We woke to brilliant sunlight streaming in the east facing windows around 5:30 and with hot tea in the cupholders were on the road by 6. At last the Alaska Highway filled all my highest dreams of what this road could be. We were all alone and the Yukon pavement was smooth and silent. When I lived in a beautiful part of the MotherLode in California, near Sonora, I dreamed of a road to myself. I couldn’t often see the beauty because there were usually 7 cars behind me wanting to go faster and 7 cars in front of me trying slow me down. Our drive today filled my yearning for the open road, a highway uncluttered with vehicles, wild and open and all my own.
Take a minute to watch the show and get a taste of what it felt like
We took our time and pulled off often to catch the spectacular views of the St Elias Mountains. A stop at the Kluane National Park of Canada gave us just a taste of the wild expanse of ice that makes up more than half of this magnificent land. Adjacent to and combined with the Wrangell-St Elias, these two parks make up the largest contiguous extent of protected wilderness in the world, and are recognized by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site of great significance. Ice fever called, and I dreamed of returning and taking the time to fly over that vast icefield with glaciers radiating down on all sides.
The road was perfect, except for a short stretch after we crossed into British Columbia, and when we saw the construction signs we pulled to a stop, with no idea what waited for us there.
After a few moments, we noticed the flagger scanning the slopes to our east and of course, we looked up too. High on the hill above us, oblivious to the world below, a grizzly grazed intently for berries. The road folks exclaimed in awe that he was really a “big one”. It was thrilling to watch him move, so quickly and full of grace and power, even through the binoculars. The 300 lens could just barely capture him, but there he is, a real wild grizzly, no collar, no bands, unexpected, in the middle of nowhere. Without the construction slowdown we would have missed him.
We crossed Haines Pass, with more wonderful interpretive signs about the gold rush and an especially well done description of the habitat variations from tundra to hemlock forest as we descended into the valley. 
The rapid change was dramatic, and beautiful, as we suddenly were surrounded by the thick, dark forest and the broad glacially fed Chilkat River, home to more than 3,500 eagles in the fall at the Eagle Reserve.
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Once we arrived in Haines, we took advantage of the sunny afternoon to walk around Fort Seward and explore the shops and galleries on the Fort grounds. Fort Seward was built in 1902 and operated until 1947. Eventually it was bought by a group of war veterans and the grounds and buildings are privately owned with hotels, restaurants and galleries. I especially enjoyed walking through the Native Arts Center and seeing the huge mess of artistic creativity in the main carving room.
But the main reason we took the extra time to come to Haines was for the bears, and it was time to go find them. There is a large population of both black and brown bear in Haines, but it is especially famous for the bear viewing along the Chilkoot River at Chilkoot State Park just 9 miles north of town.
We unexpectedly drove in Haines on a “cruise ship Wednesday” the only day that ships dock here, so the bear viewing site was full of people in cars and buses, with tour groups and people walking along the road. It was a zoo, just without fences. Even so, it was wonderful to see these big brown bears up close and personal.
The only ‘fence’ was the park officer walking around trying to corral all the folks who would think of getting to close to a momma grizzly and her babies. She seemed somewhat frustrated with some folks especially, and said to me, “Fine, let them get mauled, they deserve it”. She was saddened especially by the fact that the two cubs will no doubt end up being killed from their exposure to too many people. They can’t relocate these big brown bears because they stubbornly return to their homelands in record time.
If you look closely at the lower right photo in the collage, you will see a salmon fisherman of the human variety. These fishermen compete with the bears for the spawning salmon, but if a bear comes too close they will run away, leaving behind their catch. This results in bears discovering that humans are a great source of food. The saying goes, “A fed bear is a dead bear”. Sad
Still, it was thrilling to watch Mama and her little ones, a male and a female just a year and a half old. Mama was a great swimmer, and her babies were carefully staying in the shallow water as they watched her fish. The boy cub was much braver than the light boned delicate little girl but he still didn’t go all the way out to fight the strong current with Mama. Even with her collar and bands, it was wonderful seeing this great wild 7 year old bear fishing in her world, traveling the same routes her mother did and fishing the same waters while she taught her babies. There is another mom with 3 cubs in the area and 2 other males but we didn’t see them on this trip.
