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Alcan Highway: The Yukon – Mile 1135 – July 6, 2007.

On the 4th of July we took a hike though the Chilkat rainforest near Haines, Alaska.

 
The trail comes out on a rocky beach overlooking a glacier across a bay. It’s quiet. All you can hear is a waterfall under the glacier about ten miles away. I try my luck fishing with the usual result.


Later, we encounter a huge grizzly bear. She has her new cub with her. She is eating yellow flowers and pretty much ignoring us except for an occasional glance. You can tell a grizzly by the size and by the hump on the back. Black bears and brown bears are smaller.


In the evening we go up to Chilkoot State park to watch the “Mad Raft Race” on the Chilkoot River. There are four rafts in the race, all home-made. In last place are two little girls on a raft built of milk jugs. Their raft disintegrates as they pass, but they float on in the swift, cold water to finish. A fisherman stands in the current and brings in a salmon. So far this season, only about 10,000 “reds” have crossed the weir. The big run should start soon.


We drove north from Haines on the 5th and reentered British Columbia, then the Yukon. Northern Alaska is about 60 miles from where we camped last night. As we drive we pass a bald eagle preserve area where about 3,500 eagles gather to feast on salmon later in the summer. The campground is full of abandoned WWII highway construction equipment.

The bears here in the empty Yukon put on fat for the winter in September when the “chum” or “dog” salmon come to spawn. Chum salmon are considered the least desirable of the five species of Alaska salmon by humans.

They say to wear little bells and carry pepper spray when you hike in the woods because of bears. We see lots of bear droppings on the hike. You can tell black bear droppings by the berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear droppings are full of little bells and smell like pepper spray.


Here are some bear and forest pictures.

She Laughed at My Mighty Trout

Haines, Alaska – July 2, 2007

We hiked up a mountain trail near Skagway to Little Dewey Lake with a backpack full of fishing gear, sandwiches, water and books. Eventually we found a spot clear enough to cast a silver spoon. I caught two energetic rainbows. Mrs. Phred giggled and called them babies, so I sent them back.


The sandwiches were good. I packed a tomato to add at the last minute. We hiked a three mile loop around the lake. On the East side the trail seems to disappear and you climb over fallen boulders and tree trunks for about a mile. The trail guide does mention that the trail is full of rocks and roots on the East side.. Mrs. Phred asks if I’m sure this is the trail. I remind her that I’m a trained navigator and keep the lake in sight on my left. Eventually we emerge from the woods.

The Alaska ferry will take us to Haines this afternoon. Haines is a small commercial fishing village on the Lynn Fjord. There are a couple of state parks on the nearly uninhabited peninsula south of Haines. It’s about 600 miles to Valdez from Haines, the road runs along the largest collection of mountains and glaciers in the Western Hemisphere.


The Copper River is on the way to Valdez. The Sockeye Salmon enter the river at the rate of 15,000 a day from now until July 15th and then the summer sockeye run drops off there. On the Kenai Peninsula, the sockeyes start running up the Kenai River about July 15 and rush though at the rate of 35,000 a day until July 23. Eventually they end up in the Russian River upstream from about August 1st to August 13th. The concensus is that Sockeye taste the best of the five types of Salmon. They average about ten pounds each.

We wait three hours for the Ferry to offload and onload from Skagway. The Toyota goes on two hours before the RV. I hear a shouted "Bob!" from 500 yards away over the boat and truck engine noises and see a small figure in pink waving from the top deck of the ferry...Mrs. Phred has an impressive set of lungs...Sometimes I hallucinate that "Bob!" hail, but this one was real.

We meet George and Alice. He is a retired auto shop teacher, Boston Irish, and have dinner with them on the Ferry. Two fishermen are casting spoons into the harbor while waiting to board. I join them, make ten casts and quit. They both keep fishing and each brings in a 30 pound salmon, although the run is not here yet. Later I learn that Skagway is enjoying a run of "kings" released from a hatchery with no place to spawn.



There are about 20 antique cars loading up, a D-8 caterpillar tractor, four dump trucks, eight motorcycles and about 30 RVs. What takes so long is that everything that goes aboard has to back out. It's an experience. Some of the things backing out are 40 foot trailers pulled by pickup trucks. It's all done by watching a deckhand in front of you point left and right. The space is too small for extended mirrors. The ferry will arrive in Bellingham, Washington next Friday. It's a big ferry, with three decks of staterooms and a very nice bar playing Bob Dylan music.

Haines has a fish market. We buy some sockeye and look at the state parks in the area. The old Fort Seward in Haines is an artist colony now. It was established in 1902 to keep Canada from reclaiming this part of Alaska on the cheap.

Here are some pictures of the Haines area.