Tag: Yukon Territory

Valdez, back to Destruction Bay, and on to Skagway

We didn’t have good data service in Valdez so I didn’t post anything there. Therefore a lot to catch up on!

Oh, and it rained again. Pretty much continuously. Have I mentioned that I am so, so tired of rain? We had a big glacier and wildlife tour booked with Stan Steven’s company, and it pretty much rained the entire time. There were a few limited periods of just fog/haze, but it mostly rained. We also went on a day when a major gale was headed our way, so the captain had to get a bit creative with our routing. We did get to see some lovely things though.

Turns out sea lions will perch just about anywhere
The fjords were lovely even in the fog
In the lee of a bigger island, this one had clear glass for a reflection
Mendenhall glacier was spectacular
This guy must not have wanted his whiskers or tail to get cold
The glacier is still growing as evidenced by the trees being swallowed on the left

Yes, it is hard to see some of the things through the fog. It was harder to get pictures of other things we saw – sea otters in small and large groups, puffins all over the place, and we even saw a small group of orcas. There were three of them, but Kevin only got this one picture by accident. They were a long way away and pretty fast.

Even the spout!

Notice I said “Kevin got only this one picture.” Turns out my camera really has given up the ghost! Too many times it fell off the cabinet I guess. The majority of my pictures from now on will be from my phone or Kevin’s camera. I can’t find the camera I want anywhere in Alaska outside of Fairbanks, and I am definitely not driving back that far! I will order one when we get home. The trip really was enjoyable, but it would have been much better in nicer weather.

We had a free day in Valdez, and we used it doing some sightseeing. We drove up Thompson Pass, the snowiest in Alaska. It was too foggy for good pictures. We stopped by this historic site in the canyon below Thompson Pass. In 1906 multiple railroad companies were fighting for railroad rights from Valdez to the massive Kennicott mine.one group dug this partially completed tunnel, but the effort was abandoned when a gunfight broke out between the groups. Interesting story about very wild times.

Hand dug railway tunnel

We also spent a few hours at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery in Valdez, hoping to see bears catching salmon as they came through the fish ladder there. The hatchery itself was interesting. There are so, so, so many fish! I had never seen a salmon run before. At the bottom of the weir that exists to funnel the fish to the fish ladder, the fish are almost a solid mass.

Just one small part of the thousands of salmon

There were other hunters besides bears pigging out on the salmon though. We saw numerous sea lions eating their fill. They would go under water, looking almost like a lot, then come up with a fish in their mouths. They tossed the fish in the air to get it positioned for their mouth, then the swallowed it.

Yum!

And another one of the videos that are annoying in this blog, but worth the click. Keep the sound on to hear the thousands of gulls too. They were feasting too.

IMG_8063

We did finally see one bear, but he wasn’t right by the hatchery. There were still lots of fish for him though until people spooked him. He is on shore in this picture, but he wandered out into the water to do some catching a bit after this was taken. Oh, and it was raining again.

Bear

After Valdez we headed back to Tok, staying in the same place as before. We then had to drive the road from HELL that is the Alaska highway between Tok and Destruction Bay. It was actually worse than our first trip through due to more frost heaves. I have never been so glad to see an uneven gravel parking lot in all my days! The views were pretty spectacular.

Do you see the BLUE SKY?

The weather had cleared up as soon as we headed away from the coast. The drive to Tok was nice, and the views of the drive to Destruction Bay were nice too, but I was concentrating too much on not shaking my motorhome apart to take pictures. The one above is from our “campground” – a gravel lot. Note the colors in the hills. Autumn has arrived in the Alaska and Canadian hill country. We did have to cross the Canadian border again, and this time it took almost an hour. That’s what we get for crossing on a Saturday! A nice border agent, just a lot of vehicles.

I will leave the description of the drive we took today to arrive in Skagway, AK along with those adventures for another post after we have completed some of our planned activities here. I will say that it only sprinkled on us some this first night in Skagway!

