Davidson Woods

July 8, 2017 - Issaquah WA
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
Five days on the ferry. Very peaceful. We sat or stood watching the sea slide by. Sometimes it was very narrow about us and above were mountains, some yet with snow. here and there a glacier. Humpback whales spouted nearby every day. Dolphins, the streaky ones that look like miniature killer whales broke the surface too, sometimes following us. We experienced a sundown, our first in a couple of months. And, a sunrise. How pleasant. The trees grew larger each day. Waterfalls streamed from vertical walls.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTFive days on the ferry. Very peaceful.  We sat or stood watching the sea slide by.  Sometimes it was very narrow about us and above were mountains, some yet with snow.  here and there a glacier.  Humpback whales spouted nearby every day.  Dolphins, the streaky ones that look like miniature killer whales broke the surface too, sometimes following us.  We experienced a sundown, our first in a couple of months.  And, a sunrise.  How pleasant.  The trees grew larger each day.  Waterfalls streamed from vertical walls.  We conversed with other passengers and the crew sharing many tales of the great state of Alaska.  The ship kept Alaska time even as we left U.S. territorial waters.  We changed our clocks when we reached Washington, except for the i-phone which foiled the last morning’s alarm by changing its time without our instruction. We made shore stops at Yakutat, a tiny mixed native and fishing community, Juneau where we walked about downtown and purchased a brew, and Ketchikan whose classic Pioneer Cafe provided a fine lunch.  We had packed most of our breakfasts and lunch and took suppers at the ship cafeteria.  The five day voyage provided a fine ending to our Alaska tour.  At 7:00 a.m. AK Time and 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time the Kennicot landed at Bellingham WA.  Laurie and I jumped into the RV and Anne into the Focus.  We found summer warmth and foliage welcoming, but the end of our long Alaska tour bittersweet.  We hooked the car to the rig and drove on to Issiquah near Seattle where we are now.  Today we tour.  Laurie returns home and to work.  We will turn east tomorrow and work our way home across the northern tier of states.  Home is calling.
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July 1, 2017 - Portage AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
I write from an RV park near the now ghost town of Portage. Typical of many Alaskan towns it coalesced about a native village near where gold was discovered. There was not much gold and then given that there was not much other reason for it to exist, it disappeared. And so the forest returns.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTI write from an RV park near the now ghost town of Portage.  Typical of many Alaskan towns it coalesced about a native village near where gold was discovered.  There was not much gold and then given that there was not much other reason for it to exist, it disappeared.  And so the forest returns. Here on the Kenai Peninsula is lots of forest.  It is a different part of Alaska.  It is north and west of the southeast and yet supports a rain forest along the coast.  This gives away to tundra and glacier in the interior.  Salmon run up many of its creeks and bears and eagles come to eat them.  So too fishermen and tourists.  The latter also come to enjoy the fishing as well as whale and glacier watching, and just plain looking at the gorgous snow encrusted mountains rising green from the sea.  We have been touring here ourselves and have enjoyed watching the fish and the tidewater glaciers as well as the lovely forests and open slopes of the hills and mountains.  We toured here after a short visit to Barrow on the north coast.  I’m not sure I’ve seen a much uglier town, but it was certainly different.  Its airport had a terminal, unlike the one at Gambell, but the security equipment has turned it into a crowded maze scarcely able to provide boarding, let alone security.  The hotel was lovely and new because a fire in the old one ruined it.  The town is surely most lovely snow-covered, but the snow was gone at the end of June even if most of the ponds were still frozen and the sea was adorned with lines of ice islands that provided rest for the seals.  The residents went out in small boats daily to hunt them.  We had gone for the birds and found them.  There are a few birds that nest only at the northern boundary of the United States.  So we rumbled along gravel roads through the arctic tundra of grass, sedge, and dwarf shrubbery to find them.  We saw the sun make a full circle about our heads without bothering to set (or even closely approach the horizon.  Grand. Yet the land was a bit drab.  Although not especially low, it was mostly flat and marshy.  This provided many pools of water and humps pushed up by underground ice, but not much else.  I must admit I tired of it.  And in the town it seemed no one took out the garbage.  Vehicles rested in place where they ceased to run.  Wood pallets and plywood sheets were popular walkways.  Buildings seemed never to have been painted.  On our last day was the whaling and Independence Day celebration.  It was a picnic in a ring surrounded by stretched plastic.  Folks sang.  There was a skin to be used as a trampoline.  The wind died and the cold moderated for the event.  What a fine day in Barrow.  Still, it seemed a sad town to me.  I scored my Spectacled Eider and Steller’s Eider, and fabulous King Eider, but was happy to return to warmer country to the south.  Anchorage seemed welcoming.
