Lake Kathleen: Yukon Mirror

After a leisurely wake up, we boarded the big bear bus to head to the Kluane National Park for what we thought was a float trip. Somehow Holland America messed up somewhere and we found ourselves on the Lake Kathleen Boat instead, but, not to worry, we were blessed with a beautiful day, pleasant temperature, a calm lake, and vistas of majestic mountains and soaring clouds reflected on the smooth surface of deep blue green Lake Kathleen.

On the way up, our guide Annie, a young woman from Ontario, pointed out the spirit houses built near a river. These are little structures built by members of the First Nation to house the cremated remains of their loved ones along with objects they will need on the journey to the spirit world. It is traditional to build them near a landmark that is near and dear to the deceased. Evidently the Tahini river was near and dear to many people.

We started our National Park experience at the visitor's center where we viewed artifacts, got a better understanding of the topography of the park, and watched a beautiful movie about the park.
After delicious sandwiches on fresh bread from the local Haines Junction Bakery, we loaded onto the bear bus and headed into the wilderness to Lake Kathleen where we me our guide,
a member of the First Nation, boarded The Otter, a boat which sat ten people with no trouble, and headed out into the large lake rimmed with tall mountains coming down to the water. The lake is deep and cool, but in many places you can see through the water to the bottom. We saw large fish swimming in the deep water. Our guide also pointed out goats, high up on one of the mountains.



Lake Kathleen (Matatana Man) is the only lake in the park that allows boats.


After about two and a half hours on the lake, we returned to Haines Junction where we made a quick stop at the bakery for a snack and to pick up strudel for breakfast tomorrow morning. It will be an early start and we will enjoy our coffee/green tea in our room before boarding our group's bear bus and heading to Frazier.

The reason we call it the bear bus is that their are huge bears on the side as opposed to the moose bus or the whale bus.

Tomorrow we will have a few more Yukon sights before we cross the border back into Alaska. We may not have Internet access on our ship, so the rest of our trip may have to wait until we get back home.