This Blog was written over a week ago, but did not post. I am resending it. We are now back in Dawson City and I will update as soon as I can get dependable internet.

Dawson City, Yukon Territory:  For those of you who do not have a map, our return to Canada may seem strange. We left British Columbia at Prince Rupert and were in Alaska all the way up the Inland Passage to Haines (and Skagway). This is called Southeast Alaska and it is a long way from Anchorage and other Alaskan locations. The history of how this coast line became the USA instead of Canada is fascinating but I won’t go into it now. Suffice it to say that when you leave Haines (or Skagway) you must go back into British Columbia and then the Yukon Territory as you proceed to Alaska.

We spent three nights in Whitehorse, enjoying the good weather and getting ourselves ready for continuing our trek into the Yukon. The best part was a visit to Miles Canyon where the mighty Yukon River narrows to flow through a tight canyon flanked by a palisade of basalt columns. This is the site of the former rapids for which Whitehorse is named. River boats coming “downriver” on the Yukon (which flows north) had to portage these rapids. Later a diversion dam was built mid-way across the river which wiped out the rapids but the dramatic canyon walls and fast water are still exciting to see.

We left Whitehorse on Monday morning in a drizzling rain which did nothing to obscure the loveliness of the Klondike Highway leading toward Dawson City.  This 333 mile road passes mostly through river valleys; beside rivers, creeks, and lovely lakes, and often has distant mountain views. The wildflowers are beyond belief! The overcast day seemed to accent the depth of color and the immense variety of the flowers. Since this area has suffered a series of huge wildfires, the Fireweed was incredible. It lined the roadsides and spread up and over every “bald” spot. Next were the Arctic lupines; they ranged from pale lavender to deep purple and there are fields of them, mile after mile. Mixed with these showy plants are 15 to 20 varieties of yellow daises, snow-parsley, cow-parsnip, etc. etc. etc. Every time we stopped I saw something new. Can you tell I loved the flowers?

Since most of the RV’s stop at the same places, we  met some of our fellow travelers and when we stopped at Moose Creek YT Govt. CG for the night, we met again. The government campgrounds (like State Parks in the US), do not have facilities other than “vault” toilets and picnic tables, but they are beautifully laid out and are spacious, level, and provide free firewood. We built our first campfire of the trip and had some of our new friends over to share it.

This morning we drove in to Dawson City and are parked at the Gold Rush RV Park.  We were here for almost a week three years ago and enjoyed it very much. This time, we just wanted to get up-to-date information from the Northwest Territories Visitor’s Center, get gas, fill up with potable water, and check all our mechanicals.  It looks as if all systems are on GO and in the morning we plan to start our drive on the Dempster Highway to lnuvik, NWT and back. 

The Dempster is one of only two highways in North America that goes beyond the Arctic Circle (the other is the Dalton Hwy in Alaska). It is not paved and it is over 800 miles, round trip. There is gas available at the half-way point and at Inuvik.  We waited in Dawson City for a week in 2013 for this road to be reopened after a flood washed it out. It didn’t happen so we continued south. We plan to try again this time. If it is too challenging, we will come back but we have high hopes.

(Sorry, not sure I can send any photos with this Blog. We are using a restricted internet..)

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun". (Robert Service: The Creamation of Sam McGee"

We have started another phase of our trip, the mainland Yukon-Alaska chapter, and are camped in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory for the weekend. This is our third trip to Whitehorse so we feel right at home. It has been a wonderful week and we are due a little down time for laundry and grocery buying.

This meadow had 1000's of wildflowers

The bad weather in Juneau only lasted overnight and we had a great trip on the ferry, to Haines. We met a Tlingit family returning to CA after attending the Celebration in Juneau and sat next to them the entire trip. Jacob was from Haines and it was like having a personal tour guide as we traveled up the Lynn Canal. The Canal is actually a very long and deep fjord that reaches to Skagway and it is lovely.

We got off the ferry in Hanes which is now my new favorite Alaskan town (it used to be Valdez). It is set in a bowl of glacial mountains facing the fjord and everywhere you look it is stunning beautiful. It is a real town too. Only small cruise ships can dock there and they only have two a week so the businesses are mostly run by locals for locals. There are so many outdoor activities available however, that they get a lot of business from the cruise ships that stop at Skagway.  Tourists come in on the Fast Ferry or by air for the hiking, rafting, wildlife tours & etc. They are all gone by 5 pm and that’s the way Haines likes it!

