STEWART, BC
August 9, 2011

It's a free day so we slept in, watched movies and went downtown for brunch.  Surprisingly this little town has some good restaurants.  Excellent salmon dinner at Bitter Creek Cafe.  As a bonus were were able to hook into the hote'ls wifi. with good connection, while we were there. 

We took a leisurely walk on the boardwalk in the estuary near the tidal marsh looking for flowers and birds.

Hyder, AK is where the Tongass National forest is located. The park has a bear viewing platform for the safety of park visitors and the bears. We were told not to take any flash photos if we sighted bears. One of the Rangers told us that the road, now 20 mph, will be blacktopped next year.   I'm sure that will change the face of Hyder, AK forever.

More bear viewing at 7:00 p.m. for 1 1/2 hrs - saw 200-300 black ear walk up stream , grab a salmon walk under a bridge and keep going out of sight.

Some visitors spend hours here waiting for a bear to show up.  Others plan vacations around the bear viewing.  An hour or so later we watched a 700-800 # grizzly walk on the path alongside the viewing platform and cross into the water.  He ran gleefully through the water trying to catch a salmon.  The odds are that a bear is successful only 1 in every 10 attempts to catch a salmon.  funny how the salmon swam in the opposite direction when the bear got close to them.  The salmon even go after the sea gulls if they land close to their spawning place.

I love Bears!

We didn't make it to Salmon Glacier.  Those who did said you could drive alongside the glacier ice for several miles.  And rather than seeing it fro below you had an opportunity to see it from above.  (We had already seen glaciers from above when we took that flight to Mt. McKinley).






When your return from Hyder, you must stop at the Canadian customs stop, every time you cross into Hyder. Be sure to carry your passport!

The picture is at the border between the U.S. and Canada.

STEWART, BRITISH COLUMBIA
August 8, 2011

Another 5 1/2 hours on the road today.  Over 244 miles on the Cassiar Highway.  Although it is a narrow, winding road, it was new scenery. And then a speeding oncoming semi with a flatbed trailer following another speeding truck was part way into our lane and almost took our left mirror off.  I thought for sure our back end would be going into the ditch.  Luckily not.  A sign told us to watch for livestock on the roads and sure enough, minutes later, we saw 2 or 3 horses grazing alongside the road.
Then a copper colored bear with black paws and black hair around its neck, like a collar, eating on the side of the road  quickly scampered into the woods.  He was quite handsome, likely only a year or two old.   Then we spotted a wolf, no a dog, wait...it had a red collar on.  Was it someones dog or was it a collared wolf?

Another bear! And feverishly eating flowers just off the blacktop.  How special is this?  I wished we could have watched it for a few minutes.  Sorry about the dirty window. However, we did stop to snap a picture of Bear Glacier, just before we arrived in Stewart.  Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK are known for incredible scenery, grizzly bears, eagles, glaciers and mountain peaks.

Spawning salmon were splashing like crazy in Fish Creek just a few miles from our campground. We had to drive through Hyder, AK and down one of the dustiest roads I have been on to get to the Tongass National Forest.  The U.S Forest Service has placed a viewing boardwalk for visitors to watch salmon and feeding bear. Just as we were leaving, a bear stood up stream looking at all of us tourists standing on the boardwalk taking pictures.  Another bear came up playfully and jumped on the first bear and both tumbled back into the woods. It was most likely a mother grizzly wanting to teach her young cub to fish. 

As we walked to our car on a second boardwalk LeRoy spotted a black colored bear across the creek.  It walked across the shallow creek, went under the boardwalk (we never heard a sound) we were on and crossed the street (within 10 feet of us) to the woods.  It was huge!  I took a picture of the bears wet footprints on the pavement to show you.

On the return trip it was another stop at Canadian Customs.  Be sure to have your passport.

Once in Stewart, we went on a walking tour of old buildings in the city. We would eat fabulous seafood dinners tonight at the Bitter Creek Cafe. The chef is a gal who lives here and cooks mostly fresh fish dinners. She supports the wild fisheries here and encourages others to do likewise.

