Port Chilkoot

Well, the rain didn’t stop all night. In fact it just got heavier and colder. Ok, it’s Alaska, it’s what I expected but I was liking the clear skies and sunshine. Anyway, no lie in today. Up at 4am and trekking through the swamp that the tent area of the campground had become to reach the shelter of the common room.

Having parked the car outside the common room, it was easy to grab what we needed for a shower 🚿. The wind started to pick up so Simon battened down the hatches some more.

The weather wasn’t improving, so we headed to the bamboo room for breakfast and unlimited coffee.

Once I had drunk more coffee than I think they expected, we went back to check on the tent. Still there. We went for a drive around the water’s edge to look for wildlife.

We then went to visit the Bald Eagle Centre. We saw some eagles in captivity because of injuries and an owl. We looked at the native wildlife gallery, some interesting taxidermy 🤣. I think I saw the 3 bears 🐻 in there, the porcupines had had their quills removed for safety and the grizzly was smiling.

After a quick visit to the supermarket, we drove to the lake and cooked up some noodles for lunch.

We went back to the campground to start to sort things out for moving tomorrow. Simon returned to the common room to say the tent was not holding up, we need Ed to take it down and enact plan B. We just hadn’t made Plan B yet.

We wrestled all the contents of the tent to the car and then wrestled the tent down and into the car. We decided that the only option was to sleep in the back of the car. We inflated the sleeping pads, they didn’t fit. Ok. We decided to just use sleeping bags, uggh.

While everything was in the common room drying out, I went to fill up the car with petrol (after asking at the tourist information where to go). I popped into a motel and asked for a room but they only wanted to sell 3 nights, not 1. Back at the common room, I called a camp ground. No tents. It was looking very much like a night in the car. The problem was that it was Haines Beerfest and every room was full,

Simon said he was going to try the Halsingland Hotel. They have a room! Yay! We shoved everything into the car and drove across town to check in. We got a warm room with shower.

I decided to return the car early to save a walk across town tomorrow morning. We dropped it off and then went to a bar for a spruce beer.

We then went to the pizza place for dinner, but, alas, a 2 hour wait due to beerfest. Supermarket dinner in the hotel room it was.

Hopefully the wind will have died down by tomorrow so that the fast ferry is running again and we can get to Skagway.Read more