Alaska Highway: Entering the Yukon

Road from Liard to Teslin

Soon after we left Liard Hot Springs, we saw a large herd of bison grazing along the highway - mostly cows and calves. We had seen "watch for bison" signs, and they weren't kidding! Luckily, the highway is straight and has wide shoulders for better wildlife visibility, and there is not much traffic, so it is easy to avoid collisions. It would be very intimidating to ride through a herd of Bison on a motorcycle, though, not to mention a bicycle!

Today it rained most of the way, but as the sun came out, the scenery got better, and it's quite beautiful here. This stretch of the Alaska Highway plays keep-away between the British Columbia and Yukon border, crossing back and forth several times before finally deciding to move into the Yukon.

Along the way, we began to see mystery tracks along the side of the road. At least Devin thought they were tracks - I was pretty sure they had been made by something mechanical for the highway, since they were so regular, there was a set on each side of the road, and they went on and on for miles. I just about had him agreeing with me, when we caught up with the makers of the mystery tracks - two HUGE Bison bulls, one on each side of the road, walking north. The mystery deepens! The cows and calves were miles back - why were these two solo bulls walking north on the highway, on opposite sides of the road yet together, away from the herd? Were they outcasts? They were both so huge and healthy looking, it is hard to imaging they had lost a dominance challenge - maybe the females just didn't want them around...?

Finally we got to the official border crossing and stopped to take our obligatory photo of the sign - "Welcome to North of 60" and "Yukon, Canada's True North." Shortly after the border we came to Watson Lake and many more signs- tens of thousands more - the famous Watson Lake Signpost Forest! According to the website Explore North,

One of the most famous of the landmarks along the Alaska Highway was started by a homesick GI in 1942... and you can even add your own sign to the over [60,000] already there!

In 1942, a simple signpost pointing out the distances to various points along the tote road being built was damaged by a bulldozer. Private Carl K. Lindley, serving with the 341st Engineers, was ordered to repair the sign, and decided to personalize the job by adding a sign pointing to his home town, Danville, Illinois. Several other people added directions to their home towns, and the idea has been snowballing ever since.

What a crazy place. We didn't stop or add our own sign, but did drive around the block and took photos of the tens of thousands of signs taking up a couple of acres of land.

Further up the highway, we checked out Dawson Peaks RV Park as a potential place to camp - it was very nice, in a forest on a lake, and we read in The Milepost that it was featured in the Sue Henry Alaska Mystery,"Dead North" which sounded interesting, but something told us to keep going that day.

We ended up at the famous Mukluk Annie's, where everything is FREE, FREE, FREE!

• Free camping on Teslin Lake
• Free dump and fill
• Free boat ride with dinner
• Free RV wash with dinner
• Salmon Bake (not free, but a great deal by itself!)

What a deal! The free campsites are really nice, overlooking Teslin Lake - we needed water and to dump our tanks, so that was great, too. We were hungry and went to dinner - omg. HUGE portions! Quite good, too - salad bar with green salad and fixin's, potato salad, pasta salad, rolls, baked beans and baked potato, then a huge plate of salmon and/or ribs, grilled right there, coffee and/or tea to drink, and even dessert!

The only problem was I fell asleep after such a huge meal and missed the free boat ride. It was supposed to leave at 8pm, and I got there probably a minute or two after and the boat was already pretty far out, so I think they left early. So sad, standing at the dock alone... I guess I'll try to collect on the way back, if they are still open.

Teslin and Teslin Lake seem to be big Tlingit areas - with museums and stores offering Tlingit goods. We crossed the continental divide again today - up here the water on the west drains to the Bering Sea/Pacific via the Klondike River, and the waters to the east drain into the MacKenzie and into the Arctic Ocean up by Inuvik. The native people on this (west) side of the divide had Pacific salmon runs and a plentiful, regular food supply, so tended to be more settled in villages, where the ones in the Arctic watershed generally did not have a reliable food supply in one place, so followed the Caribou herds and were more nomadic. A very clear example of how environment affects culture.

