Photos

Slowly but surely I'm weeding through my 1500 pictures from the trip (plus Beth's 500, plus Dad's ?? with 2 cameras and a video camera). I'm going to break them up into smaller albums so they're more manageable.

I'll post the links to the albums here as I get them uploaded. Let me know if the links don't work:

Vancouver

Inside Passage (Cruise) - updated link 7.21 - sorry it didn't work before

Alaska by land (Kenai, Denali and Juneau/Erin)

Beth's "Best Of" Album

Dad fixed the corrupt chip! Yay!

Here are a few pictures that didn't make any of the above albums

Getting Ready to Zip in Ketchikan

Hi Erin!!

Being tourists in Juneau - Erin is embarrassed of us :)
At Glacier Gardens - overlooking Gastineau Channel in Juneau

Back in Chicago

After a long but relatively painless travel day, we're back safe and sound in Chicago. The endless blue skies and warmth are a great change of pace from 50s and cloudy for the last 3 weeks. I'm sure the 90s will feel sweltering tomorrow.

All in all, a great trip to Alaska. The entire state is gorgeous, from cruising up the Inside Passage (with NO bad scenery), to the Kenai Peninsula, and up to Denali. Anchorage is really the only place I wouldn't want to return.

The cruise companies have really taken over a lot of the tourism of the state (the only place we didn't really encounter them were on the Kenai, but even saw one tour group in Homer), but once you get beyond the ubiquitous jewelry shops and tour buses, they don't ruin the experience. Cruise passengers are a friendly group, so you get lots of people offering to take your group pictures.

Thanks for reading our blog and keeping up on our journey across the 49th state. Looking forward to seeing the Chicago area readers soon!

$5.00+ gas

On the Kenai about a week ago, I saw my first $5.00+/gal regular unleaded gas. Even though the oil comes from Alaska, they don't have a refinery, so gas is very expensive up here (they send it down to the lower 48 to refine, and then it comes back up - lots of traveling costs).

Then, a few days later, I found myself paying $5.37/gal for 2 gallons of gas in Denali (I put in the bare minimum to get me to the next small town, where I added a few more gallons for the bargain rate of $4.96/gallon).

YIKES!

Just for the halibut

For everyone wondering if I'd eat any seafood while in Alaska (knowing of my distrust of sea creatures becoming my dinner), I've eaten (and enjoyed) many kinds of seafood while in Alaska:

Halibut
King crab
Steamer clams
Kachemak Bay oysters
Smoked salmon mousse

The rest of my family also enjoyed the fresh salmon (many varieties, depending on what was running), dungeness crab, black cod, and other north pacific fish I can't remember the names of.

When in rome....

Hiking Mt. Roberts

Today, Erin took us on a hike up Mt. Roberts, where most people travel up via tram. We rode down the tram, after doing the hard part by foot. I was just happy that we didn't encounter any bears or moose on the trail :) I think we climbed up about 1,700 feet, if I'm remembering the elevation correctly. I was definitely tired at the end, as I'm not used to hiking mountains in Chicago, but the view was beautiful from the top (even with the clouds).

Johanna - this following picture is for you - our reenactment of your trip on the tram in Capetown as we rode down the Juneau tram. :)



We also visited the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier. This is the most accessible glacier in Alaska, so it gets a lot of visitors. It's amazing to see the photos and lines of where the glacier was just 20 years ago, and how much it's receding (more than 500 feet per year). They even had a cool time lapse video that showed the glacier actually moving downhill throughout the course of last year, but enough calving at the head of the glacier to cause the recession (rather than an advancement).

The day finished up with a delicious Filopino dinner with Erin & her roommates, who were all very sweet and fun to talk with.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a glacier!

Today saw the Polichs reach The End of the Road, a sacred shrine, a brewery (no, those aren't the same thing), and the top of a glacier. Whew!

Yesterday, before Beth and I arrived, Mom, Dad and Erin visited 3 of the 4 ends of the road (you can't drive in or out of Juneau, so the road extends about 40 miles north/south, and 16 miles along the parallel Douglas Island road. Today, we went to where the Juneauans call "the end of the road." So strange to live in a place that you can't drive anywhere. (Juneau is hemmed in by extreme avalanche danger, major steep cliffs/mountains along the ocean, and a gigantic ice field). At the end of this road, we visited a nice beach, where people were fishing and others learning to kayak. The no-see-um bugs chased us out after Dad and Erin spent some time skipping rocks.

