LEFT ALASKA/ NOW IN YUKON

July 31, 2009 Tok, Alaska
So much has happened and I am so behind with the blog. We have not wanted to cut into the time with the Shrigleys, and since then we have been driving and seeing a great deal of Alaska. This is our last day in Alaska and we will cross the boarder into Canada by about 10 am tomorrow. This way we can say we left Alaska in August. Tok, Alaska is just 90 miles north of the boarder and it is the only way to get back on the Alaska Highway going south.

Valdez, Alaska is where we were last night after driving from Anchorage. Valdez is where the Alaska pipeline ends going south from Prudhoe Bay. It is the northern most ice free port year round in the U.S. at 61 degrees, 7 min. north. Annual snow fall is 300 to 530 inches, population 4,043. The trip from Anchorage was dotted with glaciers and even more amazing sights of mountains and rivers and quirky Alaskan people than we have already seen.

We stopped at a very unusual bar and restaurant that had a statue of a horse on the roof and talked with Jason who has lived in Hollywood with his fiancée for several years. He was raised in this bar/restaurant and is pure Alaskan. We learned Alaskans pay no state, sales, or income taxes..with some exceptions and for those living there three years there is a payment of some $2,000 per year from the oil taxes…..the main source for funding the state budget. His family also has some native Alaskan relations in its past and has inherited shares in the Indian corporation connected with those natives. There are no reservations in Alaska for some reason…..and I presume this prevents them from having Casinos as in California.

The most amazing this we saw today in Valdez was to see pink Salmon swimming up stream to span. We were able to watch them from just a few feet away as see dozens of them at the same time. Also, we went into a ranger’s office 50 feet away and could watch their underwater camera showing the same salmon from a below water. Fascinating to see all of the so close at hand!

We have learned there is no cell phone capability in Canada. Apparently AT&T has no agreement with any Canadian carrier, so even in fairly good size town we will be out of phone contact for the next four or so days it takes us to reach the U.S. We will be heading for Seattle so that is where we should pop up next, hopefully by August 3rd or 4th. There is WIFI in this RV park in Tok so hopefully I can get this out on the blog before we go into to abyss of no cell phone contact.

GLACIER WATCHING/SALMON FISHING/FINAL GOODBY TO THE SHIGLEY’S
If you live in Anchorage as Vince Shrigley does, your biggest and closet playground is the peninsula south of there where three main cities lie on the coast, Whittier, Seward, and Homer.

In Whittier we took an all day boat trip to see 26 glaciers, abundant sea life and birds and even have drinks with a piece of glacier fished out of the water that was hundreds of years old. Boy were this sea otters cute all ‘rafted’ together laying on their backs looking and us and eating lunch. A sea otter pelt was passed around to get a first hand understanding as to why these creatures were hunted to near extinction by first the Russians and then the Americans. They have over a million strands of hair per square inch and are reported to be the warmest protection against the cold of any animal. Otters live their entire lives in the water, never coming to shore and even in these freezing cold conditions are as happy as can be because of their fur.

We saw all three of these towns earlier this week and somewhere along the route it suddenly struck me that Alaska is very unique as a place to visit because every square inch of every road and waterway is really stunning. The driving has been a lot of course, but none of it boring. In fact seeing this country by road has been probably more impressive than some of the places we had as destinations.

Seward is the town where I went salmon fishing. It was raining on an off most of the week so we decided I would go fishing for just a half a day and Marga would stay in the RV and read her book. I bundled up in the light rain jacket and pants, Misa’s boots and Marga’s new ear covering hat and joined eleven other guys on the charter boat.. As we set out it was pea soup fog where visibility was down to nothing. The skipper immediately sped up to 19 knots as we roared into nothingness with only radar to show us if there was something out there we might hit.. We sailed 26 miles due south which is about the same distance as Catalina from Long Beach in a fraction of the time. The fog lifted about a third of the way there and numerous islands with sharp hills rising straight up from the water really surprised me. None of these islands or mainland areas had any shoreline area you could pull into to dock any boat….not even a dingy. My impression was you could go for hundreds of miles without finding anywhere to pull into.. The skipper did drop an anchor very close to shore and told me we were in 83 feet of water. Even then, our anchor dragged and had to be reset. I was thrilled to be one of two “fisherman” who actually caught to maximum of six fish quota allowed on a given day. Hopefully you will see the big smile on my face holding one of those salmon. They have all been cleaned and cut into fillets and will be shipped to us when we get back and tell them to send them. The all in cost for charter, fishing license, tip, and shipping was calculated to be $25 per pound……but it was worth it. The salmon were “silver” salmon.

More later….I need to get some rest and it is late here and we leave early in the morning.