Gold Mining

We boarded a train and the entertainer sang and played for us. He apparently had been the starter act for Johnny Cash's last visits to Alaska.

After the singing and short talk, the entertainer got off the train and was replaced by our guide. The entertainer waved as we drove past on the train.

Our gold mining guide explained how they mined gold with the different pieces of equipment.

Here the miner is hauling buckets of dirt out of a hole he is digging. He will then sift through the dirt for gold.

This miner is using a rocker box to mine gold

Mining began to modernize. Here is a water cannon used to cut the dirt off the side of a hill to be mined for gold. Think this was also known as strip mining

This "miner" lady works inside the large operations that had buckets that bring the dirt up and a huge washer that helps to extract the gold. The guys here will show us how to pan for gold.

This young man showed us step by step how to pan for gold.  Look at that gold left in the pan. See that large find at the top of the pan?

The stop included us getting a poke sack with gravel in it for us to pan. Here is Tina's large gold find.

We rode the train back and then went on to other fun things, stay tuned.

Sheep

Summit Lake was another Provincial (state) Park. 

You can see how well this mountain sheep blend into the rocks here. Makes them very hard to see high up.  But these sheep were right on the road.

They were posing very nicely, so kept taking pictures.

Another side shot of one of the sheep.

They have interesting names for the communities here. Toad River had lots of toad pictures around.

I am in Fairbanks now, so  hope to get some pictures here I can share.

Heading into the interesting park of Canada

Here is a bit of Alberta Canada's History, let you read this for yourself.

The fields were alive with yellow wild flowers

Before I show other pictures of the wild animals let me share my story of the buffalos and the bridge.

Buffalo on bridge, car coming, car passes buffalo.

As the car passes, biker takes his turn and passes. Now it is my turn. Welllll........

These two buffalo are now in the center of the bridge without room for me to pass. So I do what anyone would do (or would they???) I honk my horn

Then Joe the buffalo looks back, says to Jake the buffalo, hey we can take that big white thing making that awful honking sound, soooooo........

On cue they turn around and start back toward me, I do what anyone would do I started backing off that bridge with flashers going. Car right behind me pulled off, grabbed his camera and came around to take pictures. The tanker truck, just stopped way back and watched. When I got off the bridge I stopped and one climbed the side railing, the other was studying me, so I grabbed the opportunity, left that man standing in the road and went around and off the other end.

Now my advice is if you are ever behind two buffalo, don't honk at them, guess that is an offense.

One of my stops was at 115 Creek, an old campground no longer in use. A beautiful little creek with a beaver damn. Water was crystal clear.

The beaver had built a damn here. They really put a lot of work into this damn.

Here I am parked at 115 Creek, really a nice place to stop.

Saw an elk, who posed very nicely for me.

Saw a buck and this female moose, but male took off, almost missed this much of a picture of the female.

One of the Provincial Parks I stayed in, like our state parks.  Quiet, nice locations.

A lot of buffalo in the area.

Lot of new babies.  This looks like a very young calf.

A large herd of buffalo with a lot of babies.

One of the roads in British Columbia that flooded. There were apparently 3 sections of the Alaskan Highway that were flooded and 2 sections that the road was washed away.

A lot of bear were on the roadsides

In one of the towns, saw the sign post forest. This was started by one worker in 1942 when the Alaskan higway was being built. It still goes on today, with hundreds of signs. This is everything from street signs from various towns, to town signs, little signs people have made.  A fund place to visit.

Here is another view of the sign forest.

Saw this mama bear with three bear cubs.

Here are the other two cubs.

Another bear on a stroll.

Stay tuned, more fun pictures coming.

 

Waterton Canada

Here we are in Waterton with Mitch's rendition of "The hills are alive with the sound of Music". Now Vicki, here is your opening.

The views we have are spectacular.

Liz, Tina and I took a ride on the large white boat in the center of this picture.  Great ride.

A large hotel sits on top of a mountain with a beautiful view. This is the view from the dining area window.

We stayed in a little park facing the mountains. What a view to wake up to.

You step out of your motorhome and this is what greets you.

We went on a tour of the town. Found this icecream shoppe.

Found a good place to eat, but first Mitch had to check out the moose hatware.

I had a tasty Bison/Berry pizza. It was quite good. Had a bit of sweet berry, amongst the salty taste of bison.

We went for a ride to see the surrounding area. Found a bear.

Found where the original oil well for the Alberta oil boom was.

This is a commenortive site of the first oil well.

Then we found some deer

Yes that is ice and snow I am leaning against. They had drifts like this all in the area.

Even the lake still had ice on it.

We had a great time here, but alas it was time we were to move along further down the Alaskan Higway.