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June 24, 2017 Trapper Creek AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
We’re finishing our last day in the Denali region. We’ve enjoyed it all. Watching glaciers pouring from the Alaska Range, a moose with calf in the parking lot, alpine tundra in bloom, the gaudy green of Alaska forest and tundra in June, and even a few mosquitoes. This afternoon we topped it off with a tour flight to the edge of the summit of Mt. Denali (Mt. McKinley, the Big One, etc.) The glaciers flowing off of the big one are very big ones.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe’re finishing our last day in the Denali region.  We’ve enjoyed it all.  Watching glaciers pouring from the Alaska Range, a moose with calf in the parking lot, alpine tundra in bloom, the gaudy green of Alaska forest and tundra in June, and even a few mosquitoes.  This afternoon we topped it off with a tour flight to the edge of the summit of Mt. Denali (Mt. McKinley, the Big One, etc.)  The glaciers flowing off of the big one are very big ones.  Our next move is to Portage at the edge of the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage.  We’re going from the interior to the coast.  There the salmon will be running and eagles, bears, and people will be fishing.  We’ll also make our brief visit to Barrow on the north coast.  There we will see sandpipers courting and northern eiders nesting.  More excitement to complete our Alaska tour.  
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Visit to Dutch Harbor AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
Saturday (June 17) afternoon in Palmer and I am taking a break during this day of chores. We arrived safely last evening at the Anchorage Airport after our five days in Dutch Harbor/Unalaska. We may now say we have visited the Aleutian Islands. Dutch Harbor is a beautiful place with rather awful weather. At the time of our arrival, however, the weather was pleasant, and the view when landing was spectacular. The plane turned in from the sea between two ranges of mountains and descended over the blue bay. Waterfalls rained off the green cliffs.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTSaturday (June 17) afternoon in Palmer and I am taking a break during this day of chores.  We arrived safely last evening at the Anchorage Airport after our five days in Dutch Harbor/Unalaska.  We may now say we have visited the Aleutian Islands.   Dutch Harbor is a beautiful place with rather awful weather.  At the time of our arrival, however, the weather was pleasant, and the view when landing was spectacular.  The plane turned in from the sea between two ranges of mountains and descended over the blue bay.  Waterfalls rained off the green cliffs.  Anne thought of Hawaii; I wondered at our survival.  Upon touchdown the pilot threw the plane into hard reverse and my weight tested the seatbelt.  I turned to the resident sitting next to me and said, “short runway?’  He nodded. Only later would we see the “airline gate” at the land end of the airport runway.  Similar to a railroad gate it is adorned with flashing lights.  When a plane approaches the lights go on and the gate goes down.  The runway does not cross the road, but apparently on one occasion the landing gear of an aircraft scrunched a tall truck and the plane made a belly flop on the runway.  The FAA did not like that.  Now there is the gate. Our Saab 200 aircraft landed without incident.  We were met by Ann Nora who joined us as we rented our rough and ready SUV with many red lights glowing on the dashboard.  Anne joined Ann Nora and I followed with our wheels from the Dutch Harbor Airport on Amaknak Island to “the bridge to the other side” that connects to Unalaska Island.  The town of Unalaska includes Amaknak Island and a corner of the much larger island of Unalaska.  Ann Nora and her partner Captain Rick (see Most Dangerous Catch - season 4) rent a fine house on the west side of Captain’s Hill above the bridge and west of old town Unalaska (or Iliuliuk).  The names there are a bit confusing.  The house has a fabulous view of the bridge, the pass, and parts of Iliuliuk Bay and Captain’s Bay and their boat harbors. The town is industrial and the industry is fishing.  They fish for cod, halibut, salmon, and, of course, king crab.  We passed a factory and another guest of Ann Nora spoke, “the smell of money.”  I chuckled.  