We had another organisational pitstop in Vancouver for one
night before flying north. We haven’t actually seen Vancouver yet just stayed
there while sorting out other parts of our trip. We did manage to stumble on a
very good Japanese restaurant though. Our flight up to Whitehorse was rather scenic
for the first half hour with mountains, snow and glaciers as far as you could
see but then the cloud closed in and its stayed like that just about for the
whole time weve been up north.
Our taxi driver at Whitehorse airport thought NZ was near
Iceland but apart from being geographically ignorant was really nice and
helpful. He even warned us about the US customs in Skagway which turned out
exactly as he said but more on that later. We had a really nice campsite in
Whitehorse right next to the Yukon River and the town was quite nice too. Being
north of 60
degrees the days were long and it never seemed to get truly dark at night.
However Dusk wouldn’t let me set the alarm for 3am to check how dark it was. The
Klondike paddle boat is dry docked on the edge of the river and was really
interesting to wander through as its set up with all the goods and furnishings
from the time it did trips up and down the river. Seems a shame it no longer
runs down the river to Dawson and back.
The next part of our trip I’d been looking forward to for a
while. We took the White Pass and Yukon Rail train down to Skagway in Alaska.
Its a narrow gauge railway that runs from Carcross over the White Pass and then
winds its way down 825m over only 30km through the mountains to Skagway on the
coast. At places its quite spectacular as the train hugs the cliffs crosses
trestles and goes through tunnels. As the train crossed the Canadain US border
we had to clear customs upon arrival in Skagway. Just before we pulled in,
possibly the scariest ever customs officer boarded the train, told us to shut
up, listen and hand over our passports. He had one of the best military style
buzz haircuts I’ve ever seen and I really wanted to take a photo of it but
unfortunately that would have resulted in the camera being confiscated. As we
were some of the few tourists who weren’t Canadian or American he took our
passports and told us to find him after we got off the train. Its kind of hard
to argue with a guy who has a gun and haircut like that. When we later found him
and did the necessary paperwork he proceeded to play bad cop good cop all by
himself which was just weird. Welcome to the USA!
In the local indigenous language Skagway means ‘place where
the wind blows’ and they were spot on. The wind blows up the Lynn Canal, into
the valley and then straight up the main street and just doesn’t let up. It was
also overcast and raining fairly consistently so as we were tenting we decided
it wasn’t much fun and to get out of there a bit earlier than planned. The one
thing we did like about Skagway is they have preserved all the old gold rush
buildings including the old wooden sidewalks and any newer buildings have been
built in a similar style.
We got out of Skagway by taking a short ferry ride to Haines
which is only about 15 miles down the Lynn Chanel but has far better weather. Haines
is on the sheltered side of a peninsula jutting out into the canal and being a
bit furtherer from the mountains doesn’t get the cloud and rain that Skagway
does. We found a really nice but basic forest service campsite in the next bay
round from town that came with its own friendly cat. Due to the risk of bears
we had to suspend all our food, cooking gear, toiletries and any other strong
smelling items above the ground. Which probably should have included us as the
campsite didn’t have any showers. Haines was nice but we discovered that unless
there was a cruise ship in a lot of the businesses (especially tourist ones)
just didn’t bother to open. We had planned on doing a biking tour and wildlife
tour while there but as there were no cruise ships for a few days they weren’t running.
We managed to hire some bikes one day and went for a ride up the Lutak inlet to
Lake Chilkoot. On the way there we had seen a bear up in the woods above the
road. On the way back I stopped on to the other side of the road to take a
photo of the ferry coming up the inlet. Dusk pulled up behind shortly after
looked around and then said “look Chris a bear?” A big grizzly bear was running
down the road towards us being chased by a car. If I hadn’t stopped we would
have probably ridden around the corner and crashed straight into it!
From Haines we took the Alaska Marine Highway ferry down to
Juneau. It was a good day for it and we even saw some humpback whales. If we
get to Alaska again we are keen to take the ferry all the way up the Marine
highway. You can pitch your tent on the rear deck and basically camp on board
for the 3-4 days it takes to sail the whole length.
Juneau is on the mainland but the only way to get there is
by boat or plane, there are no roads connecting it to any other town as it is
surrounded by mountains, glaciers and fiords. Our campsite was across the lake
from the Mendenhall glacier which was very scenic but also similar to camping
next to an open refrigerator. It was generally several degrees cooler there
than in town. We did several hikes around the area. The best being when we
climbed up into and eventually through the persistent low cloud that Juneau
gets to the summit of Mt Roberts. From there we had an amazing view of all the
surrounding peaks piercing the blanket of cloud.
One day we took a boat cruise to Tracey Arm south of Juneau.
Tracey Arm is a long fiord that has two tide water glaciers emptying into it.
Being summer the glaciers were calving (breaking off at the face) and therefore
there were a lot of icebergs floating in the arm. The boat was fairly small and
powerful so it could dodge or push through the ice and we got quite close to
both glaciers. Just as we were leaving a very large house sized chunk of ice
broke off and crashed into the fiord. The cruise also turned out to be a whale
watching tour as we got to see several humpbacks again.
Strangely on our last night of camping we returned to the campsite to find our tent with a big rip in the fly and two of the poles broken. We think that it was probably a couple of ravens fighting on it or possibly the shrew that I had evicted the night before getting its revenge. Anyway after 5 weeks of solid use our cheap tent had died. Luckily it wasn't raining or windy that night and we managed to sleep in it one last time before dumping it in the bin on the way to the airport in the morning.
All in all we had a good time in Alaska but found that it
was quite difficult for independent travel. Southeast Alaska (where we
travelled) is orientated toward the cruise ship market. Downtown Skagway and
Juneau were both full of souvenir and jewellery stores and most places did not
open and tours didn’t run unless a ship was in. This was especially evident on
our last day in Juneau. Nothing was open until after 11am, we then realised
that everyone had taken the morning off in anticipation of 4 cruise ships turning
up about midday and disgorging 10,000 people into the town for the afternoon.
We are now in San Francisco staying with Dusk’s friend Fi.
Taking it easy for a couple of days and getting ourselves organised before
leaving for South America in a week or two.
