Haines, AK

The Chilkat Valley is famous for its eagles. Each November as many as 3,500 bald eagles gather in the valley, the largest congregation in the world. They come here for the salmon run. During the three days we have been here, we have only seen two.


This is a fish wheel, and it has three "baskets." It is powered by the flow of water. This one is being used by state wildlife officers to catch and tag fish that are swimming upstream to spawn, so they can track them.

A fish has been tagged and is being thrown back into the river.



This video shows how the wheel works. We saw it catch three fish before we got the cameras ready. Of course, once we were ready no fish were caught. The fish are picked up and then slide down one side or the other and are funneled into a box under water where they stay until the men come to tag and release them. This was taken through the windshield. The diagonal bubble you will see is from the rain.

This bear was fishing in the Chilkoot River. It passed within 25 feet of the front of our motorhome.

Driving out to Chilkoot River we passed this massive group of ducks swimming in the cove, and this is only part of them. Our first sighting of them was a long, wide, dark line. Carol said she thought it was birds, but John had a hard time believing the mass was birds--thought it was trash. When we got them in our camera sight, we could see it was a species of duck. Perhaps they had gathered here for a flight south.


Along the highway north of town someone had decorated this tree. This is the second tree we have seen . This one had artificial flowers on it. The other one contained Christmas ornaments, but we weren't able to stop for a picture. /...Looks as if the farmer and his wife are scaring the birds away 24 hours a day.