Aug 14-Aug 15

The sun might have already risen on the other side of the Lynn Fjord where we landed, but here it seemed like pre-dawn. As we walked up the long blue ramp from the car deck of the ferry to the terminal we wondered if we would recognize Bob Henderson. But as soon as I saw a guy standing there in a ball cap, suspenders, and jeans with his hands in his pockets, I knew it was him.

The first thing I said was, "You look like a Henderson to me." I was right. He looks exactly like a farmer in Indiana County Pennsylvania would look (except he was surrounded by fjords, mountains, and glaciers). He reminds me of Grampap more than anyone else.

I have a great deal of admiration and respect for all of my uncles and aunts. I think all the rest of my Henderson cousins out there are with me in this. We really like them. Now I have great new for all my Henderson cousins: we have another Uncle and another Aunt! Not to mention some more cousins.

[Note for the Henderson clan: Bob's dad was Harry Henderson, my grandfather's (John Henderson's) brother. Harry was a dairy professor at WVU.]

Although Bob resembles all of our Henderson uncles (he has a green house, wrote a book, has milked twice a day most his life, and had an apple orchard) he definitely has some surprisingly non-Henderson traits.

The first thing Bob did was drive us in his pickup truck to Chilkoot lake. The glaciers left a lot of spectacular lakes around in their retreat after the last ice age and this is one of the better ones. The water had that distinctly turquoise look that would become very familiar to us. Mountains shoot up on either side of the lake and the tree line is only a quarter of the way up. Above the trees is either bare cliff face or green meadows.

I hoped not to be awake at such a ridiculously early hour ever again so I observed carefully. The morning sun had still not risen above the mountains to the east so the sky illuminated the cliff faces in a strange way. The sky seemed to be evenly illuminated to a pale blue. I don't remember a single cloud visible. We used the binoculars to scan the highest green meadows for mountain goats but didn't see any.

Bob gave us the choice to either tour some more or go back and get a nap. We chose the nap. It was just about 15 or 20 minutes back to Bob's place. We went straight upstairs to Kathy's former bedroom and slept for about 3 hours.

When we got up (for the second time that morning) the ferry ride and Chilkoot lake ride seemed like a dream.

We met Bob's wife Wilma at breakfast. Wilma, like Bob, looks 10 or 15 years younger than she is. She was born and raised in Iowa. She took great care of us while we were there but unfortunately, she left the next day for a 2 week tour in British Columbia.

Bob doesn't go on the tours, he stays home and takes care of the farm. There was some concern on Wilma's part and Kathy's that Bob would not take very good care of us. It turned out he did a great job.

It wasn't really until after breakfast that I started looking around and noticing their house. Bob says, "It's a crummy old house, and I KNOW IT! But it's comfortable. I don't have to take anything off to go in the living room. It's warm."

Indeed their house is all of those things. The floor by the toilet gives in a disconcerting way and some of the interior doors don't quite fit right. But we certainly found that, for 10 days anyhow, the comfort far exceeded the "crummy."

The place sits on about 14 acres of land at the very edge of Haines. They have a nice old barn, a small greenhouse for tomatoes and some other plants, and several out buildings like a wood shed, a garage, an equipment shed for the tractor, chicken coops, etc. You have to give the buildings credit for surviving many Alaskan winters, but some of sheds remind me of the trick buildings at Magic Mountain, Tennessee where the floor and walls are angled to confuse you.

They raise goats, chickens, and 2 horses. Every morning and evening Bob milked the goats, collected the eggs, moved the horses in or out, fed all the animals, etc. We often accompanied him. He found Joan, the city girl, to be a natural born goat milker. He didn't believe she had never milked an animal before she did so well. I however, descendent of many generations of dairy farmers, was a complete flop.

He gets about a dozen eggs a day and a gallon or two of milk. A gallon of milk sales for $3, and a dozen eggs for $1.50. During the day people occasionally drive up and buy some. He breeds the goats and slaughters one every now and then for meat. Others he sales. He keeps a stinky billy goat in a separate area behind the wood shed.

