After I wrote the journal yesterday Nina had a special wildlife experience when she spotted a beaver swimming up and down the lake, it was visible for a long time.

Again this morning before we departed the beaver was out swimming in the lake.

Today turned out to be a long day on the road. To pass the time we listened to some of Nina's podcasts of the Thomas Jefferson Hour; an interesting peek into America history for a couple of pseudo Americans.

After the experience with the beaver last night and this morning we should not be surprised that today also turned out to be our best day in terms of seeing wildlife; during the course of the day we saw beaver (of course), moose, black bear, caribou, and a number of porcupine. All these - except the beaver - from our vehicle while traveling along the highway.

The road to Haines junction was still bumpy from the frost heaves, although now there were crews out repairing parts of the road. As we had seen in previous days the snow had disappeared and the road was quite different in character from when we traversed it 3 weeks ago while traveling north.

From Haines Junction towards Haines the road initially passed through alpine country with small back spruce trees and mountains all around until Thompson Pass. Once through the pass the landscape changed into costal forests with much larger trees - but still with mountains all around.

On arrival we did a short driving tour of Haines and then found a campground and set about the chores of laundry, showers etc.