After our bear time, we went back to town to our home on the water at Oceanside RV Park. It’s not fancy, but it has full hookups, TV and WiFi and with our planned two day stay, it’s nice to have amenities. Our freezer stores are getting a bit low, so we went to the Lighthouse Bar just down the road for great burgers while we watched the light change over the inlet. Somehow coming to Haines was a full circle return from our cruise last summer when we watched Haines in the distance as we passed by on the Princess. It was fun to watch the cruise ships pass on the Lynn Canal as we settled into the evening.
Miles travel today: 214
Road condition: excellent 2 lane paved highway with a short stretch of gravel construction in BC
The rest of the photos for this day are linked here
A LOT of photos of the bears are linked here
Day 15 July 20 Playing in Fairbanks
We woke this morning to gorgeous sunny skies and warm temperatures. I had reserved our tickets for the Discovery the night before online. One nice thing about the paved parking lot at Pioneer Park was free, fast WiFi! I uploaded lots of photos and caught up on previous blog posts with abandon, and for a minute was even ahead of the game. Of course, that wouldn’t last for long and I am actually writing this final catch-up post from our rainy camp in Talkeetna.
Our plans for the morning were to drive the Chena Springs Road and then return to go as far north on the Steese Highway toward the Dalton Highway as we could manage and still make our 2PM boat cruise. The drive was beautiful, and paid off with a leisurely visit with a young bull moose munching away at a river crossing.
We traveled as far as the Chena Hot Springs resort, checked it out a bit and then returned the same way to the Teese Highway. Along the way we stopped along the river Abby play time.
Once back on the Teese Highway, we marveled at the wonderful views from the ski area north of town and stopped for photos of the Alaska Pipeline. 
Later in the evening, after our boat ride on the Discovery (a separate post) we visited the Aurora Ice Museum in downtown Fairbanks for the digital wide screen photo symphony of the northern lights, produced by LeRoy Zimmerman. Before the show we saw amazing ice sculptures lit by colorful lights and had a few moments to watch an ice sculptor in action. It was definitely a bit of touristy action but the photos were beautiful and even though they were still images, the transitions gave the feeling of movement and the lights looked very much like what I have seen in the night skies above Edmonton, and even from my hot tub in Rocky Point. The photos were presented accompanied by lovely classical music. Try staying awake after a day like ours in a dark theater listening to Leibestraum!
The rest of the photos of our explorations around Fairbanks are linked here
Miles traveled in the MoHo today: 0
Miles traveled in the Tracker: 102
Road condition: Another great two lane paved highway with joints and an occasional frost heave
Squirrels, deer, rabbits, and mosquitos
“Squirrels are nothing more than rats with fuzzy tails that can climb trees”. This comment was posted on Judy’s blog today and I laughed out loud. Of course, I also feel that way about deer. Cute in the forest, far, far away from where I live, but nothing more than big rats with voracious appetites in my yard.
Between the squirrels, the rabbits, the deer, the voles, and the mosquitoes, I often wonder about the joys of living in the forest surrounded by the lovely wildlife. Thanks to the mosquitoes we also have a healthy population of bats, good wildlife of course, but a bit less so when they buzz our heads in the evenings while lounging in the hot tub.
Oh yes, chipmunks as well, lots and lots of them. Just caught myself in a great big “sigh”. We have a very large hole in the ground along the back property line between the lawn and the forest that also ha
s some kind of critter playing around that is much bigger than a squirrel and I think bigger than a rabbit. Abby’s favorite thing is racing out the door to the back yard in pursuit of whatever furry thing is out there. I have been hearing a lot of owls around lately, many voices of many different types, and am gleefully hoping that they are here because of all the other fuzzy critters that are around. Help!
Yesterday I sprayed the entire property boundaries with Liquid Fence, sworn to work by my friends in a California forest. Gerald said he used it all summer last year and the deer ate everything in sight in the neighbors yards and left his alone till he got lazy and quit spraying. It’s not a cheap endeavor, at 40 bucks for 2 applications, and directions that say “Apply weekly initially, then every three weeks after that”. I am applying weekly, with special attention to my roses, delphiniums, azaleas, and the baby flowering pear tree that the deer decimated last fall. Of course we have the greenhouse for the hidden veggies, “nahh na na NA na”! Other folks who have lived at Rocky Point for 30 plus years have learned to quit trying to grow things that the deer love to eat. I’m still not that smart. I WANT my roses and delphiniums, so I will continue to try to outsmart those pesky critters.