I never associated the smell of fish with money.  But, fish make this town and is its focus.  The economy is thriving and tourism is an after thought.  Despite lovely mountains, seas, spouting whales in the harbor, and important native and WWII history, the town  scarcely draws tourists.  Why?  It is too hard to get too and has awful weather.  We called our tour captain and asked about plans.  He told us that we should change them.  Our Wednesday tour would find wind and rain.  We should go on Tuesday.  We did.  The morning weather was fabulous and the sea wrinkled in the light breeze and the surface twinkled with puffins.  We made our way to the nearby Baby Islands where water rips with the tides between the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean.  Thousands of birds swarm there to feed on plankton drawn by the strong currents.  Among them were small numbers of Whiskered Auklet, a bird that can be found only in the Aleutian Islands.  We cheered them as another life-bird.   In the afternoon our slow boat took us to the Chelan Banks in search of shearwaters and albatross.  We found only a few before the wind changed and turned the chop into high seas.  We returned to port very satisfied. During the remainder of our stay we remained on shore.  On the rainy day we visited the WWII Museum and learned the tales of the war among these islands.  There was disaster in 1942.  Dutch Harbor town was bombed.  How many people know or remember that one of our cities was bombed in WWII?  The Islands of Attu and Kiska were invaded and occupied by the Japanese.  The some fifty residents of the former, two European and the rest Aleut, were imprisoned in Japan until the end of the war.  One was killed and half died from poor treatment.  Our government forcibly evacuated the Aleut from the remaining islands and provided rather shabby accommodations for them on the mainland where more than a few of the old and very young died from the conditions.  Dutch Harbor became a fortress around the harbor.  There was hell to pay “removing" the Japanese from Attu.  They would not surrender and those not killed in combat killed themselves.  Our army found the weather as much trouble as the enemy and suffered more casualties from it than from the Japanese.  After the unpleasant capture of Attu, landings were made on Kiska to begin another hard fight, but the Japanese had vanished, making a successful evacuation of all personnel.  They would die defending islands of more importance to  the Nippon.  We also visited the Aleut Museum with fine displays of native culture, crafts, and art.  On the windy day, we rode all the roads there are including the one across the high country.  The tundra meadows were becoming green and the willows and spring wildflowers were in bloom.  There are a few dozen spruce trees on the island.  They were planted by the Russians.  They survive and grow strangely.  First they hug the ground forming a thick tuft of very wide shrub.  Then they grow tall quickly, but the thin stalk is killed by the cold wind.  Then another shaft pushes upward to fail.  Only in a valley near town do any trees reach some twenty feet in height.  Eagles perch in them.  Of course eagles perch everywhere.  They are the house sparrows of Dutch Harbor.   On this day the humpback whales came to town.  We had seen a few dozen near the bay entrance coming back from our tour of the Baby Islands.  It is usually fun to see whales (but the fishermen told us of some very unpleasant experiences with the leviathan) and their arrival some fifty meters off the shore made even hardened Dutch Harbor folk pull their jeeps over to watch.  The whales added to the daily sea otter show.  We watched one herd of at least one hundred of these animals lounging about in a cove among the sea cliffs.  Other animals of interest on the island were Arctic Fox and Arctic Ground Squirrel.  The last is affectionately called “low bush grizzly” by our bird guide.  Agressive little critters. We found Ann Nora well, but her partner Rick was out of town.  Such is the life of a fisherman.  Still, we met several of her friends and toured the community health center that is the only serious provider of medical services on the island.  Telemedicine and air transport are critical there.  Ann Nora said that pregnant residents are prescribed a trip to the mainland at 34 weeks.  That would be a bit of a bummer, but provides safety. So, we enjoyed a wonderful visit to Unalaska.
