Haines to Anchorage (June 10-12)

We disembarked from the ferry and left the tiny town of Haines at about 11:15am.  The road led up the north coast of "Southeast,"  which is what the part of AK we had been visiting is known. Soon we were in British Columbia, Canada, passing through the Kluane National Forest.  It was totally different than the country we had been in - tall, snow-covered mountains that come right to the roadsides.  The vistas  varied from bleak to awesome.  As we wound up into the Yukon Territory we began to pass through forests of Black Spruce, which are well suited to the environment, being tall and very skinny.  Large portions of them were dead, having been attacked by a Spruce Beetle invasion in 1999.  According to a fellow at the Visitor Center in Haines Junction, although the invasion is a natural cycle, this one lasted several years longer than usual, thanks to global warming.  After visiting the bakery across the street from the Visitor Center, we continued on.

We drove up around Kluane Lake and found a campsite at a campground that had been a state park but was now being administered by the Native Tribal Council.  In actuality, it was abandoned.  We stayed anyway, but it was a weird feeling, being there on the windswept shores of Kluane Lake (at least 30mph sustained wind) with abandoned, partially ruined cabins here and there.

We didn't see another soul all night.  Sort of ghostly!

The next day we drove on, through more spruce forests to Beaver Creek.  We stopped to check out the local Catholic Church, which was made from a quonset hut,

and the Visitor Center.  Shortly after Beaver Creek we crossed back into the USA.  We continued on to Salana, where we boondocked in the yard of a guy who owns the local (only) grocery (or any kind of) store.  When you go into the store it is dark.  If you want to look in the back of the store, or at anything away from the front windows he will turn on the light.  We asked about the power source for the area.  It is a privately run small plant several miles away, that covers a 60 mile radius.  He pays $.60/ kwh!  (about 4x what we pay) The plant is run by diesel.  The road we have been traveling has been interesting.  It is often quite deserted of other cars and homesteads.  Some parts are fairly smooth and nice, others are full of HUGE frost  heaves.  When this is the case, it stretches out before you in waves, almost as if you took a piece of Christmas ribbon candy and pulled it out.

The humps are large and far enough apart so that the road in those sections is a bit like a roller coaster with many of the New England "kiss me quicks" thrown in, as opposed to the corduroy road type of frost heaves we see at home.  The rest of the road is under construction, which is virtually the only unpaved section now.  The three road types are in about equal proportion.  The winters here are so cold, and the thaw so violent, that the road is constantly under reconstruction.  The problems are very well marked with flags and signs, so no surprises there!   We have seen bear and moose, rabbits and trumpeter swans along this stretch.

After a rainy night we slept in a bit.  Before we left I went over to the barn to watch some local hunters butcher a bear. 

It was a big black, about 500 lbs, which they said would be about 300 lbs dressed out.  There is no season on bear in that region (game unit) because, as one of the  fellows said, "Too many bear! Nuisance!"   We headed on toward Anchorage, past more stands of Black Spruce.  In this area many of them have huge boles on them, made up of bunches of twigs and needles, called "witches brooms."  They are caused by a fungus. This type of spruce is very well suited to life on the muskeag, (a spongy, wet, soil type that resembles peat), but because it is so skinny it never gets big enough to use for lumber.  The way led over a high pass with Gunsight mountain in front of us.  The top of the very sharp peak is notched and does look very like a gun sight.  Down we went past the face of the Matanuska glacier.

The face of this glacier is beautiful but not so high as the others we have seen.  However, the icefield and glacier itself are much broader.  We entered the Matanuska Valley, which is the prime agricultural region of AK.  It is known as the Mat-Su region, for Matanuska-Susitna.

The countryside was dotted with farms, some of which looked very like those in New England, with red barns and dairy cows.  Lots of greenhouses and flowers in yards.  We arrived at Don Stewarts house in Anchorage  at about 5pm, and Bette and Tom arrived a couple of hours later.  We are camping in Don's yard, and Bette and Tom are at the family campground at Elmendorf AFB.  Don, Bette and I are classmates in the Woodsville High School Class of 1964.  Our class was small, and we figured out that this mini-reunion of three has about a 10% participation rate of the remaining members!  We spent the evening catching up.