Enjoying Haines

We love Haines!  It is a small picturesque town of only 2500, but it has a certain charm.  Our campground is within walking distance of "downtown" and the harbor, and there are beautiful towering snow covered mountains surrounding the area.  The Chilkat river comes down one side of the town and the Chilkoot Lake and its outflow come down the other side.  After a long walk around town, we went to Chilkoot Lake to put the canoe in the water.

Beautiful Chilkoot Lake

Another view

Still waters, the color is because the lake is fed by a glacier

The intrepid paddler

Back to the dock

We paddled around for a couple hours watching the eagles.  By the way they are everywhere up here.  Adults and youths abound, almost like pigeons:-)  

This is the view from the Chilkoot river that empties into the bay

We then had a laid back lunch on a picnic table at Big Al's Salmon Shack, just a little trailer along one street.  Jan had a delicious halibut sandwich and I had halibut fish and chips.  Yeah we are working on depleting the halibut population.  Then we drove up the Chilkat River and found several fish wheels.

The Chilkat River, it is a braided river full of glacial silt,
and full of fish

A fish wheel in operation

Another view

A fish wheel is an ingenious invention.  It all by itself catches migrating salmon and puts them in a barrel.  The flow of the water causes the fish wheel to turn, the salmon swim in, are picked up by the rising netted scoop, the built-in vee slides the fish either right or left into a funnel like tube right into a barrel!  Only true Alaska residents are allowed to use these devices for their subsistence fishing.  We hit the weather just perfect, warm, sunny, and wonderful!

One of many bush planes climbing out over the Chilkat River