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June 11, 2017 Palmer AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
We’re back for a day after jumps to Gambell and Nome. Jumps through space and climate. We met our tour group in an airport hotel at Anchorage. After a night on a wide bed we flew to rural Nome via Alaska Airlines and then on to Gambel via Bering Air. There we walked off the plane and on into town finding views of Red-necked Stint and Lesser Sand Plover in the “airport lagoons. Along the way we began to experience the wonderful round gravel that makes up the bar that underlies the town of Gambell. It refuses to compact and is displaced underfoo
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe’re back for a day after jumps to Gambell and Nome.  Jumps through space and climate.  We met our tour group in an airport hotel at Anchorage.  After a night on a wide bed we flew to rural Nome via Alaska Airlines and then on to Gambel via Bering Air.  There we walked off the plane and on into town finding views of Red-necked Stint and Lesser Sand Plover in the “airport lagoons.  Along the way we began to experience the wonderful round gravel that makes up the bar that underlies the town of Gambell.  It refuses to compact and is displaced underfoot.  Walking along on it is like walking upon dry sand, except that sand does not hurt when it crawls into your boot.  Our luggage traveled by trailer behind an ATV to the “lodge” with a blue door and a handwritten sign, “Welcome Peeps.”  Peeps are small sandpipers sought out by the grizzled tourists who come to Gambell in June.  The ATV was driven by a person of Siberian Yupik descent.  These folk have hung around on Saint Lawrence Island for a few millennia.  A cold place without trees, they somehow survived moderately cold winters without wood and so without heat.  Seems unimaginable to someone like me who hates being cold. At Gambell we walked about much on the ball bearings gravel to the beach, the boneyards, the mountain, and south of the lake.  The beach was wonderful.  It consisted of the same “washed river gravel” as the rest of the Gambell area.  The large waves rattled the stone and threw pebbles into the air.  Above them flew the eider, auklets, murre, puffins, and loons that we sought.  Behind the birds shown the snow on high mountains across the Bering Straight.  It was hard to imagine that we looked up upon the mountains of Siberia.  Glazed with snow and ice, the Russian landscape seemed as harsh as that of northern Alaska.  We viewed it with some trepidation.  I remember being “bussed” by Cuban aircraft while in the Cayman Islands.  I doubt that more sober Russians would buss us on territory of the United States.  But one never knows.  The boneyards were more spooky, even for a realist such as myself.  Imagine a lawn excavated into a series of pits surrounded by ridges and adorned with bits of bone from seal, walrus, and whale.  Alas poor Orek, I knew him well.  The scattered vertebrae were as large as my chest. The rib bones could provide for a tepee.  The landscape appeared as the noman’s land in WWI.  We birders wondered across this space in search of small Asian birds that drifted too far west to above American soil and so fell into the pits for shelter and food.  In the evening the natives would come into our lodge to sell the bits of walrus ivory that they had excavated and carved into small art.  It was hard to resist spending twenty, forty, or fifty dollars to support a family that dried seal meat upon twig frames and collected spring herbs for nourishment.  Subsistence living is such a tough life.  The tribe uses grants to import tiny prefab housing so folks no longer have to live in earthen housing.  The state provides a gravel main road, the school, and the new health center under construction.  Otherwise these people would meet the U.N. criterion for being poor.  By our standards they are dirt poor.  The nearby mountain is a plateau that was somehow pushed up from the surrounding landscape and presents cliffs to the town area that is a gravel bed deposited by the sea.  Its slopes included rocky points and snow covered slopes.  The alcids, puffins, murres, auklets, dovekies, and guillemots nested among the rocks and kept cool on the snow fields.  There they preened, courted and mated in front of we observers.  They also made a huge cacophony.  The lake south of town was long.  It was 90% covered with ice when we arrived and 80% when we left.  I suspect it will be open water by the time July comes around.  