Northern Trails And Tales

I’m writing this e-mail in Petawawa, Ontario at Pine Ridge Riverside Campground on the mighty Ottawa River. It’s a nice place, but there’s no internet connection. Same story last night when we stayed at Brennen’s Campground on the shore of Lake Ontario about a mile from the Golden Fish Restaurant in Pulaski, N.Y.—- familiar I am sure to the many salmon snaggers on the blog/e-mail list. Tomorrow (Thursday) I hope to stop along the highway somewhere and send this. Anyway, yesterday brought no surprises, except I guess for rookies. For instance, the toll for the trailer on the New York Thruway was $26.00. And the mileage for this rig is running a little under 10 MPG when we had hoped for 12 or even a bit more. Please send donations!…. The weather was hot, hot, hot with a high of 96 degrees, and still in the upper 80’s in the evening. The good news is that the air conditioner works, and we were only 100 feet from the water so things did cool down….. Today, we had our first adventure. Going thru Customs, we were told to “go around the bend and pull over by the orange cones.” (For those of you already laughing over the Ft.Lauderdale airport incident, this was Dave’s hearing, not mine.) There was a bend in the road up about 200 yards, but no cones. We were now headed across the St Lawrence with no place to turn around. Very briefly, as we turned around at the first spot possible, we were flagged down by a cop and had to go back across the bridge to Customs where we were greeted like Osama Bin Laden. The Customs guys were fairly obnoxious. This “bend” was to make a virtual 90 degree turn across three or four open lanes of traffic and into a parking lot full of trucks. The cones were approximately 200 yards back in the lot. Anyway, this cost us about two hours of time as they checked the trailer for radioactive material, ran our ID’s thru Interpol or whatever, threatened to confiscate the trailer, and generally acted like State of Connecticut bureaucrats. Just a minor communication problem…. The rest of the day was uneventful and the Canadians, excepting Customs, are unfailingly friendly and helpful. ….. There is something of a problem finding campgrounds in the area and this problem is going to continue for the next few days…. So far, so good. Will be in touch again soon if we’re not deported…. Take care….

We covered a lot of ground today leaving Petawawa a little after 9:00 AM and traveling roughly along the Ottawa River to North Bay and Lake Nipissing and on into Sudbury before making a decision to push ahead since it was only about 2:00 PM. We are now sitting in a campground on the banks of the Serpent River where it empties into Lake Huron….. We spent the day looking for places to link up with the internet but were totally unsuccessful. The campground does have a modem, so tomorrow I hope to send two e-mails. I’m avoiding the blog, afraid I’ll mess things up and all of you will get nothing…… The days are developing a routine of sorts. We get up around 6:00, have coffee and breakfast, try to catch the Sox score (though only the first campground had cable TV), and then pack and hook-up the trailer. By the time we get on the road, it’s generally after 9:00. We spend a lot of time at truck stops buying diesel. We spend a lot of time viewing scenery you wouldn’t walk ten feet to see. But then there are some wonderful things to see and it makes it worthwhile, though by mid afternoon we’re ready to call it a day. The trailer isn’t all that difficult to handle and after a while you truly do forget it’s there— which probably ain’t such a good thing, either. I mean we’re still rookies and have to keep that in mind. We then find a campground, set up the trailer, and start supper… We meet a few folks who have no homes but their trailer and who simply follow their wanderlust. At every campground so far we’ve met people who are staying for the summer. As you can imagine, most, but not all, are retired. Some don’t approve of George Bush. I don’t expect that we’ll meet many who do…. Tomorrow morning, it’s on to Sault Ste. Marie. It’s a short jaunt of just over 100 miles so we get a break from driving and maybe a chance to do something touristry….. Although we were followed about a quarter mile by on Ontario patrolman, there is no reason to think we’re being tailed. I suspect we’ll make Alaska after all….

On the road to Mandalay

Where the flying fishes play

And the sun comes up like thunder

Out of China ‘cross the bay….

Yeah, a bit of not-so-free association, but we are on the way tomorrow to Thunder Bay where, I just found out, a private trout pond awaits.  It’ll be my first chance to fish on the trip, assuming we put the eight or nine hours of required driving behind us and I’m still capable of holding a flyrod.  This morning at the campground the office wall was filled with pictures of bass, walleye, and a bunch of muskies over 40 pounds.  It got me to thinking maybe I should fish a while but duty ( Northward Ho!) beckoned…..  So far, we’ve covered just over 1000 miles.  The next two days will see us cover almost that much again.  It’s a region infested with moose and deer so the travel is best done in daylight, and if the opportunity presents itself, you choose the collision with the deer— if you know where I’m steering.  The Thunder Bay area is fairly remote and it will be the first day that I’ll spend in places I’m totally unfamiliar with.  Am looking forward to it….  Bits of miscellaneous….  The couple to the north of us, driving a land yacht of such magnificence that it makes all else on the campground appear shabby, are attempting to visit every major league ball park this season.  So far they’ve been to eleven.  The folks to the south of us are from Ontario and bought their trailer in February.They have already put 15,000 KM on it!  Next week they park the trailer for a while and fly to Italy for a “vacation.”…..  We had considered staying here in Sault Ste, Marie tomorrow to go on the Agawa Canyon Train Tour, an eight hour trip through Canadian Shield Wilderness, but we’ve found out that the train only runs two days a week through mid-June— and one of those days ain’t Saturday.  This was a trip Dave was really looking forward to so he was devestated.  He had to settle for a trip to the Spruce Haven Petting Zoo and he’d like me to let everyone know that his favorites were the pot bellied pigs, the miniature horses asses, and the yak.  He couldn’t stay too long because his generous nature led him to quickly spend a fortune (Canadian) on animal pellets…..  Till tomorrow…..

On Saturday, we thru hauled 450 miles from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay, a good part of the way in sight of Lake Superior, and what a sight much of it is! The eastern shore is mountainous and I thought we’d reached the Rockies already, but the overlooks gave you views of gorgeous rocky bays and the water was the purest blue thanks to a cloudless sky. Traffic was light for the first two thirds of the trip, but trucks and RV’s constituted about 90% of vehicles. The last third of the trip was characterized by construction and some small delays. Altogether it took us about eight and a half hours. But I was excited to arrive at the campground as the owners had promised to site our trailer right on the trout pond. And their word was good. We sit about fifty feet from the water. So, as so on as we had the trailer set up, I broke out the five weight and tried a couple dry flies. Nothing. Then, I tried a couple streamers. Nothing. I resisted trying nymphs. So here I was skunked on my first outing— and I can hear the chuckles all the way up here. Laugh a little harder, folks, cause, earlier in the day, a kid supposedly hauled a five pound rainbow out of Lucky Pond! But this morning I was up early and managed to get rid of the horse collar. I caught four rainbows, all on streamers, the largest approximately four pounds. One of the others wasn’t too much smaller. Of course, this is a private catch and release pond and the trout have been in there for a while and, supposedly, some are larger than the one the kid got. This evening, I’ll try again…. We’re not traveling today because Dave has located another petting zoo. Oops…. Actually, since we left Connecticut, we’ve had no power in any of the trailer’s electrical outlets, excepting the GFI’s.

