After spending the night in Haines Junction, we left on the morning of August 10 for Haines only 149 miles away. There were high clouds that soon turned into overcast sky as we climbed into the mountains. We drove through a 20 kilometer section of gravel, where the road was undergoing improvement. Our otherwise white truck and rig changed to a gravel grey. A popular color up here.
We stopped in the Tlingit village of Klukshu. No one was home. I suspect they were away at fish camp, a common Tlingit activity at this time of the year. When it's time to fish, the whole family goes to fish camp.
As we climbed through the mountains we passed several large lakes. Many had Trumpeter Swans.
Toward mid-day we pulled into the Haines Hitch-up RV Park, at the edge of Haines.
Bearing in mind that Haines' population is less than 2,000, we could walk from the RV park west of town to the harbor east of Haines in less than fifteen minutes. Not a large town. Haines Hitch-up RV Park was a great choice. Well laid out, all the sites are on grass and the park offers full hook ups. Plus the only car/truck wash in Haines is just across the street, much needed after the drive down from Haines Junction.
This area was originally populated by Tlingit natives from Sitka. According to their oral history, it seems a member of the Tlingit clan in Sitka had an inappropriate relationship with a wife of one of the clan elders. As punishment he was banished from the settlement. Together with four nephews, he traveled up the coast and eventually found himself near what is today Haines. They built a settlement along the Chilkat River, which provided them a source of abundant food with a variety of fish and meat and lots of berries from plants found in the area..
Descendents of the original Tlingit natives who moved to this area so many years ago continue to live along the banks of Chilkat in Klukwan and other villages. One beautiful sunny afternoon we visited the Tlingits at Klukwan. Over the years the government has prohibited the celebration of native culture in Alaska. However, in the 1970's the government reversed their policy and now encourages native culture. The University of Alaska offers courses in carving and other skills used by the Tlingits, and their language is taught in local schools. It is a difficult language with many nuanced tones in the throat combined with what sounds like clicks of the back of the tongue. We had great difficulty trying to pronounce their words to the amusement of our Tlingit friends.
During our visit to Klukwan we had an opportunity to speak to carvers and visit a long house, the traditional dwelling of the Tlingits. This multilevel structure housed up to 100 family members. When a family or clan reached 100, they built another long house.
Like other native art Tlingit art identifies the clan and tells a story.
Klukwan is in the middle of the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, where the Bald Eagle festival is held in November. We were told that between 3,000 and 5,000 Eagles are attracted to Sockeye Salmon found there in the winter. Seeing that many Eagles must really be a sight. We'll add it to our "bucket list".
Eleven miles outside Haines up the Lutak Inlet is Chilkoot Lake. Just before the mouth of the lake is a weir used by Fish and Game to track fish movement. The fish moving up the river to the lake at this time of the year attract both fisher folks and bears. We spent quite a bit of time near the weir photographing the bears. Here is the set up. The road runs along the left side of the inlet. There is a heavily forested hill to the left and the narrow inlet, now really a river, to our right. The bears come down from the forest on the left, cross the road and fish along the river. Sometimes. There is one area set aside where folks are not allowed to park their vehicles or stand. That is the area where the bears cross the road. Sometimes.
Even the cubs know how to read.
Other times, they simply wander down the road from the lake.
Those bears who didn't read the memo come down from the forest where ever they please and cross the road.
Or just hang out on the road.
One afternoon I was setting my camera up on a tripod about 150 yards from the area the bears normally use to cross the road. I looked over my shoulder and there was a Grizzly sow and two cubs maybe ten yards away. She clearly didn't get the memo! "Good afternoon Mum" I said in a voice a little higher pitched than usual. "Nice afternoon for a stroll and a little fishing, eh." You never know. She just might have come across the border from Canada just over the hill. I thought I would throw in a little "Canadian lingo" just in case. They said you should address bears close by in a normal voice. Might as well be friendly. I don't know about the normal voice, however. But she wasn't interested in idle chit chat with some dude who obviously was from Outside, or the Lower 48 as some Alaskans call the rest of the U.S. Off she went to the river. My voice came back down to normal.
