Seward Alaska and the Yukon

Well boys and girls, our hero's did make it through the wildfires and made it to Seward, Alaska. We almost skipped this town because we are getting tired of the driving but when we saw that it was just about 50 kilometers down the road we decided to check it out. We are glad we did, because it is a quaint little town. Now the city of Seward owns all of the water front property along resurrection bay and what they did with that is put in campgrounds. I think there are six different campgrounds along the bay.

All of those campers are backed up to the bay and we are somewhere in the middle.

We were lucky enough to get a water site. It is $20 a night but the views are great.

That's our view out our back door. Yes, that is smoke in the air. The marinna is just off to our left so we could watch the boat traffic all day. Also cruise ships come into Seward.

It was really interesting to watch those big ships move through the bay. That ship on top left at night and in the morning there was the white one. It arrived through the fog and I don't know how they could do that. 

That's what it looked like after the fog lifted a little bit. When I woke up you couldn't even see that it was in there. I really enjoyed just watching all of the boat traffic. I think the sea is calling me.

I would sit out there with my binoculars in hand and just watch them. It inspired us to walk the marina and see what was for sale and to just see all of the different types of watercraft there are.

For some reason this one was speaking to me. I can't put my finger on it but I really liked it. The one on the left. But as much as I would love to have a boat, the only thing I could afford would be something like this.

Not only were the boats fun to watch but also the wild life. There were sea otters that we would watch and they were out there all day. Both days.

Also there were eagles. 

We also walked the town and had a beer at the Seward Brewery and loaded up on Alaskan souvenirs. We also did the Alaska Sealife Aquarium.

It was a place that we would like to come back to and spend more time. We did however stay an extra day hoping that the smoke would clear so that we could take a day cruise to see some more glaciers. After two days of waiting I had to call an emergency meeting of the MNdrifters society.

"I am calling this meeting to order. It is an emergency meeting for this reason. Alaska is on fire. I checked the Alaska website and they said that there are 117 active fires across the state. We have been in smoke for days now and it looks like that wherever you go there will be smoke. There are no more views that you can see. Denali was a bust. So I am putting a motion on the floor to leave Alaska and start the long journey back to Minnesota."

Moose said "Meow." which I am assuming that it means he seconded the motion.

"Motion carried. Glady's! Pack up your bloomers. We are evacuating!"

We left early the next morning and drove hard to Glennallen, Alaska. Some of the views we could kind of see were very nice and we were wondering what they would have looked like without the smoke.

This eagle was checking me out. He circled me a couple of times and decided that I was more than a mouthful. We made it to a state park on the Richardson Highway for our stop for the night. Fire bans were in place so no campfires. It is so dry in Alaska due to the heat wave they are having. There were 3 fires burning around Glennallen so we slept with one eye open at all times. We got up early again and planned our next stop in the Yukon. Longer travel days than when we came up here but we are sick of the smoke.

We entered the Yukon, crossing the border without incedance. What we found in the Yukon was more smoke because the Yukon is on fire also,

Places that we were at just a couple of weeks ago are now gone. Like Snagg Creek Government Park. We stayed there and now as we drove by, this is what it looked like.

Here's a video Lisa took as we had to drive through this blaze. I will admit it was a little bit out of my comfort zone. The fire was on both sides of the road.

We passed Snagg Creek and went further down the Alaskan Highway to another government campground which was open so we knew that it was away from the fires. 

On our return trip I was looking forward to the Yukon campgrounds with their unlimited supply of free firewood. I even bought a full size ax for the really big chunks of wood. But they had a fire ban there  also. 

Next day again we got up early and headed to Whitehorse. Trying to get out of the smoke. My eyes are so red and I can't find one single store that sells Visine. We drove by Kluane Lake and that is where we saw the dust storm blowing through the valley. 

This was the picture I took of Lisa on our way up to Alaska as we passed by this spot. Beautiful blue skies.

This is the same spot just a couple of weeks later. Smoke everywhere. We got to Whitehorse and had planned on stopping at the Wolf Creek Campground again. It was full so we headed on down the road to Marsh Lake. So after Marsh Lake we decided to head south into British Columbia for a change of scenery and something different. Spoiler alert. We finally drove out of the smoke.

"STOP, DROP AND ROLL GLADY'S! STOP, DROP AND ROLL!"