The ExploreNorth Blog

The Labour Day long weekend is a rather manic time in the North. Everyone is doing something outside, knowing that this is the last good-weather long weekend we’re going to see until May. Whether it’s berry picking, hiking, boating, camping or just getting out for a scenic drive, it’s time to get it out of your system.

Cathy and I just went for a drive to Skagway on Saturday. The forecast was for partly sunny in Whitehorse, all sun in Skagway. Of course that didn’t happen, but that’s what we hoped for, and the clouds in Skagway were great compared to what often happens in September!

The first photo below shows the Fall colours on Caribou Mountain. It’s not going to be a great year for colour. My impression is that it takes a spell of warmish weather and then sudden deep cold to make the colours brilliant – when the temperature just slowly drops as it has this year, colours are subdued.

The colours a couple of miles further down the highway, at Spirit Lake.

A couple of rental RVs were set up at one of the nicest camping spots in the territory, on the shore of Tutshi Lake. Whenever you see 2 or 3 RVs travelling bumper-to-bumper here, you can always be sure that they’re Germans

Looking up from the same spot that I took the photo above, Winter is just that close!

With only 2 ships in port, things were bound to be slow in Skagway, but things were very slow, and many of the people on the street were from Whitehorse. The Sea Princess is on a 10-day sailing, now southbound back to San Francisco, and the Volendam is in the middle of a 7-day cruise out of Vancouver.

We’d gotten off to a late start so had lunch/dinner at the Skagway Brewing Company, then went over to the Klothes Rush and stocked up with footwear from their great sale (Skagwegians know how to put on sales!). Now I’m all set for the 3 cruises I’ve got booked for the next few weeks (Cathy only gets to go on 2 of them).

As we headed out of town, a photo op for a train near the White Pass Shops stopped me – because you can never have too many pictures of trains

Some of these locomotives won’t be working until next year…

… though they may get moved into the new engine house, which went up very quickly.

For my friends on the White Pass list who can’t figure out where the new engine house is, here it is in relation to the main building.

Northbound back to Whitehorse along the Tutshi River at Km 53.

Despite a forecast of a 40% chance of showers yesterday, I decided to head north on the bike for a bit. I almost turned around at Porter Creek when I saw the weather ahead, but decided to go anyway. The road construction that has stopped me twice before is all finished now, so Braeburn Lodge became the destination of the day despite the steady cold rain.

Fox Lake Campground was over-full, with some people camped in the parking lot rather than campsites, but seemed to be clearing out quickly due to the cold rain that showed no sign of letting up. I saw only Yukon licence plates on all the vehicles.

Nearing the north end of the Fox Lake Burn, an area that had a pair of forest fires in the late 1990s. Not exactly good biking weather, but traffic was very light, which is a very good thing when you’re on 2 wheels.

I had a pleasant visit with the owner of Braeburn Lodge (as well as coffee and some excellent mushroom soup), got one of his ginormous cinnamon buns to take home, and headed south. As on the South Klondike, the colours weren’t great overall but there were some brilliant patches like this.

It’s a great bike road, but rain and 44° isn’t the best weather to do it in! By the time I got home, with 195km on the clock, I was ready for the hot tub

There’s still one day of weekend to go, but this will be a stay-at-home day – there’s a lot of work to get done.

Living in Whitehorse has a lot of pluses. Especially when you have secluded acreage 15 minutes from downtown. Not only do you have pretty well every service you need close at hand, the wilderness is literally at your back door.

On Saturday afternoon the Fall colours on Golden Horn looked so good from our deck that we decided to take a drive up Mount McIntyre, or “Mount Mac” as everyone calls it. So up the Alaska Highway we went, turned left at the old Lobird road, went through the gravel pit and 20 minutes from home we were heading up the mountain.

This is the view that keeps bringing me back to Mount Mac, looking southwest over the head of Fish Lake, with Mount Granger on the left. The fireweed in the foreground makes a nice border along the road.

The higher up Mount Mac we got, the more beautiful it was, but off in the distance…. Father Winter is sneaking up on us!

On the summit there’s an aircraft communications system that’s “fenced off” with 3 strands of barbed wire. There’s also a sign that says “No Trespassing” and that no doubt discourages many people from exploring further. The track that goes to the right of the fence isn’t easy to spot but within a few hundred feet it turns into a good 4-wheel-drive road.