DEASE LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA

August 7, 2011

Another travel day from Northern Beaver Post, Yukon Territory to Dease Lake.  The road was scenic although it was narrow and winding with some blind hills. There was evidence of a fire on both sides of the road.  It must have been a big burn as hundreds of acres were scorched. Then you could see the Cassiar Mountains rise to the south.  A red fox came out of the ditch and started running in front of the passenger side. I prayed we wouldn't run it over as I lost sight of it.  LeRoy confirmed the fox made it back into the woods as he saw it in the outside mirror. The Milepost indicated there was still active gold mining in this area.

We are supposed to be in the heart of jade country.  We stopped in Jade City where we visited Cassiar Mountain Jade Store, owned by a family that has mined and designed jade for over 30 years. They claimed no one could beat these factory prices.  The jade boulders that are cut here are from the Princess Jade Mine which is located about 90 miles away.  They claim these jade deposits are of the highest quality.  The Cassiar Mountain Range supplies 92% of the jade in the world market, one of the largest jade claims in the world.  Alas, the family has sold either the rights to the property or the property to the Chinese for not only the jade but other stones as well. 

Just as stated in the Milepost, there was a marshy area to the west of the road where there was good moose pasture.  Amazingly, We spotted a moose cow feeding in the shallow water.  Then, we spotted a calf hiding in the reeds about 300 yards from her. It was as if Mama Moose looked up, saw us, and signaled that calf to get down, which it did, while she continued grazing.

We arrived at the Dease Lake RV Park. Dease Lake claims to be the Jade Capital of the World and the Northern Bear Gift Shop/Visitor Center claimed it had a huge inventory of jade and the lowest prices.  OK then.

Dease Lake has a population of about 500 but I don't know where they are.  This area had two major gold rushes, one in 1864 and one in 1873.  There was a failed attempt in 1866 to build a telegraph line to link North America with Europe.  In the 1940s it was a main supply route for the Alaska Highway and the wartime construction of airports and airstrips in Alaska and northwest Canada. Dease Lake is also famous for huge Lake Trout.

NORTHERN BEAVER POST, YT

August 6, 2011

Another travel day from Skagway, AK to North Beaver Post, Yukon Territory.  It would be a day of backtracking and another visit at Canadian Customs.  The return trip from Skagway would be uphill for 12 miles.  That downhill 11% grade a few days ago meant an 11% going up the hill. We were advised to unhook our towed vehicle so as not to overheat our coach engine.  From the bottom of the mountain to the top we lost 8 degrees in the climb. As I looked out the window driving up the mountain I realized we weren't driving in the fog, but rather we were up in the clouds.

Canadian customs asked where we were from, if we worked or were retired, if we had guns with us, if we owned guns and how many and how much cash we had. We enjoyed the rest of the ride. 

We passed through Johnson's Crossing again and stopped at the same little bakery / restaurant.  We ordered the same dry homemade meat pies.  They were filling but dry.

The rest of the ride was boring, so boring I had to take a nap, until LeRoy yelled BEAR!  He claims he saw a bear in the ditch line.   
 

We arrived at the Baby Nugget RV Park in Northern Beaver Post, Yukon Territory about 3:30 p.m.  It was a long 5 3/4 hour drive.  There was no Internet and only seven scratchy TV channels.  We had cocktails. Ate salads for dinner and then walked around the campground.  The property looked like a large sand or rock pit that was filled in.

SKAGWAY, AK

August 5, 2011

This is our last day in Skagway and it is a free day.  We had lunch at the Red Onion, formerly a famous brothel in Skagway.    For $5 for 15 minutes you could take a tour of the upstairs brothel.  There were a dozen 10'x 10' feet rooms, one for each gal.  Back in the day there was a hole in each floor with a copper pipe that carried their money directly to the till downstairs. Downstairs there was a doll for each gal and when they had a customer, the bar tender laid it on its back.  When the money
came downstairs, the bartender set the doll up to indicate she was ready for her next customer. 

We went shopping downtown. The gals from the Days of 98 Show were hollering out the second floor windows of the building where we saw the play a couple of nights before.  They were hollering and taunting visitors below on the boardwalk to come and see their show.  I yipped back at them and they recognized us as part of the Adventure Caravan group that was at their show a couple of nights ago.
 

 
We attended the briefing where we were told not to hook up our towed vehicle until we reach the top of the hill.  We have a long drive tomorrow as we must climb up and over that mountain on the only highway into the city.

Later we skipped out on a pot luck as it was windy and cold.  It must have broken up early as it was raining when we returned and no one could be found. 

