The hike a few days back to hidden lake was short, about a mile each way, ended in a small lake where the beavers like the lake chose to remain hidden, unfortunately, the mosquitoes chose to show their faces. The end results for me was a mildly itching victory of 4 to 3 (3 bytes, 4 dead). The trip was over mossy ground, filled with weird plants, fungus, reeds and other swampy plants and lots of low trees, since it is cold here.
We were waiting for the fast ferry from Skagway to Haines, the ferry just arrived and a sailor jumped out to tie it in. a tourist’s (not me) back pack was on the line, and while tying, the backpack nearly fell overboard. I think we were more jumpy about it than the actual tourist.
After the hike we drove on stopping in view points along the way and made our way to TOK.
At TOK, we got some souvenirs, on which Alla is swearing about (in a non swearing way of course) cause we have seen nicer souvenirs since then and no place for them. Some of The photos from yesterday were taken in that shop. We also got some yummy fudge..
We gassed up and headed for the Canadian border and the border crisis began.
Alla realized that she had forgot her proof of citizenships (a new citizen for 2 months now), and still no passports. We have the document at home, the problem is getting it here. Reception proved impossible to find in Yukon (this province of Canada), our cells showed Bars but the calls did not go through. We found some big phones from the previous millennia, that let you talk to other people , with entering of cash. For whatever reason it didn’t work in some places. After several attempts with several phones, we got through and managed to send Alla’s brother in ,law Genady to our place to get a document to fax us. Getting a fax to work is another mission by itself, that took time and more time with no results. This short paragraph is misleading, we spent way to much energy on this and put Gennady through the bureaucracy of the world of telecommunication. For that we say thanx and have a thankU souvenir.
On the way we stopped at a trading post, a local couple was serving coffee and souvenirs. This was the 1st place we tried to call . the local device that thinks it’s a phone, does not accepts coins and does not call collect oversees (over land any way). The joint owner called the local phone company and got cut off, ending with a series of profanities on the phone company and a promise to raise hell over being cut off. For us he was very courteous and helpful giving us border crossing advice and a request to have the border patrol call him if we run into trouble.
Eran and Amit were busy coffee grabbing while this thing took place. So Don’t mess with Jim and you will have no issues!
Haines Junction (we disagreed if is was smaller than Haines since it is its junction, Or it is more since it is Haines +Junction) is a small place with food places, one of them is a supermarket. We stayed in a motel and shared a Halibut burger and Ice cream. As we left Haines junction, we picked up a hitch hiker and drove south towards the US border and Haines. We stopped at a beautiful lake (los of those here), a beautiful lake is decided by the surrounding, does the view reflected in the water, is there a mountain nearby, greenery etc… never by the lake itself. Moved on to the million dollar falls for a short falls hike and came out without the money.
Then the border came. We waited for about 15 minutes till officer Blanchard finished looking Alla up on the computer and deciding she is not Osama. We were granted access and Blanchard said to call him if we have problem in our 2nd access point to the US. Somewhere near the town of Chicken(yes Chicken) a few days from now. We made it to Haines and stayed at Dan’s- Dan owns a B&B without breakfast. He visited Israel once in the 60s and has friends in Bet Lehem (Jordan then), he visited again in the 70s and it was interesting for him to come to the same place in another state. We ate dinner (salmon) at the lighthouse café. This place has no lighthouse, but is named after another lighthouse in a near by canal.
We went hiking in a short trail in the woods, this area had nice mossy grounds, various berries, which we heard were poisonous(eat 6 and die so we tried 5). This rooty trail passed many fungus and fern. At some point we stumbled on a dude collecting fungus. The mushroomer spoke with us and apparently he collects fungus and sells fungus and fungus related items.
Have you ever seen a mushroom bag? Its like a net bag, you can easy lock it to prevent the collected mushroom to drop as you fall on the many roots on the trail, and the holes are for the fungus spores to drop and refungufi the woods. You can buy it at the ……J
The guy calls himself the Fun Guy which is a good name, but unfitting the guy, we went on ahead , till at one point Alla decided the ground is not fun and slipped on something and fell on her behind. Nasty fall but no permanent damage, we finished the trail on the shores of the pacific and headed back, it was time for Bears.
We drove to the Chilkoot river to an area we were told that bears come and feed on salmon. We drove up there and all of a sudden on the left side on the side of mountain stood a big brown BEAR. A 2 year old female we learned later. We drove on, cause the bears have the right of way (it’s the law). The bear crossed the road behind us, went across the greenery and entered the river and started looking for salmon. She played around in the water and caught a fish quickly and began eating. She ate and then started walking up the river while we were filming it nonstop with few other travelers nearby. We followed it for over 30 minutes and watched it chased away by the dude in charge of the Salmon counting station and it crossed the road again only to come out again just behind Amit.
I Don’t know why but I was actually the cautious one, encouraging everyone to keep their distance. A true troubling thought.
We also had a nice bonus of seeing a bald eagle on the other side of the river. It was diving to catch a salmon and carrying it upwards, a nice sight.
We went to sleep to do some bear dreaming and woke up early to bad weather, which delayed our morning flight. We passed the time around town by going to the eagle preserve foundation which is a little display and museum. We watch a nature clip on the eagles. The major spokesperson was the president of the foundation Mr somebody. At the end of the movie (actually before since it made us all fall a sleep). The displays were stuffed animals, many I have never seen before like the lynx or the marten. And then a surprise. The presidentee himself, Mr forgot his name came and told us interesting things on Alaska, glaciers, and the various animals. Lots of interesting acts. At some point the weather cleared and we headed for the airport for an “on time” departure.
This was 2 days ago, since then we have seen more bears, eagles , whales, seals, sea lions, otters, puffins and humans…but on those and others check your inbox…
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