We had a nice breakfast in the dining room. Walked into town and caught a bus tour to the Ukon. We had to take our passports as we were entering British Columbia which is Canadian territory. TheCanadian Border guy boarded the bus and smiled at us all wished us a great day, inspected our passports and left with a wave. How refreshing! It was the easiest and friendliest border crossing we have ever traversed. We bought a couple of hats and things for friends back home. The scenery is breathtakingly amazing. We saw mountain goats. Look hard in the centre of the picture and you will see 4 creamy coloured goats on a patch of grass.
The air is cold and dry and the melting snow produces pretty waterfalls.
This the Alaska we have come to see not cruise ship owned jewellery stores selling costume jewellery from places like Africa & Australia.
The bus has large tinted windows, comfortable seats. There are ample stops and photo ops. It's warm and comfortable. Our guide Marv was very knowledgeable and informative plus he is a photographer so he is happy to take very good photos of you with your own camera. He took us into a Musher Camp where we saw 4 day old Husky Puppies. They didn't have their eyes open yet and were shivering but the lady that breeds them is a competitor in the Iditerod dog sled race.
The puppies were really cute.
There was an old dog there that had been hit by a car and could no longer run. He is now a pet and will live his life out being cared for such is the life of a sled dog. Once we had reboarded the bus we saw the sled dogs return towing a little car.
It was quiet, I don't know why but I expected them to be barking and making a racket but they had arrived before we realised it. Future tours will include the possibility to ride a dog sled if you wish to. There is the white Pass Railway which is a narrow gauge rail to and from the Summit. There was no guarantee for us to be back in time to rejoin our particular ship so that is why we went in the bus. Apparently it is about half the price of the train and travels a lot further into the Yukon with plenty of stops not available on the train. BUT the best reason to take the bus is....
This guy standing on the roadside munching flat out on dandelions, he wasn't worried about us at all and those dandelions sure looked delicious. Marv turned the bus around so we could take lots of photos, he even took passengers cameras and took great shots of the bear. We were there for quite a while. It was such a thrill to see this fellow in his natural habitat, we weren't allowed off the bus because it would be difficult to explain to the border security that some passengers had become bearbait. We did learn some bear aware safety tips, hope we never need to use it. Marv reckons he was a male because there were no Cubs and he wasn't afraid of the bus.
He was quite relaxed lay down and then sat up like a dog and scratched under his chin with his back leg.
These guys can run at 35 miles per hour so you won't outrun it and even though humans aren't their normal diet, older or desperate bears may attack if they feel threatened.
Richo was pretty excited to see this guy so close for so long was pretty special. Can't do this on the train so this is another reason to consider the bus.
The lakes are beautiful and we could ask questions and Marv told us stories about the history of the area about local characters and facts about local plants and animals in an entertaining way. The tour took just over 2.5 hours and was well worth it.
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