
(This post covers 13-18 August, 2008)
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Monday, 18 August-
This morning we had a few little things to do before our ferry trip to Skagway. We picked up a real-estate brochure for a friend who may be interested in moving to Alaska, gassed up, visited the sani-dump, and visited Alaska Indian Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to reviving Tlingit art. The artist we met yesterday, Wayne Price, is a key figure at Alaska Indian Arts and we wanted to see more of his work. Besides totem poles, Wayne also makes prints and drawings and several were on display. The organization also has a 35-foot totem pole under construction in the workshop for a camp in the Adirondacks. None of the carvers were working today but we were able to see the nearly-completed pole, their working drawings and their tools.
We drove to the ferry dock where we showed our confirmations and were given a lane assignment. We were amazed at the number and size of vehicles the ferry accommodated. While waiting in line the crew checked all the vehicles for propane tanks and if they had tanks, the workers would double-check that the valve was turned off and then put a piece of red tape on the outside of the compartment to show it had been checked.
After a loading and checking process which took nearly an hour and a half, we took our one-hour ferry ride to Skagway. We had good weather for our little trip and stayed out on deck the whole time but did not see any whales or other sea life. We had been loaded near the end of the loading process so were among the first off in Skagway.
We parked Mocha Joe a block off the main street and spent the rest of the afternoon walking the town. There were four cruise ships at the dock and downtown was quite crowded. The main street extends about 20 blocks from the cruise-boat docks and it’s lined solid with stores and there are more stores on the streets branching off the main one. The stores tend to be tourist-stores, i.e., lots of souvenirs and high-priced craft work. We were surprised, though, to find an interesting little Alaskan history museum in the back of a souvenir shop. With all the touring we’ve done here in Alaska, it was the souvenir-shop museum where I learned that the last shots of the Civil War were fired in Alaska. A southern gunboat, the Shenandoah, had been sent to Alaska to sink Yankee whalers and had done just that. But it didn’t get word of the war’s end until two and a half months after Lee surrendered!
Labashi wanted a slice of pizza so we looked around for a pizza shop and happened onto a good one called ‘Port of Call’. We had what I think was the best pizza we’ve ever had. It had artichokes, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic-oil, and a perfect crust. It’s a good thing we can’t get those at home—I’d have at least three a week.
I checked on wi-fi but it’s the same deal here as Haines... expensive, slow, and unreliable. These folks need to take a drive to Whitehorse where we had good and free wi-fi at the coffee shops.
Late in the afternoon we visited the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park where we saw a good movie about Klondike history. It had very good historical photos and did an excellent job of covering the highlights of Klondike history in 30 minutes. I was surprised to see it had been made in 1973.
After a final walk through a few back streets, we elected to get out of Skagway but then saw a sign for the Gold Rush Cemetary at the edge of town. We walked up to nearby Reid’s Falls and then saw the graves of Soapy Smith and Frank Reid. Smith led a gang of ne’er-do-wells who made Skagway a ‘hell on earth’ according to one account. When the townspeople tired of the gang, they met to plan a vigilante action but Smith got wind of it and tried to enter the meeting. He was met by Reid and the two shot each other—Smith dying immediately of a bullet to the heart, Reid dying 12 days later of a bullet to the groin.
Once out of Skagway our road paralleled the famous White Pass and Yukon Railroad tracks and had many turnouts with historical information signs as we climbed White Pass. We crossed the border into British Columbia a few miles later. At the 64K mark, we found a camping spot at a picnic area and boat launch for Tutshi Lake and had dinner.
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Sunday, 17 August-
This morning we were fogged-in at our overnight pulloff near the Haines Ferry Terminal. We could have driven but it was a good excuse to sleep in a little on this Sunday morning. As the fog was starting to lift Labashi pointed out a young bear just on the other side of the road from our pull-off. It was eating berries and would step into the woods when it heard or saw a car coming, then come back out after it passed. We’re not sure if this one was a brown-phase black bear or a brown-bear. It didn’t appear to have the characteristic hump of the brown-bear but on the other hand it was young and lanky—maybe it hadn’t developed the hump yet. But the coat looked a little too shaggy to be a black bear. Maybe!