You can always tell the dudes from the lower 48 because they are so heavily dressed. I mean, the temperature is a nice warm 50 degrees. "Why do you need a sweater," I was asked. "Much nicer than that 70 degree heat wave we had the other day", they said.
We had a great time along the river watching both the fisher folks and the bears. They seemed to co-exist rather well. Here is a stylish fisher lady taking a photo from the middle of the river. Where the bears are fishing. Not the left pant leg. I think this is a secret Canadian (she was from the Yukon) technique for attracting Salmon.
This fisherman has a different technique. He drops his hook in the water and takes a snooze. Judging from the Salmon next to him on the rock, it seems to work.
There were two Grizzly sows, one with two cubs and the other with three. Here are the three cubs.
There was also an old Grizzly boar with white tipped hair. I could identify with him.
So, what's the deal about brown bears and grizzly bears. What are they anyway, Brown or Black or Grizzly? There are three types of bears in North America. Up north is the Polar Bear. In Alaska and parts of Canada there are Grizzly Bears and Black Bears. There are a few Grizzlys in the northern part of the Lower 48, and lots of Black Bears. The Black Bears are not always black but are smaller than a Grizzly. A Grizzly Bear is a sub-species of the Brown Bear. So you can call them Grizzly or Brown. After the Polar Bear, the Grizzly is North America's second largest land carnivore. Inland, where Brown Bears have less access to food, they may way as little as 300 pounds. In coastal areas where the largest population is found, they may weigh as much as 1,200 pounds. In the Katmai National Park rich in nutrients for bears, their weight can exceed 1,500 pounds. Wow. That's a lot of bear!
When standing on their hind legs, males can reach almost eight feet. And they can run up to 34 miles per hour. Hence the important safety tip. If you are near bears, always make sure you can run faster than the person next to you because you will never outrun a bear.
This cub is practicing standing on his hind legs. Or peaking over the bushes at the Canadian fisher lady. Not sure which.
This pair of cubs love to wrestle. What a hoot.
Their colors of Brown Bears range from white to almost black, and many shades in between.
The characteristic hump between the shoulder blades of a Grizzly is a muscle mass used to power the fore limbs for digging.
Their forepaws have very long claws, "all the better to scratch your back, my dear."
Both Black and Grizzly Bears are often found along the river, fishing for Salmon, Trout and Bass. Particularly when the Salmon are running, as is currently the case near Haines. This Salmon seems to be leaping for joy. I wonder if it is celebrating escaping from the bears.
We were pleased to learn Grizzlies generally avoid confrontation with humans, although a sow with cubs can become very aggressive if she feels her cubs are threatened. On one or two occasions the sow we were photographing warned us if we got too close to her cubs. Bears have very poor eye sight but the sense of smell is excellent. In this photo she seems to be checking out who is nearby, friend or foe...
For more photos of Grizzly Bears and their cubs, click on Grizzly Bears
One afternoon a Bald Eagle flew into a tree near the lake. We had golden light which only comes early morning or late afternoon. Photographing eagles in strong light is a challenge because of the contrast between dark brown feathers on the eagle's body and white head feathers. This soft light provided perfect illumination of the eagle's head. I spent more than half an hour taking portrait shots. This eagle was quite a poser. I was hoping the eagle would take flight so I could get a photograph with her wings extended, but she had more patience I.
On the 16th we took a boat over to Juneau, a couple of hours from Haines. We lucked out. Although it had been raining for several days, the sun came out of the 16th and stayed out all day.
The early morning view of Haineswas gorgeous.
On the way down to Juneau we saw several Humpback Whales.
We saw several Humpbacks diving, displaying their tail on the way down.
We also passed a variety of birds, including many Bald Eagles, a variety of Gulls and Oyster Catchers with their long red bills. However, because the largest lens I bought on this outing was a 70-200mm, I didn't have enough reach to get a good photo.
This Sea Otter was perched on a rock.. This is the first time we had seen a Sea Otter out of the water.
As we came close to this buoy, we saw that it was loaded with Sea Lions, two of whom were bickering.