When it comes to the squirrels, I think I have won, at least so far. Of course I don’t have those flying stinkers that seem to be the problem at Al’s place in Ontario.
( If you want to read a great story about Al thinking about simulating one of those flying squirrels, be sure to check out his recent blog.)
I hung a thin wire cable between the trees in the forest, just beyond the grass, and so far the poor squirrels are completely stumped and reduced to foraging on the ground for what is scattered there by the yellow headed blackbirds, voracious eaters who like to shake all the seed out on the ground for entertainment. Lucky for me, the blackbirds all manage to head for the marsh by mid-summer and no longer eat me out of house and home.
This time of year I am filling all 8 feeders with four different kinds of food every single morning! So far the black headed grosbeaks outnumber most other birds, but we have a lot of purple finches, evening grosbeaks, stellar jays, juncos, and a very friendly white headed woodpecker. Geez! I am feeling not a little bit guilty about how devastating it might be to our little bird friends when we leave for 7 weeks in Alaska. Hopefully in July and August food will be so plentiful they will somehow manage. I don’t set up hummingbird feeders for just that reason. I have heard how dependent they get on the feeders and how important it is to be consistent if you start putting up food for them.
I have to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my last post photographs. I didn’t mention it because I was feeling a bit insecure, but that was the first day I was out with my new Nikon DSLR D5100. All those photos were my learning experience. I have discovered that my “learning experience” may go on for several years at least. I have stepped up from shooting everything with the “auto” setting, a perfectly acceptable way to take photos.
The water photo that folks seemed to like was an attempt at aperture priority slowing down the shutter so I could get that silky movement. This photo of the east side of the yard early in the morning is my first attempt at HDR. So much to learn, and so little time. Sigh. My knitting has been languishing on the shelf while I play with the camera and fight the critters and garden! I think I started the perfect easy little scarf back in Eureka with gorgeous hand dyed yarn, and am still barely half way through the skein. Maybe I’ll have a chance to knit when we are back on the road, although I would imagine it won’t be on those bumpy frost heaves on the Alaska Highway.
Another gorgeous sunny day on the Oregon Coast May 4
Still have no good internet access, so am sitting in the Mojo Café in Brookings. Managed to upload three days of blog fun but the photo upload is crawling along and I am going to give it up and head back to camp. The rest of the photo links will be posted sometime when access is a bit better. (Photos are all posted now both on Picasa and Smugmug with a link at the bottom of the post for this day!) Good a time as any to catch up on a very few of the 200 plus blog posts in my reader list accumulated since we left Monday morning. Gee, you are all so prolific!!
I woke up as the sky was barely lightening to see a shroud of fog hovering over the ocean, but by the time we got up at 6:30 it was completely gone. There was barely a breeze and the skies were completely clear. We planned to kayak again today, this time on the Pistol River and estuary about 17 miles north, but first we decided to begin our day with a hike down to the beach.
This time we took the South Beach Trail, another well maintained route down the cliffs to the ocean. South Beach Trail takes off just a couple of sites east of ours and meanders through deep green forest before approaching the view parking lot and cliffs to the beach. The path down the cliffs is steep, but not too much so to manage easily back up without stopping. It is even paved with asphalt, so no slipping and sliding on loose rock and gravel makes it really enjoyable.
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Once on the beach, the sun was so warm Mo had to take off her jacket and we walked as far south as the incoming tide allowed, throwing the ball for Abby and enjoying the warm, windless morning. I haven’t experienced the beaches of Oregon without wind very many times, so I thought it was wonderful. Abby even wore out after much fetching, and once even stopped to rinse her sandy ball in a tidepool before picking it up again and bringing it to Mo. Did she do that on purpose?? It seems so, but who knows. Abby IS incredibly smart.