At mid-morning we drove out past Fort Seward toward the Chilkat State Park. Note that yesterday we were at the ChilKOOT State Park and today it’s the ChilKAT State Park—they’re on opposite sides of town.
Along the way we parked at a pulloff and enjoyed the morning. I had picked up a very good mocha at the Top Frog (a drive-up espresso shack) on the way through Haines and was happy to sit nursing it while Labashi photographed a hanging glacier across the Chilkat River. By the time we made it to the state park it was lunch time.
After lunch we noticed a small trail opening in the trees at the boat-launch and thought we’d try it. At first it just seemed to branch out in many different directions and we thought it might be a game trail. But we found a wider trail at the top of the ridge and followed it through a magical-dark woods to the point. From the point we could see two glaciers, both of them blue, one down low and one high up the mountain with a waterfall streaming from it. We had a 270-degree view of water from this point and could see small fishing boats (aluminum skiffs) and sea kayaks. And on the way back from the open point to the edge of the dark woods, we saw an adult bald eagle in a tree.
We then drove to the American Bald Eagle Foundation center, our major goal for the day. The Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve is a 48,000-acre sanctuary lying between Haines and the Canadian border. Each November, thousands of bald eagles gather in this valley to feed on the chum-salmon spawning run. By the end of December, they’re gone- the rivers are frozen over. The Foundation hosts a Bald Eagle Festival the first week of November and it’s very popular with nature photographers. One of the informal contests for photographers is to capture the most bald eagles in a single tree. The record currently stands at 58. The Center we visited today has taxidermy mounts of the animals, birds, and fish of the Chilkat Valley and shows an hour-long film showing the gatherings of up to 3000 eagles.
After the museum we hung out at the soccer field. Today had been overcast most of the day but now the sun was out and we soaked it up. I had parked on one of the few paved surfaces (other than streets) in Haines so took advantage of that to try to figure out what is making the metal-on-metal screeching sounds we hear when I first accelerate, particularly up a hill. As I poked around and then tapped the muffler and catalytic converter, I saw stones bounce up. As I felt around the catalytic converter, I pulled out five or six stones, one of them the size of a large marble. The sound wasn’t metal-on-metal—it was stone on metal. And that stone and another in a wheel were the culprits.
We had almost skipped Haines and Skagway because of those stones. We were 260 miles from Haines and 220 miles from Whitehorse with no mechanical services in between when the odd noises started. At one point we made the decision to go to Whitehorse because we knew it had the mechanics and parts we’d need if it was a universal joint or a bad wheel bearing. But my conversation with the gas station guy at Haines Junction had changed my mind and we came to Haines.
After our break we drove to the Lighthouse Restaurant on the harbor for supper. We shared a ‘Captain’s Platter’ of seared salmon (sockeye), halibut, snapper, and shrimp.
After dinner we picked up some necessities from the IGA and then drove back to the Chilkat State Park campground. We took a short walk on the Seduction Point Trail near the campground and then read and blogged the evening away.
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Saturday, 16 August-
This morning we woke to brilliant sunshine at Kathleen Lake. As we continued our drive south, we realized how special this area is. Since Haines Junction the road has been much better and we have the wonderful Kluane National Park mountains on our right and beautiful lakes on our left. There are very few structures and where there are, they tend to be cabins or something unobtrusive. Every so often there’s a ‘lodge’ or ‘roadhouse’ which will have gas, perhaps a café, and a few small cabins for lodging. Unfortunately, many of them are closed. It’s apparently tough to make a living in this business.
A few hours south we began to see mountains on both sides of the road and it was in this area we experienced one of the highlights of our trip--- a grizzly bear. The grizz was feeding near the road as we came upon it. Its full attention was on its feeding and it was walking along quickly, ripping plants as it went. It completely ignored us, never once looking at us or in any way reacting to our presence. It had a magnificent coat, mostly a darker brown with lighter-brown patches and silvertip hairs. Its coat was extra-shaggy around the shoulders and front legs.