It’s probably a relatively simple thing, but I’ve run through the obvious without solving the problem This is an inconvenience and Dave hopes to find a dealer tomorrow who will fix it. This may mean we lose a good part of tomorrow, too, but we have some layover days built in…. Earlier this morning after fishing, I was talking to a guy from Manitoba who told me that last weekend a group from Nova Scotia on their way to Alaska was at the campground. They decided not to go any further because of the price of fuel. Instead, they we just going to spend the summer in central Canada and spend their money on other things!….. One of the remarkable things is how many people travel with dogs. Even more remarkable is that many travel with two dogs. The object has to be either companionship or having an excuse to take a walk…..This campground has wi-fi but you have to been in the main office to be able to connect up.

Unfortunately, we’re a long way from the office. But I’ll get down there sometime this afternoon and get this posted. I know it’s sounding a little like a trucker’s log, but maybe later today, after nailing a seven or eight pounder, I’ll have time to tell some stories…. Till then….

[and here are some photos Dave sent while my father was ‘too busy fishing’. Click on any picture for a larger version. Note the lack of any fish in these pictures…
-dan]

We’re looking over our shoulders now, folks! After the customs officers warned us that “one little thing” could get us thrown out of Canada, it was sure to happen!….. Yesterday we started the day at Woody’s RV Service in Thunder Bay with an 8:30 AM appointment. Sure enough, in less than an hour they found the electrical problem plaguing all our outlets (one faulty outlet screwing up the ground) and had us on our way. We decided not to try to make Winnipeg, our intended destination, due to our late start. (This drive, by the way, was to be the longest of the trip up.) Anyway, about 3:00 PM we decided to stay at the Anicinabe Campground in Kenora—another gorgeous town overlooking a bay. After we pulled into the parking lot, I decided to move the trailer off to one side and out of the way, forgetting about the concrete wall that was on the side of the driveway. The result was —- you got it —- a mess! The trailer hit the wall at the step to the trailer door and the side creased along to just above the wheel well. The worst damage was to the trailer steps themselves, though of course, the whole thing didn’t improve the looks of the rig.. any, either. This morning, we spent some time straightening out the steps and making things as presentable as possible. Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any structural damage and everything worked fine today. One side effect was that one of the kitchen drawers popped out from the force of the collision. While fixing it, I knocked a second drawer off its slides. We spent more time fixing the drawers than the trailer. Let’s hope that’s the end of the bad luck for the duration. (Picture below). Now, evenings when more careful people are sitting around washing and waxing their beautiful machines, we’ll be applying dollops of Bondo to ours. So while other folks on a great adventure are escaping avalanches or bears, we’re trying to escape ourselves. “Wherever you go, there you are.”…We drove to Portage la Prairie today. For miles and miles, the road and everything else is just flat, flat, and flatter. However, the main streets of the town are canopied under arching elms. We haven’t see those in Connecticut for a bit, and unfortunately the ones here are now also being threatened by the Dutch Elm disease. The town is a big agricultural center and you can count about two dozen crops they specialize in, but potatoes and strawberries are really big. They have festivals for both. There is a significant Mennonite population as well as First Nation people, primarily Dakotas and Assinaboines…. As smoothly as things went today we still had one little snafu. We got detoured coming into Winnipeg due to construction and missed the bypass around the city (population about 6 or 700,000) and had to drive right through the downtown business district as well as everything else. Still, it worked out okay, and we think we only lost about 20 minutes travel time…. We are now only about 100 miles behind schedule…. Two things of note. One, we are now on Central Canadian time, an hour behind you folks. Second, the sun doesn’t set until after 10:00 PM and it’s light until 11:00. It does definitely make the day longer— and morning comes damn quickly!…. Off to try to send this…. I hope all of you back home are doing well…

Wednesday evening….. For two days now, across Winnipeg and Saskatchewan, we’ve been rolling through the prairies which are quite beautiful in unexpected ways. Montana may be the Big Sky country, but it’s none too small out here. In some places the crops are in, while in others the ground is just being harrowed. Greens and dark browns contrast. In some spots for miles on end there are few trees; in others there are some groves. But the abiding impression is openess and a horizon forever beyond reach. All roads off the highway are gravel, and very dusty. You can see cars trailing a mile of the stuff behind them so I assume car washes do a decent business. Most of the fields are wheat at the Saskatchewan end, but back by Winnipeg, there is a real variety of vegetable crops. Slowly, the prairie has turned from virtual pool table flat to gently rolling land that is still mostly flat. Some of the small towns are really pretty neat including Indian Head where we are staying tonight. This is wheat country unlike Portage la Prairie where they certainly grow wheat but pride themselves on their vegetable crops. Surprisingly, the soil is only a few inches deep here but that few inches must be well protected. It bills itself as the “prettiest town on the prairie” and the proud citizens may well be right. There are some beautiful houses in town, mostly brick, that I would guess date from the 1880’s into the early 1900’s, though the town wasn’t incorporated till 1905. (I’m going to try to get a couple of the pictures we took in town up on the blog…..

Thursday….. We set out to reach Medici ne Hat but decided to push on to Calgary where we now sit in the shadow of the ski jumps at the Olympic Park. For the first time on the trip we had to turn on the windshield wipers, and they remained on most all day. And, in fact, the forecast is for rain or showers through Sunday. This is unfortunate, in a sense, as we are preparing to see what many have billed as the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip. But into every life, as they say…We are planning to spend tomorrow in the city and tour Banff/Jasper National Park on Saturday, but given the quickly changing forecasts may modify our plans. Today, the plains belonged to the stockmen. While wheat is still grown, the main agricultural focus seems to be cattle, and Calgary celebrates this with a month long “stampede” and exhibition with plenty of bronco bustin’ and ropin’ each July. Every smaller town for hundreds of miles around, advertises it’s own annual rodeo. When you reach Alberta, you’ve pretty much come up to the foothills of the Rockies if you continue west. But we’ll be turning north when we resume our trip on Sunday and travel to Edmonton before entering the mountains…..

