Aug 18th, 19th & 20th

Sat. Aug 18th we visited the Yukon Transportation Museum in Whitehorse. It has a lot of history on the Alaskan Highway, early airplane transportation, sternwheelers, dog sledding and old vehicles. There were two neat films; one on the Yukon Quest Dog Sled race and a second regarding travel on the Yukon River.

The Yukon River is really amazing. It starts just over the mountains from Juneau in British Columbia and travels North into the Yukon up past Dawson City and farther North in Alaska by Eagle (farther North than Chicken where we were) clear up to Arctic Circle and across Alaska North of Fairbanks and then Southwest to the Bering Sea across the Norton Sound South of Nome. You think about all the Mountains in the Yukon and Alaska and how could this river find a downhill run for all that ways?

The piece of machinery Dale liked the most at the museum was a giant transport the Army used to cross/explore the northland in the 50’s. It was used in Greenland and then North of Fairbanks. Only designed for 3 people, it had a large diesel engine that ran a generator which produced electricity. Each wheel was driven by it’s own electric motor. The tires are bigger (taller and wider) than those on a big dirt mover, so it can move across the soft tundra or deep snow (it looked so heavy I doubt it did real well in deep snow unless it was really frozen). It had four cargo trailers (each with all 4 wheels powered by electricity) in addition to the drive vehicle with living area, engine, fuel and generator. It had a lift so it could change its own tires, as well as do other repairs and loading and unloading.

After the museum we traveled on down the Alaskan Highway to the Stewart/Cassiar Highway (37) where we turned south to go down through British Columbia. We camped at a pullout near a small quite lake. Dale saw a few ducks on the lake and a muskrat swimming in it, but that was all the wild life we saw all day.

Sun. Aug 19th. We drove the Stewart/Cassiar Highway down to Stewart. We did not go very far on this highway until you could really tell a difference in the trees. They were bigger around, taller and denser. By the time we got to Stewart there were many large trees. We saw one large tree (probably 50 to 60” across and a couple of hundred feet high (my guess at dimensions) that they said was 250 years old. While they were a lot nicer to look at than the Alaskan and Yukon trees, they hide the mountains. You only get glimpses of the mountains unless you’re in a steep canyon or on the edge of the mountain. We did see a couple of young mountain goats (or mountain sheep, as we cannot tell the difference) along the road.

We stopped at a store selling jade. They had all shapes of jade sitting around out front and were sawing them into various sized pieces. In that form it looked like a pale old rock and did not appear very pretty until they put water on it. Then it turned green like you think of jade. It turns out two local mines produce 90% of the Jade in the world. It sounded like they are small operators, as they said one mine was run by 4 people and is family owned. The jade is generally found as a boulder in their open pit mine that they cut or break up. They do not give tours of the mine, so all we got to do was hear about it and see some the jade they produce.

Where the road to Stewart splits off the main road going south it goes over a pass then basically follows a canyon down to the Portland Canal, which is a 90 mile long saltwater fjord from the Pacific Ocean. This canal is the boundary between Canada and Alaska. At the end you can cross over the river into Alaska to the one town there, Hyder. Hyder has only one other road that goes 20 some miles back into the mountains to a glacier and mines, which are back in Canada. The drive into Hyder/Stewart was really pretty, as there was snow and some glaciers across the canyon on mountains on the other side. In one spot the glacier is to the river and breaking off in the river. Unfortunately, there is not a good spot to stop and look at it, as there is no pull off and warning signs about potential avalanche (sign says potential all year, so must have been snow high up on our side we could not see), and rock slides. A very pretty drive with many little water falls going down the side of the cliffs.

We stayed Sunday night in a campground in Hyder. Dale took a walk through town out to the dock. This town is undergoing a major reconditioning. They are making improvements so the Alaskan State Ferry will stop here starting in 2014. To do that they must pave the main street, rebuild the road and trestle to the dock, rebuild the dock and make a spot for the ferry and terminal and get US Customs set up. Currently you can cross into Hyder AK without going through US Customs. To get back into Stewart, Canada you do have to go through customs. Stewart is also getting improvements to their docks, so they can do more shipping to Asia. This is Canada’s Northern most ice free port and saves a day in shipping from the Northern interior of Canada to Asia. In addition to the current minerals and logs they are opening new mines (actually reopening old mines I think) for copper, silver and gold.

Mon Aug 20th. The plan was to stop by Fish Creek in Tongass National Forest to watch the bears fish, then drive up to Salmon Glacier and continue on back towards the US. Being retired you don’t have to follow the plan. We got up late, ate breakfast and went to the bear watching area. No bears, but lots of spawning salmon in the creek. There were lots of dead salmon as well (they die after spawning). Some smell, but not near as bad as you would think given all the dead fish. There was a boardwalk about 100 yards long right by the creek and maybe 10’ above the clear water creek, so you could easily see the all fish moving around. The creek was fairly shallow so it would be real easy for the bears to get as many fish as they wanted. Every so often the fish would really stir up the water. Never could decide if they were fighting with other fish or spawning or something else. For the most part they just stayed in a little area and did not seem to be swimming on up river.

We talked to people that had seen the bears earlier in the day and the evening before including a large male grizzly and a sow with a couple of cubs. It sounded pretty neat, so we decided to stay and see if they showed up in the evening. The people also didn’t think it was wise to take the camper on up the road to the glacier. It was a gravel road and trucks were hauling gravel and rock into town, so it was busy. Since we had seen several other glaciers this trip, we took their advice and just camped in the parking lot until evening. Motor homes make that easy to do, as we had a nice lunch, a long nap, did some reading and worked on the computer (no internet here). Of course Dale also checked for bears a few times, but no bears.

About 5:00 PM we went back over to the boardwalk. We were smart enough to take some reading along and there were benches to sit on. No bears, but quite a few people. About 7:30 Dawne gave up and went back to the camper. There was a sighting of a black bear in the parking lot around then, but Dawne did not see it. About 8:15 Dale gave up and was walking back to the camper. From the parking lot he saw a Forest Ranger out in the road talking on her radio. She was radioing in a bear was crossing the road going towards the creek. Upon returning to the boardwalk he saw a mother grizzly and a cub going down stream. They did not really seem to be eating much, just kind of moving though. He got some pictures, but they were soon out of range. While not quite what we were expecting, it was still very interesting. Maybe we’ll get up earlier enough tomorrow to see more, as we camped in Hyder again.