On the nearly level summit past the communications system, the Fall colours were beautiful – not as bright as I’d hoped for but certainly enough to brighten up the day.

The tundra offered a great location for a family photo, and Kayla really got into the wilderness spirit with a good wolf-howl! Or was that just a Rebel yell?

This is the view to the SSE from the location above. The mountain to the left is Golden Horn – our house is at the foot of the mountain, further left.

The wind up there had a bit but we went for a bit of a walk to enjoy the incredible views, with the city right below and Marsh Lake off in the distance to the right in this photo. At this location we were right on the city boundary!

It’s hard to believe that the tiny plants that cover the ground up there can be so hardy.

The Tracker is the perfect little truck for this sort of outing. The high clearance and short wheel base make roads like this quite simple – as long as you judge the right line to take through the rocks! Coming down this section was actually worse than going up (it’s much steeper than it looks in this photo).

Starting back down the mountain.

We took a wander at the spot where the truck is parked above. Here’s a closeup of some of the most brilliantly coloured plants – bearberries, I think. Kayla discovered blueberries and turned into a berry-picking machine!

The cranberries were a bit past prime but still quite good.

This is the shortcut that goes pretty much straight down to Fish Lake, saving a very long trip around on less-rough roads.

Fish Lake was a busy place. It seemed to be an organized group of some sort, with powerboats and a big video camera. We didn’t stay.

Here’s a map of where we went – click on it to greatly enlarge it.

With Fall here now (we had -3°C a couple of mornings ago), I’ve loaded up the firewood room in the basement and the wood furnace is fired up.

But with the firewood in the house we also have new residents that we haven’t seen since May – wood bugs of some sort. There are only a few of them but I’d really like there to be none. If any of you know what they are exactly and how to deal with them, information will be gratefully received! They’re tiny, only about 1/8 of an inch long. The first photo shows one on a piece of lined writing paper – this is what my new Fuji does on the Super Macro setting.

Mother Nature is sending us a gift tonight – a major show of the aurora borealis. It seems like a very long time since this has happened. It will last for about 48 hours, so tonight and tomorrow night should both be good times to have your camera and tripod handy, and good viewing locations in mind. It will be visible as far south as Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Unlike the last couple of opportunities, we even have a perfect weather forecast for viewing! See the UAF Geophysical Institute Web page for regular aurora forecasts.

Cathy and I are fairly good about getting out for a walk with the dogs at least once a day. Just short ones, a loop around the property, but it’s something. When we lived in town we used to go to the airport for our walks quite often, and last night we went there again, I think for the first time since we moved to Mary Lake. Although the Centennial Trail is the popular trail in Whitehorse, I prefer the airport for several reasons.

First, there are airplanes – sometimes really good action, sometimes just airplanes sitting off in the distance. We lucked in to Air North’s 7pm departure just as we walked by the runway on the way to the trail along the top of the “clay cliffs”.

What a beautiful evening to see the Yukon from the air! Yes, I did just get home from a long trip, but I still got a twinge that I’d like to be going somewhere

This is the furthest-north point of the trail along the cliffs – it’s a long, dizzying way down! I love seeing the city from this perspective – it’s a great reminder of how beautiful the setting is.

It was a fairly slow night at the “WalMart RV Park” – some nights there are more than twice this many rigs. This may seem to many people like an odd way to “camp” but some of the local RVs parks that you pay a lot of money for are even worse, jamming motorhomes in on a gravel parking lot. I wish that the Yukon and Alaska would use New Zealand as a model of what to offer campers – few people camp at malls there.

Looking across downtown to Grey Mountain. The largest building, with the green roof, holds government offices. The furthest line of buildings is the hospital complex – with the hospital on the left and the new (under construction) nurses’ residence on the right.

The airport trails range from a paved path to this ATV-enhanced route along the airport fence, to wide open meadows full of flowers.

We encountered the 2 immature bald eagles from the nest along Robert Service Way. A couple of women we met had just seen them arguing over a ground squirrel one of them had caught!

A different look at Main Street, at 7:35. One of the things I really do like about Whitehorse is that Main Street is still the main street instead of a nearly-abandoned backroad as in many cities. Malls and superstores hurt downtown for a few years but the vitality has returned, perhaps even stronger than before.