Its feeding course took it across the road and we thought it would disappear into the woods. But apparently whatever plants it liked were growing along the far edge of the mowing line and a few feet into the woods. It just continued feeding along this line as we watched for a good 20 minutes. In fact, come to think of it, as we left, it was still feeding along this line.
In the last few minutes of our watching the bear, another vehicle came along and parked nearby. We met the people at the next pulloff. They were a European couple from (as it turned out) a town about 40 kilometers from the home village of my 7th great grandfather.
Continuing south, we soon crossed from Yukon Territory into British Columbia and came to the Chilkat Pass, one of the mountain passes used by the Klondike prospectors. The summit seemed low to us because we were approaching from the north. But from there we had a spectacular descent through the snow-covered mountain tops. We don’t need a flightseeing trip; this was very much like flying.
At the bottom of the pass we crossed back into the U.S. and Alaska and 42 miles later we were in Haines.
One of the first things we did in Haines was to find the ferry terminal and determine how easy it was going to be to get the ferry to Skagway and that would determine how much time we’d have in Haines. We learned the daily 2200 sailings are easy to book (as we had guessed) but we were lucky enough to get a slot on the 1145 sailing on the day after tomorrow—perfect for our visit to little Haines.
We then visited the Sheldon Museum, a very nice little gem, particularly on the subject of Tlingit culture. Though it’s a local museum, the exhibits were extraordinarily well done and we enjoyed learning about the incredible Tlingit people. One of their trade goods was an oil extracted from fish and they traded this oil (and other goods) far into the interior. They fiercely guarded their trading path through the Chilkat Pass and it wasn’t until the gold rush that they were unable to hold it any longer. At one point they sent warriors 300 miles to a competing trading settlement at Fort Selkirk and destroyed it.
The lower portion of the museum had similar-quality displays about the pioneer days of Haines.
After the museum we went to the local library but it was closing in a half-hour so we didn’t stay long. It’s a beauty, though. It was named the ‘Best Small Library in America” in 2005. Unfortunately, it only has pay wi-fi and I’ve had very bad luck with that so I’ll wait for something else. Free wi-fi can be a hit-or-miss thing but when you pay, you should get what you pay for and that’s often not the case. I’ve had too many situations where a paid wi-fi connection didn’t work or was so slow it was unusable but there was nobody to complain to—the answer is always, ‘Sorry about that but we don’t manage the wi-fi, we just let them put their antenna here. You’ll have to talk to the provider about anything wrong with it’. Besides, the pay wi-fi in Haines is only a 256K connection if it is working.
We then drove to the Fort Seward area of town to look around. Fort Seward was an early-1900’s Army post which closed after World War II and its buildings were sold to locals. One of them had a bakery and as we drove by we noticed someone working on a large totem pole on the side porch. In the bakery we bought a few small items and met owner Sherry Price. In our conversation we asked about the totem pole and learned it’s being carved by her husband, Wayne. She invited us to meet Wayne and see the totem pole up close. Wayne is a Tlingit master carver. The pole is being carved for the new Thunder Mountain High School in Juneau. The bottom figure on the pole is an ‘auntie’-figure, a teacher. She is transferring knowledge to the two children carved in relief above her and they are climbing the tree of life. Atop the pole is a falcon, the chosen symbol of the high school.
Wayne was an absolute delight to talk with as he worked. Besides talking about the carving, he told us of hunting sheep up on the mountain across the bay, of making his adze blade from the leaf spring of a ’63 Chevy, and of using his little 16-foot boat year-round out on the bay, including the seal hunt in January. He has a great sense of humor and we laughed quite a bit in our conversation. Labashi was so delighted she had him sign her log-book…in totem-carving pencil. The pencil is a special one he uses to mark the designs on the totem pole before using the adze to carve it out.