A few miles long we tried to get a ride to the south end.  This was often provided by a tiny trailer towed by ann ATV.  Don’t tell our life insurance company.  I said a Hail Mary each time we passed high above it on the gravel roadway.  And I’m not religious.  There we found gulls and odd sandpipers and plover, many with a Russian accent.  They carried no visas. Every day it was cold and often windy.  Each day as June progressed we assumed it would become warmer.  Instead it became colder.  We wore down vests, lined jackets, scarves, and thinsulate hats.  Still we were cold and our faces became red. We stayed arm in a heated lodge and ate well because we brought our own food and cook.  In the end a Bering Air two engine prop plane came back for us.  As the copilot pulled up the steps and closed the door he said, “now I take you back to civilization.”  He lied.  he took us only to Nome which is half civilized.  A wild west town with saloons and rough justice, it seemed larger but just as rough as ten years ago when we last visited it.  Another restaurant burned this month leaving us one for supper.  We stayed int he best hotel.  Across the street was a house with a refrigerator and a dozen pallets int he front yard.  Next door was a pickup truck with two flat tires.  How classy.  We drove out the three roads into the wilderness to seek sub-arctic birds.  Yes, we found Bristle-thighed Curlew, Bluethroat, and Arctic Warbler.  We braked for moose, caribou, and the strangest Beringean mammal, Musk Ox.  We found no bear and were glad of it.  Our guide who once survived a terrifying charge of a grizzly took time to buy bear spray before our first outing.  One may not fly with the stuff. On our last day we birded from 6 a.m. until midnight looking for foreign gulls and shorebirds at the mouth of the Nome River.  The light was glowing and the air clear after a rain shower.  The sun would set in two hours and rise in four.  So strange. The next day we would return to Anchorage that seemed as far south as Dixie.  This morning we awoke in Palmer to sunshine, 51 degrees, birds singing, and a plush lawn with many dandelions blooming.  So nice.  Tomorrow we fly to Dutch harbor.  More adventures.  Wish us well.
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June 1, Palmer AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
We have returned from Valdez where we enjoyed several fine days of touring with Alex. Our arrival found the harbor town beneath a layer of clouds that shrouded the peaks that wrap all around.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe have returned from Valdez where we enjoyed several fine days of touring with Alex.  Our arrival found the harbor town beneath a layer of clouds that shrouded the peaks that wrap all around.  So, we spent the first day wandering about the small town.  Rain chased us from building to building.  We learned the history.  The Yukon gold rush turned the small settlement into a city that grew and prospered until the great earthquake of 1964.  After that the town moved to more stable ground.  Then came the pipeline and oil terminal.  That added to the economy of fishing and tourism.  Then came the spill that revealed deficiencies that have since been addressed.  Today the town remains small but strong.  On day 2 we took a boat tour to the Columbia tidewater glacier.  Very impressive in the mist even if all the ice in the water kept us far back from the wall of ice. On day 3 the sky cleared and we could see the Swiss style mountains all around covered with fresh snow.  We drove to the pass and walked up to a small mountain glacier. Then on day 4 we returned to Palmer enjoying spectacular views of the Wrangel St. Elias Mountains and Chugach Mountains along the way.  We finally enjoyed great views of Mt. Sanford and Mt. Wrangel.   The two huge valley glaciers that were hidden in the clouds presented us with their white face.  Even the grand Matanuska Glacier along the highway looked bigger and better in the sunshine. Today, we sent Alex home.  Tomorrow we join our birding tour in Anchorage and on Saturday we fly to Gambell for several days of extreme birding.  Good news are reports of several Asian birds on the island yesterday.  We hope they stay put until we arrive.  We’re packed and will put our motorhome in storage until we return.  The rig has been our home since mid-February.  It will seem strange being away.  Find Gambell and St. Lawrence Island on the map.  The town is far, far away.
