We booked the ferry to Juneau which leaves at 4pm so we spent the day driving around Haines and out Lutak Rd, along the Chilkoot River, to Chilkoot Lake. Saw a nest with a Bald Eagle fledging with a concerned parent looking on from another tree.
And Watchful Parent
A Determined Fishergirl at Chilkoot Lake
At the lake watched a very determined young girl fishing for salmon; she didn’t catch anything but it didn’t seem to dampen her fun.The sky was sunny and the Lynn Canal quite calm as we left Haines and the ride down to Juneau was quite pleasant. After a few wrong turns, leaving the Juneau ferry terminal, we finally pulled in to the Spruce Meadow RV Park about 11 pm.
Gastineau Channel looking towards Juneau – from Thunder Mountain
3 of the 5 Behemoths in Juneau Harbor
Juneau sits at the base of Mt Roberts, abutting the Gastineau Channel and because of the steep slope the city has mostly spread horizontally along the shore of the Channel rather than up the face of the mountain. The streets are quite narrow and parking, especially for our truck, is horrifically limited. Juneau’s main business is tourism and since it’s harbor can accommodate up to 5 cruise ships, each with 4000 – 6000 people, business booms. While we were there all the berths were filled with these behemoths and the downtown area resembled Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
Tlingit Community Center
St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church
Away from the tourist areas, ie: further up the slope of Mt Roberts, Juneau exhibits it’s cultural history. The Tlingit Community Center – Gajaa Hit (Tlingit for “a safe place to land”) displays two gorgeous totem poles with a wall screen between them. The St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, which is currently undergoing reconstruction, was built by the Tlingits in 1893; the Tlingits embraced the Orthodox Church because it used native languages in worship and taught Native Alaskans to read and write in their own language.
The Empty Chair Memorial
Treadwell Steam Plant
Several blocks further on is the Empty Chair Memorial which represents the void the people of Juneau felt for their friends and neighbors unjustly incarcerated during WWII. The Memorial commemorates the action of the 1942 Senior class of Juneau High School which left an empty chair at their graduation ceremony in honor of their incarcerated Japanese-American Valedictorian, John Tanaka.
Douglas Island, across the Gastineau Channel from Juneau, houses the site of Treadwell, one of the worlds most innovative and efficient gold mining operations in the late 19th century – producing more than 1 million pounds of gold over four decades. Treadwell also incorporated advanced socio-economic amenities, for its more than 2000 residents, including subsidized housing and health care, a school, tennis courts, baseball field, indoor pool and a clubhouse open to all. The complex was shut down in 1917 after an extremely high tide flooded three of the four mines and collapsed the complex system of tunnels causing surface cave-ins which destroyed many of the buildings.
A Formal Garden – Glacier Gardens
Most of our time in Juneau was spent in the outskirts. We visited Glacier Gardens, a facinating place which just manages to cling onto the side of Thunder Mountain. The garden was started, and is still run by Steve Bowhay. The remarkable aspect of the Gardens is that almost all of the cultivated plants on this 50 acre plot are temperate or tropical and thus must be planted each spring and dug up and wintered over in hothouses each fall, a mind boggling task.
Mendenhall Glacier
We went out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is about 10 miles north of Juneau. The glacier as well as the Juneau Icefield, which feeds it is shrinking dramically – the icefield is losing about 3.5 cubic miles of ice each year. However, the glacier is still impressive and we quite enjoyed hiking some of the trails in the park.
View Across Lynn Canal – from Shrine of St Therese
We also drove north along the Glacier highway to it’s end stopping along the way at the Shrine of St Therese which has a spectacular view of the Lynn Canal and, reportedly, a great place to see whales, although none appeared while we were there.
View across the Lynn Canal – from Ernest Gruening Historic Site
Further along the highway we stopped at Eaglerock, the residence of Ernest Gruening, Alaska’s last Territorial Governor and first State Senator.