Friday morning…. This is the first chance I’ve really had to do the blog for more than a few minutes, so let me backtrack for a bit….. For two nights, in Kenora and Prairie la Portage, we ended up camping in the same campground with a couple from Pennsylvania who are also headed to Alaska and who plan to enter through the same small towns of Chicken and Eagle that we do. They used to have a camper but now are tenting all the way. Our routes diverged on Thursday as they headed up the Yellowhead Route turning north a few days before us. Our paths may cross again…. In Regina, a contentious issue is the poor showing of boys on academic tests with parents arguing for more attention to the way boys learn and more boy-focused activities in the schools. A second issue is the incarceration rate of Aboriginals across Saskatchewan. While they account for 10% of the population, they occupy 80% of jail and prison space. None of the proposed solutions to this problem sound too promising….. Trains are miles long and the highway is used by more trucks than cars, or at least it seems that way, though traffic is exceedingly light except around the major
cities….. “Internet availability” means many different things to different campgrounds. Some offer wi-fi,plain and simple. It’s easy to access and you can work from the trailer whenever you want. We’ve only had this once. Some offer paid wi-fi and you need to access a pop-up window to enter a user and password name— and the pop-up keeps disappearing, or is difficult to access— at least given the level of my computer skills. Some offer a public telephone plug-in. AOL works pretty well with this, but Dave’s Earthlink balks. The campground we’re at now you have to put everything on a disk and enter it at a computer at the office. We don’t have any disks with us. McDonald’s up here don’t have wi-fi, at least not that we’ve found. All of this makes daily e-mail and maintaining the blog difficult, but we expect this will change when we reach Alaska, and maybe even as we travel the AlcanHighway. Today or tomorrow, we’ll try the library or maybe the Sheraton, which has a wi-fi you can sneak onto…. In a bit, we’re taking a special campground bus into downtown Calgary (which we drove through last evening at the height of rush hour!) to see the Zoo and Devonian and botanical gardens, if time allows….. Speaking of time, too much is spent in front of a bug smeared windshield. Though we have very few days we’re slated to drive more than five hours, things don’t always work as planned. Yesterday, we spent nearly ten hours from campground to campground, though this was our longest time in the truck by far. The trek allows us to spend a couple days with no driving at all— except the drive through Jasper/Banff , in the park, tomorrow. We’ve traveled about 3,000 miles now, and while the next week will be hectic, driving will become less of a pain soon. But I should be careful not to disparage all the driving as a good part of it has been through interesting areas….

Gas (diesel, actually) mileage through Wednesday night has averaged 11.8 MPG This may reflect a lot of miles on the prairies, but we’re happier than we were after our first calculation…. Newspapers in Canada are a cut above those of the USA. The front pages and sections are devoted to important national, international, and regional news. The fluff, and there’s much less of it, is located elsewhere. As you might expect, the folks up here are very interested in the US news. As they say, “When the elephant moves, you pay attention.” On the other hand, TV up here is worse than in the states, though I have to be careful here because Charmi would tell you all I watch is the Weather Channel. Anyway, a whole lot of time is given over to cartoons and celebrity crap, though they do have news shows at the typical times….We’ve passed through two time zones and are now on Rocky Mountain Time…..

It’s Saturday, our layover day and planned foray to the Rockies around Banff and Jasper. The weather wizard was rooting for us, and what had been forecast as showers and rain actually materialized as a cloudy morning and then a mostly sunny afternoon…. The morning started with a trip to Starbucks so we could access the internet. And so we did, a four buck vanilla bean mocha and a $7.50 Bell Internet fee later. For that kind of coin I could have called most of you! We did get e-mails from many of you and I got a chance to get the blog and quite a few e-mails out. Forget dollars and sense, I guess it was worth it….The approach to Banff from the plains is absolutely magnificent. There really isn’t much of a transition. Suddenly, the mountains loom before you and then–bang– loom over you. It’s truly impossible to try to convey the awesome grandeur they present. Big. They are. Tall. For sure. Overwhelming. Certainly. Majestic, too. Breath taking.
Well, close— and who knows if it’s the mountains or the emphysema? But just absolutely remarkable in the way they humble everything else. Standing in front of, say, Bow Summit, it isn’t hard to imagine some kid gazing up and planning to level it with his robotic atom powered dozer that he sketched in study hall just last week. Or maybe not. Anyway, a picture’s worth all the words I can conjure so I’ll try to get a few photos up on the blog within the next couple days…Lake Louise deserves promient mention. It’s located off the highway, maybe a thousand or so feet up a mountain. It’s not too big, about 200 acres maybe. But its tourmaline glacial waters tend to mesmerize against the gray and snow capped mountains. We drove the Icefield’s Parkway and saw some glaciers close up. What we never did see was much wildlife—and no bears at all. We did see a cute chipmunk and an emaciated squirrel. Also, something that resembled an obese crow that I decided was a magpie because I don’t know what a magpie looks like but suppose a crow afflicted with giantism might be close. We also saw two “somethings” tearing apart a carcass (unidentifiable, but bloody) but Dave and I couldn’t decide if they were coyotes, cougars, or wolves, though we did agree that they
were too far from home to be common house dogs. Maybe it was just the noon day sun, but none of the large animals we hoped for ventured forth though there were literally hundreds of signs warning us of their presence and the fact that it’s both unwise and illegal to feed them….. Hunger on the mind, we were too tired to cook supper so we had KFC. No extra crispy. No mashed potatoes. Fries only. And maybe that has something to do with why Kerry lost the election….

They said you have a blue guitar
That doesn’t play things as they are.
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”….
- Wallace Stevens( I think)

Anyway, up early Sunday morning and off from affluent Calgary to the booming oil area beyond Edmonton. Actually, we took a perimeter route around Edmonton, which we feared was still celebrating yesterday’s win over Carolina . Believe me, no one up here thinks the final goal was at all in dispute. Anyway, we are sitting in Whitecourt about 100 miles northwest of Edmonton tonight. It drizzled on and off for a good part of the ride today, and actually rained for a while, but had pretty much stopped by the time we reached the campground. In some ways, this was the dullest ride of the trip, though it would be unfair ro say it isn’t a pretty area. Calgary is cattle country and that pretty much continues up to Edmonton and beyond. Occasionally a working oil rig can be spotted from the highway, but there is no spectacular scenery, and perhaps we became jaded after yesterday’s trip to the Rockies. I may have mentioned this, but several people told me that the Alberta Rockies may be the most beautiful part of our trip. So far, they are right!…. Once again we got stiffed on an internet hook-up. The campground is changing from modems to wi-fi, but the wi-fi isn’t hooked-up yet (They’re waiting for an electrician, Ethan)and the modems are gone….. But Dave is very happy to be here: They have a petting zoo— for real. A few goats, a miniature donkey, some turkeys, chickens, a sheep, and one loud bantam rooster. And now the blue guitar. Right after we got here, Dave said he was going into town to pick up some groceries. Town is a couple minutes away. He returned over an hour later. As soon as supper was over, he said he was heading to the river, the mighty Athabasca River which boundaries one side of the campground. The only way to the river is past the petting zoo. He came back to report a fisherman with a couple pike down at the boat launch. No mention of the petting zoo. In honesty, I did stop at the petting zoo myself, and in addition to the normal menagerie, they had about ten or twelve seemingly tropical birds. So that was about it. Not the most stimulating day, but if you want to liven it up a bit, just try the blue guitar….

