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Published: August 9th 2007
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Immature bald eagle
I approached very slowly, but eventually the eagle took to the air and flew to the next vacant pylon. They don't get the white head and tail feathers until about the age of 4 years. Haines, AK pop.1,525
This town deserves more description than I gave it in our last blog. We planned to stay 2 nights and ended up staying a week. Its 152 miles south from the Alaska Highway. It’s only at the end (or beginning) of the Haines Highway. To go anywhere else from Haines in a car is by ferry. A few days a week, a small cruise ship docks for the day. There’s not the big influx of tourists that is seen in other towns.
The drive on the Haines Highway is scenic with snow capped mountains and rivers running along side the road. In some places they are obscured by aspens and evergreen trees. At that point it’s easy to feel that you’re on some other northern road until the next bend when the mountains come back into view. There are frequent places to pull-off for photo or viewing opportunities. This road is also known for being a good place to view wildlife. On both of our trips on this road we saw grizzly bears and eagles. On our trip north we saw a black bear and a porcupine.
We enjoyed this community immensely. It was scenic
and fun. It was big enough, but not too big. At first the fjord and the mountains on the far side were always something I was trying to take a moment to look at. As time went by I began to wonder how quickly the view would become something infrequently noticed. Eagles were seen frequently perched along the shores. There was a nice feeling of community in the town.
The IGA on Main Street doesn’t have a problem keeping the grocery carts in the store. There is one step down to the sidewalk in the front and 25 steps down to the parking lot in the back. Fortunately they do help take the groceries to the car. The Main Street is uphill from the side streets and the water front. When we left with the RV, we planned which route would be the least steep, and where to hook up the car.
One unusual annual event in the area occurs at The Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. From mid Oct to Dec 3,000-4,000 bald eagles gather at the 48,000 acre preserve. They are attracted to the Chilkat River flats and the late run of salmon. We saw some
awesome photos of trees heavy with eagles. Also in the town is the American Bald Eagle Foundation Interpretive Center www.baldeagles.org.
We went to a performance of The Chilkat Dancers at the tribal House. The performances are storytelling of ancient legends using masks, costumes and dialog. We saw four different stories at the performance we attended. The location and pervasiveness of the legend is explained prior to each story.
We stayed at Oceanside RV Park. They have an annual 4th of July barbeque as a fund raiser for the fireworks. It was well attended and a lot of fun. The price was reasonable with a choice of tender ribs, salmon or Dungeness crab. The owner/manager is Joyce who is a bundle of energy and seems to be everywhere and making certain that all is well. They are open all year, but only keep a couple spots shoveled, up by the office, once the snow starts.
Road Conditions
We had been warned that the Alaska Highway west of Haines Junction to the Alaska/Yukon border would be slow going and had lots of frost heaves. Now I know what frost heave means!!! Most are marked with a flag along side
the road, but some aren’t, so it’s important to remain vigilant. A frost heave is a section of the road that is slightly elevated before it is slightly depressed. It doesn’t look like a whole lot of change in the road until driving over it and then it feels like a lot more than expected. Some times I feel like a bobble-head doll as we’re going down a long stretch of wavy road.
Road repair/construction is a way of summer life. We have had to wait a few times at construction sites that only permitted one lane of traffic. Then the person with the “Stop” sign comes to each car and informs the occupants of how long the wait will be until the pilot car comes to escort us through. We’ve gotten pretty good at anticipating when road construction is somewhere down the road, by watching the oncoming traffic. Traffic is generally spaced out by miles, so when we notice that vehicles are more frequent and not so widely spaced we know that something ahead caused them to group together. If they are really close together, then we know that there will be road construction with a pilot car
Oceanside Joyce
She's a bundle of energy. Pot lucks are a lot of fun, no matter what the weather. in the not too distant future.
Wildlife
Along the Haines Highway we saw a black bear in a patch of dandelion flowers that had gone to seed. It was contentedly eating them. With our binoculars we could see lots of fluffy white seeds all over its head and back. Eventually it lay down in the flower patch and we could no longer see the bear, but we could tell that it was still eating, as the dandelion heads were disappearing. That was a little scary in that the bear was no longer visible in a patch of dandelions that had gone to seed, but was actually still there.
Eagles: too numerous to count.
Grizzly bears: 2.
Porcupine: 1.
Tok, AK
After we left Haines we headed back into British Columbia and the Yukon. There really aren’t alternate routes. If a road is closed there is no other choice. To get to the main/large part of Alaska we needed to get back to the Alaska Highway and head to Tok. The section of the road from Haines Junction, Yukon to the Alaska border was everything we had heard to expect. The permafrost makes road
Black bear in dandelion
Shortly after this picture, the bear laid down and continued to eat the dandelions.There is white dandelion fluff allover the bear. stability in this area difficult and it’s just a way of life to have wavy roads. This section was the worst one yet.
We boondocked one night and then the next night we stayed at the Sourdough Campground in Tok. We heard it was a fun place to stay and they were correct. This is the 4th season for the new owners and it sounds like they have come a long way in those years. They brought with them a good background and have a great place for campers to stay at for a night or few. In the evening they have free musical entertainment followed by a sourdough pancake toss. The owner joined in with the musical performance and is multi-talented. He is quite funny and entertaining and had us all laughing. I wondered if he had ever done stand up comedy. Neither George nor I were successful with the pancake toss (no free breakfast for us). Fortunately someone else was, so our group did not end up with a photo on the “wall of shame.” In the morning we ate a breakfast of sourdough pancakes, reindeer sausage and fruit. When we leave Alaska we have to pass
through Tok again. This is a great location, getting travelers as they come and go from this great big state.
Windshield
Stone chip and crack #4: RV drivers side on the Alaska Highway west of Haines Junction, Yukon. This is the biggest one yet and was thrown by an oncoming truck.
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