The ExploreNorth Blog

The photo of the Arctic Blue butterfly that I posted reminded me of a magnificent moth that I captured a series of photos of last summer. They were posted on the old blog but disappeared when the new blog was installed.

It was just before 10:00 pm on August 7th when Cathy called me to the window to see what she thought was a hummingbird feeding on our delphiniums. It turned out to be a huge (ca. 3-inch wingspan) Bedstraw Hawkmoth (Hyles gallii), and in the dim light a few minutes after 10:00 pm I was able to get these shots by using a 300mm lens and flash with the camera set at ISO 1600.

Like most people, I love butterflies (and moths). They can be tough little creatures to take a photo of, but on a hike through the Carcross dunes on Wednesday I captured this image of a tiny Arctic Blue (Plebejus glandon). It has a wingspan of about one inch, so I was very lucky that it sat still for a few seconds for this portrait.

So this is Global Warming – or Climate Change – or whatever. Yesterday afternoon we got the heaviest hail I’ve ever seen in this country, and this morning the temperature is -5°C (23°F), everything is glazed with ice and the last of my flowers have been killed. I’m very sad ….

Having your morning coffee in just the right place can make such a difference in how the rest of your day goes. I found just the right place this morning – it’s not easy to get to, but its worth the work it takes to get there.

The temperature hit the freezing mark this morning, and by the time I got to Carcross at 8:15 it was still only 39 degrees F.

At the cabin, about to unload the canoe.

I had actually planned on a major canoeing day, but there was just enough of a breeze to make paddling unpleasant, so I stopped at the first sheltered bay and enjoyed a very leisurely coffee, still hot in a large mug I filled at home. This photo was shot at 8:55.

After spending almost an hour on that beach doing absolutely nothing, I decided to see if I could get a bit further down the lake.

I only paddled another mile, but by then the view of the West Arm peaks was wonderful so I hiked down the railway tracks and the beach for another mile or so.

The day was actually a lot more interesting than that but I have to get up early to guide a tour tomorrow so I’ll tell you more another time

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had picked up 1,900 pounds of tile for the entry and kitchen. I got a phone call yesterday from Home Hardware, where we bought them. We were quoted $8.50 per tile – thinking that was low, we asked for and received confirmation that that price was per tile and not per square foot. It’s worth noting that we hadn’t done any price comparisons with other 20×20 tiles – there was a single tile that we liked and that’s the only one we got a quote on. When we went back to order them 2-3 weeks later, we asked the same question of a different clerk in the flooring department and got the same answer. When the tiles arrived, the computer printed out an invoice (ie a contract) for $1,433.78, which we paid. You would assume that Home Hardware’s part of the deal was finished, wouldn’t you? Now I just have to lay the tiles.

Yesterday, however, I got a phone call from the second clerk we dealt with. She explained that the price was an error, that it was actually $8.50 per square foot, and so we owe another $1,400. I was in shock.

Can you imagine going to a car lot, for example, seeing a new Toyota with a very low sticker price, confirming that the price was correct, paying for it and driving away, and then having the dealer phone 3 weeks later saying that they messed up and you owe another few thousand dollars??? I’m just shaking my head at the nerve. We thought the price was low, but both clerks in the flooring department accepted it as accurate and processed the deal. I’m a very fair guy, but the odds of me paying the new charge is absolute zero. But there’s the sort of thing that can happen when there’s not another large building supply store within 900 miles. Home Depot, come on up!!

One of the large losses when my blog got hacked and I had to nuke it was a lengthy discussion about Austin’s Alaska Adventures in St. Michael. The post was initiated by an email I received from Lyn Harvey of Australia, who went on a trip with them and had a dreadful experience. While I unfortunately can’t re-create the many followup posts, here is Lyn’s well-illustrated commentary again:

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I don’t like to be negative but I must tell it like it was to save someone else from this experience. As you will see from my pages on Tripadvisor I’ve had a lot of adventures, and this was the worst.

Dog mushing was at the top of my bucket list, and it’s expensive and a long way to go from Australia. I had to overnight in Anchorage and again overnight in Nome. Due to bad weather we had yet another night in Nome on the way to St. Michael. I have to say Austin’s web site makes it all look good. HA! Jerry met us at the plane stinking of alcohol, and as his photo on the web site is about 10 years out of date we thought this was his Dad. We were taken to the daughter’s house (she was out of town in Anchorage), and it was dirty and dilapidated with bare electrical wires. There was rubbish in the kitchen from the previous mushers 2 weeks before. We were told the toilet doesn’t work and to go to Jerry’s house! They did fix it. Also told the shower doesn’t work so one of the girls went to their house for a shower and was told off for coming close to meal time. There were 6 of us and only 5 beds. I slept on a mattress on the floor behind the couch and one of the guys slept on the couch. The 2 ‘bedrooms’ where the others slept had no doors. No privacy. After ‘dinner’ that night Jerry lay on the couch watching TV and Clara told us to shush. Clara is rude, surly and ill tempered and she and Jerry argued. They had hired help who took us to the stinking garage and was hard put to find gear without broken zips and holes.

Despite the claims on the web site Jerry had nothing to do with our mushing, he followed on a snowmobile. After mushing up to their ‘lodge’ at Klikitarik, a home made shack, we were given a dinner of roast meat just cooked around the edges and mostly raw and raw carrots and celery! The tent we slept in had only 5 camp beds so one guy slept with the hired help, who is rude and ill mannered, in a tent with no heating. When I asked Clara about the King Crab boasted about on their web site she acted surprised and told me we don’t get that. In response to my reference to the promises made on the web site she stated she has never seen it.