On the drive back home, we came upon this very “Yukon” scene – a floatplane being returned to Lake Schwatka after spending time with a mechanic up at the airport.

In the hour that we spent on this walk, we saw a total of 5 people and 1 dog. That’s one of the main things I like about the airport trails – the fact that they get very little use.

It’s now 09:05 on the final day of this sailing – we’ll be “At Sea” all day. At the moment we’re in the open ocean off Bella Bella, British Columbia – between Vancouver Island the the Queen Charlottes. The seas are fairly calm and the sun is trying hard to come out.

This was the view from my cabin at 06:50 yesterday morning, a couple of hours north of Ketchikan. This is certainly not the weather I wanted to see on a day that I had flightseeing booked for but it was ragged enough that the potential for the clouds to break up was there.

On Deck 14, looking towards the entrance to the Lotus Spa and the gym.

Just south of the Guard Islands in Tongass Narrows at 08:30.

This bald eagle had one of the better perches overlooking Ketchikan’s harbour.

The Ketchikan Fire Department’s fireboat Harry Newell.

The working end of the seiner “Lake Bay”.

This looks like an excellent candidate for a proper restoration project – it appears to be all original.

I walked over to Island Wings to see if any seats were still available for the 28th if today’s flight was cancelled, but the attendtant was confident that we’d fly today so I went back to the ship for a pizza lunch. My timing to get back on deck was good, as I got a few shots of owner/pilot Michelle Masden and the attendant launching “1-7-Foxtrot”.

In a couple of hours I’d be doing exactly that!

At 2:18, off we go! I volunteered to take the back seat, so I could shoot out both sides of the plane (only 1 person sits back there).

Just below what looks like a solid cloud layer – but there were lots of holes straight ahead.

A look at the outskirts of Ketchikan before heading off into the wilderness. We each had high-quality nose-cancelling headphones, and for a few minutes until we got out of Ketchikan’s controlled airspace, listened to music and Michelle’s communications with the tower.

Once we were out in the backcountry, Michelle had lots to say about the country.

Michelle is particularly knowledge about the forests and how logging practices affect them (beyond the obvious). These cut blocks have been logged at various times over the past 40 years or so.

Eddystone Rock, a dramatic volcanic plug in the middle of Behm Channel, which arcs through Misty Fjords National Monument.

The further in you go, the more spectacular the fjords get.

There are waterfalls everywhere.

We’d be landing on this postcard-perfect lake in a few minutes.

The approach to the lake landing.

Having a fair bit of experience in flying my own plane in the coastal mountains, I’m very fussy about who I fly with and what I fly in – Michelle is simply a superb pilot, in charge of a magnificent aircraft.

Michelle helps her “co-pilot” onto the beach. The other passengers were 3 generations of a family from Toronto, and we spent a very pleasant 40 minutes or so surrounded by some of the most magnificent country on earth.

Michelle has all the best angles for “I-was-here” photos figured out

A couple of Turbo Otters landed, but their stops were very different that ours. The passengers got out on the floats for perhaps 5 minutes, then back in the plane and they were gone.

For the flight back, I got the front seat. Michelle says that “the boys” call this a “chick plane”. This is what half a milliion dollars will get you – every comfort and convenience feature you can think of, from leather seats to iPod system, cargo upgrades and fish-spotting equipment. The folks at deHavilland who built this bird in 1959 would be impressed!

Off we go at 3:45, through another rain shower.

A closer look at Eddystone Rock – 2 bald eagles could clearly be seen in a nest right at the top of it.

Another pilot had told Michelle where a black bear could be seen. We found him, and Michelle made a couple of tight circles so everyone could have a good look. A couple of minutes later I spotted another and we made another couple of circles. The may be little dots but I love seeing them anyway – just knowing that they’re there is all I need.

A good look at the airport – Michelle took this route to we could see Sarin Palin’s “highway to nowhere” and another bald eagle nest.

Final approach.

I went for a late dinner last night (the lamb was “nothing to write home about”), and even went to the late show in the theatre, which was very good (but I nodded off a few times anyway – it’d been a tough day!).

We docked at Skagway just after 5:00am this morning, and I’m killing time now until 10:00 when Cathy is going to meet me. She’s taken the day off work and is bringing the dogs down to see me.

