August 8th

THE WEATHER: It was 46 degrees when I woke up this morning. The high was only 65 and it dropped down to 59 when we approached the ocean.

As we left our beautiful location this morning we took one last walk down to the lake while Gary finished his coffee and took in the mountains, water, hanging clouds and ducks swimming silently by. It was such a pristine picture of beauty it almost seemed to be out of a picture book. I have noticed the change of vegetation as we drove through the Yukon. The trees are considerably more yellow than even a week ago, there are now small cotton topped blossoms clustered all along the road side, and the fireweed has blossomed all the way to the top! The pastor in Anchorage actually referred to this event in his sermon. He said, “And when the fireweed has fully blossomed….” and you could hear the congregation give out a moan. LOL! It’s a sure sign that winter is on its way.

After driving the 170 miles into Canada and then back into Alaska we arrived at the Haines Marine Terminal. Once again the alpine tundra should have been teeming with caribou, bear or bison. Nothing…. Except beautiful mountain scenery and glaciated streams running through their valleys. Unfortunately the clouds didn’t allow us any great views of the mountain tops but they were beautiful in their own way. When we were about 10 miles out from Haines we noticed fish wheels in the river. These are huge baskets that dip into the water and pick up fish and drop them into a holding tank. It is operated by Fish & Game and they were there checking their catch when we stopped. He pulled out big pinks, sockeyes & chum to measure, weigh and record. It was a fascinating process to watch.

Once at the Marine Terminal we went in and inquired about what our options were. The option to take the ferry all the way to Bellingham (just below Vancouver) would have cost $2,925.00!! Gulp! It takes about $1,318.00 to drive it plus camping fees. So that option was out. The other option was to take the ferry as far as Prince Rupert and then drive to Prince George and pick up Rte. 97. That would have been $1,149.00. That was a little more palatable considering it cost $990.00 to drive it. We were ready to book that one but they didn’t have any sleeping cabins left. She assured us that we could sleep in sleeping bags in various locations on the floor or in a chair, we could even pitch a tent out on one of the decks! Gary wasn’t too keen on those ideas considering we hadn’t brought our sleeping bags or tent! So we are left with the original plan. Take a ferry over to Skagway and continue on our route through Canada. We will check the Cassiar Hwy on our way by to determine if that route is available. We were talking to some Canadian’s this evening about it and he said they are letting a few cars through with “pilot cars” to guide them. That is a car that drives ahead of the group and determines if it is safe to pass. Stay posted!!

So after our investigation with the ferry options Gary struck up a conversation with a fisherman in the parking lot. Lots of fish stories later, the elderly man told us that the fishing is real good up the road on the Chilkoot River. We decided to take a drive up there to take a look at the river before looking for a campsite. As we drove slowly along the river bank of a beautiful Alaskan stream we noticed a lot of cars parked on the side of the road and a lot of fishermen in the river. As we got closer we noticed there were quite a few people standing in the road with cameras…. Could it be??? Our first grizzly sighting??? Yes, as we rounded a bend in the road I could just make out her hump over the tall grass next to the stream. And then I noticed more movement up stream…. 2 cubs. Wow! The curse has been reversed!! We took pictures of those 3 and then came across another one on our way out. We also saw at least 4 eagles in the trees up there. No surprise there, Haines is known as the “Valley of the Eagles”. Very interesting day. We are staying at the Haines Hitch-up RV Park in downtown Haines.