From Dawson Creek to Ft. Nelson to Liard River to Watson Lake

I finally have decent cell service so I can post. It has been quite a while. I finished the last post with us in Dawson Creek at the Northern Lights RV Park. One thing I didn’t do was post the mandatory photo of us at the Mile 0 sign. This isn’t the tourist version which is much more grand and located a few feet away. The folks who took our picture thereput it on a photo sharing site and I haven’t had enough service to download it! This will have to do.

Done!

After we left Dawson Creek, our wagon master started warning us of seriously deteriorating road conditions. Let’s just say that he has a much different view of bad roads than we do! A few frost heaves, some pot holes, but I have been on much worse roads. We ended up in Ft. Nelson at the Triple G Hideaway. We just spent the night there after a fairly long trip, and it was nicely unremarkable. The road to Ft. Nelson was the most productive for animals of our trip so far though!

I like this because of the water drops, not because it was the best picture I took of her
Black bear
Thought it was a grizzly, but a naturalist friend this is another black bear

We found two small nursery herds of woods bison. It is a subspecies of American bison – larger and native to the high forests instead of the plains.

The babies were already losing their red coloring
Part of a herd we passed while they were grazing

One of the not so pretty parts of the drive was the man camps we still came to. These were used for the petroleum and mining industries. Interesting.

There have been lots of these throughout Alberta and BC

The next morning we headed to Liard River and the hot spring there. The scenery was the most spectacular we had seen, full of rocky crags and big rivers.

We went through the Stone Mountain area, hoping to see some Stone sheep, a subspecies of dall sheep, but we didn’t see any. We did see even more gorgeous scenery though.

I wonder why they call it Stone Mountain?
And more rivers

I saw the most spectacular debris field of stones too, either an avalanche path or an alluvial fan.

Well over a mile long with rocks the size of baseballs
The fan ran into this water

Liard Hot Springs was sadly a wash out. The mosquitos were thick enough to carry off small children, and we stayed happily back in the motorhome, looking at the hundreds of mosquitos trying to get in. They drove the cats crazy trying to chase them. The campground was a private one right across the road from the hot springs, and they had a boil order for their water! Glad we always keep at least a 1/2 tank, just in case.

After Liard we headed to Watson Lake and the Northern Lake RV Park. It was right across the road from the famous signpost forest. There are thousands and thousands of signs.

Quite impressive!

We also attended a decent planetarium like show at the Northern Lights Center. There was an old film (2020) about how the Big Bang created the universe plus descriptions of various components of the universe. Dated, but decent. Then there was a much better show about the Northern Lights. I have seen the northern lights as both general green color in the sky (in Iowa, far south of most of the shows) and as green moving blobs outside Ely in northern Minnesota. I hope to see the ribbon style before we head home, but between my early to bed style and the daylight that lasts forever, it isn’t a sure thing at all.

Today we drove to Whitehorse, YT. The roads are gradually getting slightly worse, but still not too bad. I generally drove about 80-90 mph, or 50-55 mph (the speed limit was 100 mph or 62 mph). It was slow enough I could react to the occasional bad spot in the road and do sightseeing without spending forever. I admit, I do have a bit of a lead foot! We saw some lovely places.

Bridge crossing the river.
And yet more fireweed because I love fireweed!

We just relaxed when we got to Pioneer RV Park. Very crowded sites and poor electrical infrastructure. We can’t open one of our four slides due to a small tree, and the power fluctuates enough to make operating AC and any other power hungry appliance problematic. Luckily we are quite capable of dry camping without much trouble. The people with the big all-electric coaches can’t even operate their stove without electricity. Thank goodness for propane!

I thought I would post a picture of how Minnie travels, just for grins. Luna generally sleeps on Kevin’s lap.

Sleeping, so don’t bother me!

We had dinner at Klondike Ribs and Salmon. Fabulous! I had salmon, and Kevin had the ribs. I will post what we do during our stay here later.