The payment for all the beautiful blue sky days we had in May and June has been a significant increase in fires in both Alaska and BC. While the lower 48 was reporting on a 200 acre fire in California, as of August 1, the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center reported 469 fires have burned 2,097,293 acres across the state in 2009. At this time in 2008, 334 fires had burned 90,893 acres. In BC, 2326 fires have been reported, mostly in the Southern part of the Provence. At least half of the fires were begun by lightening strikes, the rest by human carelessness.

We have  seen the results of these fires that fill valleys and cities with smoke from Talkeetna, on the Kenai Peninsula, in Wrangell-St. Elais National Park, and Whitehorse. Communities that we visited on our way North in May have had to be evacuated.

As we headed south of Whitehorse on the Alaskan Highway, smoke was so thick that visability was about 1/2 a mile.  I remember chuckling when our Misty Fjords Cruise Captain said that islanders call it a drought when they don’t have rain for 3 days – now I understand the seriousness of such a comment.