We had a good drive from Whitecourt to Dawson Creek, covering the distance in about five and a half hours. The morning started out cloudy but quickly turned partly, then mostly, sunny. And temperatures soared, probably up to 70 and maybe a bit more. There is a lot of rolling country some of it as flat as the prairies, and checkerboarded with farms, but things get a bit more hilly as you approach Dawson Creek, which you reach by dropping into a river valley. There are some wooded areas, and we saw a moose and a couple deer. There are still lots of cattle and an occasional working oil rig can be seen from the highway. Out of view there is a lot of oil exploration going on and the Sagitawah RV Park we stayed in last night has pretty much been taken over by workers from the oil fields. They are easily recognizable by the trucks they drive which are so mud encrusted it’s impossible to determine the make or model. The mud is literally two inches thick— on the sides of the trucks!…..Perhaps the most interesting thing we saw today was the Kleskun Hills where the erosion of glacial drift, mostly clay,sand, and gravel has formed interesting terracaes and land formations whose names i don’t know. It’s an area rich in dinosaur tracks and particularly aquatic fossils, from roughly 70 million years ago…. On the political front a number of issues are hot right now. Folks are reacting to the loss of the Liberal government, pro and con. The Provinces are debating revenue sharing and not coming to any agreement. The taxpayers of Alberta are particularly incensed that they are sending money to Quebec, which they claim are able to provide better services than Alberta— on Alberta’s dime. The papers are full of letters warning citizens not to give up any civil liberties as it won’t make the country any safer and it’s just what the “enemy” wants. And, many sure as hell don’t want to be like the United States. The death penalty gets some play, and the game wardens in Saskatchewan want to carry guns now that they have a Conservative government….. Alaska feels a lot closer. We are sitting on Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway , roughly 1500 miles from Fairbanks, our first major stopping point in Alaska. Tomorrow, it’s off into the forests as we head to Ft. Nelson. Our wildlife sightings should pick up considerably. The Alaskan Highway is vastly improved from WWII days when it was constructed in just nine months but it’s still pretty rough compared to what we’ve become accustomed to. However, the stretch we’re covering in the morning is in nice shape, and the weather is supposed to be superb, so we hope to enjoy ourselves and have some interesting reports for you tomorrow— if we get on the ‘net…. For those keeping score, we are now on Pacific Time, three hours behind you Nutmeggers….

Well, at least we saw a caribou, several deer, and Dave saw a bear, though, I was day dreaming out the other window…. The highway from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson marks the beginning of what is referred to as the “northern wilderness.” It’s gas and timber country and in some ways resembles the old west, at least as it’s imprinted in my mind. And there are more than a few horse farms (read ranches, I guess) to boot. There are plenty of one story buildings with a second story facade that sometimes even read “saloon.” I haven’t seen any with swinging doors, however, and I guess it’s just too cold up here for that….Speaking of which, the temperature reached 85 degrees today and at 8:00 PM it still feels that hot! The weather tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous again…. After leaving Dawson Creek today we dipped down into the Peace River valley, famous for its scenery and it’s apiaries, as in bees and honey. But the ride down into the valley is on an unbelievably steep and winding road and pretty much at the edge of a cliff and there’s no money for guardrails in British Columbia. Everyone was in low gear and going about 20 MPH, although up here I guess I should be giving that to you in kilometers. The valley is hemmed in by cliffs which are significantly eroded and must be a geologist’s dream, except that all the geologists up here are working on oil and gas exploration…. What we traveled today is called the Alaskan Highway. It was built in nine months in 1942 after Pearl Harbor when a Japanese invasion was thought possible and there seemed to be a need to link the west coast areas of Alaska, Canada, and the good ole US of A. The amazing thing is that all 1400 plus miles were surveyed, designed, and built in the nine months alluded to above. The army engineers tried to make it as utilitarian as possible so there are many straightaways that at least in that respect resemble the roads back on the plains…We’re still aiming for Dawson City and a two or three day break this weekend, so tomorrow we push on to Watson Lake. It may be a spectacular drive as we cross the Canadian Rockies— and again a lot of wildlife is supposedly within view….. If we get on the net tomorrow, I’ll let you know…. Till then….

We arrived in Whitehorse mid-afternoon in a pouring rain.  No matter, we are now only 300 miles from Alaska were we to continue on our present route— and actually only about a hundred as the crow flies to Skagway.  However, we’re turning north and hope to be in Dawson City by late tomorrow.  Most of the folks in the Pioneer RV Campground tonight are headed to the border  with the morning sunrise, at least assuming the rain stops.  Whitehorse lies on the Yukon River and has been the capital of the Northwest Territories since 1953.  It’s really pretty much the nerve center for the Yukon region with a booming population of 16,000— but that makes it far larger then anything else for several hundred miles around…..  After yesterday’s ride through the Rockies, which I’ll mention in a bit, the travel today was something of a letdown, though by and large pretty nice country.  We did cross the Continental Divide in the Cassair Mountains this morning.  It is notable for dividing the drainage areas of the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers.  But standing on the spot is not momentous, nor is the location even particularly picturesque.  We did see some wildlife but nothing like yesterday.  (Dave has run out to do some shopping so it’s possible that he’ll have a report on Whitehorse itself, but so far I’ve seen nothing but the eastern outskirts)…..  Now, on to the Rockies.  Last Saturday, we toured around the Banff/Jasper area and many of you have read the blog I’m sure.  If I couldn’t conjure the superlatives or draw the word pictures exactly, I still hope I conveyed the awesomeness and beauty of the Rockies.  Well, let me tell you, the eastern Canadian Rockies we rode yesterday are even more beautiful, if for no other reason than the fact that they are more varied and the region is more isolated so it doesn’t have any tourist feel.  In fact, we often drove for ten or more miles without meeting an on-coming car.  The ride ain’t for the faint-hearted however as it often resembles a roller coaster and edges along cliffs that drop off several hundred feet.  No guard rails in sight.  I’m forwarding some more Rockies pictures to Dan and they’ll appear here soon.  And now I can compare notes on hoodoos (erosion pillars) and alleuvial fans (the silt and gravel conveyed down the mountains and which arranges itself at the base much in the shape of what the pre A/C folks waved in front of their faces.  I really don’t have either the expertise or typing speed to try to describe the many geologic formations, but they are beautiful to behold!….  And wildlife, finally!  We saw our first two bears within ten minutes of leaving Fort Nelson.  We were to see a couple more along the way.  We also saw caribou, Stone sheep (much like the Dall’s in Alaska but darker in color), a fox, a buffalo, and, you guessed it, several squirrels. No petting zoo…..  Some statistics, for those who like them.  Even after our climb over the Rockies, we are still averaging about 11 MPG.  I guess we’re pleased. But most every day we travel we’re spending something over $75.00 on diesel fuel.   Fuel is a little over a buck a liter, making that close to $4.75 per gallon.  Of course, in a short time, we’ll be driving far less.  Campgrounds average $20-$30 per night.  We could cut this down but we look for places with an internet connection, preferably wi-fi, so this limits our choices to the “better” RV parks.  So far, we’ve put 4600 miles on the odometer.  Even though we’re not far from the Yukon River, we’re still at an altitude of 2,306 feet. And that’s all the numbers for today….  A little about Rv’ing, and I know some of you are far more versed in this than I.  But I’ll try to give it from the perspective of the trip thus far.  Foremost, the RV folks are friendly.  They actually have some energy after driving for six or eight hours to tour the towns and sit around and BS.  We’ve seen some folks at multiple campgrounds and, in fact, the folks that are right next to us tonight are the same folks who were right next to us back in Dawson Creek.  This is fairly remarkable in that both campgrounds are large ones.  However, my guess would be that there are 10 or 20 people at Pioneer tonight who were back in Dawson Creek.  This is primarily because most everone is headed to Alaska and taking the same route….  As you can imagine, most of the RV’ers here are retired but there are exceptions.  At a pullover, I talked to a 30ish guy who was on his way to Alaska from Alberta with his wife and three kids.  (I’m not the truant officer so I didn’t ask about school.  It should be noted, also, that Canadians have more vacation time than American workers)  The campgrounds themselves range from beautifully sited and meticulously maintained to the dusty and grungy, with bathrooms that resemble those along highways or in college dormatories.  But most of the owners of these places are pretty proud of them.  It’s a hands-on type of work so they are very involved,, and most are a husband/wife endeavor, or wife/husband if you prefer, and the larger ones sometimes involve extended family and part-time high school students…..  Just quickly, in the row at the campground tonight there are people from Virginia, North Dakota, California (2), Pennsylvania, Texas, Alberta, Ohio, and on and on.  All headed to the Land of the Midnight Sun.  Speaking of which, it’s now light from approximately 4:00 Am till 11:00 PM. It should be noted that we are now on Pacific Time, three hours behind you New Englanders…   I intended to go on here for a while but will postpone to another day as I’m running out of time….  Hope all of you are well….  On to Dawson City and the gold rush! 

