Sharp's Travels

We were ready to leave this morning by 6:45am. We hadn’t gone to far when we spotted a bear run across the road ahead of us. He wasn’t close enough for a picture this time.

Our road was good the rest of the way to Haines Junction. We made the turn towards Haines. The mountain views were beautiful until it started to rain and the fog set in. We dropped down into the Chilkat Valley and passed through the boarder with no problems. We had only 40 miles to go into Haines. The road from Haines Junction to Haines is great. We sailed right along.

We drove past the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, a 48,000 acre sanctuary for the National Bird. We spotted 4 eagles along the road there. One pair was sitting on a nest there.

Haines is known as the Valley of the Eagles. In the summer, they’re likely to be perched at the waterfront or along the rivers. We were lucky to see 8 eagles altogether today. The eagles gather along the Chilkat River in Haines by the thousands in the winter. The natural upwelling of warm water allows them to feed on the late run of salmon when the rest of Alaska is frozen solid.

Adult bald eagles weigh between 9 or 12 pounds, with a wing span of 7 feet. The females are slightly larger than the males. They can fly up to 30mph and dive up to 100mph. The term “eagle eye” is no exaggeration; eagles can spot a fish up to 1 mile away.

We also saw 6 trumpeter swans today. This area is their natural breeding ground.

We arrived in Haines at our RV Park about noon. We got set up in between the rain shower, had a quick bit to eat and headed out to Chilkoot Lake, about 11 miles from here, to check out the bear feeding on salmon there. We waited about 1 hour and saw nothing so started to head back when we spotted one. He was in the river eating salmon. Gay got a number of pictures. The bear came back up the bank in front of us to cross the road and head back into the woods. It was neat to get such a close look at him.

We came back into town and had fish and chips at a local restaurant. It’s been a long day.

For pictures of the day see album: Kluane Lake to Haines 8-13-08