We then visited one of Erin's favorite places in Juneau - the Shrine of St. Therese. This shrine is beautifully situated along the ocean, out on a little spit of land, and it has a sereneness about it that lends to its sacred qualities. We watched fish jumping out of the surrounding bay, and Dad even spotted a seal swimming around. Erin took me on a journey through the rock labyrinth, to the great entertainment of some other visitors to the shrine.

Back to Juneau to eat some crab - crab bisque, alaskan king crab, and dungeness crab. The bisque was very tasty, and I liked the king crab better than the dungeness (I think everyone else agreed).

We headed over to the Alaskan Brewery for a tour of the premises and some free samples. We've enjoyed many Alaskan brews while visiting (and Erin has throughout her year here), so it was fun to hear the history and how the brewery has grown in the last 20 years. It's now the 20th largest brewery in the country, and its sales extend up and down the western seaboard (if you live in the West, I highly recommend giving Alaskan Brewery beers a try- we've really liked all of the varieties we've tried).

The beer was necessary, because afterwards we headed to a helicopter ride to one of the glaciers that comes off the gigantic ice field mentioned above. We put on special traction boots, loaded into the 6 passenger "bird", and headed over the Gastineau Channel to the Herbert Glacier, where we landed and walked around for about 15 minutes. Glaciers can appear blue, especially on cloudy days, as the ice absorbs all of the other colors but reflects back the blue spectrum. Being on the glacier highlighted exactly how blue some of the glacier can get! (I described the blue in one of the streams as the blue of a toilet bowl cleaner - that vibrant and bright). We were near the end of the glacier, so there were many caverns and peaks along the glacier. It was somewhat scary to be walking along (it's slippery ice, with incredibly deep crevasses), but also pretty damn cool.

We all agreed that the helicopter seemed less scary than the little Cesna we'd ridden in earlier (except Erin who didn't ride the Cesna but loved the helicopter anyway). Even though they're probably inherently more dangerous, the helicopter ride is very smooth and has a lot of manueverability.

Mom and Dad head back to Chicago tomorrow, and with them goes my internet access (logging on through Dad's laptop/hotel wifi). Beth and I follow on Tuesday, so I'll log on when I get home for our last trip updates. It's bittersweet that this trip is almost over - on one hand, I've loved our time in Alaska and want to spend more time with Erin, and on the other hand, I'm ready for some clean clothes and my own bed. Plus, Erin will be home in a month. And 50 degree cloudy weather is not my idea of summer! If only for the warmth alone, I'll be happy to be home.

Photos

I have a faster connection here, so I went back and uploaded a few pictures to the "tiny tiny plane" and "hubbard glacier" posts - go back and check them out if you have time!

Back to Juneau, and Erin!

We're back in rainy Juneau, back with Erin.

We're staying at the cutest and quirkiest Best Westerns I've ever seen. It looks like a private inn, and it's full of character. For example, when you walk into Beth's and my room, you enter through the bathroom. My parents room has the bathroom within their room, no separation. Both rooms do have a private tiny room for the latrine itself.

Our ride here was gorgeous, over mountains poking their heads out above the clouds. The beauty of this state seems endless.

It is dark, actually night time dark, for the first time in a long time. That's partly due to the intense cloud cover (landed in fog) and partly due to being much father south than Denali. I was disappointed that it rained both nights we were in Denali, so I couldn't get pictures of the actual midnight sun.

Moose Droppings

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Talkeetna is normally known as the jumping off point for climbers to Denali (they register at the ranger station in town, and then take planes to the glacier at the climbers base at 7,000')

However, today Talkeetna's place in Alaska lore wasn't related to Denali at all. Instead, it was related to moose poop. Welcome to the 36th annual Moose Dropping Festival! No, they don't drop moose, but they do drop moose droppings, and whoever has the closest one to the target wins $1,500. Don't worry, Beth and I both bought our own moose droppings, but we had to leave before the actual drop, so we don't know if we won. Only 3,000 droppings were sold, so we have a fairly decent chance (they actually award the top 11 closest ones, and the farthest one). The tee shirt I bought shows a plane dropping the moose poop onto a large target, so in our mind, that's how the moose dropping works. In actually, it may be more mundane than that (something about a cable between trees, and a bag of poop). We like our way better, and since we weren't there to see it, we're sticking to the plane story.

