June 29: Hatcher Pass

We woke to a yucky sky and drizzle on Tuesday. We wanted to take the 50 mile drive over Hatcher Pass; without the sun it would not be nearly as pretty. We took off anyway. If you wait for the rain to stop, then you would never do anything here. Was lots of fun and new adventures for Dawson. This Summit Lake is about 3800 ft. elevation. The day really was nasty. So the drive over Hatcher Pass was the thing to do. It would have been so much more beautiful in the sun.

The pass was still closed with snow just a couple of weeks ago. This area is home to abandoned gold mines and a couple still operating.

This one, Independence Mine, was shut down during WW II because it was not essential to the war effort. I would have loved walking up the trails past the mine and over the hill, but the day was so yucky, and I didn’t have my rain pants on…and didn’t feel like getting soaked. So we passed on that.

Here is an abandoned gold mine....probably dating back to the early 1900's or earlier....along Hatcher Pass. There are several of these. Look closely and you can see the ruins of the mine entrance; right below the entrance lie all the tailings that were dug out of the mine. It's that long piece of dirt with no grass on it. Pretty industrious people who worked those old mines.

There are a lot of Russians in Alaska (go figure why) and consequently some very picturesque Russian Orthodox church. This one ministered to the Athabascan community and dates back to before 1870.

They build these little “houses” on top of the grave to put little mementos of the life of the deceased in them. They believe the spirit of the deceased remains around for a year or so and then goes to heaven. Then they no longer care for the “little house” and are allowed to deteriorate. The different colors of the grave sites and houses represent different families. There was an orthodox priest there to answer questions.

On our circuitous trip to Anchorage Airport with Dawson for his return trip to Chicago, we also stopped at a musk ox farm. This is a very prehistoric animal. I think it was introduced here a century or so ago, and it has thrived in this climate. There is a cottage industry here among the native Americans (Yupic (sp) and Athabascans) of combing the musk ox and spinning the wool into yarn. The clothing made is 10 times warmer than wool! Can ya believe! It’s very soft and veeeerrrry pricey. A beautiful scarf is over $300 ! Needless to say, I didn’t get one.

We stopped at the Reindeer Farm to show Dawson some caribou. I think Chris enjoyed it more than D.
He wanted me to get a good picture of this elk with the “double shovel”…that’s the part of the antlers that go forward. I told him that he had never been that close to an elk before….alive, that is.

The folks at the Reindeer Farm have an “elk dog”. This little orphan was discovered under one of the feeding bins. She was dehydrated, etc. After she was bottle fed for a couple of weeks, her mother didn’t accept her because she couldn’t smell her. So the little calf just adopted all the people there; squeezes through the railings and comes right into the gift shop and nuzzles for treats. A very cute little critter.

After we safely delivered Dawson to his flight at Anchorage Airport, Chris and I then went on a BEAR HUNT. Yup…that’s right….a bear hunt. Our best man moved up here in 1974. He had shot a grizzly bear in Alberta and, I suppose, couldn’t fit the mount in his house, so it was loaned to the Anchorage Airport. We knew that it was here….but hadn’t seen it. (There are many wild life mounts throughout the airport.) So, we did go on a real BEAR HUNT. We found it…Chris would know it anywhere because of the white claws. That makes this bear very rare.

The king salmon fishing has been shut down because the numbers of fish comming up the streams has not been enough. Therefore our campground has the potential to be a bit more quiet than it otherwise would have been. That's nice for us. Looking forward to it. At least Chris got one King salmon before it was shut down.

Happy 4th of July to all of you. God bless all of our troops who help us live in freedom.

Until we "connect" again...