Destinations Art & Fishing: Grayling and Traveling to Whitehorse

The trip up the Chena River was a very eventful one. We stayed 3 nights at the grand Tors Campground. The campground is heavily forested and you seem almost by yourself. It was also the middle of the week and few people were out camping even though we were just over 50 miles from Fairbanks. The last evening we were there (11:45 PM) I went for a dusk walk. Because it was late evening I did not take a camera with me. I walked up to the exit on to the highway. As I got there a cow moose stepped up on to the road. When she saw me she jumped back into the bushes. I hurried across the road to see if she had stopped after she had left the road. While peering into the bushes I heard a sound coming from behind me. I turned to see a fox coming up on the highway from the spot I had just been occupying. I stood still as a post as the fox looked at me and started across the road. Stopping several times he looked me over very carefully. He finally got to where he was right in front of me and looked me over again. Then he picked a small dead branch and tossed it and chased it several times. He worked his way to within a couple of feet of me and stopped and looked at me as if asking me to play with him. Picking up another stick he tossed it several more times. He would get within a couple of feet of me and shy away and then come back. He did this several times. As he did this I was try to swat mosquitoes and not frighten him. Deciding that I was no fun he decided to cross back over the road and went back into the brush in the campground.

Richard and I fished the Chena River 4 days at 2 different spots. The river is catch and release for grayling. It is managed as a trophy river. At the first spot Richard and I fished I caught 25 fish with about 5 over 14 inches. Richard caught 10 fish 2 over 13 inches. The next day I caught ony10 fish and Richard caught 2.

At the other spot we fished I caught 25 and 40. Richard caught 10 and 20. Richard caught several over 14 inches long. I caught 15 between 13 and 17 inches long. I was fishing 2 dry flies at the same time. On the second day the fishing was so good that I had 3 times where I caught 2 fish at the same time. On of the sets was a 17 inch fish and a 10 inch fish.

There is a resort at the end of the Chena Hot Springs road that is very much like Thermopolis. It has inside and outside pools and hot tubs,restaurant, rentals and rooms.

We returned to Fairbanks and stayed another couple of nights at the Chena River RV Resort. Onece again the ducks and beaver gave me some great shots.

We were planning to take The Top of The World Highway to Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada but heavy rains washed out the road so we headed to Whitehorse instead. We stayed the night in Tok. The rains have been following us on our trip from the time we started. The forest around Tok is quite moist. There are mushrooms every where.