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May 24, 2017 - Palmer AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
Wednesday afternoon. The wind is blowing. It is raining and it is 54 degrees in the afternoon. The wimpy residents of Alaska are grousing. Will spring never come? We, who don’t know any better feel that it is supposed to be always cold in Seward’s Icebox. So, we took a hike this morning from the Eagle River Nature Center. Struck out on bear, despite warnings of their presence, and saw only moose and a marvelous dipper bird.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWednesday afternoon.  The wind is blowing.  It is raining and it is 54 degrees in the afternoon.  The wimpy residents of Alaska are grousing.  Will spring never come?  We, who don’t know any better feel that it is supposed to be always cold in Seward’s Icebox.  So, we took a hike this morning from the Eagle River Nature Center.  Struck out on bear, despite warnings of their presence, and saw only moose and a marvelous dipper bird. We left the interior wilderness and arrived in the Mat-Su Valley on Sunday.  Descending from Sheep Mountain we saw the vegetation turn from brown to green.  Here the leaves are almost full sized at sea level.  The foliage is “greening up the mountains around our camp at Mountain View RV Park. Here we wandered up the Hatcher Pass Road yesterday to go from spring back into winter.  Showers turned to flurries as we walked up the (closed) road to the mine.  With daily showers here every day so far we wake up to find another dusting of snow on the mountains above us.  Wonderful.  Here the tree line is at about 1,500 feet, so one goes quickly from grouse to ptarmagin country.  Our son, Alex, arrives Friday evening.  We will take him out to supper in Anchorage before returning to camp.  Then we’re off to Valdez on Saturday.  Many residents say the road to Valdez remains one of the loveliest in the state.  We’ll find out. Our travels go on well.  We enjoyed settling in here after more than a week of dry camping.  This park has the best wi-fi we’ve had since California.  Allows us to catch up on chores and the news.  Also communications. Memorial Day is coming.  Let us remember and let us enjoy.  Best wishes from Alaska.
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May 19, 2017 - Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
I’m itching to get out but we’re sitting in the rig. Anne is on the phone with Elley. Outside huge flakes of snow are falling gently and ornamenting the spruce trees and our Blue car, Candy, with blotches of white. The ground is getting blotchy too. I guess the fire danger is no longer “high” as reported on the park service sign at the entrance to the Nabesna Road.

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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTI’m itching to get out but we’re sitting in the rig.  Anne is on the phone with Elley.  Outside huge flakes of snow are falling gently and ornamenting the spruce trees and our Blue car, Candy, with blotches of white.  The ground is getting blotchy too.  I guess the fire danger is no longer “high” as reported on the park service sign at the entrance to the Nabesna Road. The Nabesna Road is the access point to the northern part of the Wrangell-St. Eias National Park.  There is a campground at Mile 27.8 but the pavement ends at M.P. 16.  We had planned to stay at the first campsite at 6.1, but found it taken.  Can you believe it?  So, we had to drive another ten miles to this, the Kettle Lake Wayside.  The site is complete with a picnic table and fire pit.  The “famous” sign on the road says “Toilet 1 Mile.”  That is a long walk with a roll of paper.  The fee is $0, and we get half off as “senior citizens.” Last evening we sat reading and looking out the windows.  From our dining room window the land falls off to Kettle Lake.  It is about three-quarters covered with ice, much as was Deadman Lake when we arrived there.  Between here and there is taiga and muskeg, many skinny spruces poking up through the sphagnum and shrubbery.  The last is still brown from winter.  Behind the lake the forest  rises darkly to the base of the great Wrangell Mountains.  The peaks of the foothills at 7-9 K were playing hide and seek among the clouds.  Their brushy slopes are brown with shrubs except for streaks of snow and ice to the peaks.  Behind them we can see, from time to time, patches of the pure white slopes of the main range.  We have so far seen only the shoulders of Mt. Sanford, the western-most high peak at 16,237.  