I talked to some bicyclists in front of the restaurant who were riding the Alaska Highway south, and I was thinking how intimidating it would be to have to ride between those Bison bulls on a bike! The woman was from Quebec and had monster thighs - she's obviously been doing this a while. She is riding to South America! The man was from Germany, and they were just riding together for a while for safety - they had just seen a bear crossing the road earlier today.

Today, in addition to the bison, we also saw Harriers, Golden Eagles, deer, and two black bears - one dead and one alive. The lake here has swallows - barn swallows and rough-winged(?) and terns and gulls. I'm sure there are ospreys and bald eagles, too. We passed through lots of moose country, but didn't see any today. We also passed through a Caribou Herd area, but didn't see them, either. Still, a herd of bison, two huge lone bison bulls, a golden eagle, 3 harriers, a deer and 2 bears is pretty darn good for one day's drive!

More photos from today's drive

Liard Hot Springs

Liard (rhymes with "weird") River Hot Springs Provincial Park was quite wonderful. The public campgrounds in Canada are all so nice and well-maintained. This one was quite full and we were lucky to find a campsite, but we found a nice private site with trees all around. This area is very lush with vegetation. After driving all day, Devin is usually pretty tired, but I wanted to take a look around, so I took a radio and walked over to check out the hot springs. They were much farther in than I expected - maybe almost a mile into the forest on a boardwalk path. It first crosses a large fen, then enters the forest. I felt a bit like Dorothy on the yellow brick road - expecting to encounter the tin woodsman around any corner!

When I finally got to the lower pool, I was surprised to find several people there since I hadn't seen anyone on the way in. I foolishly did not wear or bring my swimsuit, since this was supposed to be just a short scouting mission! So I continued a bit further, checking out the "Hanging Gardens" before it started to rain in earnest.

The "Hanging Gardens" were dry, but the gardens along the boardwalk all the way to the end were lovely - I noticed 2 kinds of orchids (the white Ladies Tresses, and the green Rein Orchid), white Anemones, yellow bush Potentilla, wild Rose, Baneberry, False Solomon's Seal, wild Raspberry, Horsetail, Rushes, yellow Monkeyflowers, Fireweed, and some blue flowers - I thought they were a kind of flax, but I think they were something else, and more I can't remember.

I decided to head back as it was starting to rain harder, but in the shade of the large trees I was staying dry... along with several dozen mosquitoes who had the same idea, apparently! After a while, getting wet didn't seem like such a bad idea, as it wasn't all that cold, so I started down. I stopped at the lower pool and sheltered in the dressing room, but started feeling sort of creepy being in there with no good reason. I sure wished I had a swim-suit, since the pool looked so inviting and steamy in the rain. It was definitely not a "swimsuit optional" vibe, though, so I walked back in the rain.

When I got back I was able to take a hot shower in the RV and crawl into bed all warm and toasty.

The next morning we discovered that the towel over the Jeep window may not have been a great idea. Since I had attached it by hanging the ends inside the removable "Freedom Hard Top" (front of the roof), and since it had rained on it, it was all wet and had wicked water into the Jeep - it was humid and a bit mildewy smelling in there - ewwww. So we left the windows down and put the towel on the roof to dry and decided we'd just risk rocks hitting the windshield.

We decided to stay another night here so Devin and I could go back up to the hot springs and soak. Devin took his Segway, which was great on the boardwalk. We walked all the way to the upper springs, but the Alpha (lower) pool is much nicer than the Beta (upper) pool. Though beautiful, the upper pool is 3 meters deep (over 9 feet) and mucky on the bottom. It's like very warm bathwater - you can swim in it. But there are no benches, just stairs going in, so it just wasn't as inviting for us. Both are natural, minimally developed (not cement pools, just added decks and benches). The lower pool had a nice gravel bottom, a waterfall between pools that you can sit under while it massages your shoulders and back with warm water, underwater benches out in the middle and at the edges, a deck with stairs into the pool at various points, changing rooms, benches, and composting toilets set away from the water. What a beautiful setting!

After a nice long soak, we had a pleasant walk back as it started to rain lightly again. We saw a moose cow and calf in the fen area on the way back! A perfect ending to another wonderful day.

