Haines, AK

We’ve been in Haines, AK (yes, we’re back in the USA) for 2 days. Yesterday it rained and was extremely windy. Today was much better, but seemed colder. We stayed on an extra day because we really wanted to see everything we could before we left state. Yesterday there was a cruise ship in, so all the gift shops and stores were open most of the day. Luckily we got to a few of them, because today many of them are closed. As a matter of fact, the RV park we are in closes in 4 days and they have pretty much everything ready to shut down.

Today we drove around Fort William H Seward. It is mostly privately owned now, but the integrity of the place is still intact. The fort was put in place to help calm tensions between the US and Canada during the gold rush era. "In WWI and WWII, the Fort was a trianing base for Alaska recruits. During the Second World War it was a rest and recreation center for troops who served int eh North Pacific Theater. At the end of the War, it was declared suplus property."

Then we went out to look for bears. Brown bears. They are feeding by the Chilkat River and are the main attraction anyone here.

Haines is also known for its eagles. Just outside of town is the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and every year they have a festival in November when the eagles show up for the winter. But since we already have thousands upon thousands of pictures of eagles, I won’t put one here.

There is a lot of Tlingit history in Haines. Many of the buildings have totem poles and other carvings. We didn’t really go into the Native history too much since we both know a lot already. And my schooling has given be a greater understanding of the ways and culture of the people of the area.

Many birds on this part of the trip. So far I have logged an eagle, rave, northwestern crow (many, many crows), magpie, stellar’s jay, chickadee, mew gull, glaucous-winged gull, bonaparte’s gull, common merganser, common goldeneye. The mammals seen so far are squirrels and bears. And that’s all.

Tomorrow we leave for Whitehorse in Yukon Territory. We are going to try to spend a day or 2 there. It’s a big place and they have a brewery too. Then back into the US and Alaska. We are going to try to spend a day or 2 in Skagway. Mainly we want to learn more about the gold rush days.

I don't think I've mentioned it, but Bill have been blogging too. His site is called "The Wandering GRYWHL" and can be found at http://thewanderinggrywhl.blogspot.com. (He has better pictures.)

We don't seem to have any cell service in Canada, or at least we haven't been close enough to civilization to have cell service. We try to use any wifi signals we can get, so if I can't get a post every day, I'll do one as soon as I can.

Until we meet again...