roadquill1

On Thursday morning, we had one last stop before we departed from Dawson City, and that was to pay a visit to the Robert Service cabin. Sandy’s father, Wilf, could recite a number of Robert Service poems, and he would have loved to see that spot.

Luckily, though the sky was still overcast, it was high cloud, and we had no rain between Dawson City and Carmacks – our Thursday night stop. Carmacks had its history, like Nanaimo, in coal mining. The Yukon River flows powerfully past the town, which has a hotel, a small community on one side of the river, a First Nation community on the other, and a wonderful wooden walkway along the south side of the river. We found our RV parking site behind the hotel, and then trod the length of the walkway. A planned “Asian Buffet” at the hotel turned out to be a noon-time show, so we disappointedly ate à la carte.

On Friday, we had a short run (less than 2 hours) to Whitehorse. The day started out with fog to our north, and clear skies and chilly temperatures as we headed south. (At one point the temperature was down to -1C). We passed several beautiful, long lakes (actually, widenings of the Yukon River, I believe). Each lake that we passed had its own fog bank hanging over it. The first two were Little Fox Lake and Fox Lake, and then…

We came to the marge of Lake LaBarge, where we turned to our left to admire,

And stepped out of our truck to try our luck at finding the site of the pyre

Where Sam got heated, and thus the cold cheated, as he burned to a crisp in the fire.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun…!

Enough Robert Service? I think so!

By 10:30 we were in Whitehorse under clear skies, and after stopping in at the Visitors’ Centre, we booked our spot at Hi Country RV, and drove back into town to explore, and to meet an old friend of mine from my Vancouver days of 40 years ago – Hilary Preston (née Deasley). Hilary took us on an extended hiking trip along the Yukon River past the dam, up to a scenic hilltop view, and back along the east side of the River to the paddle wheeler where we were parked. Later, we joined the Prestons (Hilary, husband Tim, and son and grandson, Jon and Scotty) for supper at their lovely home. The walk was the best exercise that we have had in some time, and the supper was awesome!

Since the forecast for today had accurately called for more rain, we opted out of spending a second day in Whitehorse, and after acquiring groceries, fuel and propane in the rain this morning, we headed south again towards our Saturday stop at Boya Lake with fingers crossed for a pleasant evening.

The fall colours are beginning to show, and the reds, of the fireweed, combined with the yellows and golds of the aspen and cottonwood, amidst pine and spruce dark greens are striking. I tried to take this photo in sunlight, but the sunlight might be more rare than Yukon gold! As the summer heads south, so must we!

We almost got the “pleasant evening” part, but as I write at 6:00 this evening rain is once again rattling on our tin roof, and I should also mention the other sound…thunder, as we sit in the same campsite that we held several weeks ago (in sunshine!) Hang in there folks, as requested, we are bringing the rain with us. It should be wet by Thursday or Friday when we arrive back on the lower mainland.

Sunday: We are at Dease Lake at the “Northern Lights College”, where we have access to the internet, however, it is a slow connection, and so I must leave pictures out the blog notes this time. The good news…overcast, but no rain today!

Much love and best wishes to all, and we continue to enjoy your comments and emails!

Tony, and Sandy

Dear family and friends,

We made it over the highway from Teton Junction on the Alaska Highway through to Chicken, and then onto its continuation past the Eagle turnoff onto the “Top of the World” highway to Dawson City ferry crossing of the Yukon River.

View from “The Top of the World”.

Parts of this highway were quite brutal with ruts, potholes, washboard, and always – mud! From Chicken to the turnoff to Eagle was the worst, and that was followed by brand-new pavement to the border crossing. From there to Dawson City the road was mostly good gravel, but still very muddy. By the time we arrived at our RV site in town for the night, Truck House had become disguised as a rather boxy mud-pie! Eight dollars later, we had spray washed most of the muck off, and once again looked respectable.

Road paint from “Top of the World”

We are still in that weather system that provides gloom and showers – sometimes heavy. We are sure that some of the viewpoints on the “Top of the World” highway are truly spectacular, but we could only imagine. Fog was also heavy at one point, but we were able to see and experience the vastness of the “Chicken Fire” that occurred in 2004. For miles, and several hours we were within the fire-ravaged territory, and we began to get a shocking concept of the 1.3 million acres that burned!

The “Chicken Burn” of 2004

Trapper cabin near summit at Top of the World

Looking north into Yukon from “Top of the World”

We did stop at Chicken, and were directed to a cafe that featured baked sweets. Unfortunately, a cruise ship tour bus (where did it come from???) beat us there, and we had to join the crowd in line before getting a superb and huge cinnamon bun. This was about 10:30, and became our sustenance until supper time.

The Tour Bus hits “Chicken”

The “Chicken Poop”

Dawson City is an intriguing view into our gold-rush history. Some of the original town has been preserved – in the original – decaying and sinking into the permafrost. Other parts look original but are reconstructions.

Permafrost gradually lets buildings down

Last night, we took in the Diamond Gertie Casino show. It was entertaining, but Sandy and I voted it second best to the Barkerville Revue that we watched several years ago with the Lindsay and Mjaaland families. (The Barkerville performance by brother-in-law Lars was much superior to the “volunteers” at last night’s show!)

Today, hopefully in sunshine, we will stop at the Robert Service cabin, and then begin our trip south. The magnet of home begins to pull, and weather has caused us to shorten our itinerary considerably.

We are continually grateful for all the comments, and the emails. Thanks to all!

Love and best wishes to all!