We stopped at the bridge to see salmon swimming upstream, tried to find a road to the cemetery we saw on the train ride, and swung by the harbor.  There was a Disney cruise ship in port.  Later when we were back at the campground we heard the ship give a blast on its horn, and then it played "when you wish upon a star",not just once, but 2 or 3 times. 

 This old timer, Rotary Snowplow No. 1, was called out of retirement in 2009 and 2011 to run again to clear the rail of snow up to 12 feet.  It was pushed by 2 helper engines.  The snow would fly out the side of the tracks.

Just a little curiosity -- a building decorated with nothing but driftwood.

SKAGWAY,  AK

August 4, 2011

We had an early morning out today.  It was a cool, rainy day and would be a long 12 hour day.  We car pooled to the dock as we were taking the Fjordland taxi to Juneau. The Captain told us the Lynn Fjord was 2,400 feet deep in some places. On the way to Juneau we detoured to Haines to pick up other passengers.  We were served a blueberry muffin and coffee.

For most of the trip it was foggy but we were lucky enough to see another pod of whales bubble net feeding.  This time it was a pod of male humpback whales. The Captain put a microphone in the water and told us about the "kill signal" and sure enough when we heard it all the whales came up with their mouths open trying to swallow as many fish as they could.  There were also Dall porpoises and lots of eagles that were easily spotted because of their white heads.  There were sea lions hanging around a buoy we we passed by.
  

Juneau is only accessible by air or sea.  We would land in a harbor on Auke Lake as the cruise lines and commercial fishing boats are all in Juneau.  At the dock, the Captain's brother brought a Gray Line bus to take us to Juneau.  It turned out the Captain and the Bus Driver were brothers.  He told us there were three areas in Juneau, The Valley, Downtown and Out the Road.  He told us about the local economy, history, the cruise lines, the state capital building, and a tour of Juneau which has a total of 90 miles of roads.  We were only given 3 hours in downtown Juneau.

We had lunch at the Twisted Fish Company and then went shopping, trying to patronize locally owned businesses.  The bus driver told us that the cruise lines own the shops closest to the docks. We even saw Sarah Palin, holding a fish, in the entrance of one store. 




At 3:00 the bus picked us up to take us to the Mendenhall Glacier which is a few miles outside of Juneau.  After watching a movie about the glacier and viewing it from the indoor observatory, we strolled out to on the boardwalk to get a closer look.  As it was raining out we stayed just long enough to have our picture taken by another caravaner. 

We heard more about Juneau on the bus trip back to the harbor. Back on the boat we were served a cup of seafood chowder and again witnessed more bubble netting by whales.  By the time we got back to the Skagway harbor we were all tired after a long day at sea.

SKAGWAY, AK

August 3, 2011

There was coffee and breakfast goodies at the Tail Gunner's site this morning, right outside our bedroom window as we slept.  Doh!

We took a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad train ride. The narrow gauge train was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush era. We were provided a unique opportunity to experience the history of the area and see mountains and gorges, waterfalls and glaciers, and trestles and tunnels from restored parlor cars.

The White Pass and Yukon Route came about due to the Gold Rush of 1898.  The White Pass provided an alternative and  aeasier route, although longer, for the stampeders who were using the shorter but steeper Chilkoot Pass.  Each prospector was required to carry a year's worth of supplies.  Prspectors used pack animals to make the many trips necessary to haul all of these supplies up the pass before beginning their 550 mile journey to the gold fields.  Both the Chilkoot Trail and White Pass Trails had hazards making the climb difficult.  If a propector went off the trail it would tae hours for him to regain a place on the trail due to the number of stampeders.  It is sad to think that 3,000 horses died on the White Pass Trail due to the inexperience of the stampeders and hazardous conditions along the trail.  We passed over the place called Dead Horse Gulch where these dead animals were left in piles creating quite a stench.

At the Eagles Club we were handed $1,000 (funny money, of course) to bet with at the tables set up for us at Monte Carlo Night before the stage show.


"The Days of 98 Show" with Soapy Smith claims to be the longest running show in the North. It is a story about Soapy Smith, the most notorious outlaw in the North. Got soap? The show had dancing girls that yipped and hollered while they can can'ed. It was how I always imagined a dance hall would have looked and sounded in the "old days" of Kitty and Marshall Matt Dillon.