See more photos of Liard Hot Springs

Jasper to Dawson Creek

As we left Wabasso campground, on our way up to Jasper, we saw a bear right on the side of the road - I even got a photo. Our first photo of a bear!

While we are enjoying these beautiful parks and the Canadian Rockies, we are anxious to continue on with our journey. You see, Canada is nice - nice and expensive!!! Gas is over $4/gallon here! And groceries are expensive, and it costs $17.80 a DAY to just BE in the national parks, and camping is an extra $20 on top of that, for unimproved campgrounds! So we're talking about $38/day just to camp in the national parks in the Rockies. Didn't make us feel like lingering too long, though it was beautiful.

We went up to Dawson Creek from Jasper via the "Scenic Route to Alaska" - a bit of a short cut. We missed seeing the neat couple we met in Baja who live in Edmonton by doing so, but it is getting late and we want to get to Alaska before it closes! Just kidding. I really regret not taking the extra side trip, time and miles to visit Alethea and Bernardo - they were just a wonderful couple, but we needed to get to a place with WiFi by Monday so Devin could do some work, and we wanted to be on the Alaska Highway asap. Dawson Creek is "Mile 0" of the Alaska Highway.

The "scenic route" paled by comparison to the incredible Icefields Parkway and scenery of Banff and Jasper, but it was pleasant. We drove through forested rolling hills, crossed a big river, and drove by a very large coal mining operation of some sort - not a mine, but where the coal was either shipped from or processed or something. We passed one small town at the crest of a hill before descending into another river valley, and ultimately getting out onto flatter country.

Getting up to Dawson Creek we left the Rockies and were on the prairie - the towns could be anywhere with malls and housing tracts, except for the Real Canadian Markets and the Tim Horton's. Some beautiful fields of bright yellow flowers - I think it may be Canola oil (Rapeseed) plants. Also, more hay.

Dawson Creek is a nice town - it has a mix of newer shopping areas, and some historic districts around the "Mile 0" marker, and agricultural surroundings. The Northern Lights RV Park where we stayed had some nice views of the sunset over town and was across from more fields.

Nothing too exciting happened in Dawson Creek - Devin worked three days remotely; we got the RV oil and leveler fluid changed. Devin went to clinic for more antibiotics. Friday, my eyelid started swelling again (the same one that sent me to the emergency room in Jackson Hole), so I started on the eyedrops (which I had leftover), and washed the lid with baby shampoo, and it went back down.

The clinic experience is worth recounting: we called to see if we could get an appointment and they said to come on in - they were really nice, of course. We saw the doctor and got a prescription, which we were able to pick up in their pharmacy, no problem. The interesting part was paying - Canada, as you may know, has national health care. So when I asked how to pay, they asked if the price they quoted sounded fair and reasonable. I wonder if they would have lowered it had I said no? But $55 for an office visit and $40 for prescription (10 days 3xday penicillin) seemed quite reasonable. They weren't used to dealing with cash - no credit card method, checks were "a problem" and so they let me go get some cash from the credit union around the corner, and the nurse made change from her purse!

The Northern Lights RV Park has some nice services for travelers - one of their sons does work on RVs - he changed our oil and hydraulic leveler fluid, as I mentioned before, and they also repair windshield chips and make special rock guards for tow vehicles. The rest of the trip we would see these guards and know that those people had stayed at Northern Lights! More on the need for rock guards later.

We had a thunderstorm!! The rain was nice, and it cooled things off for us, finally.

Beautiful sunsets at the Northern Lights RV Park.

Click here for a few more photos

Radium, BC to Jasper, Alberta - Kootenay/Banff/Jasper Parks

We drove from Radium, BC to Wabasso Campground near Jasper, Alberta today, and took so many photos! It was just a beautiful day, with spectacular scenery, as we traveled the Icefields Parkway from Banff to Jasper. Our day's drive took us through three national parks - Kootenay, Banff and Jasper! Along the way we saw a bear, glaciers, lakes, rivers in amazing colors, waterfalls, and incredible mountains.