We chose Ocean View RV because it faced the harbor and we liked it so much we stayed five days. In a small town like Haines it doesn’t take long to get to know folks. When I went to buy our tickets for the fast ferry to Skagway, the lady recognized me and said I had been around long enough to buy local tickets;

View from our campsite at Haines

View from our campsite at Fass Gas (Haines Jct)

saved us $40. We made the day trip to Skagway and had fun but were so glad we were not staying there. Five cruise ships in port equals about 10,000 people in a town about the size of Blue Ridge. Go figure!

Our other excursion was a raft trip on the Chilikat River. Sorry, but we were not impressed. I could have given the raft guide a few tips but he was young and strong so we let him wear himself out. The river is braided and since it is glacier fed it was at 36 degrees. We had more fun exploring back roads on our own.

The 159 miles from Haines to Haines Junction is one of the most beautiful roads in North America. It has views of three huge parks; Tatshrnshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial (BC), Kluane NP (Canada) and Wrangell-St. Elias NP (USA), these are International Heritage areas and make up the largest land mass held internationally in the world. We took our time and made lots of stops.

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, we spent one night in the RV parking lot of the Fass Gas station in Haines Junction. The Hi County RV park in Whitehorse is very nice though. Our site backs up to an Aspen forest with lots of briar roses and other wild flowers.

At Haines Junction we reached the Alcan, the famous Alaska Highway, and it required a decision from us; North, South, East, or West? We chose east to Whitehorse so that we can go north to Dawson City. We also chose to pay an outrageous  price for an internet connection so that we could catch up before we head into the hinterlands of the Yukon Territory.

Too Much Happening

The Alaska Marine Highway system is absolutely amazing! We have been on and off the ferries for a week now and we keep having wonderful experiences. The beautiful sunny weather that greeted us in Ketchikan has continued all week; a real gift for this part of the world. As a result we have been able to see the superb scenery. We have also been treated to an up close and personal interaction with First Citizen and Native American culture that is not often possible for casual travelers. 

First a word about my “hero”. Our FB friends saw my post about Butch backing the travel trailer down the ramp (at low tide) and onto the ferry at Ketchikan. He achieved Rock Star status with the other passengers and earned his 15 minutes of fame. Because of an event in Juneau, the ferry was going to fill to capacity during stops between Ketchikan and Juneau. The crew and loading staff were trying to get it loaded for optimum space and they asked Butch if he could back on.  He said he could and off we went with the entire population watching. He was cool but I was a wreck!

The event in Juneau is the bi-annual Celebration, an occasion for the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people to get together to “Weave traditional knowledge into our future”. Thousands of people attend and there are venues all over town. From Ketchikan to Juneau, the ferry was picking up native peoples and our ferry was like a huge cultural fair. The dancers and singers practiced on the Solarium deck and even without their costumes, they were extraordinary. It was so cute to watch the little ones dancing on their own and the mothers and fathers dancing with their babies. At each stop, new groups came on and they would engage in “call-and- response” singing to greet each other. In the observation lounge the women spread out beautiful textiles that they were working on for the festival. Some were still making costumes, others weaving baskets or making jewelry. The teenagers were mostly talking on their cell phones or playing video games but they were sweet kids and we enjoyed them.

We also had a good time getting to know Ron and Nancy Sanford, who are professional travel writers and photographers who specialize in Denali. They have a lovely book, “Denali…..after 50 years” that tells the story, with photographs, of their time there (1963-2012). They have a one week permit to take their vehicle into the back country and were on their way to take advantage of it. We hope to meet up again.

Our cabin on the ferry for the overnight run was very comfortable. It had its own little bathroom with shower and a nice big window. The cafeteria meals were definitely not gourmet but were good enough. This is a great way to travel.

Continuing to Juneau for more marvels. We are camped at a National Forest CG at Mendenhall Glacier Lake. It has full facilities and about three other campers! We took the two mile walk up to the waterfall and the base of the Glacier along with four or five tour buses full of other people but it was fun. It is possible to put canoes & kayaks on the lake and paddle up to the glacier as well. On Thursday we flew over to Gustavus to meet the shuttle van for Glacier Bay National Park. We spent the night at the NP Lodge in order to get on the all-day Glacier Bay tour boat. This was truly a PEAK experience.

