July 27 - Haines, AK to Skagway, AK - 30 miles

Today was a day for the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry, from Haines to Skagway, a distance of about 25 miles.  So we only did enough riding to get on and off the ferry, plus to look around the two little towns.

The ferry we took is really is quite a good sized ship, since it goes up and down the Inside Passage, with Haines and Skagway being stops on its route.  (We'll get on another one like this to go from Skagway to Prince Rupert, in a couple of days.)  The little ride was a pleasant one, particularly since the route into Skagway was up a very narrow fiord with very steep and well forested mountain sides.

Deane and Diane had been to Skagway once before, and enjoyed the historical aspect of Skagway's being the jumping off point to get to Dawson City, Yukon Territory, during the 1898 Gold Rush.  So, Deane has been wanting to come again.  Norm hadn't been here in his previous Alaska trip, so it was a good chance to add to his Alaska lore.

In Haines, prior to our boarding the ferry, Norm and I found just the greatest little museum and information center.  It's sponsor organization is the "Bald Eagle Preservation Society", and in their taxidermy /diorama display they had not only Bald Eagles, but many, many of Alaska's wildlife - Bears, Moose, Coastal Deer, Wolverine, Fox, Martin, Wolves, Salmon, Halibut, and on and on.  It was just the most wonderful animal taxidermy display either of us have ever seen!

Then, at the same museum, we saw the differences between the "Black Bear" and the "Brown Bear" in Alaska.

In seeing these, we decided that the bear we saw yesterday (July 26) and reported as a brown "Black Bear", was indeed a "Brown Bear".  

We thought at the time that it was too big to be a Black Bear.  Notice how big the Brown Bear is, in relation to Deane.  The one we saw yesterday beside the road was almost as big as the BIG one on Deane's left.  (So, we saw a brown Brown Bear, not a brown Black Bear as we reported - get it?)

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