Many, many western genre films have been made, some filmed in Alaska pretending to be somewhere else but very few have ever been in set in Alaska. I was very surprised to hear that Donna had never heard of Skagway in Alaska. Ever since I first watched James Stewart in the western film 'The Far Country' the name of Skagway has been etched on my brain as some mythical place linked with a 'Gold Rush'. Never did I expect to be there. The summer of 1896, Skookum Jim...

If you look at a map of Alaska there is a thin sliver that comes down the side of Canada, this is known as the panhandle of Alaska. We went into the panhandle for a day back in Hyder, we were heading back into the panhandle for our 3rd visit to Alaska. Tilly transported us over passes, through misty mountains all against a wind funnelling up from the coast. The US border guard was very welcoming. Before reaching Haines we had several miles of following a pilot ...

Not everything we plan we do! We left Valdez, the weather was shocking. We abandoned the idea of parking up just north of the Thompson pass and hiking up to get a close look at the Worthington glacier. We could hardly see the glacier from the road so we decided not to waste our time. Our next port of call was to be McCarthy and Kennicott, this involved drive up a 60 mile dirt road. Reports were that the road condition was difficult several days ago, with all th...

It was exactly a year ago that we quit our jobs to see the world. From Valdez we took a day cruise on the Lu-Lu Belle with Captain Fred Rodolf. The cruise is advertised as 7 to ? hours. We sailed out of Valdez at 11am, 7 hours would see us back there at 6pm, we arrived back at 8.20pm! what a great day though. Captain Fred is 79 and has been running this cruise since 1979. There was no view just sea mist and it was drizzling, not an ideal start. We cruised out o...

Our stay in Valdez started with a beer then a barbeque, it was a beautifully calm evening with a clear sky - it is actually getting dark at night now though. We couldn't find a full day hike that interested us but we had a few things that might fill the day. It was supposed to be dry until the evening but showers started early. Quick stop at the USFS office to see if they had more hiking info than we had already acquired. The office is right by a small creek an...