Juneau, with a population of 34,000, is the capital city of Alaska. In the summer it is also a very active port for Cruise ships. On the day we were in Juneau there were five ships in port.
We had lunch at the Twisted Fish Restaurant on the wharf, and watched this ship dock just a few feet away.
If you get to Juneau, the Twisted Fish is a fine place to eat. We had salmon and crab wrapped in a puff pastry. Outstanding.
In the afternoon we drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, just outside Juneau.
As we left Juneau we passed the M/Y Blue Moon, which recently sold for $39.5 million, and the Timoneer. The sailing yacht Timoneer was briefly docked in Valdez while we were there. We googled both boats on the web. Not a shabby way to travel, for sure.
During our run back up to Haines in the late afternoon we experienced one of the highlights of our trip. A pod of Orca Whales, AKA Killer Whales, was swimming a couple of hundred yards off our starboard side.
After about twelve minutes they started to close on our boat, and then passed to our port side immediately behind the boat, maybe ten or fifteen yards off our stern.
It only took a few seconds for them to pass by, but what excitement for those few seconds.
The sun low in the sky and to our right made for interesting effects with the spray.
In the fourteen minutes we were watching them I took over 350 photos. The Whales were quite a distance away for most of the photos but as they passed behind us we took several photos that are interesting. This was one moment I was pleased that I had the 70-200 lens. The 500mm lens which I used on other boat trips would have been way too much lens given the close proximity of the Orcas.
For more Orca photos, click on Whales
After visiting Haines, we had planned to drive back up to Whitehorse and Watson Lake, and take the Cassiar Highway south. This would have taken us near Hyder, where we hoped to photograph bears fishing in a nearby stream. However, there has been a large wild fire along the Cassiar. The last time we checked it was over 50,000 acres and the road was closed. Our options were to drive back down the Alaska Highway via Whitehorse or take a ferry along the inland passage. To put this in perspective, the remaining distance between Haines and Nevada City was equivalent to the distance between Nevada City and New York, two thirds of it on two lane highways. We opted for the ferry. We'll leave this evening on the M/V Columbia, arriving Friday morning in Bellingham. As a postscript, an Alaska Park Ranger told me the other evening the bears were not fishing near Hyder this year. No one seems to know why. Our decision to take the ferry now sounds even better to us. Let someone else drive for awhile.
As usual, it is raining today in Haines. We've had a lot of rain this summer. Alaskans tell us there has been more rain this year than in recent memory. A nice aspect about rain is when you do have a sunny day it's WONDERFUL! Plus rainy days have given us time in the rig to process photos and write our blog. And sleep in. All welcome on a long trip like this. We really haven't minded the rain at all.
We'll no doubt upload another post or two before we get home. I'll take this opportunity to say that although we are looking forward to getting back to our family, friends and community, we have more than a little feeling of sadness as we leave Alaska. The beauty of the landscape, the excitement of seeing and photographing such a wide variety of wildlife and the friendly and interesting people of Alaska have made this an outstanding trip. I hope this blog has helped you to enjoy the trip along with us, and perhaps creat a heightened level of interest to come up this way. It is a great place to spend a summer.
As one of the interesting people of Alaska, a resident of more than 30 years, I must tell you a 50,000 acre fire is not very big. In 2004, the years Alaska burned over 6 million acres, the fires near my cabin was just over a million Acres, and that was only one little part of Alaska. Canada was burning too. A very smokey summer. Glad you liked your trip. Winter is pretty too.
I am a friend of Bobbie's
Posted by: Chris K | Feb 08, 2011 at 08:25 AM
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comments. Indeed you do have very large fires in Alaska. The difference in population density between Alaska and California is the problem here. Most fires threaten communities, so we don't have the choice of letting them burn, which ecologically often makes more sense. Although the fire along the Cassiar was small by your standards, it did shut the highway down for several weeks. Hence we decided to return on the ferry.
We greatly enjoyed our visit to your state. What a wonderful place to explore and live.
Fred
Posted by: Fred | Feb 08, 2011 at 08:43 AM