Tony and Sandy

Sandy catches me with the ideal catch:

The catch of the day

Now I can move on…

Tony

Late evening photos on Homer Spit (near 9:30 pm)

Beached barge and glacier in the east

Zoom of glacier (through one lens of Binoculars)

Early morning on Homer Spit – wind during the night rattled the rigging hanging underneath our kayaks and made a periodic thrumming sound. It was most unsettling, but climbing out on the roof to attend to it would have been more aggravating. So we slept fitfully, and tried to ignore it. At daylight at 5:00 this morning (by the way, the sun set at about 9:45 last night), vehicles started arriving, fishers chatted softly outside our camper, the rain started to patter on the roof, and the bite was on!

By 5:30, the combat zone was marked out as fishers lined the beach casting towards each other from both sides of the creek that drained the small enclosed bay on the spit. As the tide fell in Kamchemak Bay, and the waters receded from the small basin, the fishers on the west side of the outflow creek stepped gradually towards their opposite numbers while the eastern side fishers in equal steps retreated. The only sound was from raucous, excited gulls.

Homer Spit – fishing Combat Zone

Almost everyone is catching 7 to 12 pound cohoes, but I hang back, not anxious to join the fray. There is a rhythm and flow to the movement of the fishers, based on beach etiquette, space, casting directions, cast-timing and so on. When a catch is dragged up on the beach, the gap is quickly filled by returning fishers, or measured side-stepping. I am reluctant to put myself into the mix without a deeper understanding of the dance steps.

After several hours of watching the process in some astonishment, we retreated to Truck House for breakfast and coffee as the rain began again. As I look out the window at a very low receded tide, there are still a half-dozen die-hard casters out on the shoreline. This is less than a third of the number that were there an hour ago. I feel somewhat intimidated, and unsure – much like a teenager at a high school dance wondering about the risks of asking a pretty girl across the room for a dance – but the music has ended…and the rain is steady. And the last fisher has now finally left the dance floor.

Moving on…!

Tony, the Quill, and Sandy, the Quilter

A lunchtime stop in Kenai – in the rain:

Russian Church in Kenai

These are marine life that we have seen in the past 24 hours. The rainbow  was a rainbow trout – caught yesterday at Upper Summit Lake in the Kenai Peninsula (Chugach National Forest) on a fly created by my friend Mike Harris. (Thanks Mike!) I was going to take a pic of the fish and then release it, but my camera battery had died, and so did the fish, so I had to eat the fish! (I took the picture after paddling back to campsite, and THEN I ate the fish!) Given that my 2 week Alaska fishing licence cost $80, I am hoping that I can average down the cost per pound of fish over the next two weeks. Otherwise, that first meal was a doozy!

Rainbow and Merrell

Today, we started out with a run to Seward where the town is hosting a cruise ship, and a Silver Salmon Fishing derby. (In Alaska, a King is a Chinook, a Red is a sockeye, a Pink is a Humpback, and a Silver is a Coho.) The place is quite busy. I was quite surprised to find campers parked all along the waterfront and no one fishing. Coho were jumping all along the shore, and dall porpoises seemed to be taking advantage of the good supply of food. Several sea otters (not river otters) floated along the shore and dove for shell fish. I finally asked a local who told me that everyone was waiting for the bite at high tide.

Waterfront monument in Seward

Highway from Seward

The weather was spectacular, with a few clouds over the high snow-covered peaks, but otherwise, perfect! I was catching up on mail at Zudy’s Cafe, and planned on sending a new blog note, but Sandy returned from her latest quilt shop stop and it was time to meander down the waterfront walkway, where hundreds of campers are parked and waiting to get in on the bite time. Apparently, there are prizes for the most fish, the biggest fish, and one prize for a previously tagged salmon. (This latter is worth about $20,000. Last year, the tagged fish was caught some time after the derby – in Prince William Sound – some distance from Resurrection Bay.)

Seward – Iditarod Mile 0

After a bit of a walk-about (past Mile 0 of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race), we headed off for Homer, and the spit that reaches out into the Kachemak Bay. En route, we watched the river boats floating down the Kenai River near the mouth of the Russian River…probably one of the most productive salmon fishing areas on the planet! Because this is the last weekend before school begins in Anchorage, we have decided to forego stopping in this area until after this very busy weekend is over, and the camping crowds thin out. We will make it a priority stop on our way out of Kenai Peninsula – hopefully with some equally fine weather. (Today’s temperatures got up to 19C, and the skies were blue with some cloud around, but the weather report suggests that the good weather is about to end with rain coming in tomorrow.)

We were able to see the volcanoes across Cook Inlet today on our way south to Homer. The distance across the Inlet is about 40 miles, so they were a bit hazy. The most recent activity was in 2009, but 4 of them are on active status, and monitored closely.

Tonight we are camped at the end of the Kenai highway in Homer, on Homer Spit (4.5 mi. long) in a “dry camping” area (for $15) with many, many folks fishing the shoreline beside and around us. The fish cleaning tables are very busy, and the gulls are raucously enjoying the castaways! We walked up to the end of the spit past some very funky and beautiful shops and camping rigs, and then stopped into a boardwalk cafe on the way back for fish and chip dinner. (Ironic, perhaps, but I couldn’t wait to catch my own…fish dinner, that is.) Coho are jumping, and I intend to get in on the action tomorrow.

Barge on Homer Spit

Love, joy and best wishes to all!

Sandy, the Quilter (on leave from her machines, but not the shops), and Tony, the Quill

Sandy leaving me for Cooper Landing Quilt Shop

p.s. If this note seems to focus rather extensively on fishing, it is because the whole of south Alaska is fish crazy at this time of year, and I caught the infection, if not the fish.