More exploring at Haines, Alaska
Our third day at Haines (Wednesday, August 21st) ended on a sour note with my bike breaking, removing one of our planned activities, but there’s always lots to do at Haines.
By 06:00 on Thursday the 22nd I had a pot of coffee ready. We carry a blue jug of good water from our well for making coffee. I hate the chemical taste of Whitehorse water, and Haines is even worse.
At 06:20 it appeared that a large cruise ship was coming to visit.
Yes, Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas was going to dock. I hadn’t yet checked a cruise ship calendar, but later found out that she was scheduled to be here from 07:00 until 4:00 pm.
Our usual slow mornings consist of walking the dogs, drinking coffee, going to the clubhouse to check emails and Facebook, and sometimes breakfast (sometimes not). By 10:30 the weather had turned sour, with wind and fairly heavy rain.
On days like this, many people don’t even get off the ship. The Brilliance can carry a maximum of 2,543 passengers and 848 crew, so rain can cost the business community a lot of money. For us, it would be a perfect day to visit the Sheldon Museum.
We actually didn’t walk over to the museum until 2:30. The museum’s website states that “The museum houses over 4,000 artifacts from Chilkat Blankets to the Eldred Rock lighthouse lens; 12,000 cataloged photographs and slides of images from the 19th century until today; over 2,000 books about our area; and countless documents including mining company ledgers, journals, pamphlets, letters, ship’s logs, maps and research papers.” I expect that there’s storage in the basement for the vast majority of the collection.
The Chilkat blanket in the next photo was made by Jennie Thlunaut in the early 1900s. Purchased at an auction from a family in Maryland, it’s a small child-sized blanket with a modified emerging frog design. It was likely made for resale. The checkered yellow and green pattern on the lower right and left fringes are Jennie’s signatures.
The Eldred Rock lighthouse south of Haines is my favourite lighthouse in Alaska, and I’ve shot many photos of it as I passed by on cruise ships, and flown over in small planes. Some day I hope to get to actually visit the island. Finished in 1905 and lit on June 1, 1906, the octagonal building on Eldred Rock is the only original Alaska lighthouse still standing.
One of the keys to seeing the museum well is to open the many drawers. I think most people don’t notice them, but there are hundreds of items “hidden” in them.
A look out the back window of the main exhibit hall was a reminder to go the Lighthouse Restaurant in the next couple of days, and gave a look at two very different ways of seeing Alaska, with the motorhomes to the left and the tent and kayaks of two women on an extensive journey paddling the coast on the right.
A broad view of the main gallery. The current exhibit, “Everything From Afar Drifts Ashore,” has an increased focus on the earliest interactions between the Tlingit and the newcomers, and the beginnings of Haines.
This Tlingit warrior’s outfit was created by the artists at Alaska Indian Arts in the 1950s. It includes a shadaa (helmet) carved and painted to resemble a human face, complete with cowrie-shell teeth; a gorget (carved wooden collar) which would lift up to increase protection by shrugging the shoulders; and a niyaháat (breast plate) made of wooden slats woven tightly together.
The final museum item I’m going to show you is a carved marble headstone. The date isn’t stated, but prior to contact with Europeans, the Tlingit cremated their dead, except for shamans.
It was suggested that we had to see the beautiful library. We both agreed – inside and out, it’s extremely nice.
While I was waiting for Cathy outside the IGA, a guy in a bear costume came by. He took the head off and was clearly headed home, but then decided he wasn’t finished so put it back on and came back my way, “terrorizing” some locals 🙂
That evening, we met our friend Greg at the Bamboo Room for dinner. It and the adjoining Pioner Bar were very busy, and it kept getting noisier and noisier. Bars in Alaska and the Yukon have bells – ringing that bell means you’re buying a round for everyone in the bar. I have never heard a bel rung so often! It turned out that people from an RV caravan of 25 rigs was there, and this was their third bar of the evening. One of them gave us two wooden tokens (each good for a free drink) to apologize for the noise 🙂
Friday, August 23rd began quietly, with calm seas and low clouds. This was the morning view looking north from the clubhouse.
Greg offered to take us out exploring backroads, and of course we accepted. By 09:50 we were at Mile 12 of the Haines Highway and the weather was clearing up nicely.
At the Mile 19 slide area, we got stopped to wait for a pilot car, as we had on the drive south.
The only way to get good photos of this impressive structure (overpass?) would be with a drone. It was built to prevent damage from floods/landslides that have been closing the highway more and more frequently in recent years.
It’s hard to believe that this little creek can turn into such a raging, destructive monster.
We took a short detour through Klukwan village.
The Klukwan Veterans Memorial.
At Mile 23.8 we crossed the Chilkat River bridge. The Chilkat River comes in from the north here – we headed west to the Klehini River.
We then headed into the historic Porcupine placer gold mining area. I was going to continue on this post but there’s a lot to show you and tell you about, so I’ll close this post here.
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