My senior did this tour a while ago. She mentioned how great it was. It involved animals. Usually anything that involves animals we do because passengers love it, and when its shown on TV we usually sell more.
>Now, we docked in Skagway… which meant we had to make our way to Haines. I don’t really like Skagway…but the port has the best tours. Going into town is weird though. Lol.
With the Skagway Dock its like forever long!! It takes more than a few minutes to get from the Ship to where you meet up for your tour. I do like it though cause there is a ton of room. Some docks are so small and cramped.
After meeting up with the guide, we had to take a 45-minute ferry. While on the ferry I’m thinking to myself “what’s the big deal about this place?” It’s a wildlife park. Now, if I have to go see wildlife in a park, I don’t consider it wild. I don’t know something about the “park” aspect of it. I was like “This is gonna be lame.”
I didn’t shoot anything on the ferry. I don’t know why I decided not to. We got to Haines finally, and I was like yay…finally. WRONG. We than hopped on a bus to get to the place, which took 45 minutes! I’m thinking Its 1 ½ hours to get to this place… which I have to do on the way back. 3 hours in transit didn’t make me a happy camper. At this point I’m already at the cranky stage. It took me awhile to wake up that morning. But the Bus driver started talking about Haines, and I took in the scenery and I woke up quickly. I Became very alert. I started to forget about time. I forgot about how long of a day I would have. I just enjoyed. I again did not shoot anything on the bus ride.
The decision to not shoot anything was a funny thing with me. I started to argue with myself in my head because... the 45-minute ferry, and 45-minute bus ride was all part of the journey. It was part of what the passengers experienced. The transportation wasn’t bad, because you took in nature, and knowledge about where you were visiting. All the time I was kinda unsure what to do. I didn’t shoot, because the edit was going to be about the wildlife center … and that’s it. I hated this thought. It was weird for me not to shoot while in transit. I usually do.
We drove down the only highway in Haines- “Haines Highway” lol. And the whole way I got a nice view of the Chilkat river, and mountains, birds. It was awesome. Than we made a left turn down Mosquito Lake rd. The Bus driver starts to tell us about this place. She tells us how at the end of the road there is this beautiful lake. Gorgeous View, Just lovely. But, the lake- its totally bombarded with mosquitoes! Eeeek. Well As we kept traveling down this road I kept thinking “I really hope this place is not right near this lake.” We just kept going and going. I’m getting more and more uneasy about how I have to deal later with getting eaten alive while shooting. Than we finally stop. “Thank goodness!” I think to myself. We got off the bus, and the bus driver gives us a drop of this bug repellant stuff that smells like lemons. She says “put it on the back of your hands, and ears and you won’t get bit.” I, right away was thinking yeah that wont work for me. No matter what bug repellant I use, I still get massive bites. I take the drips anyway. Why not, right? 
We all are off the bus now, with the lovely scent of lemons all around us. There is this cheery, small guy waiting for us. Steve was his name. My first thought was how he just jumped right into it, than it was ”how am I gonna stop this guy, and get this mic on him?” It was not windy, and he had a good speaking voice ... not much noise around where we were so, I let him go awhile without a mic. He tells us how he got there doing what he does. He used to play and take care of animals since he was a small boy. His parents use to rescue orphaned animals, and he’s been doing it ever since. As he spoke I grew to really like him, and feel his passion for what he does. It got me excited for what I was gonna see.
He took us in, and the first thing he tells us was about big foot. Yes, Bigfoot. Lol. He said some time ago he went out on a search for this creature. He had some drawings from this artist that did those descriptive drawings. People would go to this lady, and tell her what they saw and she drew it, like those police drawings of suspects. Well we went on to tell us how he was out doing research for a few months in northern Alaska. He went to the areas where people say they have seen them. He says he actually found some interesting things out there. He found primate hair, which there are no known recorded primates in Alaska. He found footprints that were massive, that had fingerprint markings within them, like our feet. He talked to residents, and one guy said that since they have the big camera with them that Bigfoot would never come around if there was a camera around. They got no photographic proof, but I still loved the fact that he shared the story. I feel like it made somewhat of an argument. There are lots of animals out there that we don’t know about, or haven’t discovered yet. Man nowadays finds it hard to believe that in this day in age that we possibly do not know something. 
The first animal we see is a few Cross Foxes. They were cute. I got some good shots…challenging for sure. But I nailed it. lol. We than moved on to see a weasel. Fast lil things!! It was cool though. I was totally into this tour at this point. Once thing I like about Steve is how he led us to the next area, and he had to spot the animal before he told us what it was. He kept us engaged. It was nice. You had to play the guessing game on where it was, and what exactly you were looking for. He went into this fenced area with a bird on a string attached to a stick. He swung it around than this Lynx pops out. It was a very nice looking cat. It was cool you got to see him pounce, and play. 