The Wabasso campground was pleasant, and our campsite was near the Athabasca River. We took a bypass to get here - which was a fairly narrow and bumpy road after the smooth highway, but nice to be on a quieter side road in the beautiful Jasper National Park.

Here is a slide show of some of the highlights:

Crossing into Canada

Oh Canada! I want to be Canadian. I'm mad at Devin for not becoming a Canadian citizen when he had a chance - when he was married to Maple! (If he had become a Canadian citizen then, I could now, and we could move to Vancouver!) Canadians just seem... generally less insane than Americans. Canada is so neat and, well, nice. And beautiful - the Canadian Rockies are Gorrrrrgeous!

We kept seeing these signs along the road, and so we followed them. The signs advertised smoked salmon and more for miles, and finally led us to a fish truck! We bought some smoked salmon - yum! They were frozen, and I kept them cold and ate them like popsicles - Devin thought the idea of Salmon-sicles was gross, so, hey, more for me! He he.

We drove up through funny name entry - uh, Port Rooseville, up to Radium Hot Springs. There were these odd boulders up on legs at the crossing - art? Nice easy crossing with no waiting - and yet again, we didn't even get checked.

At Radium, we were looking for a campsite, and realized that if we went west there, through Kootenay National Park, there were only two choices and the likelihood of us finding a spot big enough on a Saturday evening in July, so close to Calgary and the Stampede days, were probably pretty slim. So we decided to go north, which would take us through Yoho National Park and into Lake Louise, from where we would continue on up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. We stopped at the visitor center in town and the terribly nice staff loaded me up with free information and maps, and we headed north - only to find that traffic was backed up because of a bad accident, and it could take 2 hours to clear... another very nice Canadian drove over to our window to tell us this. Canada is just so nice!

So, since we were by a driveway, and up the road there would be no turning around for us, we turned around there. I noticed it said RV Park, so we figured it was serendipity and drove down. Secure gate with intercom to get in - it looked extremely nice, but when I asked how much, it would be $50 for the night!!! Not so nice. So we consulted maps, turned around and drove back south of town to a nice little Provincial Park, Dry Gulch, where we found lots of open campsites for $17 a night. That's more like it.

Driving through the campsite, we were witness to the final stages of what must have been a very heated argument, as a guy was throwing someone's stuff all over the campsite, a girl was on her cell phone crying across the street. Okay, maybe not all Canadians are perfect. Then the campsite staff came running - there were at least four of them, and when I was down at the pay station, the Mounties were there! The RCMP - a very nice young man, and I directed him to the trouble. They all spent quite some time sorting it out - quietly - and ended with the arguers leaving and apologizing profusely. Okay - when do drunken (I'm assuming here) arguments end with heartfelt apologies to authorities in the states? Not that often, I'd wager. Back to nice.

A Thunderstorm came through as they were sorting things out - with the same rhythm of build-up, crash and flash, then gentle rain and sunshine through the clouds in the end. Very nice - especially since it cooled down the very hot afternoon considerably! Devin and I sat out in lawn chairs during the rain! I wanted more, but it was great to get any after such heat.

I made another version of "Bamix Bean Dip" for dinner (with black beans, pepper jack cheese, non-fat plain yogurt, lime juice, some salsa, cumin, lemon pepper, cayenne, and paprika), and that's all we ate (with chips). A nice cool meal. I wish we could run the air conditioner on the inverter - I mean, we can, but it would drain our batteries pretty quickly, I'd guess. It's hotter here than it was in Baja!! Of course, we were there in March and April, and it's July now.

With new tires in front, and properly aligned front wheels, our ride today was SO much smoother!! Now we are ready for the Alaskan Highway - and we'll probably get there by next week. We hope to be in Jasper tomorrow night, and then we need to find an RV Park with good WiFi so Devin can do some remote consulting/contract work for a few days. After than, we are on the Alaskan Highway! We may have to stay in Dawson Creek for the WiFi, as there aren't any listed in Jasper, and as long as we are heading up, we may as well go to Mile One of the Alaskan Highway.

