August 14 - Haines

Here is a photo of our camp hosts, Joyce and Ben, with the freshly caught and boiled Dungeness crab we had for dinner last night. It was so delicious!

We drove down the road to the ferry last night, and continued on to the Chilkoot River that flows into the inlet here. The salmon were fighting their way up the river, and we watched a bald eagle snacking on one of them. Then we went a little farther to a weir where they count the fish, and watched some fishermen trying to catch the salmon. That is, until a brown bear decided to relieve them of their catch. It was too dark (dark!) to get pictures, unfortunately.

Today we drove back up the Haines Highway to a bald eagle preserve by the Chilkat River (yes, different rivers.) During the winter chum salmon come in to spawn and thousands of bald eagles winter here where they can get plenty of food. Best viewing time, we are told, is October to January. We won’t be here then, so we went looking today, and found a nest and saw several eagles either in trees or flying overhead, all of them far, far away.

After dinner we drove back to the ferry, got our tickets for Monday, and went up to the Chilkoot River again. Once again, there was a bear fishing on the opposite side of the river, with a crowd of people watching. The photos aren’t great since it was getting dark and I had the ISO set really high, but in the second one the bear got its salmon. Then it went off in the bushes to eat it in private.