August 15 - Haines

It is, as Pooh would say, a very blustery day. As protected as the inlet is, there are whitecaps and from listening to the marine radio it is apparent that outside the waters shielded by mountains conditions are, as one of the wildlife cruise captains said, “rather nautical.” We also had to deal with the fact that the refrigerator has decided to go on strike, and neither electric nor propane modes work. So I got large blocks of ice to turn it into a big ice chest, and cooked up all the remaining hamburger. Later I’ll throw all the few still mostly frozen chicken breasts we have left into the crock pot with soup stock and make chicken soup. Fortunately, we’ve gotten down to just a few items left in the fridge with the idea that I’d stock up when we get to Whitehorse and the Real Canadian Superstore, which is Canada’s version of Walmart. Ger found a guy in Whitehorse that works on our brand of refrigerator, so we’ll get to enjoy Whitehorse some more. We know the town very well already.

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.

August 12-13 Tok to Haines

On Wednesday we left Tok after another very cold night. We breezed through customs to get into Canada, and then dealt with the horrible road between the border and Destruction Bay. If they are referring to the state of vehicles after traveling that washboard road when they called the place “destruction” then it is well named. It was fun to see the landscape again and remember places we’d stopped and comment on the changes the season has brought. One main change was, of course, the fireweed that so fascinates me. It is really turning white along the road in the Yukon.

We spent the night in a nice government park next to Kluane Lake. Tent camping was forbidden because of a bear that was hanging out there. We, of course, didn’t see so much as a footprint.




And then we started down the road to Haines. All those superlatives I’ve used for the mountains and landscape? Just take them as a given – they all apply. We didn’t make good time because I kept telling Gerry, “stop up there.” We saw alpine meadows with fireweed everywhere; glaciated peaks, some jagged and some just worn down to a nub by the ice; mountains wrapped in clouds and vast vistas. There was a Provincial campground called “Million Dollar Camp,” that had a boardwalk out to a waterfall and rapids, so we made that stop, too. After we came back into Alaska we passed through a stretch of road that ran beside the Chilkat River that has been set aside as a bald eagle preserve. We spotted two eagles, but plan on going back there tomorrow for a more leisurely visit.

We’re staying at Oceanview RV Park, right on the inlet with another one of those wonderful out-the-front-window views. The couple who run the RV park are having a crab feed of freshly caught Dungeness crab tonight, so that’s what we’re having for dinner. Yum!

This is the view out our front window. We just saw a cruise ship go by leaving Skagway, which is around the corner and up the inlet.

August 11 - update

Little Green Toad does indeed have a new window, so we are off tomorrow. We'll be in Canada for a day and then back in Alaska as we go down to Haines. So I'll check back in a couple of days with an update.

August 11 - Tok - last day here, hopefully

It was 34 degrees when we woke up this morning, and there was a frosting of snow on the mountains to the west. Brrrr. And it's AUGUST! The first snowfall is called “termination dust” because that’s when the summer folk terminate their trip and head home. Maybe it is a good thing we are heading in a southerly direction. Little Green Toad is at the glass guy’s getting a new driver side window today, so we’ll be able to roll out tomorrow, all things going well.

So, the saga of the window. We found a guy here Saturday evening who said he could fix it if he could get the window and he was planning on going to Fairbanks on Monday to pick up stock anyway. So he called his supplier in Fairbanks (at home) on Sunday. She got up early Monday morning and went in to the shop to check inventory, found she didn't have on, so she called her supplier in Anchorage. He checked his inventory, found a window, and sent one of his people with it up the Parks Highway toward Fairbanks, while the lady in Fairbanks headed down the Parks Highway. They met somewhere in the middle, made the switch and she headed back to Fairbanks. (Round trip between Anchorage and Fairbanks, 704 miles) Our guy by this time was loading up his order in Fairbanks and waiting for her to show up. Then he drove back to Tok, (round trip between Tok and Fairbanks – 412 miles) got in about 9 and because our phones are being so squirrelly he couldn't get us on the phone to tell us he had the window, so he came to the RV park and drove around until he found us and knocked on the door. This morning we drove the 10 miles out of town to his homestead and he brought us back to Cleo. He'll come pick us up when the car is done. To get the window here involved driving a total of 1116 miles. I'm glad they aren't charging us by the mile.

There is a cardboard cutout of Sarah Palin in the office of the RV park, so Gerry had to have his picture taken with it.

August 9-10 Tok

Sunday was rainy all day, which was wonderful. It stomped down the forest fires, or at least discouraged them, and we just snuggled down in Cleo and read, watched a movie, and I did some painting.

Monday is sunny with scattered clouds and the sky is still blue, so no smoke is rising yet. A caravan of 20 rigs came in yesterday and we talked to one of the people for a few minutes. He wasn’t sure where they’d been and had no idea where they were going. Amazing. Why bother? They all cranked up and rumbled out of here about 8 this morning. We listened to them from the warmth of our comfy bed, then turned over and went back to sleep. I like our style of travel better.

August 8 - Valdez to Tok

We left the clouds and fog of Valdez and headed for the smoke in Tok (that rhymes – they pronounce the name of the town “Toke” as in “poke”.) The fires are still burning in the interior between Tok and Fairbanks and you know, it kinda smells like home in the summer. The sun is that sullen red-orange that comes from being filtered through wood smoke. But there were still some beautiful scenes, like the overlook above the Copper River as it snakes and braids itself down to the sea. All these Alaska rivers are running down what was once the bottom of immense glaciers, so they have a whole lot more room to roam than they would if they had carved the canyon out themselves.

While I was doing research for this trip a year or so ago, I ran across a quote from someone saying that the time to leave Alaska for us summer birds is when the fireweed turns white. I figured that meant when it snows on the fireweed, it’s time to go, but I saw a fireweed plant at one of our stops and all of a sudden the saying made sense. All those skinny stems that remain on the stalk as the plant blooms its way toward the top contain the seeds that are on silky parachutes, much like a dandelion. As those open up, the plant turns white! So I guess we are headed in the right direction (but don’t count on seeing our smiling faces all that soon!)

Especially when we get some enforced delays. When we got to Tok and checked in to the RV park, I went around to unhook and ~~GASP!!~~ the window on the driver’s door was gone! Shattered into a pile of really lovely aquamarine crystals. How it happened, we have no idea. It was fine at lunch when Gerry did his walk-around, so some time along the way, something impacted it hard enough to break it into a gazillion pieces. Poor little Toad! Luckily, there is a glass guy here in Tok who is going to Fairbanks on Monday to pick up stock, and he is confident he can fix it, so we’re here until Tuesday. Otherwise, we’d have to tape it up and head to Whitehorse. So I guess we find out what there is to see and do in Tok. I wonder if they have a museum.