When you buy your moose dropping, they give you shelacked (sp?) and painted replica of the one that's being dropped, mounted on a pin. So people walk around all day with moose poop pinned onto their shirts, with numbers written on it. Moose poop is surprisingly small - only about the size of an acorn, so some people even managed to fit 4 or 5 droppings on their shirts. Yes, Beth and I are both bringing our moose droppings home for everyone to see.

Visitors flocked into town this morning to see this festival, definitely Talkeetna's busiest weekend of the year. There were traffic jams, and crowds milling around the 2 main streets and town square. Artisans, food vendors, and the requisite cruise ship shops set up tents and hawked their goods (Princess Cruises has a lodge nearby and shuttles their guests to Talkeetna - the cruise ship companies love anything to do with tourism in Alaska!). At noon, a parade came marching through town, full of mule-drawn carriages, ATV-drawn trailers, and kids on bikes tossing candy to the crowd. Small town Americana at its best.

We were sad that we were missing the Alaska Mountain Mama contest, which would take place tomorrow.

Wet rafting

Beth and I forded the mightly Nenana river today, going on a "mildwater" rafting adventure (the whitewater one didn't work as well with our schedule, plus the idea of getting splashed around by glacier melt river water for 2 hours wasn't 100% appealing - had the schedule worked better, I think we would have sucked it up and gotten soaked for the thrill of it all).

We've worn some crazy outfits this trip (ziplining harnesses, head to toe rain gear for biking, etc), but these dry suits may have been the worst we wore. They did their job though, keeping our clothes dry as the 38 degree water splashed us down the river. We shared a raft with 4 incredibly bratty little girls, which meant that our guide brought us through the roughest and wettest rapids possible (the guide tried to get them wet because they were kids not because they were bratty - I almost wouldn't have minded if one of them had fallen in, they were that poorly behaved and annoying).

If I can figure out how to get Beth's pictures uploaded onto this computer, I'll post pics of us in drysuits tomorrow.

Our rafting guide was terrific. Becky has been rafting the Nenana river for 14 summers now, and many of other guides in the company have also returned for many years. That seems unusual from the summer guides we've met throughout Alaska, who mostly seem to be college kids or just out of college. Apparently this rafting company values its guides and makes it worth their while to return year in and year out (they're locally owned and take pride in having great guides).

Just outside of Denali is also being taken over by cruise ship companies, as were many of the ports we stopped at during our cruise. The cruiselines do land tours up to Denali, so there are Princess and Holland America hotels, and the stores cater to the cruise crowd ($10.99 fleece! $1.99 tee shirts!). Like down south in Juneau, Kethikan, etc, there are signs for the locally owned businesses, so you can figure out which ones are not part of the cruise ship empire. We ate at a good local restaurant, 229 Park, which also tries to use as much local, organic food at possible. I'm not sure where they have enough warm weather and sunshine to grow vegetables around these parts, but the food was delicious!

Denali Delight

We'd been warned that only 30% of visitors to Denali National Park actually get to see Denali (the mountain)/Mt. McKinley (Denali is the preferred native name, meaning "the high one"). Better viewing of the mountain is actually on the way to Denali NP, from various viewing points along the highway (the entrance to Denali is north of the mountain, and you have to travel south into the park to see the mountain).

Our view as we drove up was of gray, low clouds. No Denali to be seen. In fact, the drive up had some of the worst scenery we'd had the entire trip (caveat - we've had spectactular scenery, so the forests of spruce trees pale in comparison. If you compare to other places in the world, it's not so bad).

We boarded our school bus the next morning to ride into Denali NP. The park is closed to private vehicles beyond the first 15 miles, and the only way to potentially see the mountain is to take one of the school buses through the park. We opted for the one that would bring us to Wonder Lake, the 2nd farthest stop on the bus route, with the closest views of Denali possible. It's an 11 hour round trip journey.

As we boarded the bus, it's overcast and starts drizzling, and our driver tells us that we can sometimes see the mountain on a clear day starting at mile 9, but that we probably won't today. It doesn't seem clear, so our chances of seeing the mountain are slim. We don't see Denali at mile 9, but by mile 11 or so, the mountain has made its first appearance, thrilling all of the passengers on the bus and surprising our driver. The mountain is so white (because the snow never melts) that we all first mistake it for clouds in the horizon.