We are unhooked from internet and telephones, but still have the morning news with the cable here at the park. It’s amazing how one thing after the other gets all the focus. The killing of Bin Laden and the decision about whether or not to release his death photos have completely superseded the tragedies in the south. I don’t understand why news can’t actually be news of what is going on everywhere, instead of what happens to be the “big story” of the moment. The flooding and tornado damage in our country is more important to me that all the political posturing about the Osama thing.
We spent a bit of time relaxing in the morning sunlight before taking the baby car north on 101 about 17 miles to our planned launch site on the Pistol River. Once we passed through the beautiful forest and started the descent to the ocean, the difference in wind speed was intense. Parking first at the 
north side launch, then at the southern approach, we walked out to the river to asses the situation. I think the winds were close to 40 mph and the tide incoming. We thought it would have been ok going upstream, but were a bit worried about getting back downriver. Driving upriver to some other listed launch sites didn’t yield anything more promising, so we once more traveled back to the Pistol River State Park day use area and saw that even with the incoming tide, the connection between the river and the south arm estuary was completely dry. It was cold and the wind was intense, so we looked at each other and said, “Maybe not”. Time for Plan B.
In some of the literature we gathered for the area while driving about town, Mo found information about a little known historical site. In the Brookings area, you can hike to the only spot in the continental US where enemy bombs were dropped during WWII. Nobuo Fujita, a young Japanese warrant officer, flew his small pontoon plan off a Japanese sub on the Oregon coast near Cape Blanco on September 9 1942. His assignment was to drop incendiary bombs into the forest, start a huge fire and panic the nation. Only one bomb out of five detonated, and it ignited the woods up in the hills near Mount Emily. Due to wet conditions and the fact that the bomb only partially detonated, the fire only spread 75 feet. It was quickly put out by four forest service workers.
Twenty years after he dropped his bombs the Brookings Jaycees invited Fujita to visit during the Azalea Festival. He came to ask forgiveness, and presented his sword to Brookings. You can read more detail about this amazing little piece of history here.
We drove several miles east along the Chetco River before turning off on the dirt and gravel road to Mount Emily and the bomb site. The trip reminded me of the many years I spent driving remote forest roads like this one exploring wild areas. The nice part about this trip is that I was only going to hike on trails and I didn’t have to climb these steep slopes with a shovel and a pack through thick brush. In this area, the conifer forests have been burned, and the canopy is often dominated by second growth alder. While a coniferous forest is often lovely, they are also very thick and dark, and a bit forbidding. I really enjoyed the fluorescent lime green light filtering through all the leaves of the springtime alders.
After almost 14 miles of winding road, without seeing another single car coming or going, we found the trail head. The hike was perfect, some ups, some downs, about a mile each way through beautiful forest to the bomb site. The signs were wonderful, telling the story with photographs of the Japanese sub, the pontoon airplane, Fujitsu and his son, and the people responsible for putting out the fire. As usual, the hike back to the trailhead seemed to go much more quickly than the hike out, and the ride back to town also seemed to pass much more quickly. We again passed our special stops found on the way in, the lovely little campsite along the creek, and the amazing very tall waterfall hidden among the alders.
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On the way back down the road, we were discussing how little wildlife we had seen. In the bomb site brochure, it was mentioned that the remoteness of the road often allowed for seeing a bear or two scampering across the road. Literally minutes after we had this discussion, we suddenly saw two bear cubs scamper across the road. It was much too fast for us to truly catch anything with the camera, but then one cub ran up a tree right next to the road, and obligingly waiting for us to take his photo. Once again I am 
reminded of how much I want a real SLR with a real telephoto lens when I go to Alaska! The baby bear was sure cute, and Mom and sibling were no where to be seen down the incredibly steep slope.
Back in Brookings, we decided it was time for some coastal fish and chips. Funny thing, being a harbor town, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of fish places around. We both remembered a place south of town where we once had a great dinner with friends, but couldn’t find it. Finally found it with the help of the phone and the place was closed up tight. We then drove back through the 101 strip, but nothing appeared, and we decided to go down to the Harbor to see what was there. I had heard about the Oceanside, and after much dinking around, we finally found it. It was also closed up tight!
