I have been having an amazing trip through Canada and Alaska, but if I had to point to a disappointment it would be not seeing many wild animals. I finally have my chance to see a grizzly bear in the wild.
As I mentioned in the previous post, these photos were taken from a bridge at the north end of Lutak Inlet, about 10 miles north of Haines.
I spotted the bear swimming across the Inlet from left to right.
Here is the photo I posted, taken with my iPhone camera.
The rest of these were taken with my digital camera, with a zoom lens.
He appeared to be sitting down in the river, scratching the left side of his head:
He soon brought up a dead fish, which he proceeded to consume.
This is a photographer I had seen coming down the road as the bear was walking down towards the water. I spoke with him later and he is one of the people who told me that this bear is a “regular” and is seen just about every day.
He is possibly what the bear was looking at in the photo above.
He started walking towards the shore. You can see where his hair is matted down from being in the water. I read somewhere that bears don’t like to get their ears wet, which is probably why he kept his head above water.
He shook off most of the water and started walking south, away from the bridge I was on.
He reached the house I mentioned in the prior post – which was pretty far away from the bridge I was on.
He finally turned around and started walking back north. Shortly after I took this photo he turned to his left and I lost sight of him.
I then spotted a bald eagle near the waterway between the Inlet and Chilkoot Lake, north of the bridge I was on. It was eating a fish that it had apparently caught.
I will drive back up here in the morning after I stop at the ferry terminal to confirm that I am in town and will be there for boarding. They understood, and told me what time I needed to be back.
I had spoken with several people in Denali National Park, as well as in Anchorage, who shared stories of bears they had seen near Haines. When I made my Airbnb reservation my hostess assured me that she would guide me to a spot not far from town where I would be VERY likely to see some grizzly bears, so I was really looking forward to getting there.
Here is an overview of the area I will be in for most of the next two days.
(Photo credit: Google Maps)
You will see the Bald Eagle Preserve in the upper left portion of the map. The town of Haines is the lower right hand corner. I will indeed see a grizzly bear twice near the entrance road to Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site (above Haines). Tomorrow morning, after seeing the bear again, I will take a ferry to the town of Skagway, in the upper right corner of the map. I will be showing some other maps shortly so you can better visualize the places I will be referring to.
I imagine this is not the first thing you were expecting to see. I went in to ask if it is indeed a Radio Shack store. I thought they had gone out of business a few years ago, though I did see one in Lander, Wyoming back in 2021. The woman behind the register informed me that yes, there are a few former Radio Shack locations still in existence, though the main company is gone. The loyal owners share their stock and ship items to where they are wanted. This store sold other things as well (such as fishing and hunting supplies).
I had a rather long conversation with the clerk, and she shared a video of someone who had been fishing at Chilkoot Lake and as they were leaving the property came across a mother bear with three cubs, walking towards them in the road. The driver stopped and started taking the video with his phone of the bears approaching the truck and walking past the driver’s door. He lowered the camera to continue shooting the video in the rear view mirror, and when the mother bear got towards the back of the boat he was hauling on a trailer the bear stopped and stood up on her hind legs, apparently smelling the “catch of the day” onboard. It was sealed in a cooler (there are huge fines for letting a bear get hold of a fish you had caught) so the bears finally went on their way.
The lake road he was on is where I will spot a bear both days while I am here.
I drove into town and took a few photos before going to the Visitor Center.
When I got to the Visitor Center I found this sign outside. I will show various portions of it.
The photo above shows the route I came in on. It ran right along the Chilkat River until it got to town. All four of these photos show some substantial mountains in all views.
The photo above is looking further right (east) and shows Chilkoot Lake in the upper right hand corner. I will drive the road which runs along the Bay, past the place where I will be boarding a ferry with my car tomorrow, and eventually ends at the entrance to the Chilkoot Lake State Park. It is about 10 miles from town.
The photo above omits Haines but more clearly shows the Lutak Inlet which ends before Chilkoot Lake.
