Mon July 14, 2025
Hi All! We were docked in Haines, Alaska today and boy what a beautiful little place it is. While it let us down in terms of wildlife sightings (no bears, moose or bald eagles) it made up for it in scenic beauty!
Haines has a population of just 2,500 people but various events throughout the year draw people here. Of course the summer cruise season draws crazy people like us but a fascinating fact is from October to February it has the largest concentration of bald eagles in the world! (But none today!).
Each May, Haines holds Alaska’s longest running beer festival with over 1,500 visitors and breweries. And Haines is the host of the Southeast Alaska State Fair, with four days of festivities on the last weekend in July. Vendors, games, rides and a music festival bring people from all over Alaska for this event.
Of course people come in droves for the beautiful scenery and outdoor recreation. Rafting and hiking are both very popular as well as fishing and whale watching. And Walt Disney’s film, White Fang, was filmed here in 1990. Haines is one of only three cities in southeast Alaska that are accessible by road to another city. That’s crazy!
OK, enough talk… I’ll let the pictures do the talking (and there were so many, I split them in two again!). We rented a car again and had a blast venturing down all these little back roads and found tons of beautiful views! Hope everyone’s having a great Monday. I’ll do another update after dinner.
PS: Two “small world” items I wanted to mention. First, yesterday at lunch, the couple sitting next to us lives 2 miles from me! Second, we’re out in the middle of nowhere, miles away from the ship at the end of this gravel road and who do we meet there but the Chief Engineer of our cruise ship! Small World!
The Wandering Italian 