1998 Alaska, British Columbia & Yukon Trip

We left our campsite at Starrigavan at 9;00 am. The sky was clear today. We took turns eating breakfast at McDonalds and taking showers ($2) at the Duds 'n Suds across the street. The Duds 'n Suds is a combination laudrymat, drycleaner, snackshop and they also have one shower. Next door at the apartment building some one was having a garage sale. Around 11:00 am we went downtown. They were having a their annual streetfair today. All the stores had sidewalk sales and some of the local community groups were selling food. We found another Ben Franklin store and Dale found the newest version of the 'Gilroy Garlic Festival Cookbook' at the Alaska Basket Company. He talked to the owner of this shop about bears and the local economy. We bought kebobs from a Philipino women's group. Heard someone compare this fair to the Bellevue Arts and Craft Fair back home. This was no where near as large, but was fun just the same. We heard some women complaining that there husbands miss this fair every year (and all the work) because they're out hunting. We ran into the couple who helped us last night when we got stuck on Harbor Mountain. Jacob says 'how embarrassing!'

At 2:00 pm we went back to the Alaska Raptor Rehabililation Center. Jacob had seen something he wanted to buy at the giftshop. We were hoping to see the vets working on one of the birds, but they were not there at that time. There were hardly any visitor's there compared to yesterday. We found out the local paper lists what cruise ships are expected each day. Yesterday there were two in town. They were suppose to have one in today but we never saw it. It was starting to cloud up. On the way back into town we stopped at a trailhead. It turned out to be the back side of the Sitka National Historical Park, where we were yesterday. We walked out to the rocky shore of Indian River. There were lots of salmon in this shallow river which went out to the ocean. We went back to the truck and just a few feet further on the left side was the Sitka National Cemetery. This is the oldest national cemetery west of the Mississippi established in 1867. We went back into town, but the street fair was shutting down. Driving around town we stopped at a commercial pier on Katlian Street. We saw a sign for fresh and smoked seafoods, but could not figure out where the entrance was. At 5:00 pm we decided to stop for sandwiches at Subway. We drove to Halibut Point Recreation Area to eat. At 6:30 pm we decided to go to Suds 'n Duds to do a couple loads of laundry. We had to hurry because they close at 8:00 pm. A little expensive ($2 a load), but it was nice to have clean clothes.

Afterwards we drove up Harbor Mountain one last time for a sunset. We listened to a radio station from Whitehorse on our way up. A talk show called 'West Coast Live' was on. They interviewed Grandma Susie, who is a native Indian who imitates her grandmother and does a stand-up comedy routine. She was pretty funny. They talked to artist/author Jim Hobbs (we show him in a giftshop in Whitehorse earlier on this trip). They also interviewed a man who rafted down the Yukon River with some friends about 20 years ago. They tried to do it the same way the goldminers did during the 1898 goldrush. They did the trip a second time being filmed by National Geographic. The last person on the show was Peter Long, editor and publisher of the Great Northern Lost Moose Catalog. We saw a great sunset around 9:30 pm. We drove back into town, but it was pretty dead.

We drove back toward the ferry terminal and decided to stop at the Channel Club. We had heard that this restaurant/bar had a pretty good reputation. The parking lot was usually pretty full whenever we drove by it, even though it's a few miles out of town. They had a huge salad bar. After you got your soup and salad the waitress came by to take your order. The menu was on the wall over the salad bar. The salad bar by itself was $12 and dinners ranged from $17-29, mostly steak and seafood. We were one of the last dinners they served that night at around 10:00 pm. Several locals were having a good time gathered around the bar.

From here we went to the ferry terminal. They are never quite sure when this ferry will leave because of the tides. We were suppose to be there by 12:45 am. The ferry left at 3:45 am for Petersburg.