Duluth , Minnesota

    Duluth doesn’t seem like it would be a tourist destination but an old waterfront warehouse district has been given a new life with shops,restaurants ,museums and hotels. The best part in our opinion is a four mile trail along the shoreline of Lake Superior. It’s also a good place to watch the huge tanker ships coming through the ship canal heading to the docks to pick up loads of coal ,iron ore , gravel and grain.
  Some amazing facts about Lake Superior -
1.  Lake Superior is, by surface area, the world's largest freshwater lake.
2.  The surface area of Lake Superior (31,700 square miles or 82,170 square kilometers) is greater than the combined areas of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. 
3.  Lake Superior contains as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined, even throwing in two extra Lake Eries.
4.  Lake Superior contains 10% of all the earth's fresh surface water.
5.  There is enough water in Lake Superior (3,000,000,000,000,000--or 3 quadrillion-- gallons) to flood all of North and South America to a depth of one foot.
6.  The deepest point in Lake Superior (about 40 miles north of Munising, Michigan) is 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the surface.
7.  Over 300 streams and rivers empty into Lake Superior.
8,  The average elevation of Lake Superior is about 602 feet above sea level.
9.   The Lake Superior watershed region ranges in size from 160 miles inland near Wabakimi Provincial Park to only 5 miles inland from Pictured Rocks National Seashore.
10.  The Lake Superior shoreline, if straightened out, could connect Duluth and the Bahama Islands.
11.  The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is 27 feet, making it easily the cleanest and clearest of the Great Lakes.  Underwater visibility in places reaches 100 feet.  Lake Superior has been described as "the most oligotrophic lake in the world."
12. The lake is about 350 miles (563 km) in length and 160 miles (257 km) in width.
13.  In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior than at its southeastern edge.

 More pictures here - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/DuluthMinnesota?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Fall in Alaska and Canada

   It doesn’t last long , only a week or two , but for that short time the forests are a glow of gold and yellow aspens,birch and cottonwood against the dark green pines. Completely different from the slow turning , multicolored, hardwood fall  that we’re used to in the east but just as spectacular.
   Fall also brought an abrupt drop of ten degrees in  the temperature so we’re heading south – mostly through Canada but dropping down into the states as we get close to Pennsylvania. See all of you Pittsburghers in a month or so!  More pictures - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/FallInAlaskaAndCanada?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Kenai Peninsula,Alaska

   Almost half of the population of Alaska lives in or near Anchorage so the Kenai Peninsula ,which juts out into the ocean just south of the city,gets a lot of visitors. This is the place to catch the big salmon that swim up the streams or take an ocean charter boat out for halibut. It’s also a good place to see glaciers and take a cruise to spot marine life.  We decided to skip that after getting so seasick the last time we tried it. : 0
 More picture here - https://picasaweb.google.com/101444951349944784520/KenaiPeninsulaAlaska

Palmer, Alaska

   During the depression the Roosevelt administration started a program to relocate families who were living in areas with poor economic conditions. Palmer,Alaska was one of the places chosen as a new agricultural community. Most of the 203 families who moved to Palmer came from the Great Lakes states. They had been living in an area called the cut-over , a swath of clear cut forest land that wasn’t fertile enough to support their farms.

  Each family was supplied with 40 acres of land,a small house and a line of credit to buy supplies.Only about a third of them stayed past the first year but they were replaced by other families and Palmer thrives today as a farming community,supplying the rest of Alaska with vegetables.  More pictures here - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/PlamerAlaska?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKj3-YjN2a3fRQ&feat=directlink

Alaska and the Yukon

   We made it to Alaska! It’s been a long drive through a lot of beautiful scenery. We’re a little late for tourist season and Alaska is already emptying out. Hopefully we’ll get to see everything before it gets too cold. It never did warm up so winter may come early. If it starts to snow we’re leaving!  More pictures here - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/AlaskaAndTheYukon?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMjcw9S92_O_0AE&feat=directlink

Driving to Salmon Glacier,British Columbia

    Salmon Glacier is the fifth largest glacier in North America and one of the easiest to get by car. Even so it’s a pretty long trip. The jumping off point is Hyder ,Alaska which is about forty miles from the main highway and at the end of the paved road. From there it’s another twenty or more miles on a rough gravel road but it’s definitely worth the trip. The glacier is huge and the view is awe inspiring! Pictures do not do it justice.  More pictures here - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/DrivingToSalmonGlacierBritishColumbia?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJqQg-qinu_ddg&feat=directlink

British Columbia

     We’re finally on our way to Alaska!  We’ve been going slowly because of the weather. While the rest of North America has been baking in a heat wave ,the north west is experiencing a very wet cool spring and summer.  We wanted to avoid all of the flooding ,landslides and washouts plus British Columbia is a beautiful province to meander through rather than just rushing by on the way up to Alaska..   
     The photograph above is one of the buildings from Barkerville , a  gold mining town that is now a historic park. Most of the town dates to 1868 and it’s pretty unique ,at least to visitors from the states ,because all of the buildings are wood ,either frame construction or log.  Many US gold mining towns burnt down and were rebuilt with brick and stone.  Others were never rebuilt because  the gold had played out and any remaining buildings crumbled and decayed. More pictures here - https://picasaweb.google.com/tonyandkaren1/BritishColumbia?authkey=Gv1sRgCPSAyYG6qZyEogE