the company that showed our little group around was called rainbow glacier adventures. it's a local guy who lives in haines and he did a fantastic job! if you get the chance to cruise up to skagway, take the photography tour shore excursion with them....
info@tourhaines.com
www.tourhaines.com
this is a fishing weir across the chilkoot river in haines alaska. somebody stands here and lets salmon out of a gate one at a time.... and counts them. they make important decisions based on their findings and the number of salmon there are. amazing!
while i didn't encounter the BIG stuff i was hoping to shoot (bears or a dang moose - still haven't seen one even though i've been looking for years) we were fortunate enough to catch some really great eagle activity. more than 50% of the country's eagle population can be found in alaska. we also learned that in haines, there is a portion of the chilkoot river that never freezes.... in november they see almost 4000 eagles in the area! photographers fly from all over to capture these amazingly majestic birds during the bald eagle festival. we also learned that all five varieties of salmon swim in this river.
you'll see little splashes while these little common mergansers (ducks) dashed away from the eagles giant claws. we watched for 20-30 minutes and try as she might, she never did get one of those baby ducks!
WHEW! they all swam away safely....
chilkoot lake - another shore excursion was salmon fishing! this eagle swooped down over their heads to try and grab fish off the lines...
an absolutely breathtaking view where the chilkoot river runs into the pacific ocean!