Livingston, Montana

We arrived at the "Yellowstone's Edge" RV Park on the banks of the Yellowstone River north of Yellowstone National Park, just south of Livingston, Montana in the Paradise Valley today. It's a nice RV Park, though we like to call it "Highway's Edge" since it is as close to the highway as to the river, and the highway makes more noise. We ~could~ potentially, put kayaks or rafts in the water here and float to Livingston to visit Josh and Nikki, but we just drove the Jeep in, successfully dodging leaping deer and unsuccessfully dodging the prodigious hatches of stoneflies and other bugs - no wonder there are so many flyfishermen in the river! Leaping Trout, Batman! But I digress... the bugs were so thick on the highways at times that we had to refill our washer fluid, since we had to continually use the window washers to be able to see at times! At least they weren't mosquitoes or deerflies.

Josh, of course, gave us the Grand Tour of Livingston - he is so proud of his little town and loves to show it off in all its western classic glory. It IS a great place, with just enough culture to be really interesting, but not enough to make it snooty. It's a real place, a railroad town with the railroad still the centerpiece. But also with some great restaurants, cafes, shops, and theatre, downtown right alongside the Montana classics like The Stockman and Bob's Outdoor sporting goods. The light was especially good because of a fire in Yellowstone making the sky a little smoky, and giving everything a beautiful glow in the late afternoon light. Lest everyone think of moving there after seeing the pictures and hearing about the town, it does get cold there in the winter!

After we were settled in, we went on a drive in the Jeep - Josh took us up to the Bridger Mountains over Flathead Pass, and we explored almost every side dirt road that led up the mountains on either side of the road. Josh was funny, getting all excited every time we saw another road that looked promising! We found a few really nice little side roads that led up to meadows or views, and some "interesting" dead ends where we all got out to help Devin get the Jeep turned around safely. At one place, an open mountainside meadow with a view of the surrounding countryside, Josh tried to fly a kite, "tried" being the operative word there - ha. There were so many deer flies or meat bees Devin and I stayed in the Jeep to watch, laughing hysterically at ourselves sitting inside watching Josh and his pitiful little plastic kite fight the bugs between small gusts of light breeze - ha. The bugs weren't as bad at all on the other side of the pass, where we found a great road that led up to a fantastic view in the other direction and had a tailgate picnic lunch. Then we went across a little creek where we had to stop and wait for a deer who was getting a drink. Devin and Josh had a laugh coming back on that trail, as they went up the steep side of the trail that I wouldn't "let" them go down - ha. Lots of beautiful scenery and a little Jeep adventure and of course good company - it was a fun day!

Click here for more photos of Flathead Pass

The next day, Devin wasn't feeling well on the day of the parade for the annual Livingston roundup - Josh had told us how great the parade was, and how everyone in the town is either IN the parade or watching it. Sadly, we didn't make it this year, so we'll have to come back again someday.

We did, however, make it to see the Livingston Roundup Rodeo! Devin had never been to a rodeo before!! The rodeo has been a 4th of July tradition in Livingston for something like 75 years. Nothing like going to a big rodeo in a small Montana town to celebrate the 4th! It was one of those all American experiences that take you back to younger days and simpler times. We got tickets for July 3rd, or rather, Josh got us tickets, which was great. The clown was also really funny and sort of like the emcee for the rodeo. For a small town, Livingston puts on a pretty great rodeo, but even more than the calf roping, trick riding, barrel racing, bronc and bull riding, their fireworks display eclipses every other fireworks show either of us has EVER seen! The Pasadena Rose Bowl bills its display as the largest in Southern California, but the one in Livingston was MUCH bigger and better. It just kept going on and on and on... spectacular! We enjoyed it quite a bit! Since it was dusk and we were sitting behind a fence, our photos didn't turn out all that great, but you can still get the feel for the excitement - we were so close that we had to watch out for dirt clods getting thrown from hooves of bucking broncs and kicking bulls! Click play on the slideshow below to see more bronc bustin' action:

Yellowstone

We drove from Jackson Hole to Madison Campground in Yellowstone, where we got a last minute cancellation so we could stay in this central location in the park tonight. Then we explored the southern loop of Yellowstone's scenic "figure eight" roads. Highlights included the new Canyon Visitor Education Center, where we learned that the waterfall we passed on the way in marks the edge of the caldera, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone Falls, the Hayden Valley - Where the Buffalo Roam, and apparently wolves - though we couldn't see any, Yellowstone Lake and the West Thumb Geyser Basin, all topped off by a dinner in the Old Faithful Inn and watching Old Faithful erupt by moonlight. Some photos in the slide show below:

Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole

We dallied about and left Lander quite late - waffling a bit on whether to stay or go. It would have been an easy choice to stay if we weren't running out of time before we have reservations near Livingston, and we had both Grand Teton and Yellowstone to see in the next 5 days. So we finally left around noon, and drove up through the Indian Reservation, which is quite beautiful, and along the Wind River. The Wind River is well-named! Devin was fighting the wind all day, which makes the motorhome act like a giant sail. We drove through Dubois, "Valley of the Warm Winds," which is cute in a tacky tourism sort of way, over the Continental Divide again - this time a 9,658 foot pass through mountains, and down into the Jackson Hole area.

The Jackson Hole valley is incredible - reminiscent of the Eastern Sierra, with a broad flat valley with the Snake River winding through it and the Tetons jutting up suddenly to the west. We saw 3 different herds of bison on the way in, and some pronghorn. We arrived at the Gros Ventre (pronounced "grow-vahnt") Campground, near Kelly and the Teton Science School (where I took a winter ecology course a few years ago - the place looks quite different covered in snow at 15 below zero!). The Campground is very pleasant and quiet - we chose a site in a "no generators" loop with a view of the Tetons over a ridge, surrounded by Cottonwoods and Willows and Sagebrush. It is very quiet - birds are singing, and we may see bears and moose while we are here! Tonight we are going into Jackson for dinner. I better get dressed...

We found a nice little Thai restaurant off of the main street, and it was quite delicious.

The next day, I (Maggie) stayed home in bed and rested all day as I had an eye infection that caused my eyelid to swell up. I thought it might just be a clogged duct, or allergies, so I took Benadryl and soaked it in hot compresses. Devin went out exploring, went back into Jackson, went grocery shopping, shipped off a faulty charge controller for our solar panels (we are boondocking on only half of them now, but it is enough). He drove up Gros Ventre road to the slide - a very large landslide that probably dammed the river when it occured. There is a guest ranch up there that looks awfully nice, and the river looks like a perfect fly fishing river.

The day after we arrived, I finally decided I needed to see a doctor about my eye - it wasn't getting better so was probably an infection. I went to the emergency room - another nice small resort town hospital experience with a cowboy doctor. Got antibiotics and eyedrops, and we had lunch at a great little tacqueria (Pica's). Afterwards, we drove up into the National Park, saw more bison, a couple more pronghorn, a black bear, a moose and an elk. The Black bear was a radio collared yearling that was browsing in the bushes off the main road, resulting in a bear jam. Bunches of tourists with cars blocking the road, out of their cars, practically chasing the bear to get photos and movies. I can't blame them for wanting to see a bear, but it just made me sad. The young bear was obviously already in trouble, wasn't running from people like a "good bear" and all those folks helping it to stay habituated were practically signing its death warrant.

Bears are wonderful creatures - objects of both our fascination and our fear, each of which emotions feeds the other. They are near mythical symbols of the wild, and yet we destroy that wildness in trying to get close to it. Paradoxically cuddly stuffed toys and slavering monsters, depending on the light and distance they are viewed from, bears probably feed our imaginings and longings of wilderness more than any other animal. Long may they roam the wild places of the world, unmolested. Maybe people will learn, someday, that they are merely wild animals, struggling to survive, following instinct and learning, fellow travelers on the planet - neither wild pets nor monsters - unless we make them so.

We drove down a "scenic drive" along Jenny Lake - ha. The main road is MUCH more scenic! You can see all of the Tetons and Jackson Hole from the main roads through the valley, but this "scenic" drive was down in a swale, surrounded by trees and you couldn't even see the mountains! It did go by an overlook of Jenny Lake that was nice, but that's the only scenic part. They should re-name it from "scenic drive" to "road to scenic viewpoint" or something. We thought it was rather funny.