The Lodge is lovely with great (but pricey) meals and the NP Visitor’s Center is upstairs. They have lots of exhibits, movies, and Ranger programs. We went for a hike, had dinner on the porch overlooking the Bay, and caught the evening Ranger presentation on the geology of the park.  Friday was an absolutely flawless day. Mountain peaks 100 miles away looked as if you could touch them and the boat trip was incredible. In addition to constant breathtaking scenery we saw lots of whales, sea otters, seals, birds of all kinds (including puffins), mountain goats and a very fine grizzly bear. It is no wonder this bay is called the Galapagos of the North.  It is teeming with wildlife. It is also highly restricted and access is limited to 25 boats per day, of which only two can be cruise ships. Many of the most spectacular coves are off limits to the larger boats (which couldn’t turn around in them anyway).

Tlinget young lady dancing.

First group of dancer-singers (later the deck was full)

 

Dancers in costume

 

Our cabin on the ferry

 

Our room at Glacier Bay Lodge

 

Cove on Glacier Bay

We returned to Juneau last night and the flight back was also spectacular. Our TT was intact and we were happy to crawl back in our own bed. This morning we awoke to pouring rain. ‘Nough said!

Sea and Sunshine at Last

We “sailed” from Prince Rupert BC aboard the MV Matanuska on Saturday morning under a clear blue sky. The trip to Ketchikan (Alaska) takes about six hours going north up Chatham Sound and into the Revillagigedo Channel. Within three hours the mountains of Misty Fjords National Monument are visible to the east and lots of islands (including Prince of Wales Wilderness) to the west. We even caught a glimpse of Haida Gwaii to the southwest.

I love traveling on ferries because there is such a diversity of passengers and folks usually pick a spot to congregate depending on their interests. We like to watch the sea and I keep a map to chart our progress so we chose the front observation lounge. Our neighbors included commercial fishermen going out to meet their boats, sport fishermen who would be flying into the backcountry lodges, a former ice road trucker who was going to visit his daughter on Annett Island, a tour bus driver who was taking a bus up for the summer season, several older ladies who were on his bus, and some folks like us who brought their RV’s along. We had lively conversations and got lots of interesting information. The Recliner Lounge had a bunch of people who were slept through the trip, and the Solarium had the deck passengers who set up their “camps”.

I met a nice young family from Juneau in the Solarium. The parents and three little girls had quickly nabbed five lounges and spread out their sleeping bags. They had a tent but did not plan to put it up unless it got really cold. They had been to BC to visit relatives and were returning home. The mother said she could not remember how many times they had done this trip. The Solarium in on the stern of the ship, out of the wind, and has heat strips overhead. The showers are just around the corner and the cafeteria is one deck below. It is not a bad way to travel.

Ketchikan is on an island (Revillagigedo) and has no road contact with the mainland. Everything here comes by boat or plane. There are only two campgrounds that can accept RV’s, one in the National Forest at Signal Creek and a commercial CG attached to a “Resort” at Clover Pass. The latter had poor reviews so I had made reservations at Signal Creek. When we arrived we found it to be beautiful but deep in a rain forest and very dark. Since we did not have electricity it made us feel rather gloomy, especially after all the rain we experienced at Prince Rupert. We rode over to Clover Pass and found the CG there to be full, but they had a vacancy for Sunday night, on the water. We took it!

Yesterday we took the Allen Marine Tour via a jet catamaran to Misty Fjords National Monument. We were blessed with another fabulous sunny day.  The boat travels deep into the Fjord with spectacular views of glaciers, waterfalls, distant mountain ranges, and other totally breathtaking stuff! The only wild life we saw were seals, porpoises, eagles, & lots of birds.  The naturalist-interpreter on the boat was excellent as was a First Citizen (Haida) lady who spoke and answered questions about the local culture.

