Day 126 – July 14 (Alaska Day 35) – Haines and Bald Eagles

We started the day at the Haines Visitor’s Center.  They gave us a list of things that were happening during the day and we noted a couple things we wanted to do and took off.

We hit some gift shops on Main Street and drove around some.  Rick wanted to go to the Hammer Museum, so while he went in the museum Dorrie and I looked at another gift store.  He was out in 10 minutes – the museum claimed to show the history of civilization made possible by hammers.  I didn’t ask how that was shown.

We returned to the campers for lunch and then went to the American Bald Eagle Foundation to watch the 2:30 feeding of one of the eagles.  

Her name was Bella and she had a run in with electricity and came out on the short end of the encounter – in more ways than one.  One of her wings was damaged and a foot of the wing had to be removed.  She can no longer fly, so she will spend her life at the Foundation.  Bella is about 5 years old and has almost achieved the traditional Bald Eagle look with the white head and tail feathers.  One thing we had learned on the glacier cruise was that female eagles have one more tail feather than males; just a little bit of trivia for you to file away so you can impress someone later.

We drove to Dalton City – the movie set used for the filming of Jack London’s “Call of the Wild”.  It was moved to the grounds of the Southeast Alaska State Fair and there are a few shops in some of the building.  Haines Brewing Company is one of those shops and Rick tried some of their beer.  I tasted some of his, but I guess I was not in a beer-drinking mood, because I didn’t care for any of the three he sampled.  Dorrie liked them, so I guess it was me.

We visited a local artist who worked in wood and silver.  His carvings were very impressive – he made everything from large totem poles to smaller wall hangings.  Plus he designed and made silver rings, earring and necklaces.  He is truly talented.

We ate at a local place and returned to the campers.  The campground had a potluck dinner.  They threw out some of the scraps and leftover crabs on the rocks in front of the campground.  The eagles flocked in to pick up the easy meal.  At one point a couple of them were fighting over a scrap and a third one swopped down and grabbed it without stopping.  It was fun to watch.

About 9 o’clock we went out to the state park to see if we could see any bears fishing for salmon in the river.  We looked for a while and then talked to a ranger who said these salmon are too fast for the bears – they are sockeye salmon.  He said the pink salmon will spawn in the river later and the bears will be out in force for them.  Just our luck, bad timing.

On the way back we watched a couple of cruise ships pass by on their way to some other port.  Tomorrow we leave Haines and head towards Whitehorse.