We journey through the park, getting closer to the mountain and spotting wildlife along the way. We see 10 bears, caribou, foxes, and one moose at the very end of our trip. However, most of the animals keep a fair distance from the road, so our binoculars are vital to seeing the animals. After the proximity we had to animals in South Africa a few years ago, the animal sightings here were a bit disappointing. At the same time, grizzly bears are very dangerous, so I'm not *that* upset over seeing them from a bit of a distance.

Most importantly to me, we saw Denali (the mountain) for much of the day. As we got to the Eielson visitor center, clouds were starting to build, but we still had phenomenal views. By the time we returned to the visitor center (after going 20 miles further to Wonder Lake), just the very tip of Denali was visible above the clouds. We were happy that we'd taken such an early bus out, to see Denali before clouding over.

Denali rises to 20,320 feet, the highest in North America. What makes the mountain so stunning is that it rises from a base of only 2,000 feet, and it isn't surrounded by other high peaks. There are a few high peaks to the north of Denali but none to the south, west or east. It makes it visually beautiful and an amazingly difficult climb (two climbers have died after reaching the summit in the last week, including one from the Chicago area).

We finished our long day on the bus happy with our mountain sighting and wildlife sightings, and glad to be off the bus (some of our fellow passengers were heading back onto the bus the next day - we couldn't fathom that!).

Anchorage - eh

The word that comes to mind when thinking of Anchorage is "soulless." It doesn't have much character, and everything downtown seems geared toward tourists with cheesy Wisconsin Dells-like stores.

Maybe if the tide had been in, so the waterfront looked prettier, and if it weren't rainy?

We did have a great dinner at Orso, and some good local brews.

There is a bar that's apparently mentioned in an Indigo Girls song, so that's something cool.

And I had no idea that Bruce had opened up a store here!

Alaska is quirky

This one is for you Natalie

Our lodging in Homer - the Highliner House - was not only gorgeous and spacious, but was also located on Natalie Circle.

This one's for you, Natalie!

Off to Denali

We're off to Denali tomorrow, and my parents are off to...somewhere. They're taking the computer, and I don't know if there are guest computers at are inns in Denali/Talkeetna. It may be a few days before I can post any blog entries again.

And, the photos continue to be troublesome. Perhaps the pics are too large or ?? - I'll keep working on them, as the scenery up here is absolutely breathtaking. Aside from the cold weather, constant threat of gray skies/rain, and lack of sun in the winter, you can totally see why people live here!

Alaska Brews

Alaska loves their local brews, both coffee and beer.

We've discovered and tasted several kinds of local beer - Alaskan Brewery (Juneau), Kissik Brewery (Kenai), Homer Brewing Company (Homer), and tonight Glacier Brewing Company (Anchorage). All have been quite delicious. I think their long winters gives them plenty of time for brew experimentation (and extra reason to drink their local favorites).

7/12/08 addendum - we've also added Mooses Tooth Brewery and Sleeping Lady Brew Pub to our local brew drinking. Mooses Tooth was too "hoppy" for us, but Sleeping Lady was pretty good.

Alaskan also love their coffee. Many places advertise "espresso" instead of coffee, and the big trent on the Kenai peninsula was drive through independent coffee shops, that were basically 10'x10' houses, without any sit-down or walk-up service, and just served drive-through customers. Homer also had several delicious local bakeries/coffee shops that we enjoyed. A few Starbucks have been seen (esp in Anchorage), but almost everything has been an independent coffee house. Again, long winters = extra need for coffee. Long summer days = extra need for coffee.

Sarah's Horrible, Not Very Nice, No-Good Day

Argh. Today by far has been the worst day of my trip. First, I left my passport, camera charger, binoculars, and camera flash at the hotel in Homer, which I discovered about 3 hours away from Homer. I'd taken all of that stuff out of my bag so I could carry a larger bag with my extra lens on the plane/bear trip, and I'd tucked them away so they would be out of the way. Unfortunately, they were TOO out of the way. So a phone call back to the Highliner House, and our nice hostess is going to mail my stuff to Erin's in Juneau for me. Luckily, I shouldn't need any of it except my camera charger until Juneau (and a camera shop in Anchorage was able to sell me a new charger to get me through).

Then, we stop to check into the Copper Whale Inn, which I've been looking forward to the entire trip, only to find out they don't have our reservations. What ?!?! I've gotten confirmations and have already been charged for teh rooms, but they can't find us in the system. They send us over to another hotel (not as nice but good location), and promise to figure out how the snafu occurred. We go off to explore Anchorage and grab a delicious dinner at Orso, including a lovely Sangiovese wine named Sara. Perfect for helping my bad mood.