We then drove across town to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation area where we had heard we might see bears along the Chilkoot River. We didn’t see any bears on the way up so drove through the campground to see if we could get a site for the night but they all were taken. Salmon-fishing season is in and the lower part of the river was lined with fishermen. On the way out, though, we saw a brown-bear sow and cub on the far side of the river. We managed to get some photos but they soon attracted the attention of some very noisy tourists and the bears soon disappeared back into the underbrush.
We then drove back toward the ferry dock and found a large pulloff for the night. After supper we spent the evening—you guessed it--- blogging and reading.
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Friday, 15 August-
This morning we continued southbound on the Alaska Highway. At the Alaska-Canada border there were only three vehicles ahead of us but there was apparently only one agent. He finished the car two vehicles ahead of us and then disappeared. We thought he must have been on a break or something but after ten minutes or so we saw him come out and put a seal on a semi trailer. It seemed odd that staffing would be so thin. We had no problem passing through. The shotgun was not an issue. I merely gave him our passports and the Firearms Declaration Form I had gotten when we first entered Canada a month and a half ago (it’s good for 60 days) and he asked a few questions (How much ammunition do you have? Do you have any handguns? Is the shotgun loaded? Where in the van is it stored? Where in the van is the ammunition stored?) He also asked whether we had pepper spray and I said yes, bear spray. He asked if it was marked for use on bears (because pepper spray designed for self-defense against humans is illegal in Canada).
After the border we were bound for Haines Junction and everything was routine until our lunch stop at a rest area about 140 miles above it. As I pulled out of the parking lot I heard an odd sound, a metal-on-metal screech with each rear wheel rotation-- but it went away after a few rotations. As we drove, we thought we could hear an odd sound sometimes but it was hard to tell. This section of highway is the worst we’ve been on for never-ending frost heaves and pavement breaks (stretches of gravel road) for more than a hundred miles. With the bad road and the possibility of a wheel bearing or universal joint problem, I drove no faster than 45 miles per hour.
We checked the GPS for a garage but there was nothing until Haines Junction. And an interesting coincidence happened shortly thereafter. We came up on a tow truck towing a Ford van, about a 1989 model. At a construction zone we stopped behind him and since the pilot car was nowhere in sight, we both got out. I asked him where he was towing the van and he replied ‘Silver City’ (not far) and told me the van was his now. The owner had had a rear-wheel bearing failure and, because he was towing it behind another truck, did not know it until the axle broke. The axle broke and somehow took out the rear panel. The owner had abandoned the van, i.e., he had signed over ownership to the wrecker guy to pay the towing bill.
When I said I had a noise of my own, he said Ford vans are well-known for rear-wheel bearing failures and of course I had to wonder if that’s what I have going on.
Finally, we made the Junction by 1630. I spoke to the garage guy there who immediately said he doesn’t have a mechanic right now and they don’t have a parts run from Whitehorse (100 miles away). But then he asked about the symptoms. Since I didn’t have any obvious overheating of the wheels or universal joint and the rear-wheel seals weren’t leaking (a seal usually goes if there’s a rear-wheel-bearing problem because of the overheating), it may simply be dirt buildup in the rear brakes or a stone somewhere it shouldn’t be—like between the drum and backing plate. In any case, I felt better about it.
In Haines Junction we visited the Kluane National Park Visitor’s Center. This park is the twin to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. It’s just one very, very huge park with an international boundary through it. In 1979 the two parks were named a World Heritage Site. Like Wrangell-St. Elias, there’s very little access by vehicle. Access is by float plane or bush plane or, of course, flightseeing plane. Costs for flightseeing are: $115 (per person) for 40 minutes, $150 for 60 minutes, $200 for 75 minutes, $250 for 90 minutes, and $325 for 120 minutes.
After Haines Junction we turned toward Haines, Alaska (we’ll have to cross the border again) and drove about 20 miles to Kathleen Lake Campground for the night ($15.70 for the night). While Labashi made supper I jacked up the van and took off the rear wheels but didn’t find anything. Afterwards we walked down to the beautiful lake,f framed by the King’s Throne, a huge cirque dominating the mountain above the blue lake. With the blowing about 20 knots, the lake had whitecaps and the entire scene was fantastic.
