Driving north from the Yukon on the Klondike Highway, I am greeted at White Pass by two of the largest Ravens I’ve ever seen. They are always there. I affectionately call them Big Fred and Lundy after a couple highway workers that walked into the forest many years ago. It is there, above the timberline that you may see sooty grouse and ptarmigan. The highway meanders steeply into Shgag̱wéi Valley and the habitat shifts to old growth forest and eventually gives way to coastal land on northernmost point of Lynn Canal. Tlingit elder, Andrew Beierly is at the mouth of the Skagway River, where he recently photographed an ivory seagull for which, there had never been previously recorded sightings. I call my grandfather, John McDermott in nearby Dyea Valley. He tells me of an adventure he had in the 1970’s. He ran into an old man with a bulky tape recorder slung over his shoulder and a parabolic antenna in his hand; looking to record sounds of the red-breasted sapsucker. Being an avid bird lover too, my grandpa lead UAF professor Leonard J. Peyton to a hairy woodpecker nest. They recorded mother woodpecker’s explosive rage at their intrusion. And I wonder to myself if that recording is on Dr. Peyton’s “Bird Songs of Alaska”. Whenever and wherever you are birding in Skagway, it is certain to be a spectacular experience!
