Haines, Alaska

I departed Destruction Bay at 7:30am.  It was 38 degrees and I drove 238.6 miles to Haines, Alaska.  When I arrived in Haines, it was sunny and 71 degrees.

There were a lot of fantastic views and glaciers that I saw on this drive.  The price of gas was no joke too!  

We again had to drive through Canadian Customs and stop at the Dalton Cache US Customs.  We also turned our clocks back 1 hour, so we are back to being 4 hours behind east coast time.

On the way into town there was a Bald Eagle Sanctuary.  I stopped a couple of places and even walked a bit on the trail but only saw a couple of bald eagles.  It is the end of the Salmon spawning season, so the eagles have moved on.

Haines is not a large town.  I stopped at the visitor center and went into a couple of the local shops. 

I really enjoyed driving along a road that parallel the water.  The views were beautiful!  I watched a fishing boat that was drop net fishing.  At the end of the road, I entered into a park.  This park has a fish wier where they count the salmon that are returning, and these salmon bring in the bears!

On my first visit to that park, I saw a mama bear and her two cubs.  My second trip I brought with me the other solo traveling woman in our group.  As we got out of the van and walked toward the fish wier, we saw a mama bear and her two cubs cross the road in front of us.  They were still a distance away and we were bummed that we just missed seeing them up close. 

We continued walking down the road passing the fish wier area on our right.  We saw no other bears but did see an eagle.  As we turned around on the road and walked back the same way we came, I heard a noise of branches breaking to my right.  I pointed and hollered to her “crinkles”.  lol I have no idea why I used that word, but I heard it a second time and again tried to catch her attention to let her know that something was coming out of the brush area.  She has trouble hearing so I also had to grab her arm.

Just when I did so, the mama bear came right out of the brush about 10 feet beside and a little behind us with her two cubs right behind her.  I started backing up and my friend turns around and starts taking photos!   I got a picture of her taking photos of the bears.  This was such a crazy experience that neither of us will ever forget!  Those bears continued walking down the road and down toward the river.

We continued walking back toward the fish weir and in the direction of the van to see if we could find any other bears.  After we passed the wier on our left, we did see a solo bear a bit further down the stream closer to where the van was parked.  

We turned around to again to check the wier and on the wier was a mama bear and her three cubs!  We quickly walked toward the wier, and we watched them until they exited the fish wier on the other side of the river.  Prior to them exiting we watched an interesting encounter with the worker that was on the fish wier.

Sitting in the middle of the fish wier on a chair was a man that was counting salmon.  While he was sitting there the mama bear walked toward him on the wier.  The man took a metal pole and banged it on the wier and scared her off.  Well, so we thought.  

The mama then proceeded to go down into the water and swim towards the man who was sitting in his chair.  She actually became a little aggressive and lunged toward the man.  Again, he banged on the metal parts of the fish wier, and she retreated to her three cubs.  This is the first time this trip I have seen a somewhat aggressive bear.

My second trip to the wier was one to remember!