About half of the land is garden and hay fields. The other half, separated by a tree lined creek, contains pastures and buildings.

For many years Bob and his horses, Cindee and Lady Amber, have been practicing a ritual. During the day Bob takes the horses into a fresh spot in the hay field, drives a huge stake in the ground, and ties the horses to the stake. In the evening he moves the horses into one of the pastures. At night he moves the horses into the barn.

One night I was helping Bob by putting food in the stalls, watering the chickens, etc. Bob opened the gate to the lower pasture and Lady Amber, a smaller blonde horse, waited while Cindee, a taller graceful chocolate brown, took her time wandering up. "Cindee insists on going first." Then as soon as she went through the gate she sped up to a trot so she could get to the barn before us. It was dark and 3 or 4 incandescent lights among the rafters and stalls made the barn look serene and warm. We found Cindee trying to get her nose under boards and behind the mower to scrounge up some loose food. Bob coaxed her a bit to go into her stall, which of course she knew she was supposed to do but she didn't budge. Bob raised his voice some and she realized she had pressed the envelope as far as it would go so she went in.

I found it interesting that even though Cindee has done this same thing almost every day for something like 10 years, she still tested Bob, still hunted for new places to find food. I got the feeling she plays her surrounding for all they're worth. I was proved right when later we found she broke into one of the chicken coops and ate a great deal of chicken feed.

Bob has read all of our Mississippi Chronicles and read what we have so far of the Quetico chapters. He said he wasn't sure what to expect after reading the chapter about packing all of the alcohol - bottles of Everclear, Canadian Club, Tequila, etc. Perhaps we relieved him some by insuring him that when you divide all of the alcohol by the number of people and days, it comes out to less than 1 shot per day. Also, we generally only drink beer, and that in moderation, (except when we can afford otherwise).

Over lunch at the 33 mile road house, Bob asked us what kind of beer we like. I told him I'd become fond of Alaskan Amber and he told us how he can't stand Ranier since WWII when it was all there was to drink.

I was very impressed a few days later when we returned from a day trip of some sort and Bob had 6 cold Alaskan Ambers in the fridge waiting for us.

Bob knows just about all the roads in the Chilkat valley and beyond. He drove us in his pickup to several special places he has discovered over the years.

First was a small lake, called Cave Lake, out in the general direction of a place called Porcupine. We scrambled down I nearly vertical "trail" to the lake. This was no easy descent, climbing over trees and sliding down the dirt, and descending on protruding roots. The lake contains grayling, I guess an excellent fly fishing fish, and you know those fly fisherman - they would make a trail over McKinley if there was a good place to fish there on the other side.

The small lake is in a beautiful setting between the hills. 4 swans swimming in the middle seemed to own the place. The lake actually drains out through a cave at one side, giving it its name. I explored about 20 feet into the cave but then it got unpassable.

He also took us to a gold mining ghost town and past the home of his friend Jo, the 83 year old, one-legged, woman prospector. (We did not meet her there, but I did later.)

The next day he took us up the Haines highway to the Yukon Territory. Much of the road is above the tree line, giving us some remarkable, and unfortunately, indescribable views. We took a very pleasant 3 mile hike into a lake called St. Elias.

Bob's dog Tip had joined us on all of these adventures, despite a history of car-sickness. But after the trip to the Yukon, which had several hours of driving, Bob was not able to get Tip back in the truck again. I don't know if he has been in a truck yet.

We stopped at an historic outpost on the old Dalton trail. This is one of 3 trails used by the miners of 1898 to reach the gold fields in Alaska. The Dalton trail was the easiest but the longest. The best for pack animals. We stopped to look at some cabins and buildings the remained at the outpost. By some accident, we got the keys locked in the car. We must have inadvertently bumped the automatic lock. Bob figured we would have to break a window and he was sort of anxious too since the lights were on. But Joan and I didn't learn nothing in the city. We worked for about 10 minutes with a pocket knife and finally forced opened the window between the cab and the bed.

Stay tuned for Chapter 4: Our Chilkat river canoe trip.