Back to Portland

It was a five day drive from Skagway, AK to Portland and we are home again! The sunshine feels good on my face after our last rainy week in Juneau. I had the realization when we hit B.C. and the skies cleared, that I haven't really seen any stars since the bike tour through Washington. Though I live in the city, I have become accustom to looking up at the stars each season to see a few familiar constellations. While in SE Alaska though, most nights were cloudy and I sort of forgot about looking skyward. My overall impression of SE Alaska? I like it there. It feels big in comparison to the lower 48, not just because of land size but because of big creatures, moose, bear, whales, caribou, salmon and halibut. People were really generous and everyone that I met seemed to have an intimate relationship with the place, either as fishermen, hunters, backpackers or kayakers. Even if they didn't fish, they could tell you about all the different types of salmon and when and where they run. I like the fact that it is expensive to ship goods such as, beef, dairy, tomatoes and oranges, so instead, or rather because they prefer to, folks stock their freezers with halibut, salmon and moose that their family or friends harvested. All of this makes me want to move there. But the one thing that I seemed to have trouble with was the rain. I was told that it rains all year long and most of the time we were there, it did. The few days of clear 85 degree weather in July were very unusual, even alarming to locals. As much as I don't mind the wet Portland winters, I feel some amount of depression by the end of it and look forward to the guaranteed 3-4 months of sunshine in summer. Anyway, I'm happy to be home and don't intend to leave Oregon anytime soon. Below are more photos.

Porcupine chillin' in a tree overlooking the Mendenhall Glacier.


Mendenhall Glacier from West Glacier Trail as we started our hike up to some mountain I can't remember the name of.


Mountain goat relaxing in the meadow.

More of the glacier as we ascend.


Wild buffalo herds along the ALCAN highway


We made a visit to Liard Hot Springs in Northern B.C. It was $10 per vehicle to get in and the hot springs were really nice. Unlike some popular hotsprings, the park service kept these pretty natural, rather than turning it into a big concrete pool.

We met this awesome woman through craig's list who was moving from Anchorage to Portland and hitched a ride home with her. Kirsten and I drove her truck some of the way as she cruised down the ALCAN on her motorcycle. This made our return trip a lot more fun and inexpensive than flying or ferrying.

A young caribou

I wished I was bike touring through this. I kept thinking that maybe I should hop on my bike and ride the rest of the way back to Portland so that I could travel some of the route we had originally intended to ride through B.C., but the further south we got the less interesting and busier the roads became. The drive from Prince George, B.C. to Bellingham, WA didn't look to appealing to bike with all of it's big truck traffic and construction zones. In the end, I felt happy about the decision we made to stop the bike tour in Bellingham and ferry it up to Juneau rather than bike up to Prince Rupert. It is good to be back in Portland and I'm looking forward to harvesting and preserving some fruit, nuts and wild mushrooms as summer turns to fall.

Fishing and a Visit to Gustavus, AK

We made a visit to Gustavus last week, a tiny little town with no police, no hospital, lots of bears, moose, wolves, porcupines and nice people who wave at you when they drive past. Before we left, I tried my hand at fishing for salmon and bought a one day license. We drove around trying to find a few hot spots where I could fish from the bank. In the end, I snagged two dog salmon that broke free before I could land them and caught two flounder, one of which I kept and cooked up. Below are the pictures.

Starry Flounder. Didn't expect to land a flounder while fishing for salmon. Probably because I'm a sucky fisherman and wasn't using the proper tackle for the job. I had to borrow a rod from someone that was suited only for trout fishing, not salmon. So it's probably best that I didn't catch one.


My homemade fish cooker. The flounder was really mushy. After much cooking, it never really felt like it was cooked. I probably could have drank it with a straw.

Black bear tracks! Awesomeness. These were right across the street from a suburban neighborhood along a creek.

Dog salmon aka. chum salmon line the waterways everywhere around here and they are starting to stink in the hot sun. An amazing source of food for all life. I have read about this happening but never witnessed it in Oregon. Supposedly dog salmon are only fit for the dogs but a friend told me that they serve it down at the homeless shelter so I fileted one and cooked it up along with my flounder. It was actually pretty damn tasty. Ok not as pink and tasty as other salmon but way better than flounder, catfish, or carp. People have the privledge to be picky when the king and coho are so plentiful.



The Chilkat range at sunset from the catamaran that we took to Gustavus. The exceptionally hot weather up here has caused a huge forest fire in the Yukon, hence the smoke haze making the sun look like a firey red orb in this picture.

More black bear tracks on the beach. We found all sorts of amazing tracks on a hike we did from the Gustavus dock to Bartlett Cove. The sand and clay made for really clear tracks and clear depictions of the animals' gates.

Wolf tracks! My mind kept telling me that they were big domestic dog tracks, but the perfect gait that went from a direct registering diagonal walk to occasional gallops made me second guess that, not to mention the very few human tracks along this completely unpopulated beach. After reading "Of Wolves and Men" by Barry Lopez, I have a hard time believeing that wolves even exist anywhere anymore. It is astounding and horrific how many millions of them were (and still are) eradicated by ranchers and hunters using poisons, traps, intentional scarcoptic mange infestations, guns and airplanes to shoot from. Seeing these made my heart sing knowing that there are still places where wolves roam. Later in the week, I bought some plaster from the hardware store and made plaster casts of some wolf tracks.

Porcupine. These little guys seemed to roam all along the edge of the forest and the beach leaving their distinct prints with long claws and occasional tail drag marks.


Wild strawberries were in season and very plentiful. We picked many bags of them and made a strawberry rhubarb crisp one evening with friends. These were big compared to other wild strawberries I've had and super yummy!

Kirsten's friend works as a kayak guide and took us out on a kayak overnight trip in the Beardsley Islands of Glacier Bay National Park. On the paddle out we saw a black bear swim from one island to the next.

The bear exiting the water and heading off into the woods.

View from some island we camped on looking Northwest out toward the Fairweather Mtn. Range at sunset. We fell asleep or tried to listening to sea otters flopping about in the water and what seemed to be large animals walking around the woods behind us. It can be hard to sleep soundly knowing that their are bears roaming about you at all times! The sky became light at about 3:30 am and I couldn't get back to sleep again. We had to pack up and paddle out by 6:00 am so we could beat the receding tide through the passage back to the dock and make sure our friend made it to work that morning. Our timing was a little off and we ended up having to carry and drag the kayaks for 100 yards or so through the 5" deep water. That evening we caught the catamaran back to Juneau. Here we plan to stay until Aug 20th when we will catch a craigslist rideshare through B.C. back to Portland. Until then, we are off to do more hiking, tracking and berry picking!