We were concerned at the conditions the dogs are kept in. They have kennels they can’t get into and food is put onto the snow where they poop and pee! Due to bad weather we had to spend an extra night and 2 days at that place. The second day one of the guys went to their house at 2.30pm to ask about lunch for us, and was sent back with 2 boxes of Pringles and a bag of Doritos. I kid you not!

We finally left for Nome at 5.45pm and of course all had flights onwards. Since being home I have been directed to comments posted on tripadvisor about this trip. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before as I spent hours on the ‘Net. I hope to save others from this experience. Don’t go with Austin’s – it’s expensive and a rip off.

My mattress on the floor behind the couch the other guy slept on.

This wire was above the couch we sat on, the other was a ‘bed’

The bathroom vanity unit. Breakfast was at 10 am, and Clara was rude to me when I went over to their cabin before that to ask for a hot drink! As the couple in our group commented to Albert, we were made to feel like a damn nuisance.

The stinking garage

The garage where we got Mushing 101 from Terence. He was the one taking us, not Austin.

How the dogs live.

No dog should have to live like this.

Another useless kennel.

The tent we slept in at Klikitarik.

My bed, complete with rubbish from previous trip, and disgusting pillow.

Would you put your head on that pillow hanging there?

Jerry Austin’s web site says he is 51 years old, and the photo is clearly out of date. I calculated from what I can find on the web that he is 10 years older. As you can see he has a knee brace and walks with a stick. He also has the shakes. Not what we expected.

I hope to hear from others who will be willing to add to my complaints. They need to be put out of business – at least then they wouldn’t have all those poor dogs. It seems there is no monitoring of these remote operations, no Animal organizations to check on the dogs.

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The final 2 photos were taken at Vern Halter’s Dream a Dream Kennel near Willow. What a difference – the dogs all have a food and water bowl and clean straw in their house. This is how a sled dog kennel should look!

I don’t always love rain, but I sure do love the rain that’s fallen the past 2 days. The forest fire smoke is gone and the flowers, especially the lupine on our property, are going crazy. I was getting very paranoid about fires, despite the fact the fire crews – Wildland Fire Management, the City of Whitehorse and all the volunteer crews around the territory – have been doing an incredible job of getting all the fires that have started put out quickly. Now I’m relaxed again

The truck is out by the barn for a major cleanout of the renovation stuff that’s been accumulating over the past year – mostly junk kitchen cabinets from the city house. Bit by bit….

I’m thoroughly enjoying my new gig as Cruise Consultant – it seems to be the perfect evolutionary step that uses much of what I’ve learned over the past couple of decades in a fun new way. There’s a lot to learn about the business side of things, but I’ve already reached the highest certification level at the Princess Academy (the Commodore level) and I’m well into the Royal Caribbean and Cunard coursework.

One of the things that I can now do is ramp the photography workshops that I conducted for years up a few notches. My first one is a 12-day Luxury Alaska Photography Cruise / Tour in June 2010 – it includes a 7-day cruise on the beautiful and highly-rated Diamond Princess, and a 5-day rail, bus and motorcoach tour up to Denali National Park and back to Anchorage. There are only 16 spaces available, with Balcony, Oceanview and Inside cabins available. If you’re interested in joining Cathy and I on this trip (or just the cruise portion of it), I’d love to talk to you about it – call toll-free 1-888-821-3621.

To see the photographic potential of this trip (including glaciers, trains and grizzlies), have a look at some of the thousands of photos I’ve shot on previous Alaska cruises, at the review section of YourAlaskaCruise.com.

This is another of the posts that were on the old blog, re-posted by using the Wayback Machine

Originally posted on December 20, 2007

The move is complete. Well, most of it is – I still have a lot of books and files to bring down from the cabin, and it’ll take a few weeks to get everything organized once it does all arrive. Despite the chaos, and the challenges of moving just before Christmas in temperatures of around -30° C, though, Cathy was calling our new home her sanctuary within days of spending our first night here. It’s peaceful, it’s private, and it just feels good. The big plans we had to start renovations right away have faded – somehow the things we planned don’t seem so important right now. The photo below – the view from our bedroom – may give you an idea why.

Last night the moon, though nowhere near full, was brilliant, and the hot tub provided a superb place to soak it in. No jets, no lights, just hot water in beautiful surroundings with my soulmate. A sanctuary indeed

On May 13, 2009, the White Pass & Yukon Route announced that the seasonal rail service from Skagway to Carcross which was scheduled to begin on May 22 had been suspended due to a major washout of the rail line 4 miles south of Bennett. Although only a small percentage of the 437,660 passengers who experienced the WP&YR in 2008 went all the way to Carcross, it’s a growing market and Holland America uses the Carcross train to bring their Yukon/Alaska cruisetour passengers up from Skagway en route to Whitehorse, so repairing the damage is a high priority.

On May 26, two passenger cars were trucked from Skagway to Carcross and the “Washout Special” was initiated using locomotive 95, which had been used to haul work trains south from Carcross for the past few years. When I went down to Skagway on June 3rd I got “train fever” and bought tickets on the Washout Special for Cathy and I to celebrate the incredible weather we’ve been having in recent weeks. For $126 US total, we got an incredible day!

While I usually post the photos from my trips here on the blog, there are too many for this format today, so I’ve posted the album over at my RailsNorth.com site. There’s more commentary to be added as time permits today, but I just had to show you the photos The 3 below are samples of what’s there….