However, after being back at the hotel for a few minues (and learning about the big Cubs trade!), we get a call from the front desk that the Copper Whale has figured out the problem, which is that they booked us for JUNE instead of JULY. I know when I spoke with the innkeeper in March we'd discussed July, but the confirmation did indeed say June when I pulled it up on my email, and I hadn't caught it. ARGH. I have no idea how all of my other reservations are correctly for July, and I didn't catch this one.

This has not turned out to be a very good day. Did I mention I was a bit car sick on my trip from Homer to Anchorage? And that I'm currently on a lobby computer in our decent but not great substitute hotel, and the desk clerk is incessently talking loudly to herself?

:(

And it burns, burns, burns...

Before I was so distracted in Anchorage by my bad day, I had wanted to blog about our volcano experience in Homer.

We finished dinner at Lands End, which is literally the end of the road in Homer - out on the spit, with no where to go but Kachemak Bay. I ordered my third halibut meal of the trip. Mmm.

Because the clouds were fairly clear towards the volcanos, we decided to drive up the mountain a bit to the scenic overlook.

The volcanos are known as the Ring of Fire, and there are 5 fairly active volcanoes around Homer (three are particularly active, having fairly recent and frequent eruptions). As we got closer to the lookout, Mom said that it looked like we could actually see Augustine, which we hadn't been able to see due to weather the whole time we were in Homer. Not only could we see Augustine, but it may have been smoking! The outlook provided us with extreme telescopes, where we could confirm that Augustine was indeed smoking away.

Beth was very happy with our volcano sighting, and also happy it wasn't really erupting.

Active Skies

One of the artists we met in town today used the phrase “active sky” to describe Homer weather, and it’s a very accurate description. Within the course of each day we’ve been here, we’ve had a bit of sunshine, a lot of clouds, fog rolling into either Kachemak Bay or Cook Inlet, and often being enveloped by the clouds themselves. The north Pacific weather patterns make for some varied weather here, and temps in the 50s/lower 60s. Brr. (and the 60s are a heat wave for the Homer residents we’ve talked to...)

We went on a very long nature walk today with an incredibly talkative naturalist/guide. Two hours of learning about native plants (and only covering about 1.5 easy hiking miles) was a bit too much for us. But I did learn that there are a lot of native berries in the area that residents like to pick and use for jams, pies, etc (they’re also very secretive about their berry patches - they won’t tell anyone where they picked their berries, for fear of others taking all of the berries from them).

We've eaten some excellent meals while in Homer. Other places along the Kenai peninsula didn't have a lot of restaurants, but Homer has an abundance of them. The other thing about Homer/Alaska food is that they believe in "Alaska sized" portions - the first time I heard that phrase I wasn't sure what it meant, but now I know it means Very Very large (like the state itself). You won't go hungry here, that's for sure!

Tomorrow, we head to the big city - Anchorage. You’d think that would let us take a break from worrying about running into moose and bear, but both are frequently seen in the city. In fact, last week, a woman was mauled by a bear during a bike race in Anchorage. Yikes. You can see why we haven't been very eager to strike out on our own for a lot of hikes, while the mama mooses are in full protection mode of their calves and the salmon aren't yet running to feed the bears.

A room with a view

Some pictures just speak for themselves. Here's the view from our cabin at 10:30 pm last night. Wow!

The midnight sun is alive and well here, and the view is absolutely breathtaking.

Tiny, tiny plane

We just got off the smallest plane I've ever flown in my life. A very tight squeeze for 6 passengers in a Cesna. AFter a few moments of hysteria when we got into the plane, I calmed down for our flight to go see the bears and volcanos across the Cook Inlet.

The plane trip itself wasn't too scary, other than when we headed over the mountains/volcanoes and the winds threw us around a bit. Our pilot said that the winds were really calm today, so we were getting a very smooth ride (somewhat unusual for this area, it seems).