The lake has Kokanee Salmon. These are sockeye salmon which don’t make a sea run. They don’t make a sea run because thousands of years ago their route to the sea was blocked by a glacier and they adapted—they use Kathleen Lake as their ocean and they spawn in nearby Sockeye Lake. By the time the glacier melted and opened up the way to the sea again, the salmon had lost their ancestral ‘memory’ of going to the sea.
After our walk we blogged and Labashi worked on her ‘salmon story’.
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Thursday, 14 August-
It rained lightly much of the night but my little thermometer said it was 60 degrees when we woke around 0700. A fog bank lay on the waters of Port of Valdez and another hid the mountain-tops from us. As we watched, a fog bank rolled in and quickly covered the pipeline terminal.
After a leisurely breakfast we drove back in toward Valdez and saw a small black bear along the road, attracting a crowd of tourists. This bear and several others (we heard) are hanging around the hatchery area because of the many dead salmon after their spawn.
We then drove to the Crooked Creek Salmon Information Center we had visited yesterday. Labashi wanted more information about the hatchery’s background and operations and this turned out to be a great resource. The center had an amateur video recently shot inside the hatchery. We saw how the workers strip the eggs from the females and the milt from the males, then clean and fertilize the eggs, then monitor and manage the growth process. When the fry are big enough, they are transferred to a floating pen in the bay from where they are released. Two years later, approximately 4% of them return (compared to a 1% return rate for naturally-spawned salmon).
When the salmon return, the first boats allowed to fish them are under contract to the hatchery. The first catches pay back the operating costs of the hatchery. Once that’s done, the fishery is opened to commercial and sport fishermen. The commercial fishing boats fish right in Port of Valdez, the Valdez Narrows, or just inside Prince William Sound. The hatchery is a non-profit organization supported by the fishermen’s organizations.
We then dropped into Valdez to mail some letters and browse through a sporting-goods store. The clothing of choice for the fishing industry is Grunden of Sweden, maker of heavy rubber rainwear. Their ‘Herkules’ bib-pants run about $110 and the raincoats about $95. Helly-Hansen makes a competing product but for every non-Grunden set you see, you’ll see at least ten Grundens. There’s also a good bit of Woolrich and Filson wool clothing, including some interesting Woolrich bib-overalls called ‘Malones’. The material looks and feels like felt liners made for boots. But I bet it feels good under a cold, wet rubber rainsuit.
We headed out of town but stopped at Robe Lake to make lunch. The weed-harvester guy was still at it. Among the floatplanes there, I spotted a very interesting homebuilt. Though it was only about the size of a Cub, it had full-wing-length ailerons as well as some type of flap or lift-booster on the front of the wing—like something you’d see on a commercial jet. I’d love to see that one in action.
We headed north and soon climbed past waterfall after waterfall up through the spectacular Thompson Pass. In another hour and a half we passed the turnoff to McCarthy and shortly thereafter Glenallen before making the turn for the Tok Cutoff.
The Cutoff road was good-enough asphalt but had many frost-heaves. But the scenery was great. Again we’d have mile after mile of stunted-growth black spruces characteristic of poorly-drained soil. And among them would be (naturally) many small lakes. Whenever we’d come to higher ground, we’d see willows and aspens, some of them showing hints of turning color already.
There are many cabins in this area. We stopped at one where a guy who calls himself ‘The Knifeman’ sells handmade knives. His are a bit too massive for me but I liked seeing the workmanship. His knives had ivory, bone, antler, or whale’s-tooth handles. Something like a hunter’s knife sold for $180 but the fancy one (Damascus steel blade, carved whale’s-tooth handle) goes for $2600. As I turned to leave he asked whether I’m interested in guns and he showed me several he has for sale, including a very good-looking 1895 octagonal-barrel lever-action rifle he’s selling for $2500.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the Tok Cutoff road, finally reaching Tok and the Alaska Highway at 1700. Labashi had a hankering for pizza and we had a good one at Fast Eddy’s Restaurant before gassing up ($4.68 per gallon) and moving on.
