RETIRED ON WHEELS: THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 89 & 90 August 13 & 14, 2009

We woke up in East West Cove to a beautiful morning. The sun was shinning, the water was calm and it was so quiet. Almost eerily quiet. So we sat around and just watched nature for the better part of the morning.

After enjoying the morning we decided to just drive around the old logging roads to see what we could find. All we could find was scenery. The island is pretty nice with a lot of high overviews as we traveled up and down the logging roads.

In our travels, Kathy spotted this guy sitting high in a tree. They really are majestic when they are poised like this one is. We watched him for awhile and took a few pictures until he decided he had enough of us and flew off.

We were planning to head back to Point Nemo where we had our catnap when we first arrived but we stopped to look at another campground that was on the way. It was called High Point and the name was appropriate as we would right on top a mountain with a tremendous view. We could see the channel below as well as surrounding mountains, it was breathtaking. So we set up camp, started a campfire and just enjoyed the night. We could have and would have stayed here for a lot longer except for the fact that we were booked on the ferry the next morning.

The next morning was again a beautiful day but we didn’t stay on the mountain as there were a couple of things we wanted to do in town before the ferry left at noon. So that’s where we headed and got our tickets all arranged and then headed over to Totem Park. I am not sure what I expected but it was a little more that what was there. It is a memorial park and had 4 totem poles in it.

We weren’t long there so we walked over to Shakes Island which is named after a famous Klingit Chief who is buried in Wrangell. On Shakes Island is a clan house of the Klingit that was rebuilt with wood from an actual clan house used by the Klingit years ago. It was built to a third of the size of an actual house, but still showed how they would have lived during their time. It also had a lot of artifacts for viewing. The granddaughter to Chief Shakes the 7th gave a narrative of the Clan House and a bit of the history of the Klingit in the area.

After the Clan House we headed over to the ferry terminal to wait for the ferry. The ferry ride was about 6 hours and was an easy ride with the calm weather. There were no whales to watch but we did get to see a few porpoises breaking the surface. Again there were lots of salmon jumping as they continued their return to the spawning pools.

The scenery was very much like it was in Petersburg and Wrangell as we were traveling through much of the Tongass Forest which is a rain forest. The hills and cliffs rose from the water and were covered with Sitka Spruce and Hemlock trees. It was very green and very lush. We tried to take a few pictures but we were quite a ways from the coast.