On the way home... Roseburg, Oregon

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and our journey is no exception.

We crossed the Canadian border several days ago and drove into the chaos of the lower 48!

TRAFFIC!! ROAD CONSTRUCTION!! TOO MANY PEOPLE!!

It's going to take some getting used to.

We spent several days in the Seattle area with Jim's high school friend and his wife. We had a great time and hopefully it won't be so long between visits.

We're spending the night in Roseburg, Oregon and will continue towards home tomorrow or the next day. Does it sound like we're stalling? Maybe!

We met a nice couple from Moab, Utah while we were in Hyder and they are trying to tempt us to visit them at their ranch but I think that will have to wait.

I hope you enjoyed sharing our journey with us.

We hate to leave Hyder, Ak!!

And this is why!

We're addicted to the bears and other wildlife but darn it, we have to leave! We will be returning with lots of memories and pictures and hopes that we will be able to return some day.

Hyder, Alaska – August 11th

Well, so much for “We’ll be heading home for sure!”! We are in Hyder, Alaska and have been having the time of our lives filming the grizzlies! But I’ll get back to that later. First, I’ll fill you in on life in Dawson City, Yukon.

My daughter-in-law, Sharon, gave me a copy of James Michener’s book, Alaska to take along on our trip. It couldn’t have been a better choice! I happened to be reading Michener’s description of Dawson City as it was in it’s heyday as we arrived in today’s Dawson City.

We loaded the trailer and truck on this barge so we could cross the Yukon River. That's the only way you can get to Dawson City when you're coming from Chicken, AK on the "Top of the world highway".

As we walked the wooden sidewalks and visited some of the actual buildings that were still standing, I tried to imagine what it must have been like way back then. The streets were muddy, but not as pictured in the book, and there weren’t any “tent cities” around so it was a bit difficult to imagine what life might have been like way back in the 1800’s. Much more rough, rowdy and dirty I’m sure.

I took lots of pictures of the buildings and tombstones from an old cemetery up the hill. All of the graves belonged to men… don’t know where they buried the women.

The area is still being actively “searched” for gold and there are “No Trespassing” sign all over. Instead of digging a mine to locate the gold, the prospectors found gold by panning in the rivers. As all the prime locations were claimed early on, the late arrivals had to stake a claim higher up the slopes next to the rivers and start digging. But before they could dig they had to thaw the permanently frozen ground with a log fire and then haul up the “pay dirt” and run it through a sluice which hopefully sifted out the nugget and flakes of gold. Consequently most of the trees were cut down and used for fuel and the trees standing today are less than 100 years old.

Once corporations got interested in the gold they brought in dredges and we took a tour of one that the Canadian government is restoring. It’s quite a huge machine that floats in a small lake and the front end digs into the earth and gravel all the way down to bedrock. The rocks are run through an onboard sluice which removes the gold and the useless rocks and gravel are shot out the back end of the machine. The debris field looks like a gravel snake and you can see them all along the roads outside of town.

A trip to Dawson City wouldn’t have been complete without a stop at “Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Saloon” to see Gertie entertain the crowd. She and her girls put on a good show and our admission was good for all three show but we decided to head for our RV because the place was packed with people. We left for home after spending a very interesting time in Dawson City.

The road back down to the Alaska Highway was still rough and somewhere along the way a rock or something dislodged a wire to our trailer breaks and we were without brakes again. We limped into Whitehorse and found a place that promptly diagnosed and repaired the problem.

It took us two days to get down the Cassiar Highway to reach Hyder. The highway is a very narrow but mostly paved road. There are no shoulders and no center line so you tend to drive right down the middle of the road until another car approaches. There are several 20 miles stretches of unpaved road and areas where the road had been washed out a few days prior. All of this made for a slow trip but every rotten mile was worth it when we saw the bears in Hyder.

Hyder is promoted as the friendliest ghost town in Alaska and it’s true. I doubt that one hundred people live here. But Hyder is right next door to the larger town of Steward, B.C. and there’s an easy existence between the two towns. They’re located on a 90 mile canal that connects them to the Pacific Ocean. That’s how the salmon make it up here to spawn. And that’s what attracts the bears. And they’re everywhere! There was a large grizzly that visited our campground several times today. We were just down the road at a coffee shop and could see him walking down the road.

The safest place to see the bears (blacks and grizzly) is a gated wooden walkway that runs along Fish Creek. It’s a favorite spot for Pink and Chum Salmon to spawn and the bears love it too.

The adult bears don’t seem to mind all the people looking down on them but the cubs are curious about all of us. We’ve seen a Grizzly sow with three cubs fishing at the creek. Yesterday a male and female grizzly got into a spat when the male approached. He put on a good show with lots of snorting, growling and posturing. He chased her under the walkway but she finally got fed up and let him know so he backed off. Exciting to say the least!!

There are several professional photographers and lots of amateurs with expensive equipment taking pictures. Jim is having fits with his new camera because a lot of his pictures are fuzzy. One of the pros promised to give him some pointers tomorrow. Jim had one of his photos printed (11 x 14”) today at the combination coffee shop/photo printing shop.

This afternoon we took a self guided tour up to Salmon Glacier. It is huge and the biggest one we’ve seen yet. But we had to drive up another pot hole filled gravel mining road in order to look down on the glacier. It was spectacular because it just went on and on. We went to see the grizzlies tonight and saw two before we got rained out. The best viewing times are from 6–10 AM and 6-10 PM so we try to be there then. So…. I better get to bed. Five AM will be here before I know it.