For 47 miles we had pavement breaks and loose gravel and took a few stone hits on the windshield. One of them gave us another star-crack, one of the worst of our six windshield chips and cracks of this trip.
In another few miles we entered the Teslin Wildlife Refuge for camping for the night and had a great site away from everyone else — and it’s another freebie. We spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading.
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Wednesday, 13 August-
Today is supposed to be rainy but it’s a light rain this morning—just enough to put the wipers on. We departed our campsite on the McCarthy Road early (about 0700), hoping to see a wolf. One had been spotted recently around milepost 13.
We didn’t see any new wildlife on our bouncy trip back to the hard road but Labashi took photos of fishwheels in action at the Copper River. Fishwheels are only permitted in certain places and they are considered tools for subsistence fishing (as opposed to sport fishing) so can be used only by Native-Americans.
Back on terra asphalta we drove out through Chitina and then 33 miles to the turnoff to Valdez. This is one of the few areas where we’ve seen farms. It’s a little odd to see log-cabin farmhouses.
We spent the next few hours traveling down the Richardson Highway. In this area it’s a scenic road, trending down and down through mountains with occasional views of the Alaska pipeline off in the distance. Then we climbed up a final pass (Thompson Pass) above the snow-line (meaning there were patches of snow still remaining from last winter along the road) and by the Worthington Glacier before making a long descent to Valdez.
Just outside of Valdez we turned off to Robe Lake and had lunch. We parked beside an inlet teeming with salmon—‘pinks’ or ‘humpbacks’ we later learned. These had reached the furthest point of their long swim and were spawning. And on the several-hundred-acre lake was an odd sight—a weed harvester. It looked like a floating backhoe. The cab looked like the tractor cab of a backhoe, complete with rooftop air conditioner/heater but where you’d normally see tires there were wide, finned wheels to push it forward or backward in the water. Up front was a cutter and arms to pull the cut weeds aboard to a conveyer belt which carried them through to a collection basket. Every so often the operator would paddle on over to the edge of the lake and dump the collection basket ashore, apparently to be trucked away later.
After lunch we drove out a side road to a campground along the bay. Along the way we saw hundreds of salmon trying their best to get past a fish weir at the hatchery but many dying off after the attempt. We later learned these were fish born at the hatchery and therefore imprinted with the smell of its water. But the hatchery already has all the eggs it can use so the weir blocks the fish from entering.
After visiting the campground running along the bay, we were surprised to see the road ahead blocked off. This was the Alaska Pipeline’s Valdez terminal. We could see the tops of eight (I think) storage tanks high on the hill. The pipeline can either fill the tanker ships directly or fill the storage tanks and then gravity does the job of filling the ships.
Back on the Richardson we stopped at a salmon-viewing station and watched a live-action camera’s underwater view of humpies and chum salmon in the creek nearby. We could also walk outside and watch them from above. We learned this year’s salmon run started on July 19th and runs into September.
We then did the driving tour of downtown Valdez, a town of 1400 folks. After stopping at the visitor’s center for logistics info, we went to the harbormaster’s office for showers and to a nearby fishing-charter shop for block ice for our cooler.
At the library we attempted to use their wi-fi hotspot but it was having problems and we thought we’d have to give up connecting for a few days. But we checked again at the visitor’s center and they suggested the local community college—Prince William Sound CC. That worked out fine—we picked up our email and posted the blog update.
Labashi then decided she wanted to compose an email so we drove back to the library and she did that while I read the Anchorage paper and some magazines.
We felt we had ‘done’ the town of Valdez but swung through for a few more pictures. We saw a life-size replica of one of the ‘barndoor’ halibut the area is famous for. Incredible!
We drove out to the campground beside the pipeline terminal and picked a site overlooking the bay ($12) and had supper. As we watched through the evening we saw seals and sea otters at play nearby and had spectacular views of the mountains ringing the bay. The sun even made an appearance. As the wind died, the bay went glassy and made for a picture-perfect evening.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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