Day 33 – Haines Junction, YT, Canada to Haines, AK

View from the road to Haines...

View from the road to Haines

View from the road 2 miles from the Canada/US border...

View of the Chilkat River near Haines, AK

Glad I never stayed there....or ever had a reason to! 😛

I passed Kelly and Phil (the two Aussie’s  I camped with back in Seward) on the side of the road who had their camcorder pointed at a bald eagle. They were already on the stand-by list for the ferry tomorrow, and that’s what I needed to still do. Once in town I went straight to the ferry terminal to get on the stand-by list…..and was glad to see I was number 2 on the list behind them. At the terminal I also met another biker from NY on an FZ6. His name is Kevin and he’s doing a big loop around the US and Alaska…and is also on the ferry tomorrow.  

View of the fjord between Haines and the ferry terminal...

Haines, AK

Haines harbour...

After that I went to the Lighthouse Bar for lunch and a beer. Phil saw my bike parked out front and stopped in to tell me where they were camped, and given the hotel prices, I was going to cap with them.  

The Lighthouse Bar - Haines, AK

It's never to early for a Jagger....

They were off to do a hike, and I went down to the end of the bay to a creek where there were supposedly a mama grizzly and 3 cubs feeding on salmon. Sure enough, at the creek there was one mama grizz with three cubs and another with one cub…all gorging…or already gorged on salmon. That was a very cool sighting and I’m glad I got to see that before I left Alaska.  

On the way to see the salmon buffet...

Mama grizzly doing some fishing!

Mama and the tree cubs...

Mama grizz and the cubs...

Wouldn't I feel stupid getting attacked in front of this sign...as I stopped to take a picture of the sign that says not to stop!

Then it was back to the campground which also had a hotel with wifi in the lobby. In the lobby I met Rebecca and her Doberman Fiona. It turns out that she already knew of Phil and Kelly as they had been playing road hopscotch passing each other on the way to Haines. Alaska is a big state, but with so few roads….you bump into the same people time and again which is kind of funny. Kelly and Phil made a nice hearty camp dinner for the 4 of us, and I capped it off with some 12 year old scotch that Phil was carrying…nice!  

Nice work Phil and Kelly!

 Rebecca had gotten a room for her and Fiona in the hotel and retired early for the warmth and clean sheets. Phil, Kelly and I stayed up as long as we could until the cold chased them into their van and me into my tent for the night.