We’ll be leaving for home on Tuesday the 14^th. (I think!)

Dawson City, Yukon - August 5th

Well, our plans changed a little bit thanks to our friend Judy from Missouri! She said we just had to visit Dawson City because it was her favorite place on their trip to Alaska. An email from my friend, Diane said she enjoyed it too.

So we left Valdez on Saturday, drove north through Tok, Ak. and started up the “Top of the World Highway” to Chicken, Alaska. Thirty miles short of our destination we pulled into a turnout overlooking a series of mountain ranges and stopped for the night. The road to Chicken is 65 miles of a very narrow gravel road with steep inclines, soft shoulders and no guard rails. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining because it can get dangerous.

This morning, as we were preparing to get under way, a car pulled into the turnout and the fellow inside asked Jim if he wouldn’t mind taking a picture of him with the mountains as a backdrop. It turns out he was a physician from France traveling alone. He asked lots of questions about our trailer so we invited him in. He was amazed and took lots of pictures of the interior and exterior and us! I’d love to be a fly on the wall as he shows those pictures when he gets home.

We finally left for Chicken. After miles and miles of a dusty road and unbelievable scenery we arrived. Chicken’s a gold mining town with active claims but it’s becoming a tourist spot. There are several campgrounds, a post office, a unique bar and a couple of gift stores. We stayed long enough to take pictures of a gold dredge, visit some of the stores and talk with another couple from Texas who had a Montana like ours. Then we were back to the dust, pot holes and washboard filled road towards Dawson City. After another 30 miles we reached the Canadian border and passed through customs without a hitch. I had our birth certificates in the truck this time but the agent didn’t even ask for them!

The Canadian side of the road was paved… well at least for a while, until we ran into long stretches of gravel. It started to rain the minute we crossed the border and that helped keep the dust down a bit and it wasn’t coming down hard enough to turn muddy.

Around one of the turns we surprised two caribou grazing on the side of the road. I think we got some good photos of them before they took off. Jim’s still wishing to see some brown bears that close.

We finally spotted the Yukon River off in the distance and knew that Dawson City couldn’t be too far away. It wasn’t long before the road ended at the river and we were first in line to drive onto the ferry that takes you across the river. It’s a free ride provided by the Canadian government. The river runs very fast and it was interesting watching the ferry cross back to our side with a load of cars. It doesn’t hold too many, maybe 8 all together. I think our truck and 5^th wheel took up one side of the ferry. We had to ride inside the truck so I couldn’t see who was behind us, if anyone.

We will be spending two nights here at a campground near town and then we will be heading home for sure!

Valdez – August 3rd

Kim, Kurt and granddaughters arrived on schedule, almost! As their flight into Anchorage was preparing to land a passenger decided to go to the bathroom and took his briefcase with him. Big no no! The flight attendants knocked on the door and told him, using the P.A., that he needed to return to his seat or the plane could not land. He ignored their requests so the plane pulled out of the landing sequence and started to circle. He finally returned to his seat but everyone was very peeved, to say the least, because he made everyone more than a half hour late! The kids never found out what, if anything happened to him.

We had a fun 6 days with them. Kurt went out on a halibut fishing charter boat and caught his limit and the limit for the three other people who were on board. While he was fishing the rest of us went out on a cruise from Homer to Seldovia across Kachemak Bay. Saw lots of sea birds and sea otters, our favorite because they’re so cute. Seldovia was one of the first settlements on the Kenai Peninsula but the 1964 earthquake caused lots of damage and it never really recovered. Now it’s just a quaint little town that can be explored on foot.

We hiked up to Exit Glacier one day and visited the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center another. Our clamming adventure was very successful thanks to Kurt. We would scout for the clam air holes and Kurt would do the digging. Other people on the beach came over to find out our secret and ask if we were locals. I think they were surprised to find out we were from California. Kurt cleaned the clams and cooked them in butter and garlic the next morning. I didn’t partake because I don’t care for clams but I was told they were good.

Kurt went salmon fishing in the Kenai River several times with success. And we all went on a 6 mile hike to and from the Russian River Falls. We had hoped to see the salmon jumping up the falls and maybe a bear or two trying to catch them. No luck with either! We did see some salmon in the pools at the bottom of the falls but none of them were in the mood to jump. And the only sign of bears was some berry filled bear scat on the trail to the falls.

On the last day of their visit we went to see the cannery that Kurt worked at during summer break from college. The area where they camped was still there and mostly unchanged. It brought back lots of good memories for him.

After they left we needed to take care of some chores like laundry and haircuts for both of us. Terri, tell Kathy that I no longer have a wedge hair style. The stylist talked me into a very short haircut and I’m trying to get used to it. Now I no longer have my nice fingernails or my hair. I’m turning into an Alaskan!

We arrived in Valdez yesterday, August 2^nd and are camped right on the water at the Sea Otter RV Park. We have water and electric hookups and the best part is the WiFi connection. What luxury after days and days of dry camping!!

Today we’re going to explore some waterfalls and a glacier we passed on the way here. We’ll probably leave tomorrow and start heading for home. We have to backtrack to Tok and Whitehorse to catch the Cassiair Highway down through British Columbia with a stop in Hyder to hopefully see more grizzly bears. With any luck we’ll be home the end of August.