The drive down Haines Highway, a National Scenic Byway, through a small portion of the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and then into the town of Haines, Alaska, has to be one of the most beautifully-scenic drives on the continent, if not the planet. Why were we going to Haines? To look for bears, of course (scroll down to see if we were successful). There are only three towns in Southeast Alaska that you can drive to from the mainland, and we visited two of them on this part of our trip—Haines and Skagway. (As always, all photos and videos are from Hank and Cindy, unless otherwise noted.)
The views were stunning as we drove over the Chilkat Pass, surrounded by glaciers and gorgeous mountain peaks. In the past, this pass was heavily guarded by First Nations peoples, who used it to trade with the coastal tribes. And during the Klondike gold rush of 1898, the Chilkat Pass (aka the Dalton Trail) was one of the (very difficult) ways that prospectors went overland to get to the goldfields.
In contrast, we entered Alaska with an easy border crossing and drove another 40 miles to Haines. It was a sunny day that not even the road construction could put a damper on. It wouldn’t be a summer road trip without roadwork!
HAINES — Our campsites at Oceanside RV Park were situated right on the Chilkoot Inlet at the head of Lynn Canal. We couldn’t imagine a more picturesque home base for spending the next several days.
After setting up camp, we drove a short distance to the Southeast Alaska State Fair, which was in full swing nearby. This annual event is primarily for the part of Alaska accessible via cruise ships, ferries, or airplanes —Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka — since the people in those communities would have a really difficult time getting to the other Alaska State Fair outside of Anchorage.
We got into the swing of things by enjoying some country music, watching a Jack-and-Jill hand-saw competition and nervously observing the women’s ax-throwing contest. We ate some great pulled pork sandwiches and corn on the cob from Uglys of Haines. The annual state fair draws tourists and locals and seems like a great chance for people to connect with each other.
After the fair, we headed up to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Area to enjoy the beautiful views and to look for bears at the fish weir. The spawning salmon are counted daily as they swim through the fish weir, and when we were here three years ago, a grizzly sow had figured out that she could catch salmon as they swam through the weir. So we came back to see if that tradition was continuing. No bears, but lots of great sights.
SKAGWAY — Next morning, we boarded the Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry (HSFF) for a 45-minute ride to the Klondike town of Skagway, another common stop on the cruise ship circuit. Hank and I had not been able to fit this in during our trip to Alaska three years ago, so we were excited to finally get here. It was a beautiful ferry ride up Taiya Inlet, where several cruise ships made our ferry look very small.
We enjoyed the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park with its very informative visitor center/museum and lots of buildings preserved or reconstructed in the style of the 1890s to early 1900s. This town was born almost overnight after gold was discovered near Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Getting there was tough, and one of the most common routes was to take a ship to Skagway, then carry 1 ton of food and supplies up the Chilkoot Pass (or another nearby pass), crossing from Alaska into Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police required each miner to bring that much into the territory, in order to prevent mass starvation and death from the elements.
Once the miners got to the top of the pass, they could travel a short distance to Bennett Lake, build themselves a boat and travel most of the rest of the way to Dawson City on the Yukon River. It was a harrowing journey and many died (often in the treacherous waters of Miles Canyon outside of Whitehorse), but this piece of history is well-preserved throughout the town of Skagway (and I recommend reading James Michener’s book Alaska, particularly his chapter on the Klondike Gold Rush, for more details if you’re interested).
While in Skagway, we visited Howard and Jacky’s friend Barrett Hedges’ photography studio. Barrett specializes in wildlife photos, especially bears, and we enjoyed his delightful photos while chatting with his cousin who was manning the shop in Barrett’s absence. With permission, I took a photo of the photo print we purchased, which we’ll hang in our RV—it reminds us of our trip to Lake Clark National Park three years ago, where we watched Alaskan brown bears (aka grizzly bears) feeding and playing for several hours.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed the three-hour White Pass and Yukon Route train trip, a narrow-gauge railroad built in the early 1900s that made the earlier climb over the Chilkoot Pass obsolete. Soon after the railroad was built, the Klondike area of Yukon no longer was producing any gold, so the railroad itself became a bit obsolete. But it’s a wonderful way to see the country and imagine the miners hiking up and over these mountain passes. (After the train trip, we headed back to Haines with a much rougher ferry crossing.)
Here are a few scenes from the train trip to White Pass…
BACK TO HAINES — Every evening while in Haines (and for Howard, most mornings), we drove up to Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Area and the surrounding Chilkoot River and Lutak Inlet to look for grizzly bears. This area attracts bears at this time of year because the sockeye salmon are swimming upstream to spawn in Chilkoot Lake. Though the salmon were there, we had a hard time finding the bears this year.
We spotted a three-year-old bear who looked under-nourished, so we were glad to see him enjoy a salmon. At another time, we found a sow with two cubs, probably one-year-old, while they ate the nutritious sedge grass that surrounded the inlet. At 5:15 one morning, Howard spotted another sow with one cub, while the rest of us were still sleeping back in our RVs.
Beautiful scenic drives around Haines included heading up the Haines Highway to look for trumpeter swans (which we had seen here before, but no luck this year). We also drove down a very rough road to Chilkat State Park, and a less rough road—Mud Bay Road—to see if there were any bears in this part of the peninsula. A stop at the American Bald Eagle Foundation gave us views of live raptors and other animals on display.
Each day we drove out to the fish weir on the Chilkoot River, but the bears were not showing up there, as they have in previous years. No one is quite sure why that is, though theories abound. We did have success seeing bears, including sows and cubs, on our last evening and morning in Haines!
Check out this short video showing some of these bears in action–all of these near Haines.
We loved the area so much that we ended up staying an extra night before starting our journey home by returning to the Yukon Territory and heading back down the Cassiar Highway.
Our next post will capture our final attempts at bear viewing when we traveled into the third town you can drive to in Southeast Alaska–Hyder!
Amazing photos. Thank you so much for taking us along on your adventures. I especially love the pix of the bears but all are wonderful.
Such great pics! It’s like we are there with you! Always learning and exploring. Fun!
What spectacular mountain scenery, and it seems almost like a step back in time
Amazing as always. You really capture the beauty of this earth. I love your blog.