The view from this turnout was pretty spectacular. Looking east you can watch the cruise ships leaving Skagway mixed in with the fishing boats in the foreground. Skagway isn’t very far from Haines but there’s no road and you either have to take the regular ferry, the fast ferry or a little plane. None of these options is particularly cheap so we left our visit to Skagway until later in the trip when we could drive their from the Yukon.
From here we drove back towards the ferry dock where we’d come in earlier in the day. Most of the clouds were gone and we got a great view of the mountains to the northeast.
We followed the Lutak Inlet northeast. The canyon walls had lovely waterfalls cascading down them.
The Chilkoot River empties into the Lutak Inlet just north of town.
They have a fish weir to count the salmon runs and on June 21st when we were there, they’d been 8,938 sockeye through so far this season (with 2,007 of them coming through the day before). Folks in the campground had said there were bears fishing in the river earlier in the day but they were gone when we got there. We’ve continued to follow the fish counts and this year they’re having a record sockeye run so no doubt there are TONS of bears fishing there in August and September.
You follow the river a short ways to Chilkoot Lake.
There's a nice little marina and folks were getting ready to take their boats out.
There were a lot of folks out since it was the Solstice and a pretty day. We talked to a couple who were going out to spend the night on their boat on the lake to celebrate the start of summer.
I stopped and took more photos of Lutak Inlet on the way back because it was so darned pretty. There’s nothing like a little sunshine to get the old camera clicking. Skagway is over between the nearby hill and the snow capped mountain.
The day just got prettier and prettier and so did the views.
While I was out climbing around I stumbled across some Beach Pea (Lathyrus japonicus).
We slowly wandered back the trailer and had a lovely dinner with the doors and windows open to the evening breezes. It was the longest day of the year and as you can imagine it was a LONG evening. The sunset had just begun to light up the mountains to the south when I took this photo at a little after midnight. From this point on in the trip, it never got dark at night. You could get up at 2 or 3 am and it was still dusk.
UP and at ‘em. I know you were up late because it didn’t get dark, but it’s sunny and clear and time to hit the road. Today, for the first time in nearly 3 weeks, we’ll take a real honest to goodness highway that actually GOES someplace. Get your passport out, we’re going to Canada.
Here's our route from Haines, Alaska up to Haines Junction, Yukon.
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First though, we’re going to follow the Chilkat River (not to be confused with the Chilkoot that we followed yesterday). It was a picture perfect day along the river.
d there was a fish wheel working! It wasn’t catching any fish but it was grinding away like a windmill driven by the current of the river.
It turns out this is a State Fish and Game Department fish wheel. They use it to keep track of the salmon runs on the Chilkat River heading upstream to Chilkat Lake. Fish wheels are used by subsistence fishermen on the Copper and Yukon Rivers but those are the only rivers where they’re legal for private use.
In the fall huge numbers of Bald Eagles gather along the Chilkat River to fish. There are some nice pull outs and viewing areas but we didn’t see any eagles in June. They’ve got better things to do when the fish aren’t running.
The hillside opposite the Bald Eagle viewing area caught my fancy though. I love the weird pattern the trees form on the hill.
The highway takes a turn and starts to follow the Klehini River which was our first of many ‘braided river channels’. Nearly all the rivers in Alaska and the Yukon are like this. The river fills with glacial silt and then threads its way through the sand and gravel bars it has deposited.
We had a bear sighting here, but he was just a little bear...
Out in the middle of literally nowhere, we made the crossing from the US into British Columbia. It was near lunchtime and we had to wait a few minutes for a border guard to come out and look at our passports and wave us through.
From here the highway starts to really climb the mountain passes. Tree line here is well below 3,000 feet so it looks higher than it actually is. And there was plenty of snow still. At this point you’re driving along the eastern boundary of Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park.
We stopped at the pull out at Three Guardsmen Pass (3,215 ft.) and I shot this photo of Three Guardsmen Mountain.
There are a series of small lakes here and they still had ice on their surfaces and snow piled all around.
Things were just starting to green up at this elevation and there didn’t seem to be much to eat. So weren’t we surprised when we came around the bend from this viewpoint to see a grizzly sow and her two cubs right next to the road.
The cubs were bugging their mom and I thought they wanted to play.
To my surprise she took several turns in one spot like a dog or cat finding a comfortable place and sat down.
And then she laid back and the cubs climbed up and started to nurse!
Needless to say this got my camera clicking like crazy.
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Chilkat Pass (3,510 ft.) is not far from here and there were several turnouts where you could catch the view.
It’s amazing country.
And we were so lucky to have a beautiful day to take this drive.
Another 20 miles further on, we stopped at the viewpoint for the Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park. This was our view looking west while we had our lunch.
At the Yukon border, this park joins Kluane National Park which preserves the territory with Canada’s highest peaks.
In Part XV, we’ll drive along Kluane and camp at Destruction Bay at Kluane Lake.