Spring arrives on wings of white

Spring has been a little slow in coming to Alaska this year. March, when things normally start to melt, turned out to be one of the coldest ever recorded. Lately though, there have been a few signs...like local RVers getting their motorhomes tuned up for the season and the like. But, this past weekend brought the one thing everybody in Alaska waits for every year...the return of the geese.

Normally we start seeing geese in our part of the state in the first half of April, and according to biologists some did fly over back then, but turned around and went back to wait for the snow to melt. This past Saturday and Sunday, though, thousands suddenly showed up in a field not far from my home.

I went out there at dawn Sunday to take a few pictures. The noise from thousands of lesser Canada geese, cacklers and a thousand or more sandhill cranes was deafening. Then I looked up at an inbound flight and was really surprised--snow geese. We ordinarily don't see many snow geese around here. Usually the white birds make a brief stop south of here on the Kenai Peninsula before heading straight through to Wrangell Island in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. Seeing these birds was a real treat and they obligingly posed for photographs.

Park Road Opens to Denalia National Park

Early arrivals in Alaska this year have an opportunity to explore part of the road into Denali National Park. The Park Service recently announced that the Park Road is open about 30 miles into the park as of this week and anyone can drive the open portion from now until May 19 when the regular season tour buses begin operation. The Dall ram photograph shown here was taken from the window of one of the buses.

This may not seem like much, but it does offer the opportunity to explore at least a corner of a park the size of Maryland at your own pace and without a schedule being dictated by others. RVers taking advantage of this opportunity will probably find themselves boondocking wherever they can find space. No announcement has yet been made about any of the area RV parks with hookups being opened for the early season.

Catch an ugly fish

They are oh so ugly but oh so tasty. "They" are ling cod, bottom dwellers found in waters off the coast of Alaska.

My son-in-law, who hails from Pittsburgh, looked over the side of the boat on one of his first fishing charters in Alaska a few years ago and hollered to me to come look at the sea monster that was coming up on the end of his line. That pretty well sums up what these fish look like when seen from the front. Though charter skippers rarely target ling cod specifically, these "sea monsters" are often a bonus brought to the surface on halibut charters. It's not unusual for one of these fish to be four feet long.

In the picture here, deckhand Stan Harris (who is a high school music teacher for most of the year) assists a visitor from Wisconsin with her first-ever ling cod.

Drive up to a glacier

Driving to Alaska, you have a choice of routes leading to Watson Lake. You can take the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek, the most common route, or you can take the Cassiar Highway north from New Hazelton, British Columbia.

If you take the latter route, a side trip at Mezadian Junction, about 100 miles north of New Hazelton, leads to Stewart, BC, and Hyder, Alaska. Along the way, the road passes in front of Bear Glacier. Hyder is lots of fun and offers good chances for bear viewing just outside of town. It is unique in the United States in that most of its currency transactions are in Canadian dollars, since the only banks in the area are in Stewart. The one exception is the post office. Stamps will have to be paid for in U.S. currency.

Visit a magical setting

On your way up the Alaska Highway, a detour to Atlin, British Columbia, is a side trip you should not miss. The setting at the end of this 60-mile drive must be seen to be believed.

Get to Atlin by turning south at Jakes Corner, about 30 miles east of Whitehorse, Yukon. (Yes, you actually have to drive into Yukon before you can get to this part of British Columbia.) From there a well-maintained gravel road leads a little less than 60 miles to Atlin, a tiny community on the shores of a huge lake of the same name. There are modest facilities available for RVers, spectacular scenery, great fishing opportunities for lake trout, and a series of back-country roads to explore with either your tow vehicle or your "toad." Several streams reached on these back roads offer great grayling fishing.

Also along the road to Atlin is Snafu Lakes, a Yukon public campground just a few miles after you turn south. A canoe or other small boat is the best way to see this chain of lakes and to tangle with the voracious northern pike that live in these waters.

Visit Seward, a first-class RV destination

In my book, The Alaska Highway: An Insider's Guide, I have a chapter where I list my favorite RV destinations in Alaska. Number one on the list is Seward, about 130 miles south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula.

Seward offers tremendous opportunities for viewing marine wildlife--whales, sea otters, sea lions (shown here), birds and more. Then there are the glaciers and unmatched fishing adventures either from the shore or on charter boats. In Seward, there's a little something, make that a lot of something, of everything people come to Alaska to see and do.

