Hi Everybody, 22 October 2005 This summer's five-month trip is nearly ended I'll be in Portland Oregon tomorrow for a visit with EV and Ben and my sailing friends Mike & Susan, and then heading for my Colorado homebase at my brother Lee's. As I've been driving through beautiful parts of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon, I've been thinking that the biggest difference between the US lower-48 and Canada/Alaska isn't so much the scenery it's gorgeous both places it's that in the north there are so many fewer people and settlements and so much more country that seems untouched by man (except for the road!). I've put a map in the slideshow to try to give an idea where my wanderings have taken me. You can see that 'going to Alaska' really should be called 'going through Canada'. After my trips on the Dalton Highway with Amy and Lee, I headed back toward Dawson City in the Yukon, over one of my most favorite roads, the 'Top of the World'; it was first named the 'Ridge Road' and from it you really get an idea how much wild country is out there. A little spur runs down to the old mining area of Forty-mile on the Yukon River, and I happened to hit it at the peak of the autumn color. After the Dalton, the Dempster seemed a bit anticlimactic, and as well the autumn colors had somewhat ended, there was a lot more rain and mud, and Inuvik at the end of the road is not quite far enough north to be in the beautiful tundra like Deadhorse. I foolishly camped in a field which was marginally muddy that evening, and after it poured rain all night I just barely made it back to the road in the morning another 1% more slippery and I would have been in real trouble. And my winch was still broken from earlier. Just as I started back south, a considerable snowstorm enhanced the scenery, as well as making it seem even more remote. I did have the fun of seeing a mama grizzly and her two cubs strolling down the road (they like easy walking too!); as I came to a stop they trotted off into the bush and then came back onto the road behind me and continued on their way. Near Inuvik I photographed what I think were 'pingos': these are lakes of ice under the ground which keep absorbing and freezing more water and growing, pushing up the ground above like a big pimple. They have a very characteristic shape, strange bubbles in the midst of flat terrain. One clear night the northern lights (Aurora Borealis) were spectacular! I've seen them probably a half dozen times before, and they have always changed/moved very slowly, on the order of several seconds or minutes. This time they looked like huge ribbons stretching all the way across the sky, twisting and stretching and coiling in tenths of seconds, like a huge flag blowing in a gentle wind. On the advice of my BC friends Alyse and Luke, on the way south I took a wonderful detour to the Queen Charlotte Islands, which lie around 75 miles off the BC coast, just south of Alaska. In the week I spent there, I covered much of what's accessible by road, on the two largest islands it would be a great place to have a portable boat, to visit the smaller islands and the many sounds and inlets between them. The 6000 residents leave plenty of wild country, and in October there were very few tourists. No Grizzlies on the islands, but many Black Bear which are the largest in Canada. I went over on the night ferry and so didn't see the scenery, but when I returned on the day ferry I could have sworn I was sailing back to the coast of Norway it brought back many good memories. At the wildlife sanctuary I couldn't get close to the few birds I saw, but at several places along the coast I had much better luck. And when I camped near Prince Rupert after the return ferry, I found probably the prettiest campsite of the entire trip and even with several different birds to photograph. After thinking about my non-working winch for a while, I decided I should at least try to figure out what was wrong with it is the problem with the electrical solenoid valve or the hydraulic motor? I found it's now working just fine. Very strange. Three months earlier, when it had quit and I had disgustedly planned to remove it, I had abandoned the 100 foot cable deep in the woods in SW Alberta, where I figured nobody would ever see it as an eyesore I couldn't spool it back on the winch and didn't want to carry such a mess for several months, and having been used several times it was a little beat up anyway. But with the winch now working, and with the abandoned cable very near the route I was taking back to the US, I decided to retrieve it. HA! I spent an hour looking for it, 99% sure I was in exactly the right spot, but in those three months apparently somebody was the happy finder of a free cable. Here are notes on the slideshows: http://www.firestardesign.com/johna. These are the slideshows: 05YukonNwtBC.exe 'Main slideshow' 05GrayJay.exe extra photos of Gray Jays 05GwGull.exe extra photos of Glaucus-winged Gulls 05BirdsMisc01.exe (misc. technically substandard bird photos) If you are using Internet Explorer you can either choose OPEN to view the show once, or choose SAVE TO DISK if you want to have it your hard disk for future re-viewing. I have used my updated PC-cillin to be sure the .exe file is virus free. Right-Click or Right-Arrow will advance to the next picture Left-Click or Left-Arrow will return to the previous picture Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc if the show seems stuck If you would like any of the individual images on a CD, just let me know. Also let me know if you want me to send you a CD of any of the 'back issues', or of all of them along with their accompanying emails on one CD. Regards, John Armitage