That’s 1898 when the gold rush hit Dawson City.  Today, it’s a funky town where the spirit of ‘98 lives on and you can pan for gold (Dave is doing it as I type),gamble, watch the powerful Yukon River roll by, see the folks in period costumes, and generally feel you’re in the middle of some old western.  The buildings is town range from restored boom era stuff to shacks that haven’t been painted since the gold rush ended.  But in an ironic way, despite its tough veneer, Dawson City is known for it’s writers as much as anything else.  Robrt Service, the “Bard of the Yukon” lived here and worked as a bank teller.  Jack London author of “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” ,  both assigned reading for all of you in high school and completed by a very few, had a cabin for a while only a couple blocks away.  Pierre Burton of “Klondike” fame, and one of Canada’s truly famous writers, though not well known in the States, was born and lived here  much of his life.  This morning I visited the two cabins, though I am going back to the Jack London site tomorrow, and I listened to a reading of Robert Service’s poems.  They are really verses, and easy to memorize, much like Rudyard Kipling’s “Barrack’s Ballads.”  I can do a couple myelf, including “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”  But don’t ask Charmi to ask me to recite it!…..  Dave has forwarded a bunch of great pictures of Dawson City to Dan (who is very busy right now) and hopefully some of them will make their way to the blog…  Dawson City is also known as ” a drinking town with a fishing problem.”  If this gets around, you can expect a second coming for this neck of the woods.  But it is truly an interesting place.  Outside town the rocks (tailings) that were harvested in the mammouth gold dredges,  are piled ten or more feet high for a couple miles on end.  To the north and east of downtown is a mountain called the “Dome.”  It’s a couple thousdand feet up but you can drive your car to the top (carefully) and Dave and I did this morning.  The views are superlative!. Still when the day comes to an end around here, and at this time of year the sun sets after 11:00 PM. if it weren’t for the tourists, they’d chop up the wooden sidewalks, make a big bonfire in the middle of the muddy streets, and have one last marshmellow roast….  Yesterday, we drove up from Whitehorse on the Klondike Road through caribou and grizzly country but weren’t fortunate enough to see either.  The highway is rather rough in spots, and in some places gravel, loose at that, as opposed to paved, but we covered the distance in fine shape.  The ride was long, pretty in places, but again pales in comparison to the earlier rides through the Rockies.  We stayed in Whitehorse only overnight and din’t see all that much of the town, but it is similar to Dawson City, though much larger, in that it’s sole function is to keep tourists entertained.  But it, too, got it’s start as a gold rush town.  It was at Whitehorse that the Klondike “stampeders” stayed to dry out after ascending the Yukon rapids and re-stock supplies.  So the tie to Dawson City is close— and many of the same stage shows are presented in both towns….   We’re here for one more day, so I’ll let you know if we find anything realy interesting.  In the meantime, from Robert Service:

                                          I wanted the gold and I sought it;

                                          I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

                                          Was it famine or scurvey, I fought it;

                                          I hurled my youth into the grave.

                                          I wanted the gold, and I got it—

                                          Came out with a fortune last fall—

                                          Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,

                                           And somehow the gold isn’t all…..

We finally have a large cache of pictures from the trip. Click the picture below to see more….

(Sorry, I lost the timestamps, so the pictures are in alphabetical order.)