There were three cruise ships in port yesterday so Ketchikan was a beehive of activity. Most of the people on the tour boat with us were from the ships. We were amazed at how interested some of them were in traveling via ferry but they seemed to think it would be difficult to arrange. The main topic of conversation was the incident on Friday in which the Celebrity Infinity (at 91,000 tons) had wiped out Berth 3. We heard about it in Prince Rupert and saw the damage when we arrived in Ketchikan. Now at least one cruise ship will have to anchor out and bring their passengers in by tender. With over 2,000 passengers, that is going to be a lot of trips back and forth!

Following our trip to Misty Fjords we returned to the campground at Signal Creek and moved the TT to Clover Pass. Yes, we are lined up like sardines in a can but we have a fabulous view out our “back yard”. Clover Pass is mostly a motel/lodge with a marina that both rents boats and provides mooring for companies that do water-based tours. The campsites are primarily to accommodate people who work here during the summer. Our neighbors are a couple with two small children who plan to live here year around in their fifth wheeler while he completes his Coast Guard service and she teaches 7^th grade.

After a long and lovely coffee hour this morning watching the boats go out, we went on our self-designed totem pole tour. We started at Totem Bight State Park and ended at Saxman, a Tlinget community south of Ketchikan. The totems are astonishing in their size, complexity, and variety. I was so pleased to learn the role that the CCC had in helping to preserve the entire culture of totem carving in the 1930’s. Previously the government and religious groups had tried to suppress the construction of totems. At Saxman they have a beautiful wood shop where the craft is being taught and preserved.

In late afternoon we visited the famous Creek Street, where the stores are built on pilings along the Creek. This is said to be the area where both the salmon and the men came to spawn. Its shady reputation lasted into the 1950’s but it is very upscale and quaint now. There are 60 miles of paved highway on the island and we traversed all of it several times.

Boarding the Ferry

Family camping in the Solarium

New Eddystone Rock: A basalt column that is the core of an ancient volcano

Going into Misty Fjords National Monument

 

View from our back window at Clover Pass

We have an early day tomorrow as we have to catch the ferry to Juneau. Since it is an overnight passage we will have a cabin. Once in Juneau we will be camping at Mendenhall Glacier. Can’t wait to see it!

He Who Laughs Last

June 3, 2016

Be careful who you laugh at.

 In our tenting days we laughed at folks who needed a campsite with water and electricity. Then I got a long extension cord so I could plug in the coffee pot first thing in the morning.

In our VW bus days we laughed at folks who needed heat to camp. Then we bought a Lil’ Buddy propane heater, a fan, and a double plug for the long extension cord.

In the truck camper we laughed at folks who had flush toilets and running water in their rigs. Then we bought a Class B with its own tiny bathroom.

In the Class B we laughed at folks who needed slide-outs, a permanent bed, and didn’t have to learn the “Class B Shuffle”. Then we bought a Travel Trailer. 

We have stopped laughing.  For the last few days we have sat in our comfy TT and watched the very cold rain pouring down.

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We did get a great hike in on Wednesday afternoon, on the Butz Rapids/Reversing Falls Trail. The rainforest terrain is always so special. There are huge Sitka firs on this trail that are monumental both standing up and lying down. When they fall they become covered with fungus, lichen, and flowers and the shapes are both eerie and elegant. The trails crosses a number of small streams and a peat meadow before climbing up to overlook the Skeena River at the rapids. 

Yesterday, to get out of the rain, we went to the Northern BC Natural History Museum. They have priceless exhibits from the pre colonization era of this area. The textiles and carved masks were so amazing. These people had to not only have incredible talent, but also the leisure to make these exquisite objects. 

It did not rain today and we took the opportunity to go out to Diana Lake, a nearby provincial park, and to the museum at the Old Cannery at Fort Edward. As usual we enjoyed the drives to the attractions as much as the places themselves. Diana Lake had the finest supply of driftwood I have seen in a long time but Butch wouldn’t let me get any. At the Cannery we had lunch, marvelous sea food chowder, in what had been the Mess Hall. There was some good looking sea glass under the piers but alas, too far down for an old person to climb.

Diana Lake with great driftwood

Housing at the Old Cannery

 

The Karmode: Great name for a boat

 

Tonight we had dinner at Cow Café in Cow Town. Despite the name, it is an excellent restaurant and we had a great meal. Tomorrow we are off to the Ferry Terminal to board the MV Mantanuska for our trip to Ketchikan. It has taken us a month to get to Alaska.