A high peak of the range in the United Statees is Mt. St. Elias at 18,008.  .  We have never seen it.  Few people have.  It is most important because it was made the boundary between Russia and Great Britain.  Now it is a cornerstone of the Canadian nation.  Due north of the peak to the end of the planet and east and south zigzagy far to the south runs the border with the United States.  There have been various disputes between these two nations that heated up considerably during the period of the gold rushes at the turn from the 19th to 20th Century, but admirably these two countries have always swallowed hard and sought peaceful resolution through negociations and even third party judicial (mediation) decisions.  The slogan “54 40 or Fight” is now most significant as a reminder that we did not fight and are much better off to only about 49 degrees.  I believe there should today be more  discussion and promotion of peaceful resolution of border claims.  Nations should know that such means of dispute resolution are demanded by the people who do not want nations killing people over such matters. Now the snow seems to be stopping and the ceiling has lifted a bit.  Still cannot see peaks but can see the dark slope rising behind the lake.  Perhaps we will mobilize to go out.  The (only) radio station has just started “Caribou Clatters” by which they transmit messages among those who cannot otherwise make them (because of lack of such things as telephone and Internet service).  Only one message this morning from a family reporting on their travels to their parents.      It ended with love.  One feels almost a peeping Tom listening to such a personal message. We are in a remote location, some 16 miles off of a remote highway in what is often thought of as the ice box of Alaska.  So strange that we have a cell signal here.
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May 12, 2017 Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, CANADA
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
Enjoyed a great stay in Skagway. Saw it turn from a ghost town to a boom town when the cruise ship passengers streamed into town. They boarded trains, buses, tour vans, and even Hummers to go up to White Pass. We took our car to watch them unboard, shiver, and stair into the white. Then they took pictures of the wild, pictures of each other, and pictures of themselves. They had entered upon what seemed to them all the Arctic and it touched them. We drove on and stopped to make short walks along the road. Off road was a few feet of slushy over a vici
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTEnjoyed a great stay in Skagway.  Saw it turn from a ghost town to a boom town when the cruise ship passengers streamed into town.  They boarded trains, buses, tour vans, and even Hummers to go up to White Pass.  We took our car to watch them unboard, shiver, and stair into the white.  Then they took pictures of the wild, pictures of each other, and pictures of themselves.  They had entered upon what seemed to them all the Arctic and it touched them.  We drove on and stopped to make short walks along the road.  Off road was a few feet of slushy over a vicious terrain of rocks that ranged in size from 2 centimeters to 2 kilometers with everything in between.  Hard walking when you can see the surface.  Now covered with soft and slippery ice, almost impossible.  In spite of the conditions the birds were happy.  On the forested slopes we heard and saw the great Sooty Grouse strutting and hooting.  On the snow above were Willow Ptarmigan making a crackling call to lure in the shy lasses.  Robins, Hermit Thrush, and Fox Sparrows sang from sticks, Juncos and Lapland Longspurs were kicking at the edges of the snow.  Pairs of Herring Gull sat on rocks above lakes apparent only as turquoise flats of ice among the house-sized boulders.  I guess if one does not claim a territory now it will be gone when the ice melts.  From Skagway started the White Pass Trail over the top.  From nearby Dyea started the Chilkoot Trail.  We visited that town to find one wall remaining.  The NPS is reopening some of the streets through the forest that has reclaimed the land.  In April of 1898 an avalanche on the Chilkoot Trail took seventy souls and took the spirit out of the town.  The railroad would soon begin passage from Skagway over the White Pass.  Skagway had a good harbor.  Dyea did not.  Today Skagway prospers as a service and transportation hub and as a great tourist town.  Dyea shut down.  