Alaskan Cruise: Eagles and Hammers (Haines, Alaska 6.29.26)

We got bundled up again, on June 29, 2026, for a float trip through an eagle preserve near Haines, Alaska.

 

 

Haines is a sister city to Skagway, and both were starting points for miners hiking with their gear into interior Alaska during the 1898 Gold Rush.  Skagway is now overrun with tourists, but Haines seems barely discovered, with lots of old-time charm.

As our bus lumbered the 40 minutes to our rafting trip drop-off, our guide led us in a trivia contest.  One of his questions was how many bald eagles were in the reserve each year.  We had just learned that there are 3.5 million lakes in Alaska, so the guesses ran high.  One guest suggested that there were 3.5 million bald eagles that visited the reserve each year.  Our guide said there were only 4000.  "If there were 3.5 million, I wouldn't work here," he said.  "The whole place would be covered in bird poop."

We were divided into eight-person pontoon boats, and then we pushed off, laden with binoculars to find the eagles in the trees.

We floated past huge, tall trees.  It was in such trees that we spotted eagle nests.  The nests are 10 to 12 feet in diameter, and so heavy that only a huge tree can hold them.

After we returned from our float trip, next stop was the Haines Sheldon Museum, with beautiful Inuit arts and crafts.

We saw lots of museums with Inuit art on our cruise, but only one museum filled with hammers!

A huge hammer marked the place!

The museum had a display of "prehstoric hammers"--big rocks!

There was a collection of children's toys using hamemers.

And there were displays showing the hammers used for different professions.  This is a collection of cobbler's hammers.

The owner of the museum said he had been collecting hammers for many years when friends approached hm about displaying his collection so that more people could enjoy it.

We had time to wander the town of Haines a bit before our ship sailed.  The sign above lists the homemade items being made for sale in Haines--soaps, fudge, salves, knives.

Multilingual signs popped up throughout town, each with an Inuit name to match the English one.