Friday, June 13, 2014

Eagles! So Close You Could Almost Touch Them!

 From Skagway, we took the HSFF to the Eagle Preserve.  Haines is one of three cities that are connected by the only road in Southeast Alaska outside of a city.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  Via this road it takes 7.5 hours to get from Skagway to Haines.  But if you take the HSFF in the Lynn Canal you get there in 40 minutes.  It is a high speed jet propulsion passenger ferry.  Jet is preferred because it does not harm the whales and seals that are prolific in the Lynn Canal area.  We saw several seals and 2 whales but I was never quick enough to get photos.





Here we are in Haines.  It is a pretty cool township of about 700 people.  They live there all the time.  And most of the houses have electricity and water in the city.  But outside the city there are mostly dry cabins.  Some dry cabins have electricity but none have water.  Yep, Outhouses.

And they have weeds in Alaska....but they just look prettier, don't they?





this is the dock area in Haines.  Why so high?  Te vast rise in tides!  Tidal highs can be 12 to 18 feet.  Obviously it is rising now, so we are not at the low point but just above there.

I don't remember if I got a photo of it when  we got back but it was much higher.




this is an incredible shot of the geese against the mountain as they took off in front of us.






 The Chilkoot Mountains are so beautiful.  We got on a bus and met our guide.  Eric was in college in Wisconsin and worked for the tourist bureau during the summer months


Lynnie was our rower for the raft.  She was from Minnesota and works during the summers like the others.  But this  last year she decided to stay in a dry cabin  by herself.  She was snowed in most of  the year but came down to town for supplies once a month on her snowbike.


Our group had three of these rafts.  8 went into  one, 6 in another and ours had 4.

Here we are floating down part of the river.  Just beautiful.  But you want to see eagles, don't you!




OK, here goes EAGLES!  Look carefully, each one of these photos has at least one eagle and one has two -- a mom and a juvenile.  And that eagle in the bottom, we were no more than 10 feet from her.












2 comments:

  1. Everyday you post a new adventure - I love it! The eagle pictures are wonderful!

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  2. What a fabulous trip. I LOVE Deception Pass, the bridge. The mister and I walked part of it. I love that area of Washington State. Hoping one day to make to to Victoria, BC as well as Alaska. I would not be a dry cabin lover, especially is I had to use an outhouse in the Winter AND snow bike to town for provisions! :o) Too much like pioneers but floating on a boat would be an amazing way to see the majestic and raw beauty of that state.

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