Yesterday we drove over the top again with our rig up the 11% grade and through the winter.  On this side the spring is about two weeks behind Juneau.  The pussy willow are shining and most of the buds are breaking on the other deciduous trees.  The dominant trees are White Spruce and Lodgepole Pine.  The trees are small.  We are in the Taiga forest of “matchstick trees.”  The lakes are partly frozen.  We’re camped near Marsh Lake which overflows to form the Yukon River which flows some two thousand miles to a point west of Anchorage into the Pacific Ocean.  The river is open but there is lots of ice along the shore and over the backwaters. We enjoy the accent of the Yukon folk.  They think we talk funny.  They’re celebrating the start of the growing season.  Time to push in onions and start the cabbages  It is mid-May after all.  Our furnace stopped starting this week.  That is not a crisis.  It is warm now after all, 55 this afternoon and we have an electric heater (when we have shore power) and a propane powered catalytic heater.  Still, it is nice to have and we were able to schedule service tomorrow.  I like to have heat when I go to Alaska. This morning we found our first Ruffed Grouse of the year drumming on a log and saw a flock of Trumpeter Swan adorning a patch of ice on Marsh Lake.  I should mention the Mountain Goats looking down at us.  No sign of Moose or Caribou yet.  I watch closely for them when driving.  Our sunrise is now 5:23 a.m. and sunset is 10:30 p.m and it is scarcely dark when the sun is down.  We have our aluminum blinds in place in the bedroom.  Even when cloudy the sun is relentless and pushing out the ice.  A few giant mosquitoes have already appeared but they fly to slow to catch you when you walk and are easily turned to crumbs with a slap of the hand.  All part of the experience.
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May 7, 2017 - Skagway AK
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 18, 1970
This is the town where landed many of the prospectors (stampeders) hopeful for that find of color in the Yukon Territory of Canada. The Canadian government made as a requirement of entry the possession of a year’s worth of provisions. These had to be relayed over the 3,700 foot high Chilkoot Pass and down to a lake. There they could raft to the Yukon River and float the rapids to Dawson City. Ambitious souls. We will drive over the top. That will be challenge enough.

Anne and Chuck's blogLoginto post comments Read More
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTThis is the town where landed many of the prospectors (stampeders) hopeful for that find of color in the Yukon Territory of Canada.  The Canadian government made as a requirement of entry the possession of a year’s worth of provisions.  These had to be relayed over the 3,700 foot high Chilkoot Pass and down to a lake.  There they could raft to the Yukon River and float the rapids to Dawson City.  Ambitious souls.  We will drive over the top.  That will be challenge enough.  The weather has warmed.  It reached 59 degrees in Juneau yesterday.  Today became cloudy and it peaked at 55 here in Skagway.  We rode the ferry again.  Left the campground in the evening and parked in the lot so as to report for check-in at 5 a.m.  That done, we had to board.  Ours was the largest vehicle going aboard and I had the honor of backing it down the long ramp and then across the cargo deck and through the ship to the last space in front of the bow.  The good news was that I was able to drive forward coming out when we arrived here. The six hour voyage took us up the Lynn Canal to Haines and then on to Skagway.  The fiord narrows and ends about a mile past Skagway.  It is lined on each side by pointy snow-covered mountains.  The lower slopes are forested except where avalanches have created meadows.  There are many such meadows.  Where the road crosses them are signs saying “Do Not Stop.”  Tree line is at about two thousand feet.  Above that is snow and rock.  Today there were clouds too. The town is dead.  We found the Red Onion Saloon and took an Alaskan brew with a few locals.  Walked down the middle of the street.  Tonight the main street was bare.  But, the schedule indicates that four cruise ships will arrive Monday night and dump some nine thousand tourists onto the dock on Tuesday morning.  So, we will visit the national park and museums tomorrow and drive up the Klondike Highway to visit winter on Tuesday.  On Wednesday we will likely take a hike.  A good plan for a tourist.
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