It’s crazy to think that just over a month ago there was a foot of snow still on the ground. Now the snow has been replaced by carpets of flowers; especially Lupins.

The weekend before last the entire crew took a two day weekend for the Chilkat Bike Race. The race started in Haines Junction and finished in Haines, Alaska for a total of XXXKM. There were 8 race legs and 10 of us so I decided not to sign up. I wasn’t too fussed about participating when we signed up for the race, but now I really regret not doing it. With that being said, biking 25-40km through a mountain pass looks like an incredibly painful experience.

It was cloudy for pretty much the entire drive, which really sucks since it’s such a scenic drive. Although we didn’t get to see much of the mountains, there were plenty of Arctic ground squirrels and even a few Rock Ptarmigan in the tundra.

Once we crossed the border we passed a pair of Swans with their chick:

When we got to Haines, we ate dinner and then went to a local bar. They served two dollar beers until well after 3am. Needless to say nobody felt all that great the next morning.

Last weekend I went into Whitehorse for the first time since I got here in the beginning of April. It was nice to be able to pick up a few supplies for the rest of my summer. I also decided to splurge a little bit and buy myself some binoculars as a graduation present. They were expensive, but I feel like a pretty useless field biologist without a good pair of bins.

 Since it was still sunny out, we lost track of time and didn’t start the 2.5 hour drive back to camp until about 9pm. About half way back to Haines Junction, we saw a Grizzly bear on the side of the road grazing on some dandelions with her cub.

                We sat there for about 15 minutes or so watching them from the top of the truck when some clouds started rolling in. It rained really hard for 5 minutes or so, cleared up, and then a double rainbow formed behind the bears. This photo doesn’t do the scene justice, but I feel like I need to post it anyways to prove that I’m not making it up.

To top it all off, we also saw a melanistic (black) wolf walking along the forest edge just out of the Junction. By this point it was about 11pm, so we watched the sun set behind the mountains on the last leg of our drive. What a day.

Oh Yeah! The squirrel pups are still cute:

On a side note, I’ve finally been officially accepted into University of Manitoba’s Master’s program. In September I’ll be moving up to Winnipeg, and next spring I’ll be studying Cape Ground Squirrels in South Africa. Booya!

-Dylan