We landed on a few beaches to watch bears clamming. Since the salmon aren't running here (summer came late to most of Alaska, delaying much of the salmon runs), the bears are digging up razor clams to eat instead of salmon. We got very up close and personal with a couple of bears on their way down to the beach to get some lunch. I somehow got put in charge of the 2nd bear flare (along with our pilot), and I was very thankful that we didn't need it (had the bears thought we were a threat and charged us, I would have needed to discharge the flare to keep them away). I am much more wary of these bears than any of the animals we encountered on our safari in Africa, though I'm sure I would have been just as wary (if not moreso) had we been on foot in Africa instead of in our safari vehicles.

I'm not sure I'm eager to hop back on a tiny plane again so soon, but it was a unique perspective to see so many bears roaming in the pastures and woods across the inlet from Homer (where we're currently based).

(This picture is of the top of Mt. Iliamna poking out above the clouds. Where we were.)

Homer itself is an interesting place. Populated by many hippies in the 60s, it's known as an artist community, as well as the halibut capital of the world. For those who have been wondering if I'd eat any fish while up in Alaska, you'll be happy to know that I've learned that I like halibut. Mostly deep fried (like fish and chips) but will also eat it grilled. Salmon is still growing on me, and the king crabs aren't in season so we haven't tried any yet.

In any case, Homer is the end of the road, literally. You can't go any further on the Kenai peninsula, so many travelers and new residents end up here. I've never seen so many RV parks in my life as on the Kenai, and in Homer in particular.

Happy 4th of July

We spent our 4th of July in Seward, AK, where my favorite sight of the day was several volunteers wearing Obama Alaska shirts, registering people to vote.

Seward’s 4th of July celebration includes a race up Mt. Marathon, about 3,000 feet straight up a mountain. The runners come down muddy, bloody, and bruised. It’s such a popular race that you have to win a lottery to get a bib, and some people pay $1000+ to get in. Crazy people!

We watched the juniors race (about ½ up the mountain), and saw the end of that race. Some runners looked great (hardly any mud, could have run more), while others looked like they were ready to die (one wasn’t moving his arm, much blood, limping, and puking at the end).

Then headed over to Soldotna, where we checked into the Call of the River B&B - great place to spend our first night off the boat.

Hubbard Glacier

We woke up early this morning, because we knew our ship would be heading to the Hubbard Glacier early. The first things I could see outside our window were huge chunks of floating ice. Yup, we were definitely on our way to the glacier. We joined the rest of our boat outside on the bridge to watch our approach to the glacier, as our captain and pilot steered us through the increasing (and increasingly large) ice chunks.

According to our on-board naturalist, our ship was able to get within a half mile of the massive Hubbard Glacier, the closest any Celebrity ship had gotten that year (and most likely the safest it would be to approach for the entire summer). We were also lucky that it was a relatively clear day.

It’s difficult to describe the immensity of this glacier, but suffice it to say, it was well worth waking up early for this morning!

We saw the glacier calving in many spots (falling off into the ocean), and could hear it creaking and groaning (it sounds like thunder). Incredible. You run out of words to describe such amazing sights.

I'm having trouble with posting pics again. I'll try to post some of this soon.

Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the Tan Circlists

Our cruise director, James, told us some of the craziest/funniest questions he’s been asked aboard the ship over the past few years. One of the passengers asked him what religion were all the people wearing tank circles behind their ears, to which James replied that they’re all part of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the Tan Circle-ists. I am proud to be of this sisterhood.

In actuality, these tan circles are anti-nauesa patches, and they work like a charm. The boat would get a bit rocky in the open sea, which we were in in the beginning and end of our cruise, and I would have spent a few miserable days aboard the ship had I not had my patch on. In fact, other veteran cruisers have said this sea gets rockier than others they’ve cruised on (eg: Caribbean). Crazy north Pacific waves. Hooray for being part of this sisterhood!

Sunsets (or forget everything you were taught about the sun)

In addition to the great weather we’ve had, we’ve been blessed with amazing sunsets almost every night. Even if the day was cloudy (such as the first day of our cruise, where we were in fog much of the morning/early afternoon), the skies seemed to clear by the time the sun was setting, anywhere between 9:30 and 11:00, depending on how far north we were and what time zone we were in.

These sunsets, however, have been very disconcerting. Instead of setting in the west, as we’re taught in school, the sun sets in the north. Yes, that’s right, north. Sometimes almost even north east. I’m told by the on-board naturalist that it’s because the earth is more rounded up here, so the sun is a bit distorted. I just call it weird. We’ve overheard others having the same conversations about the weird northern sunsets too.