The past 2 days have been our glacier viewing days. Hubbard was a huge disappointment as we stayed back from it at least 3 miles. Glacier Bay was excellent – with sunshine, lots of whales, a couple of brown bears, and many mountain goats.

I awoke Sunday morning to the sight of Kayak Island, Cape St. Elias and Pinnacle Rock out of my porthole. By 6:00am when I took this photo, I was up on deck looking back at it.

We met the little Nippon Maru coming out of Yakutat Bay at 2:00pm. I’d never seen her before – she’s a budget ship out of Japan, on a 52-day circle-Pacific cruise.

This was as close as we got the Hubbard Glacier due to heavy ice conditions (this photo was shot at 4:25pm). We only saw a couple of skittish sea otters and a few seals while we were there. Few people stayed up on deck very long.

A closer look at the sea conditions and the face of Hubbard Glacier. There’s obviously been a great deal of calving in recent days, and the face is so sloped now that there may not be good calving again for weeks.

Monday was another gorgeous morning, though it wasn’t clear what was going to happen when we sailed closer to the coast. This photo was shot just west of Cape Spencer at 06:20.

This was the view from my cabin as I got ready to head up to the theatre at 8:30. On deck, a handful of people were watching sea lions and whales – I should have been on the bridge talking to people, not in the theatre.

Heading back to my cabin to get rid of my computer and get changed, I glanced out a window I was walking by and a bunch of active humpbacks very close. I rushed out the nearest door but the bubble-feeding frenzy was over and they never re-appeared.

Just before 10:00, just as the whale show ended, the National Park Service boat arrived and the rangers boarded.

How’s this for a welcome to Glacier Bay?! The Zuiderdam can be seen close to the far shore (right above the girl in green), heading into John Hopkins Inlet.

A closer look at John Hopkins Inlet – the Zuiderdam is just rounding Jaw Point.

I didn’t stand in line the get to the seafood buffet last sailing, but yesterday I waited until the line had almost ended and then joined in, then found a lounger to sit on to enjoy the meal.

The glacier viewing areas on the Coral Princess leave a lot to be desired. There’s blue tinted glass everywhere and no opening windows in this area of Deck 14, so people are crowded at the short sections of open deck that have low railings.

The Margerie Glacier.

I could spend a week in Glacier Bay just focussing on waterfalls!

The variety of light was near perfect yesterday – an enormous range from sun to dark clouds that offered photo ops in every direction.

More waterfalls….

A small river runs from under the Lamplugh Glacier. It’s hard to judge scale but I’d guess it at about 50 feet across.

I wandered around the ship until almost midnight last night, and there was a lot of good music being played. It was old time rock ‘n’ roll night in the Universe Lounge. I didn’t stick my head in there but most other venues were very quiet – the piano player at Crooners had half the tables filled, though.

I actually went to my cabin just after 10:00 but the TV was on the bridgecam channel, and when I saw the sunset light ahead in Icy Strait I went back up on deck. The next 2 photos were taken at 10:24 and 10:32pm.

MUTS (Movies Under the Stars) is a very cool concept but no doubt is much more popular in the Caribbean – only 8 people were bundled up on the loungers watching The Invention of Lying.

I thought that the popcorn wagon was a great touch until I had some – bleh! I suppose putting butter and salt on it would make it hardly to clean spills up.

This was the view from my cabin at precisely midnight last night – June 21st, the longest day of the year. As many years as I’ve been seeing this, I still get a thrill from it.

It’s now 8:00, time to post this and get ready to meet my family for a fun day in Skagway. It looks like a good day to go over to Dyea to play on the beach with Monty and Kayla.

In the southern Yukon, the arrival of migrating swans is the first sign that Spring is getting close, but the first sign that Spring has arrived is the budding of the crocus – the first hairy little bud has now pushed up through the forest floor a few feet from our front door. From the ground to its tip is only 3/4 of an inch – you really have to look hard to find it at this point in its life

The key to getting them to show is water – preferably rain but we haven’t seen rain in a very long time, so yesterday afternoon I put the lawn spinkler in the area where the crocuses show first, and 24 hours later there it was. It should be in bloom in a couple of days.

Also encouraged by the water was this little puffball – 5/8 of an inch in diameter. It’s a fungus of some sort, tissue paper thin, that explodes when you touch it, spraying powder (spores) all over.