We checked out Coulter Bay Campground off Jackson Lake - it is the other large campground in the Tetons that generally has camping available. The Gros Ventre campground is MUCH nicer! We made the right choice staying here. The sites in Coulter Bay are almost all pull-throughs right on the campground road, and very close to each other. It is in the pines, and each loop looked like a parking lot for RV's with both sides lined with motorhomes and trailers. They had a "no generators" section, but it wouldn't accomodate RV's longer than 27 feet, according to the sign, so we would have been stuck with the big monster RV's running their diesel generators all day - ick. We are camped in a "no generators" loop in the Gros Ventre campground that is open to anyone, as long as they don't run a generator. We really love having our solar panels and not ever needing to run our generator - they are noisy, stinky and obnoxious. Also, the campsites here are very spread out, and it is so large it never fills up, so the spots closest to us have never had anyone in them. As a result, it is very quiet here and we've been enjoying the wind in the Cottonwoods and the birds singing. Robins, Flickers, Bluebirds, Peewees, sparrows, finches and more. It's very peaceful.

The moose we saw was in an oxbow of the Snake River, pretty far from the road, but very picturesque. We'll see lots more in Canada and Alaska no doubt. And the single elk we saw was along the highway coming home, a doe grazing on a bluff overlooking the Snake River. So now we've seen quite the variety of wildlife here in Jackson Hole - tons of Bison, several Pronghorn, Trumpeter Swans and a Sandhill Crane and Canada Geese on the Elk Refuge, and the singles: bear, moose and elk.

While we were up at Coulter Bay, we stopped at the store to get a few things and Devin found the book he had read years ago while staying at a friend's cabin in Kelly's Camp in Glacier National Park. His friend gave him "Night of the Grizzlies" to read, about two separate Grizzly Bear maulings and killings that happened on the same night in Glacier in 1967. Some friend, huh? Ha. Devin said he was already nervous about bears, and then he couldn't put that book down, and it all happened right near where he was sleeping outside - I bet he didn't sleep at all! I figured I should read it, too, since he has talked about it and we are heading up into Grizzly country (there are Grizzlies here, too - some areas were closed due to bear danger). So we bought it, and like Devin, I wasn't able to put it down until I had read the whole thing. It read like a Jon Krakauer book - giving lots of background details, and painting the larger picture of the setting of the park itself, the bears, and the park service mission, as well as observations of folks with cabins in Kelly's Camp, with folks new to the park like the manager of Granite Chalet (who fed the bears nightly), and other campers. It is so easy to see how the NPS was complacent about the danger of bears - no one had ever been killed by a Grizzly in the park up to that time, and there were lots of people-bear interactions. It was at the end of the open dump era, but some places still had no other options and the bears ate their garbage nightly. It was a tragic tale, not just for the two young women, both park concession employees, who were killed, but for the bears themselves. In the end, I ended up crying for the loss of wildness that dead Grizzlies represent as much as for the tragic loss of lives, and the horrible guilt and second guessing that plagued the survivors and would-be rescuers. I am glad there are still Grizzlies in a few places in the lower 48 - a few places wild enough to still contain them.

My friend Shelton Johnson, a Yosemite Ranger, has used Faust as a metaphor for Grizzlies - replacing hell with wilderness and the devil with the bears - "Where I am, there is wilderness, and where there is wilderness, there I am." In an equally spiritual metaphor, Aldo Leopold, famous naturalist and author of A Sand County Almanac, stated, "There seems to be a tacit assumption that if grizzlies survive in Canada and Alaska, that is good enough. It is not good enough for me. Relegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there." Heaven or hell, wilderness is a necessity to our spirit. Wallace Stegner said,

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of wild species into zoos or extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will [we] be free from noise, the exhuasts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. for it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."

And back to Aldo Leopold, who said, "The richest values of the wilderness lie not in the days of Daniel Boone, nor even in the present, but rather in the future."

What will we do to keep the remaining bits wild? Is it possible? I hope so.