Day 67: Beaver Creek to Haines Junction, Canada

Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Haines, Alaska, United States
Hallelujah!! Water tank had drained overnight, so we refilled with clean water - and turned on the faucet to test - and brown water came out again - but only for a few seconds and now clear water is flowing!! I was going to cry if we still had brown water in the tank, but seems we have flushed the tank adequately, and will certainly be more selective before filling our fresh water tank in the future (have now met another camper who had the same problem from a different area than us!). It rained all night and continues as we unhook utilities, walk Sara, walk to office to check my spotty email, and get rolling at 11am, Canadian time (lost an hour last night, but will get it back when we reenter Alaska). I had forgotten how beautiful Canada's scenery was - we have been over this territory before, but it is gorgeous all over again! First we pass Pickhandle Lake about 5 miles south of Discovery Yukon Campground, where another camper told us they had boondocked - would be a perfect campsite since the lake is a huge reflecting pond, peaceful and beautiful reflections of the Kluane Mountains and clouds in the sky, surrounded by pink wildflowers. Next we stopped at a beautiful lookout point over Kluane River and gave Sara a good run. Right down the road, we saw a car pulled over with camera out the window - the "international sign of wildlife sitings", so Linda was able to take their lead and photograph a mother grizzly with two cubs! Unfortunately, pictures were on her big camera which we have been unable to transfer to this blog, so see Linda for those pictures! But we're lucky with wildlife in Canada! Then we hit road construction - and were very relieved that it was nothing as bad as our trip in - only about 20 miles of one-lane, hard packed gravel, but so grateful it was not that "corrugated, bumpy" road we passed in May! We passed Destruction Bay and got into Haines Junction at 3pm - checked in at Visitor Center to get the list of RV campsites on the Haines Highway. They have detailed lists of all the sites on every section of highway leading away from Haines Junction, and she mentioned Katherine Lake only 20 miles down the road toward Haines. We made a lunch in the RV, then drove to Katherine Lake Provincial Park (a Canadian county park). What a gorgeous surprise! First, a nice campsite for $16 (Canadian) and you must have exact cash in Canadian dollars; but then we saw the lake which is stunning - aquamarine blue water with white cap waves, and huge mountains surrounding the lake's edge as far as the eye can see! It sounds like an ocean with the waves crashing at the shore and has a nice trail along the lakefront. Dark black clouds threatened for an hour, then blew over and left us with a sunny, warm sky at 7pm. We got back to our campsite and built a great fire in our firepit - grilled broccoli and hamburgers for us, and expecting bears to show up for the leftovers any minute! We had one radio station last night so tried our luck tonight, and was able to get Canadian Broadcast radio on our satellite radio tonight - a special treat! Have not been able to pick up even radio stations on this trip :( Hoping to get back to Alaska (Haines) tomorrow - supposedly a 3.5 hour drive, plus another border crossing.
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Karen
2016-07-09

I get goose bumps reading the blog-- wish I was there!

2025-05-22

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