This is a famous Klondike gold rush town, where 100,000 miners began their quest for Yukon riches in the 1890's. First, each man spent days getting thousands of pounds of supplies over the mountains. An endless string of men made it over Chilkoot and White Passes by pulling themselves up a cable stretched along the steep slopes. Today, Alaskan license plates depict this historic scene.
We took a bus ride to the top of White Pass. We only saw fog, but got to hear interesting stories about the very small town of Skagway, and pick some wild blueberries. But the best part of Skagway was Haines. Haines is a very different town, a ferryboats ride down the Lynn Canal, the longest and deepest fjord in North America. Haines is owned by Native Americans, but they tolerate outsiders. Free spirited hardy types like to live up here "off-the-grid", meaning no public electricity, water, sewer, or telephone.
Haines is were the largest number of Bald Eagles gather in the world. You may have seen a famous photo of dozens of bald eagles in a tree. That was in Haines. We spent an afternoon with some naturalists, who pointed out seals, eagles, and other wildlife. Their spotting scopes worked great, for an eye-to-eye look at the eagles. It was weird to actually see them that close, since they seem more like a symbol than something real. At one point we had eagles fighting over freshly caught fish just in front of us, several eagles squawking at each other behind us in the tree tops (the famous Bald Eagle scream is actually the sound of a Red Tailed Hawk), some young eagles near their nest across the stream, and Eagles flying low directly over our heads. By the end of the day, some people wouldn't bother to turn their head for another eagle. Though, I thought each one was impressive.
These photos were taken without the aid of a telephoto 35mm single-lens-reflex camera or tripod. I just blindly pointed our simple camera into the spotting scopes eyepiece, and crossed my fingers. I was told it would work, but I didn't really believe it.
That’s Chilkoot Lake, and no we didn't kayak. That must be a different trip.
