Eagles, Eagles Everywhere

We travelled from Alaska to Alaska via Canada and drove down into Haines on high Eagle alert. We had been told amazing tales of how many of these majestic salmon gulping predators there were to be found on this stretch of river and although we were a few weeks too early for the yearly surge, we still hoped to spot a few.
We had been into many lovely art galleries around Alaska and in each there were beautiful framed photographs showing hundreds of eagles standing shoulder to shoulder on the river banks or perched layer upon layer in the high branches of boreal forest.
I had all my fingers and toes crossed that we might witness something similar.

Before we saw any eagles, we saw several rafts full of other eager eagle spotters who did not seem to be having much luck getting off the bank, never mind down the river, we had thought about doing a rafting tour ourselves, but after watching several small rafts full of large Americans going nowhere fast, we decided against it and continued our self guided tour into Haines.

This wee town is one of the stop off points for the numerous cruise boats that plough up and down the coast of Alaska, passing alongside the stunning glacial landscape and offloading thousands of eager tourists into the coastal towns which are well set up to take as much of their money as possible in a as short a time as possible. Gift shops, galleries and 'authentic' Alaskan crafts abound, and whilst yes, there are some undoubtedly tacky items on sale, I found that on the whole there were some really lovely items to be had, though nearly always too expensive or weighty for me to buy.

The Tlingit native art often depicts animal spirits such as eagles, killer whale, ravens and bears all with their different abilities and forms of intelligence.
There were many that were incredible, intricate and spiritual, yet still beautifully simplistic and abstract.

We searched all over town for somewhere to stay that was vaguely within our budget, yet everywhere was crazy money, so despite the low temperatures and the fact that I was dropping fast into some nasty Alaskan flu, we set up camp again, and I was so glad we did.
A friendly local ranger at the Chilkoot Lake Campsite told us that we were setting up our tent on a well known Grizzly Bear trail through the woods down to the water, and if this news was not thrilling enough, he also directed us to the spot down the road where he almost guaranteed we would see bears at dusk.
A hurried setting up of the tent later and we dashed down the road with a banana and a camera so find.... we were not the only ones.
Sadly other tourists had been given the same tip-off we had and also parked in readiness for any bear action. For almost an hour, we played a fidgety parking game trying to snag the best viewing spots.
After dusk fell - we got wonderfully lucky, out of the gloom came the most lovely wee family of bears. Seeing them in the wild, it just makes your heart stop.