The last part of the map shows the Taiya Inlet which the ferry will navigate to take me to Skagway. After I board it the ferry will come down Lutak Inlet from the upper left and turn left to go to up Taiya Inlet to get to Skagway.
Here is yet another photo of downtown Haines. It was located on Main Street.
It shows the main street (You are here), the harbor at the end, and the cruise ship dock on the right side. Fort Seward is an old military installation which is now just residential buildings.
Here are two photos of the harbor:
After taking a look at the town I drove up to the place where I hoped to finally see some grizzly bears!
I parked in a small dirt parking area near a bridge which crosses the north end of the Inlet. That bridge leads to some houses, where the road dead-ends.
From the bridge, this is the view looking down the Inlet towards Haines.
I know it is quite small, but please note the house just right of the center of the photo. I will make a reference to it in my next post.
After checking out the bridge and the waterway between the Inlet and Chilkoot Lake, I got in my car and drove into the State Park. As soon as I got on the road I saw a grizzly bear walking down towards the water on my right. I drove further into the State Park until I could safely park my car, grabbed my cameras and walked briskly (with my bear spray!) towards where I had seen the bear.
I walked back out on the bridge and soon spotted it swimming across the Inlet from my left to right.
My first bear sighting in the wild!! My next post will be photos taken with my digital camera, as the zoom lens will come in handy.
After taking bear photos I walked back to my car and spotted a bald eagle on the ground in the woods next to the Park access road.
I hung around the access road talking with other visitors and photographers. It turns out the bear I saw is a “regular” and they see it just about every day. They also knew about the female with the three cubs which I had seen a video of when I arrived in town.
I finally decided to drive back into town and grab some dinner before checking in at my Airbnb. This was the view of the harbor when I left the restaurant, which was adjacent to it.
After spending the night in Haines Junction I filled my car with gas and headed south towards Haines, Alaska. The drive is a little under 3 hours, and will involve another border crossing.
It started off as a beautiful sunny morning.
That is actually the sign looking back towards town. I don’t recall seeing a sign as I drove south into town yesterday but I may have just missed it.
I was surprised to see those low clouds in the distance. As I got closer I realized that I was approaching a lake and I thought perhaps it was just morning fog over the water. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Even after I had passed the lake, extremely low clouds persisted.
I could see well enough to spot this sign near the road:
That is the first time I have ever seen such a sign. Of course I wasn’t worried about snow plows this time of year, but I soon saw another sign which helped explain things a little better.
I was approaching a series of very tall mountains on both sides of the road which have a very high risk for experiencing avalanches during the winter. I never really felt that the elevation of the roadway was changing significantly, so apparently the road was weaving between the mountains. With the low clouds I couldn’t see ANY mountains, must less determining how close I was to them or how tall they were.
So the wrong-way snowplows are apparently employed to clear the roads quickly after an avalanche.
The low clouds did close in a little bit, but visibility was not a problem.
I admit I stopped and got out of the car to take the photo above. I saw the sign indicating a “photo op” 2 kilometers ahead, and walked over to get a shot of just the sign and the clouds.
I soon crossed the border and entered Alaska. The clouds were lifting enough that I could at least see a little ways off the road, but didn’t really see anything worth stopping for.
When I was a few miles away from Haines I came to this sign advising me that I was entering a Bald Eagle Preserve.
When I got to a place where there was a large parking area I stopped and got out of the car to walk up and down the road to see if I could spot any bald eagles. I did see a few, but they were flying pretty high up in the sky and perching up in the trees. Few things are as difficult for me than taking a photo of a bird in flight. I was content to just enjoy the solitude. I will have an opportunity to see some bald eagles on the ground later in the day.
These are views of the Chilkat River, looking north and south from where I had stopped.
After taking a break I drove into town to get my bearings. I will show you those photos in the next post, and will be showing some maps I found on a sign in town which better illustrate where I am.
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