We requested an early breakfast at 7am, left Dyea at 7:30am and drove back along the South Klondike Highway. 

We arrived at Carcross at 9:15am and onto the Alaska Highway at 10am.

Joined Haines Highway at 12:15pm after adding $20 of fuel at Haines Junction. 

We looked along Chilkat Inlet for bears, but didn’t spot any, only the usual eagles. 

Roadworks just outside Haines delayed us by 15 minutes and once we arrived at Haines we filled up with fuel. 

We finally arrived at Chilkoot Haven, our accommodation for the next two nights, at 3:30pm. With only three rooms, this perfectly situated lodging looks down over the Chilkoot Corridor along Lutak Road.

After unpacking our camera gear we decided to walk along Lutak Road and found our first bear (number 50). He was walking along the edge of the river on the road side. We watched him fishing for dead & live salmon for about 20 minutes. We continued up to Chilkoot Lake and then back along the Chilkoot Corridor stopping to watch the eagles. 

At around 5:30pm we went back to our room, Alan drove into Haines for supplies and I started to unpack but at 6pm I was distracted by more bears walking along the river below. A mother bear and two cubs (Bears 51, 52 & 53). I debated going down to the road, but the light was fading, instead I watched from the veranda opting to mostly video. 

Alan arrived back at 6:30pm with pizza and other supplies and I pointed out the mother & cubs to Alan and discovered it was another mother & three cubs (bears 54, 55, 56 & 57)! Pizza eating forgotten Alan went down to the road while I watched from the veranda. The light was fading fast so I continued with videoing the bears. Alan came back up to the ‘Haven’ and we continued to watch the bears. The young cubs were very playful while their mother fished. I spotted yet another mother & two cubs! Bears 58, 59 & 60. This mother was collared & tagged, and her cubs were tagged too. 

The original mother & two cubs reappeared and we were able to watch 10 bears at once! Alan then spotted bear number 61, it was chased by the mother with 3 cubs onto the road and we could see a car reversing. 

As the sunset we could still see the bears fishing. Finally after 8pm it was time to unpack and eat our cold pizza. 

Mileage - 385 miles 620 km

We awoke early and showered ready for dawn and before I was fully dressed Alan was declaring he had seen 10 bears from the veranda!

We walked the whole road and counted a total of 16 different bears along the Corridor. The mothers and cubs we saw last evening and a 4th mother with cubs. 2 subadults that got chased away by the mothers!

In between bear watching we returned to our room for food & drink and chatted with our temporary next door neighbour Timm from Switzerland about where we were going next and where we had been. Amazingly Timm was on his way to Skagway and staying at Chilkoot Trail Outpost – even more amazingly Kathy had mentioned to us a person from Switzerland was coming to stay a few days after us. And the cherry on the cake was we were talking about our 100 bears challenge and Timm had read about our planned trip and used our previous trip reports from this region to help plan his trip!!

Back down to the road again we walked to the end to Chilkoot Lake to admire the views.

During the middle of the day when the road was a little busier with day visitors we returned to the ‘Haven’ for some lunch.

Once it quietened down again we walked back down to the river’s edge to watch Speedy and her three cubs, it was fun watching them play and steal fish from their mother and each other. We decided to give one of the greedy bears the nickname of Piggy, because he always had a piece of fish in its mouth!

As the light started to fade we ate some salad for dinner from supplies bought yesterday and watched the bears from our veranda. The high position allowed us to see more than if at river level and we watched speedy nurse her three cubs across the other side of the river. When another mother and cubs walked towards them the cubs stood on their back legs to try and get a better view – adorable, more especially because they had milk smothered faces! At around 7:30pm when the light had gotten so poor we repacked ready to leave the next morning.

Awake at 5:15am and started to get ready. Today we would be leaving the Chilkoot River Corridor bears, but there was still time to do some spotting from our veranda before we left. The authorities would be blasting rock next to the Haines Road between 6am and 8am so there was no point heading off before 7:45am. Alan counted 10 bears coming and going while I got ready.

We arrived at Dease Lake just after 4:15pm and topped up fuel again before going to check-in at the lodge (Arctic Divide Lodge). This was a much nicer option than the Northway Inn and our room was close enough to the main lodge building to connect to the WiFi.

We decided to give The Shack a try for dinner and were pleasantly surprised by how delicious our burgers were – the lady in the shack was kind enough to tailor-make our burgers with all the items we wanted and leaving out those we didn’t and made up a reasonable price to suit. The result was very tasty burgers. 

Mileage 645km 401 miles

We left Dease Lake at 7:30am after a light (included) breakfast at the lodge. It was a cold morning and the temperature kept dropping, getting down to minus 11 degrees Celsius at Upper Gnat Lake.

We made a quick stop at Morchuea Lake where there was a stunning view of a mountain – we finally got to grab a picture of a grouse too.

We refuelled at Meziadin Lake Junction at12:30pm and re-joined the Yellowhead Highway at 2:30pm.

We arrived at Smithers just before 4pm and dined at Boston Pizza. 

Mileage 603km 374 miles 

We stayed at the night at Stock Nest Inn – very small rooms and only one charge point, but they had an excellent free cooked breakfast. By the time we had checked-out and refuelled we left Smithers just after 7:45am.

Continuing along the Yellowhead Highway 16 we saw a large flock of Sandhill Cranes in a field.

We turned off the Yellowhead to Highway 118 Road to visit the Fulton River Salmon Project – this was a great place to see lots of eagles and of course salmon – the spawning channel is not fenced so you are able to explore the area and walk along the channels and the river. The Fulton River Project has two separate spawning channels. The original spawning channel (Channel 1) was built in 1965 and a second channel (Channel 2, which at five kilometres long is one of the largest in the world), was built in 1971. They were constructed to produce additional sockeye fry that can take advantage of the rearing potential of Babine Lake. Together, the two channels have a capacity of 135,000 adult salmon each fall. Lots of warnings of bears, but we only saw signs of their presence like salmon out on the side of the channel and bear scat.

We left Fulton River at 10:45am and saw a black bear near to Red Bluff turning, it was injured, very thin and not in good condition at all. We would be very surprised if this little bear would make it through the winter.

We drove down to Babine Lake before turning around and heading back to the Yellowhead Highway at 11:30am.

We stopped at Dry Williams Lake rest area for a pizza break at 1pm. Continued on the Trans Canada Highway (16) before turning onto the 97 South at 2:40pm. 

We put $20 of fuel in Spirit Car at Hixon and saw deer, coyote & crane along/from the road.

We arrived at Williams Lake at 5:15pm and had a terrible dinner at Laughing Loon.

Mileage 698km 434miles