-dan

Some of you are thinking Lawrence Ferlinghetti, at least the over-60 crowd, but I’m speaking specifically of the never ending daylight in Dawson City. The sun “sets” about 11:15 PM and rises again about 1:30 AM. But it never really gets dark. Just dusky. So you couldn’t sneak off with your sweetie without being seen, but you could weed your garden at midnight without problem. The hens up here struggle because they refuse to roost in the daylight and finally collapse of exhaustion unless sheltered in a shuttered chicken coop, and this is actually a practice followed by egg producers….. Anyway, I spent part of Father’s Day reading the biography of a woman named Laura Burton (”I Married the Klondike“) who came to Dawson City as a young kindergarden teacher in 1907, just as the gold rush was slowing down, and stayed on into 1932. Her’s was truly a fascinating life. And, while I still may be a rebrobate, I no longer want any of you accusing me of being a male chauvinist…. I may tell you a bit more about Laura Burton in a later blog but today I want to focus on Dawson City as it’s fairly representative of the few other towns there are up here in the Yukon….. Dawson City didn’t really exist until the stampeders came to the area n 1898 to kick off the gold rush. It quickly grew to 30,000, almost all men and almost all seeking gold, though the men who usually struck it rich were those who provided supplies to the miners. It’s interesting that more than a few men made huge fortunes in the gold fields, but almost to a person they died paupers. A few, like the Guggenhiems increased their fortunes from afar, and today we sit in a campground in what’s called Googieville, the supply base for the Guggenheim interests. But by 1905 the gold rush was essentially over and the miners moving out. The high point for gold extraction was 1900 when $22,275,000 of the shiny stuff was mined. The town dwindled to 800 hardy souls doing God- knows-what by the 1940’s. Today, the town harbors 1,200 people who basically cater to tourists. But the town resembles the gold rush era at least in part because no one rehabbed the buildings, some of which are collapsing these days, and also due to an ordinance up here that requires that all new buildings, of which there are precious few, resemble gold rush housing. So the houses are generally older, many dating back more than a hundred years. A few still have sod roofs, many are chinked logs, a couple rough sawn wood, some shingled, and almost without exception, they are small. As far as I can determine, none have cellars. There are a few houses that stand out because they were obviously built by wealthy folks and have been well maintained or restored, but they are still small by today’s standards. A thousand square feet would be really on the huge side. They are now frequently painted in guady colors (the better for tourists to photograph) but a hundred years ago they were almost all gray. The commercial area and housing exist together on eight avenues intersected by a dozen streets. The town is roughly a half mile by maybe three quarters of a mile. That’s it. But it’s magnificently situated on the Yukon River which rolls unendingly by. The largest building ,by far, in town is now the Dawson City Museum but formerly was the government administration building. It’s front is about 100 feet long and it’s a two story gorgeous example of neo-classical architecture. There are still a few churches, some in disrepair, a few smallish motels and hotels, a couple restaurants, but none very large, and a casino about the size of a convenience store. On Front Street (that fronts the river of course) there are a number of shops and boutiques. All sport false fronts and period signs. All in all, a very “western” effect and quite charming. One important note. Like every other town in central and northern Canada that we have seen, it has a multitude of recreational facilities such as outdoor heated pool as well as indoor pool, hockey rink, soccer and softball fields, youth center, and on and on in some towns. This probably reflects the rugged weather and need to have something to do….. All of which leads me to the social aspect of life in Dawson City from the turn of the 20th Century until today. From it’s very beginnings the town has had many balls, dances and celebrations, practically on a weekly basis. Many of the balls were for the golden crust only and featured gowns from Paris and gentlemen in formal wear. Social manners were strictly observed. This drove women moving to Dawson to tears as they came with the roughest of clothing prepared to survive in the frigid arctic and then were forced to spend small fortunes to dress for these events. But many other socials were conducted for the population as a whole, often by churches and the townspeople attended pretty much as a whole…. Speaking of chuches, naturally the missionaries were here en masse. When they didn’t enjoy success among the miners they reached out to the aboriginals. Which leads to a cute story. A missionary visiting a village for the first time in several years encountered a man calling to his daughter, Gasoline. When the missionary inquired how she came by her name, the man replied, “You named her, Father.” Several weeks later, getting back to Dawson, the missionary checked the baptism records. You got it: Kathleen…. By the bye, Dawson City always had the best of the best. Whether it was food or clothing, shipping costs were so high that merchants just ordered the best in the belief that there was no sense wasting good shipping money on inferior wares…. Am signing off here, but if folks want stuff other than I’m providing on the blog, please let me know. I’ll try to accomodate….

Shortly after we arrived at the campground in Dawson City last Friday night, I was absent-mindedly walking around the corner by the garbage/recycling center when I almost bumped into a guy coming from the opposite direction…. “Daydreaming, eh?” A bit abashedly, I confirmed my guilt. We laughed and began the obligatory introductions. He had a prepared spiel, “a seven day a week dirty job with few benefits, that nobody would ever want to take away from me.” He is a “small” (1,700 acres) wheat farmer from Saskatchewan….. He was eager to tell me about a guy he’d just met who had rolled his motor home on the Top of the World Highway the day before. It seems the fellow had tried to pull to the shoulder of the dirt road to let another vehicle pass when the loose gravel on the shoulder gave way and the motor home rolled into a ditch. Fortunately, no one was hurt and even more fortunately it rolled into the ditch on the side of the road away from the cliff opposite, which pitched down several hundred feet. The farmer and his wife (nope, I never heard if he had a daughter so no joke here) had just crossed the Top of the World and he could see how that could happen. His own feelings were that he was glad he did the Top of the World, but he wouldn’t do it again. It wasn’t the danger that bothered him but the nearly 140 miles of washboard and potholes. Anyway, we struck up a friendship, or at least a friendship as far as these things go on a campground, and through Monday morning we met several times to “palaver.”…..Despite his seven day a week job, “you get some down time,” he has traveled quite extensively including Australia, New Zealand, several weeks in Europe for the Olympics (” the Americans walk on the right, the Europeans on the left, and the Japanese down the middle, disrupting chaos”)much of the Unitedd States, and Japan, though never Alaska before this trip. He claims not to be a reader, “that’s my son,” though he’s familiar with both Robert Service and Jack London as well as Pierre Burton and is a “newspaper junkie.” Politically, he self-describes as “conservative leaning; I’m a farmer, eh.”….. He says he initially supported “Bush’s war,” though he never really understood why Saddam/Iraq was the focus as there are bigger problems in the world “Maybe his father.” He’s now come to the conclusion that” war shouldn’t be the perogative of one man” and that little good, will ever come out of the Iraq situation, though we’ll be forever cleaning up the “mess.” Nor can he condone the use of mercenaries. “If you have a war, you have to feel the pain.” He doesn’t think the States are particularly imperialistic, but the use of paid armies is “typical” of imperialism…… He’s a free market man, except for commodities (grain), he says with a chuckle. He went to the Diamond Tooth Gerties shows in both Whitehorse ($20) and Dawson City ($6). You get what you pay for. the show in Whitehose is at least five times better…. Then, he proceeds to detail all the need for government…The primary problem he sees with government is that the prevailing parties change too often and, “particularly with ideology gone crazy, things swing 180 degrees. You can’t be a chemical farmer one year and an organic farmer the next.”….. On health care, he’s totally baffled by the US refusal to develop some national standards. He quickly acknowledges some problems with the Canadian system, primarily backlogs for certain procedures, but points out that everyone gets solid basic care. ” If you get caught in the backlog, and you have the money, you go down to the States and have things taken care of.” He says he knows of several people who have done exactly that. He believes Canada should build that type of option into its system…. His son, who is just turning 43, came back home last summer to take over the farm. He’s thrilled as after the university his son got into computers and had spent the last twenty years or so living in southern California. He’s been somewhat concerned that his daughter inlaw wouldn’t be happy to live in Saskatchewan, but it’s turned out quite the opposite. “I’ve been a lucky man,” he says, a term I occasionally use to describe myself….. None of this is particularly revolutionary, but some of it is surprising coming from someone who says he leans conservative, A different perspective from our friends to the north, perhaps? On Monday morning, as we were both leaving, he wanted me to take “just for a half hour to go see the cemetery in Dawson City. “The most fascinating place in town. You can practically trace the whole history.” I had to beg off as we were already late getting started to the Top of the World. We shook hands and called it a weekend. He’s a man I’d be glad to have for a friend and neighbor. If you’re ever in Saskatchewan, look him up— or maybe he’ll find you. His name is Frank….

