Jen, Stu and the boys, a year in the States 2013, 2014 6 months, 2015 4 months: From Yukon to Tok, Alaska

After spending the night at our Million Dollar campsite we were up early to chase the wildlife. The Yukon is without a doubt one of the most amazing states in the world we have had the privilege of visiting.

We didn't really know much about it before this trip, but it is a truly spectacular region.

It took us a while, but we eventually got to Haines Junction. I have to say, not much in this town...we were looking for a loaf of bread and some milk and couldn't find a shop...and Stu stopping in the middle of the road to look at a map certainly didn't endear himself to the locals, if you go by the sound of the horn blasting behind us!! But there was a lovely little Catholic Church...apparently the most photographed church in the Yukon...

and it was tiny inside, but really nice.

After fuelling up we headed off again on the Alcan...(Alaska/Canada Hwy...what a great name!). We try to stop at the Visitor's Centre's that are open and the Yukon in particular has been the most helpful. We've been given a sheet of paper with "things to see and do along the way" with the KM's where they are at. It has been fantastic and really helpful.
So it came in really handy when we approached an abandoned gold rush town called Silver City..there were no signs to it, it was just written on the piece of paper. I'm glad we went in the 5kms and had a look...well worth it.

Someone also recommended Kluane Lake to us..you can't miss it as there is only one road you can be driving on and it was spectacular.

We drove around the Lake and came to the Tachal Dahl (Sheep Mountain) Visitor Centre. From there we could look up a mountain and see heaps of Dall Sheep, which were currently lambing. Of course we heard stories of "the day before I saw a grizzly chasing some lambs up the mountains" and again we saw no such thing! It seems we were always a day or hours late of seeing the grizzlies!! We were beginning to think they didn't exist!

There was a 5 hour hike to be done or a mile hike around the corner. I chose the mile hike at Soldier's Summit and strode ahead of Stuart, only to realise after climbing the hill, my sense of direction was as bad on foot as it was in the car...I climbed the wrong "summit!!" Still, the views were exquisite!

We drive another 5 minutes down the road and looked across the lake to see the most unbelievable reflections we have ever seen. The lake was like glass, not a breath of air and....well here's what we saw...

I didn't want to leave....

We were driving along really slowly, being overtaken by RV's...keeping an eye out for grizzlies..when Stu yelled out "Grizzly!!" We pulled over and there, from left to right we watched this beautiful grizzly walking across the road in front of us. It was another unbelievable time for us...they do exist!!

My job is supposed to be navigator, which I do badly at...and also chief photographer. So when this one and only grizzly crossed the road I didn't realise that STUART had changed the focus from auto to manual and most of the 50 photos I took were blurry!!! Fortunately Stu took the camera off me and with his better eyes, realised it wasn't focusing and managed to get one clear photo of him. Thank God!! So we were on a high after seeing him. Black bears can sometimes look brown, but the grizzly has a distinctive hump on it which you can see in the above photo. This was a sign at one of the campsites.....of course we wanted to stay there....but wrong bloody season for the grizzlies to forage there!!

So we decided to make camp early and savour in our exuberance of all things wildlife in North America. We found the "real" Million Dollar Camp site....had the place to ourselves

and had this view...

.to ourselves....and a couple of coyotes...

A great place to end an amazing day.

So this morning we got up really early....it is light all night....as we were keen to see more bears! The road deteriorated really badly for about 100kms and at one stage everything fell out of the cupboards as it was so bumpy. The roads are affected by permafrost and rise out of the ground and I can only imagine how difficult it would be to maintain them.
So we are driving along and Stu saw a moose in a swampy area....

then I saw a young one in the bushes...

So we were pretty happy about that, thinking our early start was paying off. Suddenly Stu saw a black bear down the side of the embankment, so we were able to pull off the road, wind the window down (on Stu's side), turn the key off and watched it for about 10 mins. But this particular bear wasn't shy or scared and instead of running off, approached the car....we couldn't believe it...and here is our reaction.....Black bear approaches car...
He was magnificent....and we were later told probably about 2 years old. Their mums have just left them as they have new cubs and they are learning the ropes!

It truly is amazing to see these animals in their own environment...and we hadn't even arrived in Alaska!! We love the Yukon!!

Anyway we did eventually get to Alaska and through Customs...AGAIN....where we had the nicest Customs man ever...he picked up pretty quickly that we weren't baddies, just a couple of old folk from Australia on holiday and he welcomed us to Alaska. Maybe if he'd seen this video he might have had second thoughts....America/Canada/America/Canada