Seward is a very RV-friendly town, too. Most of the shoreline surrounding the town is a campground that stretches for almost a mile along the waterfront between the boat harbor and the Alaska Sea Life Center (also worth a visit). Except during a couple of special-events weekends, it's almost always possible to snag a waterfront site for your rig.

Alaska's Best Boondocking Road

Alaska doesn't have a lot of places for back-country boondocking. Our road system is pretty limited and there are few, if any chances to get off of the main drags. The one exception, though, is the Denali Highway, about 130 miles of gravel road between Paxon and Cantwell (near Denali National Park).

This road essentially follows the spine of the Alaska Range at or near timberline, which in Alaska is about 2,500 feet or so above sea level. The views to the north are spectacular; there are lots of chances to see caribou, moose, grizzlies, wolves and ptarmigan; and fishing for lake trout and grayling can be pretty good.

There are a couple of BLM campgrounds along the route, but most of us just set up in the old gravel pits along the way that were used for building road some 50 years ago. There are no RV parks with hookups in this part of Alaska.

Panning for Riches

Everybody who heads for Alaska has probably heard about the Alaska Gold rush, also known as the Trail of '98. Unfortunately, the gold was in Canada, not Alaska. The Klondike River, site of the discovery in 1897, is a Yukon River tributary a few miles from Dawson City, the town that exploded into being with the discovery of gold.

There were later gold rushes in Alaska, Nome and Fairbanks being two of the largest, but also being just two of many. And there were even some gold finds before the Klondike strike--Juneau and Chicken (40-mile River) were two of the larger ones.

Today lots of visitors want to try their luck. Commercial (tourist) gold-panning operations are available near Dawson City and Fairbanks, and if you've never panned for gold before it might be a good idea to visit one of these to learn how its done.

Once confident of your skills, most of Alaska is public land so you're pretty much free to try your luck anywhere there are no existing claims or otherwise-posted private property. Lots of activity still goes on along the 40-Mile River north of Tok and near Hope on the Kenai Peninsula. These destinations are easily accessed by road and there are plenty of camping areas nearby.

Catching the Big Ones in Alaska

Heading north to Alaska, a lot of RVers are dreaming of that once-in-a-lifetime chance to cast a line and latch on to a monster salmon, halibut, trout, northern pike... Just remember not to be in too big of a hurry, though. Along the Alaska Highway in Canada you'll drive past some of the finest freshwater fishing in North America, waters that are all too often ignored by those who are only thinking in terms of Alaska for fishing.

The lake trout pictured here with my son came out of Marsh Lake, right alongside the Alaska Highway near Whitehorse, Yukon, at about midnight in late June some years back.

Remember, too, that you'll need a separate fishing license for each Canadian province and for Alaska. Licensing information and fishing regulations can be found online at the following sites.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Fisheries (BC)

Fish & Wildlife, Yukon Government

Halibut Limits Threatened

Those hoping to come to Alaska and tangle with a Pacific halibut, a giant flatfish that can weight more than 400 pounds, dodged a bullet recently.

Commercial fishermen, who currently are authorized more than 95 percent of the halibut catch, were pushing to reduce the daily bag limit for sport fishers from two to a single fish, and the change was given serious consideration by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. The public outcry was so large, though, that the proposal was shelved for the time being. Expect it to show up again in future years as commercial fishermen keep trying to limit the sport-caught catch of one of Alaska's tastiest delicacies.

The cost of halibut charters is rapidly increasing, though, due in large part to the rising cost of fuel. Expect to pay $200 and up per person for a one-day charter out of Seward, Valdez and Homer, Alaska's most popular halibut port.

Is the Mountain Out?

Along the Alaska road system, the question, "Is the mountain out?" means only one thing--is Mount McKinley visible. In other words, is the weather clear enough that you can see the highest peak in North America. Often, it is, though for best viewing from the road, 100 miles or more of visibility is in needed.

Absolutely the best place to view the mountain from the road system is along the Parks Highway, the road between Anchorage and Fairbanks, about 140 miles north of Anchorage. In the space of a few miles there are two turnouts with lots of parking, restrooms, and unbelievable views of Mount McKinley--if the weather's good.

I like the views from the southern turnout the best, though both are excellent. There is lots of parking at both well-marked turnouts, but on bright sunny summer days things can get a little crowded as virtually everybody, including the locals, stops to gawk.