Special Dispatch From The Field….On Monday, June 19th as the sun crossed the yardarm, we crossed from Canada into Poker Flats, Alaska, USA. This time there was no international incident that would cause Homeland Security to raise the alert status. In fact, a very personable and humorous customs official had us processed in about three minutes max! A pleasant change from the last time. Last night we stayed in Tok, Alaska and tonight we’re just outside Fairbanks t our home for the next week or so. It’s on a pond that’s a site for a couple sea plane bases and a regular small plane airport. We have a waterfront lot with a gorgeous view. I’ll try to get a picture posted on the blog soon…. Yesterday’s trip was something else. From Dawson City we took a ferry boat across the swift Yukon River which still features ice chunks and immediately began a 4000 foot ascent into the mountains. Most of the trip was on narrow, winding, steep roads with no shoulders to speak of and no guard rails anywhere at all. There was barely room for two vehicles to pass and sometimes your vehicle’s wheels were only three feet or so from a thousand or more foot drop. The way you have to view it, I guess, is that a drop of five feet could kill you. Some of the time we were actually driving above the tree line with snow banks along the side of the road. You who know me, realize it was white knuckle all the way. The views were spectacular and vertigo inducing . Unfortunately, this jaunt is about 140 miles long and the potholed and washboard surface gets to you long before you reach the pavement in Chicken, Alaska. I’m not sure that I’d want to do it again, but… We have wi-fi at the Chena Marina RV Park where well be till early next week. However, it’s intermittent wi-fi. Some of the folks up here blame it on Eielson Air Force Base, which is only a couple miles away, with all their sophisticated communication systems. Anyway, I’ll be in touch, but if I’m not on-line a lot, that’s the reason. Please keep in mind, too, that we are now on Alaskan Time, four hours behind EDST. It never gets dark here— at least as this time of year. Tonight we’re off to the midnight baseball game featuring the Alaskan Goldpanners…. A report tomorow— maybe….

After logging well over 5,000 miles, we arrived at the Chena Marina RV Park and made camp, as you may recall, on Tuesday afternoon. We’re located on a pond a little more than a mile long and somewhat less than 200 feet wide. It would appear to be man made, except I’ve been assured that it’s natural. Tethered the length of the pond on the west side at fairly regular intervals are float planes of various makes, sizes, and colors. Just back from the pond, and running it’s length, there’s a runway for wheeled planes. Every 100 yards or so is another hanger. On our side, the east, there is the RV park, where a few peple summer with their planes, a couple private homes with planes, then a few fishing and hunting outfitters, with their planes, and some more homes with planes. By now you have the idea of a lot of planes, and you’re right. Given dstances traveled in this Last Frontier, folks fly a lot. Even people who live across the street that circles the pond have planes. As you can imagine, there’s lots of activity and a certain level of noise. Owing to a couple helicopters, the drone and whine of Cessnas and their cousins is broken by the thumps of the choppers. Still, it’s fairly quiet from mid-evening till 6:30 AM and you quickly tune out the sounds anyway— especially when you can take off your hearing aides!. It seems that few folks tire of watching the landings and take offs, and that includes a retired airline pilot and his wife—who is also a pilot…. The RV park is a real nice one and we have a “premier” site that’s only thirty or so feet from the water. That “premier” stuff, aside from price, is that we get a large lot for the trailer and additional parking for the truck, a real luxury in some places. There’s a concierge service, bus to town, free RV wash, etc. We’ve called it home for the last five days and will stay here until Wednesday morning when we depart for the thrills of Denali. It’s comfortable and has allowed us to be tourists instead of travellers. And, as you may have sensed, I was getting pretty tired of the longish drives most every day….It’s only a couple miles to downtown Fairbanks and we’ve been into town a couple times. Fairbanks is only about 30,000 souls, though the “economic area” it serves amounts to 80,000. So, while it’s much larger than you’d expect, the downtown itself is fairly compact with few buildings over three or four stories. It’s pretty much a service and supply point for all of interior Alaska, with some mining industry. Additionally, it houses Eielson Air Force Base and Wainwright Army Base, so there’s a strong military presence. It’s also the home of the University of Alaska Fairbanks whose glorious presence looms on a hill above the town. It’s really a gorgeous place with some very fine architecture. With all this said, Fairbanks is a nice, small city with an big urban sprawl problem as it’s ringed by roads lined with the usual agglomeration of fast food joints, supermarkets, drug chains, ad nauseum. This definitely detracts from the history,represented here in so many ways and in which they take great pride. There’s little apparent poverty, but I’ve read that the city fathers, and maybe mothers, cleaned out the bars and sex stores a few years back. Drugs, gangs, and DUI are cited as major problems in the press, but most of it sounds either typical or benign…. So, as I say, we’ve been tourists in and around the city. As many of you know, we went to the Midnight Baseball game played at 10:30 PM with only natural lighting. Though I left in the fifth, Dave stuck it out till the tenth inning when he decided to leave— and the Fairbanks Goldpanners promptly scored to pull out a win over the Beatrice Bruins. The next afternoon we went to the annual outdoor arts festival in the core of the city. It truly wasn’t much different than anything we could have visited in any number of cities at home excepting the types of crafts offered, often with an accent on the native cultures. Yesterday, we took a relatively short ride to Chena Hot Springs, located about 50 miles east. Dave hiked the Angel Rocks Trail for a few hours while I angled the North Fork of the Chena Riverfor grayling with only minimal success. At the fourth or fifth stretch I fished, I manged to catch two grayling, neither of which was eight inches. But the river was muddy from thunderstorms the night before and so the going was tough. And I did catch a species of fish I’d never caught before. We drove up to the hot springs but didn’t go for a dip. The most interesting thing there was a “kennel” of huskies that must have run about 100 strong. All in all, a fun trip in nice weather, the fishing be damned. Not much wildlife, though we did see a few moose, and while I was fishing I kept glancing over my shoulder for bears. Today we started the morning at the university museum, as fascinating as it is beautiful. (We’ll get a picture up.) It’s a repository for Alaska’s vast and varied trasures and is a magnificent introduction to the physical history, the various cultures, and the development of the state. As museums go, this one should interest just about anyone. The upstairs is an art gallery and fairly captures the diversity of the state. (Surprisingly, there was one anti- Iraqiwar piece,an American flag each of the stripes held together with safety pins, and a variety of quotes (Dubya, Rumsfeld), sketches (the crooked smirk), and symbols imposed. There was an accompanying letter from the university president expaining why it was important to exhibit the work. Same ole, same ole.) In Fairbanks? Wow! After the museum it was off to the Large Animal Research Center to see the musk oxen and caribou. There was no tour scheduled for about an hour, plus we are slated to visit a musk ox farm in Mat-Su, so our stay was brief. We then went to the Creamer Field Migratory Bird Refuge where Dave took a short hike and I contented myself with watching the sandhill cranes peck about the barley. We wrapped up the day by visiting the Tanana Valley Farmer’s Market where Dave bought a loaf of Zuccini bread and i got one of onion batter….. So, that’s been life the last few days, nothing exciting, but quietly satisfying. I could remain here for the summer if the fishing in the area was decent…. Stay tuned for a stern wheeler river boat ride on the Tanana River and possibly a trip north. But if this all seems a bit tame, hang in there. Next week in Denali, we’ll be staying nearly 40 miles out in the park at a camping area that was closed to tent campers last summer due to marauding bears. If I can stop cowering under the bed long enough, while Dave is out hiking, I may get off a wild and wooly blog…

(here’s a picture of the pond, and check out the google map overhead -dan)

Sorry it’s taken so long to get these posted. I believe they’re worth the wait. There are two sets, click on each of the photos below to see the rest of the set.

