Having a Beary good time

After we left Valdez, we headed toward Haines, Ak. The first night we we stayed at a roadside and were treated to a lovely rainbow.



We had to go back into Canada, where we stayed at Million Dollar Falls at a spot on a river for 3 nights. The first day we took time to go bear watching and we spent about 1 ½ hours watching a black bear gorge himself on berries on the side of the road.



We were about 75' away and we could hear him grunting as he ate.


When we arrived in Haines, we visited Chilkoot Lake. The lake has a salmon counting station that is staffed by a ranger, who stands on a catwalk and counts the fish. The catwalk closes the lake except for a funnel that brings the fish to a central point so he can count them.



Somehow, the bears know to stay on one side of the lake and the humans who fish stay on the other, except for a young black bear who was apparently cut loose from his mother too early. The ranger had to have eyes in the back of his head because the bear wanted to walk onto the catwalk.



It was interesting to watch the ranger run off the bear by standing tall and walking aggressively toward him. We also saw a grizzly a little farther away. We also saw some eagles, but nothing in comparison to the 3500 – 4000 eagles that will arrive in September and spend the winter in the eagle preserve.