Steve than tells us about the next animal. How, as a baby the mother was shot, and they adopted it. The animal’s name was Kittie. It was a big fenced area. It was nowhere to be found. Than he says “oh she’s swimming” so we look out and it’s a fucking grizzly bear playing in the water. Lol. Than the bear goes over to the big fenced area where we looked for it earlier, and Steve goes in there to start feeding him oatmeal. Lol. He’s talking to us about Kittie, while he’s scooping organic oatmeal, and Kittie thoroughly loves the meal. Lol. 
The tour was long, but it didn’t feel that way. We saw so many animals. A few weasels, and animals related closely to the weasel. I saw a porcupine. This other guy joined us, Mario, and he told us about porcupines, how they don’t shoot their quills. They do this lil shake and some fall off, but they don’t shoot them. I got to see moose. Which I was excited about even though it wasn’t exactly in a wild setting. In Haines though you do see them often. Allegedly. Lol. That’s what the bus driver, and a few others told us. In the summer though it’s too hot so they don’t go in the sunlight so, they are hard to spot. I realized while reviewing my photos…I didn’t even take a picture of the moose. ☹ Sometimes I get so into my video that I forget stills. ☹ I did get good video though.
We got to see Caribou, or Reindeer. Mario told us this awesome story about the natives. They put this animal at such a high scale. The caribou eat these mushrooms. They are said to have these magical properties. We’ve all seen these mushrooms. They are red with white dots. Well the natives think because the caribou eat this mushroom they themselves have magical properties. The highest elder in the tribe dresses up in this red and white garb. Apparently he goes around the village at a certain time of year and gives gifts to the people of the village, while having caribou pull a sled. If anyone thinks this sound familiar…yes the whole Santa Clause thing. Lol Mario said he met the elder of the tribe and the guy had the white beard, heavy set, you’d swear he was about to play Santa. Lol These guy knew how to tell a story. It was awesome.
We got to see a wolf pup. We couldn’t pet it cause it was so young. Very cute. ☺ 
Our tour ended with the wolverine. Very cool. There isn’t much known about the Wolverine, except they do these super things. Like travel such long distances in such a short period of time. People studied them for years, and still know very little. The female can mate, get her egg fertilized, than can decide when she wants to release the egg to be implanted and than begin to grow! Crazy. Sometimes I guess they wait up to 3 years. They don’t know what the determining factor is when the female decides to have her spawn grow. I was blown away by all of this.
You could really tell how much they loved nature and animals. I got such a good, strong sense of their passion. Mario is a professor of ecology, but both of them are filmmakers and make films that are awareness of what we are doing to animals, nature, and our world.
Steve while he had a baby Martin in his hand (I got a nice close up of it-that I couldn’t use in the edit cause it didn’t fit anywhere) he asked me how I was and why I was shooting. I told him I worked for princess, and he asked me “Do you think by showing this video will it help people think about the wilderness, and taking care of it?” I said “of course”, but who knows. I would hope so, but I don’t know. I felt like if I said what I really thought than I probably would have broken his heart. I hope my edit for people who watch it see it more than just cute animals.
Before we boarded the bus they had a reindeer there. I touch it! I usually don’t touch animals. But on this tour I did. I touched the wolverine, and the reindeer. I don’t know if ever I’ll get to touch a wolverine. Lol. I touched the velvet of the Reindeer. Sooooo soft. They say its good luck to touch it. Maybe. I have another blog for that. Lol
I was last on the bus, and Steve wished me luck on the edit. Which I think was awesome. He knows what this work is like. Hell I feel like calling them up and saying hey, can I be your apprentice. Lol.
On the bus ride back to dock to catch the ferry, I received free food! Which made me happy. It was a long day. One thing I thought was really awesome-the Bus driver was originally from Ohio. Her and her husband retired 5 years ago. They sold everything they owed. Told there kids and grandkids good-bye and moved to Haines, Alaska! I feel like that story holds a lot of weight to say how great Alaska is.
When I got back to the ship, I was so tired. Long day. But it took forever to edit the tour was two hours. Very dense. The visuals I got, the stories they told, all the audio of fact. It was a giant edit. At 130am I had enough. I feel like going over it and maybe checking it out again, small polish edit. I was tremendously thankful I did not shoot anything on the ferry and bus ride. Lol See, my gut instinct was talking to me. “Amber, trust me you wont need those shots” ☺
After it all, the long dock, the 90 minutes of a ferry, 90 minutes a bus ride, and the very long edit this tour was definitely worth it. ☺
Oh! There were a lot of mosquitoes. I only got one tiny bite. That lemon scented drip worked. Lol
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