By this time we were both pretty tired and hungry and grumpy, but neither of us was quite ready to give up and go home and eat soup. We passed a funky little restaurant called the Chetco Seafood Company, with a blinking beer sign in the window, and a couple of people leaving with go bags in their hands. Tired won out, and we parked Abby where her barking wouldn’t get attention and went in. First sign of a good choice was the decent glass of chardonnay for 3 bucks. We ordered fish and chips, and kept asking each other, “Is this really this good or are we just hungry?” I decided it really WAS that good. The fish was light and incredibly fresh, the breading thin and light and delicately spiced and not the least bit greasy. The fries were perfect and the cole slaw perfect as well. We shared a cup of chowder filled with fresh pink? clams to start and it was perfect as well. Maybe we were just hungry, but it may have been the best fish and chips I have ever eaten.
More photos of our day are located here.
Bear in the yard
Rocky Point is nestled in between the east facing slope of the Cascades and the Upper Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge. We are on what is known in Oregon as “the east side”, with sunny skies and much less rainfall than the western part of Oregon. In fact, much of the landscape east of the Cascades is considered desert, high desert, and dominated by sage and juniper. If you look at a map of Oregon, you will see that the moist and rainy west side is only about a third of the state. The major population centers of Oregon, however, are on the west side, the rainy side, and most people who don’t know the state well think of Oregon as green, lush, and rainy.
I happen to think that I have the best of both worlds here in Rocky Point. We have the brilliant sunny skies of the east side, but since we are right at the base of the Cascades, we have enough rainfall to support a beautiful white fir/ponderosa pine/sugar pine forest. We also have snow in the winter, much more than the western part of Oregon, in fact, Crater Lake, just a short drive from here has some of the deepest snow packs in the country.
With beautiful forests comes the added benefit of lots of wildlife. No matter how frustrating it is to see my roses chewed down to the ground, I still enjoy seeing the doe and her fawns slipping around in the woods near the house. Mo built this house in 2002, and in all that time has never seen a bear on the property, although there have been rumors of bears roaming the neighborhoods now and then.
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While we were away, our neighbor reported that bears were finding the garbage cans, and roaming about. Our can was basically empty since we weren’t here, but when we returned home I found a large pile of bear scat in the yard. I know, of course, that this is the number one rule of living in the woods. Your garbage MUST be secured against wildlife intrusion. Instead, we thoughtlessly left the large can out in the yard, forgetting that a bear was possibly roaming about.
Sure enough, last weekend when I was unloading the MoHo, I turned around to see a very large black Newfoundland in the yard, and wondered who in the world had a dog that big around here. I looked into his face, maybe 10 feet away, and looked again suddenly realizing I was looking right into the eyes of a very shiny, very pretty, young black bear. He looked back at me, and I tried to figure out how to yell for Mo, who was around in the front of the house, without bringing the dog or scaring off the bear. I got way too excited, and by the time Mo got around the house and I found the camera, Mr. Bear was gone.
I do hate to admit that we neglected to bring in the garbage can right away, but planned to take care of it this weekend. Yesterday, while I was at work, Mo called to say she had a surprise. Mr. Bear had returned, again in broad daylight in mid afternoon, 
and was happily nosing around in the dumped over can. Mo had time to find the camera, get the dog inside and then go back to shoo the bear away. She told me she went out there with a broom. “A broom??!!” I said. “You were going to fight off a bear with a broom?!”. “Well, he was just little and cute and didn’t seem very scary at all”.
First she threw a couple of rocks to get his attention, and he stamped his foot and woofed at her a little, saying “Don’t bother me”. She waved the broom at him and he ambled off, not too disturbed by her, even stopping to take a nice long drink from the bird bath before walking off into the forest. And Mo got photos. I think she may not be quite as excitable as I am. Ha!
Needless to say, we did the responsible thing and put the garbage in the shop, locked up tight. The sweet little bear is probably a 2 year old, just recently sent off by his mother, and is trying to find his way in the world. He will grow up into a nice big bear, and hopefully other folks around here will also keep their garbage put away and he will go off into the woods to make his living. Sweet little bears that get too used to people turn into not so sweet big bears that can be a problem. I hope he stays wild and forgets that this yard once had a tasty morsel lying around.
The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales 
