Haines, Alaska: Killer Whales On Our Last Ferry Trip

Today we boarded the Alaska Maritime Ferry System in Juneau and headed north to Haines Alaska, a trip that took about 4 hours. This was the third & last of our ferry 'hops'; from now on we will be travelling by highway throughout Alaska. 

While this was a relatively short trip it paid off big for me personally. On the other ferry 'hops' we have seen & photographed humpback whales, seals, bears, and a wide variety of 

birds. So what animal was on my list of animals to see during the Inside Passage that I hadn't seen yet?

Orcas, also know as Killer Whales. Beautiful animals that are among the smartest of the animals in the sea. Killer Whales have a highly developed social system that includes an advanced ability to communicate. In addition, they normally hunt in packs, working as a team to hunt a wide variety of animals.  

What's more, they have enough intelligence to 'stalk' other animals and many scientists believe they have the ability to do problem solving. Fairly common behavior includes 'spy hopping' where the Killer Whale will push his entire head out of the water so it can see what is happening above water. Must be kind of scary to see this large animal staring at you with an eye the size of a small dinner plate.

Add in the ability to swim faster than most other animals in the sea, a large mouth armed with plenty of sharp teeth, and the fact the males run 6-8 tons with females tipping the scales at around 3-4 tons, and you have a predator to be respected. 

Well, on today's ferry ride we finally saw and photographed a pod of Killer Whales. Incredible!

You can tell the males from the females by the dorsal fin, the big fin rising from the middle of their back. The males have a straight dorsal fin about 6 feet tall; females have a curved dorsal fin that's about 4 feet tall.

As I said, we knew once we arrived in Haines the rest of our trip would be on the roads of Alaska and Canada. The campground was only five miles from the ferry dock so we turned left onto a beautiful road. Beautiful, that is, for about a half mile. Then the road turned into a nasty, hard packed dirt road with potholes spaced just far enough apart to make you think it was OK to go faster. Speed up and then WHAM, you find a pothole that looks like it could swallow a Volkswagen for breakfast.

Oh well, we were not in a hurry anyway...

Our campground is very nice with a beautiful view of snow covered mountains that appear to come right down to the water's edge.

Mary Lynn and I started watching a video produced by the Discovery Channel on the 2008 Iditarod. This is the sled dog race made famous in the 1920's when medicine in Anchorage was needed 1100 miles away in Nome, Alaska. The planes were grounded in an incredible blizzard however sleds pulled by dogs were able to get the medicine to Nome and avert a catastrophe.

Well, it has six one hour segments and MLA is addicted. Last night she kept saying, just one more, just one more. We were up till midnight watching this video. She's been telling me all day we are going to watch the last two hours of this race tonight, so tomorrow I'll be able you who won the 2008 Iditarod. If you know, don't tell me and ruin the surprise....

See Ya!