-dan

Set One

Set Two

PLEASE NOTE THAT TODAY’S WILL BE THE LAST BLOG FOR A WHILE.  THEY HAVEN’T TURNED DENALI INTO DISNEYWORLD YET, SO WE’LL HAVE NO ACCESS TO THE INTERNET UNTIL AT LEAST NEXT TUESDAY, JULY 4TH….  DAN MAY POST A FEW PICTURES FOR US, THOUGH, ASSUMING WE GET THEM TO HIM…..

Yup, it’s farewell to Fairbanks, certainly not the most exciting part of Alaska, and definitely not a great fishing venue, particularly in the month of June.  Still, we’ve had a long and  relaxing break here from travel and we’ve enjoyed the campground and city tremendously…..  Yesterday, we took the afternoon trip on the “Discovery” riverboat.   It rained a bit but not enough to disrupt our good time.   It’s a three and a half hour jaunt down the Chena and Tanana rivers that doesn’t even cover eight miles round trip, thereby avoiding high fuel costs.  At $46.95 it seems to be tailored to the affluent tour groups and so it is.  The parking lot was crammed with tour busses from all the well known purveyors and there were, at most, 30 private cars in the lot.  This to fill two tour boats, Discovery II and III, that seat 1,300 together and were nearly at capacity when the crew tossed off the lines at 2:00 PM  But, despite the steep price, “Travel” magazine rates it “the best riverboat trip in the United States.”   Now I haven’t taken a lot of riverboat trips, but I’d have to agree with them.   It is sort of a combination of the aforementioned Disney World and Sturbridge Village…..  The Discovery is a very quiet sternwheeler with 19 viewing monitors strategically placed so that you don’t miss a second of the continuous narration— or the pitches for the gift shop, aboard and back at port!  Anyway, the boat makes frequent stops, the first just a quarter mile down river to watch a float plane  take off then land.  There is an intercom conversation with the pilot after he lands detailing the need for bush planes in Alaska.  You then pass a number of waterfront homes including that of the current Crook, I mean Governor, of Alaska, who many think makes John Rowland look like “Honest Abe.”  ( By the way, one of the Binkleys, the well-known family that owns the riverboat ride, is running in a Republican primary against Governor Murchowski.  We saw him at the Midnight Baseball game, along with an honest women, Sarah Palin, from Wasilla and badly under-funded, who is also running.)  The Discovery soon stops again, at the house and kennels of Susan Butcher, the women who won the Iditarod four times! (In Alaska, “men are men, but women win the Iditarod!”)  Susan Butcher is in Seattle being treated for leukemia, but she has another Iditarod racer covering for her.  You get a whole history of racing, dog training, and conditioning as well as a demonstration of the huskies pulling a wheeled dog sled.  From there you hit a time warp and stop at a replica Native Alaskan Athabascan village roughly modeled on the gold rush era.  Again, there are narrated lectures (courtesy of Athabascan women who are currently at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and well-connected to the Binkleys) providing glimpses into the Athabascan’s culture and history.  All of it is very well presented.  I won’t kill you with detail, but it was very enjoyable.  Only one last observation: the average age of tour boat folks had to be well into the seventies.  In a crowd of well over a thousand people on the boats, I would venture there weren’t 30 under age 55….

Tomorrow, it’s on to Denali, a highlight of the trip for Dave where he plans to do a lot of hiking, but another spot where fishing is vitually non-existent.  We do have a whitewater trip planned as well as the standard shuttle bus ride through the park when we hope to see much wildlife and maybe catch a glimpse of Mount McKinley, though the chances on any given day are only 30%.  (I’ve spoken to three people at the campground who spent several days there in the past week or so, and none of them saw the peak.  Given the weather forecast for the next few days, we may have to wait till late in our stay.)  But we are both looking forward to our time at Denali.  For the first five days we’ll be at a campground on the Teklanika River (absolutely no fish because of heavy glacial siltation) over thirty miles out in the park.  This campground was closed to tent campers last summer due to marauding bears.  Dave has prepared for his hikes by purchasing some bear spray.  I have dusted under my bed.  Actually, as I know I’ll be the slowest person in any group, I have developed the honey dip strategy.  I have ordered a dozen to be delivered fresh each morning.  If I encounter a bear under my bed, I’ll just scatter the doughnuts in different directions and climb on the top bunk.  It is useless to climb the black spruces in the area as they are relatively limber and even small cubs can shake you out of them.  I’ll let you know how this works.  If you don’t hear from me again, well …. On Monday, we move to the Grizzly Bear RV Park about six miles outside Denali’s gates….  Today we’ll tinker with the trailer, greasing wheel bearings and such.  Sometime, we have to get to the store and lay in supplies for the five days in Denali .  This includes important staples such as Cheez Its and ice cream bars.  We may do some last minute sightseeing but we’ve basically wrapped up this phase of our trip….  Stay tuned for what we hope are not too, too exciting adventures….

SPECIAL DISPATCH….Yesterday a grizzly bear was shot and wounded near a campground where we will SOON be staying and in the EXACT location we’re (or at least we were) planning to catch huge salmon.  The bear was  reportedly   plugged five times by a .44 handgun,  near the Russian River Ferry in Cooper Landing by an angler, who, with three friends, was taking a shortcut through some brush to a pool in the Kenai River.  Nothing and no one respects fishermen!… Authorities are skeptical about the five purported hits as the blood trail was fairly light.  Of course, this makes the bear doubly , or even tripley dangerous as he is now p-ssed off and possibly lurking near the campground awaiting our imminent arrival.  Grizzlies are notorious for their ability to survive physical injury.  They are reportedly worse than Al Quaida camels for their revengeful attitudes!….  For the record, though it won’t be tomorrow, we will be arriving at this particular campground  in ONLY  51 days!!! Let us hope the “authorities” are able to find this renegade faster than they’ve found— well, for instance, Osama….Krispy Kreme stock is sure to rise and I’m doubling up the 2×8’s  that frame my bed….  Bear with us….