Black Hills - A mere 50 miles from the desolation of the South Dakota Badlands are heavily timbered mountains with lakes, parks, and abundant wildlife.  They also have a herd of over 1000 bison, and big as they are, we chased around most of a day looking for them - finally finding a group of 50 or so who allowed us to get within 20' for close-up photos.

New Destination: Alaska - We have decided to squeeze a trip to Alaska into this year's wanderings, so next week we head to Montana, Alberta, and beyond for a 6-8 week side trip. This started this week as we crossed the line into Wyoming for a brief drive-thru on our way north.

Wyoming/Montana - This was a blur as we decided to head north quickly, trying to make up the fact that we decided to visit Alaska sort of late in the season. 

Alberta and British Columbia - Further north we drove 250-300 miles per day through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory where the geography become mountainous, the forests more lush, and the roads a bit bumpier.  The -20º to -50º winters heave the roads and provide fulltime employment for crews that try to make the roads passable all year.  Our speeds dropped to 35 mph around the construction zones, but they were quite passable.  Wildlife came out on occasion, although the bright moose warning signs were more frequent than the real thing - a caribou was a stand-in for our camera as we drove through British Columbia. Near the Telsin river a herd of bison held up traffic for a bit as they decided which side of the road had the greener grass

Yukon and Whitehorse - The Yukon Territory is a wilderness bigger than California with mountains, lakes, forests, minerals, oil, big rivers, and lots of open space with a population of only about 30,000 people. 2/3 of these people live in Whitehorse, the capital and business center.  The Yukon River has been tamed since the gold rush days in the 1800's, but even upstream from the dam was a gorge with currents running at 10-15 knots, and our little tour boat seemed to barely make headway on its journey upstream.
 

Border Crossing - The crossing from Canada into the US was uneventful and friendly.

Palmer - Our first day in Alaska was quite varied, from high mountains to the Matanuska glacier that comes almost to the highway, to the broad agricultural valley near Palmer.  Bob's college roommate has lived in Alaska for most of the last 30 years, and now divides his time between Palmer, Chile, and other places that need the services of a WiFi guru. Palmer is a friendly community with great coffee houses, organic farmers, and a 'back-to-earth' feeling about it. While in Palmer we visited a local gold mining area, closed for financial reasons and took a day hike.

Anchorage - One day we went to 'the big smoke' of Alaska, Anchorage, with its 600,000 inhabitants with the advantages (culture, shopping) and disadvantages (crime, traffic, etc.) of all big cities.  Our cultural visits included:

• Alaska Native Heritage Center - An experience devoted to the Native Americans of the area showing how geography affected the cultures of the natives.   Each of the major native cultures had an exhibit with typical dwellings, artifacts and practices.  We were struck by the similarities with other cultures we have seen around the world, in particular:
  • Underground dwelling - The Aleuts, who lived on the Aleutian islands lived partially underground to protect themselves from the winds and cold ad their shelters seemed somewhat similar to those we saw for Neolithic man north of Scotland.
  • Dancing - The dancing group at the center represented the ... tribe, and their dancing and rhythm was remarkably like the dancing we saw in American Samoa.
  • Meeting houses - The common houses of the ...tribe were very similar to those built by the Maoris, native Polynesians of New Zealand. There is no anthropologic evidence that Polynesians and Native Americans exchanged cultural information, but the similarities are striking - and suggest that there was some pre-historic contact.
• The Center also contained iconic images of the Northwest in the form of beautifully carved totems and dispelled one myth - Native Alaskans never lived in igloos, they were apparently used by the Canadian Inuits.
• Anchorage Museum - This has an excellent collection of artifacts from pre-history to the oil and gas pipeline economy that dominates the state today. Due to oil, Alaska has no income tax and a modest sales tax and pays a modest rebate to residents from the oil income.  The museum was well worth the visit.

Communications - It should come as no surprise but we continue to be amazed at the impact that near-instant communications allow exchanges that would not have been imagined a generation ago:

• A friend sailed from Costa Rica and sent us a cruising article for comments and we returned it to them aboard their sailboat in the mid-Pacific.
• A friend in England told us they were considering buying a particular sailboat lying in Seattle, and we found a cruiser in the mid-Pacific who had been aboard the sailboat in Chile and got their views on the boat back to the English couple within 24 hours.
• A Costa Rican friend in Malaysia told us that a mutual friend that we all met in Turkey was currently in Alaska - perhaps we can tag up with them.
• A college roommate of Bob's invited us to visit them making arrangements via internet and mobile phone contacts.
• And the list goes on...

Glacier Tour - This, and marine life, are the major attractions of this small town.  Three companies run tour boats out to the Aialik and Northwest glaciers so we chose Kenai Fjords Tours and went on a 9 1/2 hour tour that started in the drizzle, and cleared for most of the trip.  During the cruise we saw humpback whales, orcas, seals, sea otters, puffins and lots of other birds.  The Northwest glacier is receding, like 17 out of 20 in the region and we were able to get close and watch it calve - unfortunately that means it is getting smaller.  The captain said it had receded several hundred feet in the 13 years he has been running tours to it

.

Homer - This is not the end of the world, but I think we can see it from here.  Actually, Homer is a beautiful little spot at the end of the scenic Kenai Peninsula with views across the Kachemak Bay to snow-capped mountains and glaciers - a magical place.  Homer Spit, a 4 mile finger that points at the glaciers with spots for campers in simple tents and glitzy motorhomes, boardwalks with fast and slow food, tour agencies that will take you to the surrounding marvels, and some dropouts from the 60's and 70's selling crafts and living in nearby artist colonies.  We stayed on the Spit for a couple of days and then moved to a park where we have a better view. While on the Spit Bob reminisced about his visit to the same spot in 1977 with son Denis, then at a tender age of 8 as he carried his own backpack and collected a pocketful of memories. While roaming the hills we took photos of the glaciers across Kachemak Bay, and even a bunch of junked cars look good when buried in a field of flowers with snow-capped mountains in the background.

Take it or Leave it - We decided wildlife was a key attraction of Alaska and decided to take a Bear Viewing flight - an opportunity to get a close look at some grizzlies, and perhaps get some interesting photos in the process.  The day we were to go (today) the outfit called and said there had been an 'incident' with one of their planes and this trip was cancelled. We rescheduled for 2 days in the future, but when we went to confirm the trip the owner of the company didn't like the fact that we were uneasy about their vague promises and basically told us she didn't want us on her trip - so we cancelled completely.  The company was Bald Mountain Air and we would not recommend them for this and a couple of other reasons. Now we have booked with another aircraft and will report back next week.

Faizel reports - My keepers have certainly traveled quite a bit in these last 3 weeks, but I'm not sure if life has improved for me - Alaska seems to have no CHIPMUNKS and few other fun vermin.  The RV parks have a lot of dogs, but many are not too friendly - I've had to growl at a few to make them keep their distance.  On the good side, I now have my own pet bed and it smells like me - I like that.  Also, I get to sleep loose in the RV at night rather than in a crate - that's an improvement!  They still won't let me sleep on their bed, but I live in hope...!