A gray, foggy day, left Juneau on 8am ferry to Skagway, calm seas and an easy ride but limited visibility. Wondered through Skagway, which was clogged with tourists but not as bad as Juneau since there were only 4 humongous cruise ships in port. The town hasn’t changed much since our last visit, it’s still a glitzy tourist mecca that gets tiresome after 15 minutes. Drove north on the Klondike Hwy (Alaska Rt 98, Canada Rt 2) crossing the William Moore Bridge which spans the 180 ft deep Moore Creek Gorge which is also an active earthquake fault. Because of the fault the bridge is only anchored on one side so that it can freely move during a quake. Unfortunately, the fog obscured a view of the gorge. The weather became foggier and foggier as we climbed towards the 3300 ft White Pass and we crept along at 5mph to make sure we stayed on the road. Camped at a boat launch and informal campground on the shores of Tutshi Lake.
Walking Alone by Ted Harrison – Tlingit Museum, Carcross, YK
Another gray, rainy day but pretty scenery even so. Stopped in Carcross, YK where we walked through the Visitor Center complex. Carcross, current population 436, is one of the oldest communities in the Yukon first settled during the Klondike gold rush and became a major transportation hub in the early 1900’s.
Just outside of town is the Carcross Desert, which was formed 10,000 years ago when melting glaciers deposited entrapped sand; the desert is continuously renewed by sand blown from Bennett Lake. Further along Klondike hwy (Rt 2) is Emerald Lake which, as its name implies, is a gorgeous blue-green caused by sunlight reflecting off the limestone silt of the lake bed. Couldn’t capture a decent shot of the color but it was really spectacular.
Carcross Desert, YK
Emerald Lake, YK
Continued on to Whitehorse where we stopped in to the Yukon Brewery to pick up a case of their incredible Bonanza Brown ale. Camped at the Caribou RV Park again.
Spent the morning doing errands, walking along the Yukon River and exploring the SS Klondike, a sternwheel river boat which plied the Yukon from 1929 to 1955. Ships like the Klondike were the main freight haulers in the region from the late 1800’s until the Alaska highway was upgraded and became the major transport route in the early ‘50’s. Started along the Alaska Hwy (Rt 1) around noon and stopped at the Tlingit Heritage Museum and also the George Johnson Museum in Teslin, YK ( see 6/25 entry). These are quite striking and informative museums and, although we had spent time at both during our ‘03 trip, we just had to stop again enjoy the exhibits. Continued east from Teslin, stopping for a black bear with cubs that were browsing along the side of the road, and later camped at Big Creek Yukon Government Campground near Watson Lake, YK.
Another cloudy day; continued south along the Alaska Hwy, with spotty rain. Stopped at Muncho Lake which was a pretty bluegreen even with the overcast skies. A little further on we passed Folded Mountain which is a beautiful example of the tortured upheaval caused by the collision between the North American and Pacific plates that gave rise to the Rocky Mountains. We passed several large herds of Stone Sheep browsing along the road and at times they blocked the road, but they were fun to watch.
Camped at Buchkinghorse River Wayside Provincial Park, BC (~120 mi NW Ft St Johns) via Rt 97
Continued down the Alaska Hwy ( Rt 97BC – Rt 2 AB). Took a detour along a portion of the original ( 1942) hwy and drove across the Kiskatinaw River Bridge, the original, and only remaining, timber bridge on the hwy. It is also the only curved bridge (curving 9° along a 540′ length) on the hwy. This part of Alberta, and perhaps the rest as well, is a beehive of petrochemical activity – many drilling camps and most of the traffic consists of support vehicles for the oil and gas fields. Ft St John, which when we passed through it in 2003 was a sleepy town of perhaps 5000 is now a rip roaring gas town of 50,000.
We stopped in Dawson Creek, BC to take a picture at the signpost commemorating mile zero of the Alaska Hwy and then drove on to Grand Prairie, AB where we camped at the very nice Rotary Club Campground.