In any case, we’ve accepted that the sun sets in the north (and therefore requires us to go the top deck or front bar to watch, rather than from our westward facing rooms), and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed each one. From the oranges as it sets, to the flash of green that’s appears a few times as it sinks under the horizon, to the beautiful pinks that light up the skies and nearby mountains. We simply run out of the words to describe these sunsets. Ahhh.

Icy Strait Point

Icy Strait Point is an exception to the typical cruise port. Only one ship each day can be moored in the harbor, and 80% of the infrastructure (stores, restaurants, and excursions) are owned by the Hoonah Totem Corporation, which is owned by the local Tlingit people in Hoonah. The other 20% is private investors, and nothing on this island is owned by the cruise ships. The Tlingit population was smart enough to realize the potential of boosting their economy with cruise passengers, while at the same time, maintaining their control over who they allow in. They built the cruise tender dock at the old cannery building, turning into a Disney-esque shopping and excursion destination, while their village is 1.5 miles away, giving themselves some distance and privacy.

Chicagof Island, where Icy Strait Point/Hoonah are located, has the highest concentration of bears in the U.S. Beth and I took an ATV adventure, through the woods, and our native guide spent much time scaring the crap out of us about bear attacks and maulings. We were quite happy to escape the woods with no bear sightings. Whew. The ATVs drove over some incredibly rough ground but brought us up the mountain to an amazing vista. Worth every bump we went over.

We lucked out again with the weather in Icy Strait Point, having a beautiful, sunny day (in fact the 70 degree day was too hot for our guide, who said the normal weather there is overcast and much cooler). We’ve been incredibly lucky so far, as almost every day has been sunny /partly sunny, and we had only one morning of rain. Southeast Alaska is known for its rainy/cloudy days, and in many of the places we’ve stopped, we hear stories about them not having sun for the last few weeks and the residents being very happy that we brought in the sun with our ship.

Gold Rush!

Welcome to Skagway, start of the gold rush trail. In 1898, word came down to San Francisco that there was massive amount of gold being found in Alaska, so people rushed up to Skagway to start their journey over the White Pass into Canada to get rich. Canadian officials insisted that all prospectors carry 2,000 lbs of goods (food and equipment) with them, as the first prospectors were starving over the mountain, with not enough food to get them through the winter. As many prospectors couldn’t afford horses/mules, they had to carry their weight to the scales on their back, taking 50-75lbs at the time, and doubling back every 5-10 miles to grab more. After climbing for months over the White Pass on either the Chilkoot or White Pass trails, they then had to build a raft and float another 500+ miles to where the gold was found. The only problem was, by the time they got there, all of the land had been staked out by prospectors before them, and there was no gold left for them. Most either stayed to work for someone else or trudged back over the harsh pass to return home empty-handed.

Out of this gold rush, however, came some innovation that continues to this day. A cobbler from Boston heard about the gold rush and came out to become rich. After figuring out that wasn’t happening, he noticed that many of his fellow climbers did not have the right shoes for climbing snowy mountains. He opened a shop in Skagway selling shoes, and that’s how Mr. Nordstrom started his chain of shoe stores (now department stores). Another prospector saw the ridiculous ways that equipment was being carried up the mountain and decided to start a company focusing on compartmentalized shipping. Mr. Mack’s trucks and containers became the industry standard for shipping/transportation. Finally, two other prospectors decided to help their fellow gold rushers by giving them some sturdy pants to climb the harsh trail in. Hence, Mr. Levi and Mr. Strauss’s jeans company was founded in Skagway.

While Ketchikan and Juneau did not start off as commercial towns, today’s commercialized Skagway fits into the history of this small town. Only 800 permanent residents (with another 2000 summer workers), and each day 8,000-12,000+ cruise ship passengers surge into this little town, buying trinkets, riding the White Pass Railroad, and otherwise enjoying the beautiful scenery. Since Skagway is part of the Klondike National Monument, it’s the most visited National Park in the U.S. (they get to count every passenger on every cruise ship that stops there, even if they don’t get off the boat)

We had our first hard rain of the trip when we docked in Skagway, so Beth and I bundled up in our warmest waterproof gear and headed out to ride bikes down the White Pass highway. The biking company gave us and our 12 other crazy companions rain pants/parkas, and away we went, flying 15 miles down the road, through US Customs. We didn’t think a few of the people on our tour would make it (one lady in particular threw up twice at the top of the summit - we really didn’t believe she’d end up on a bike, but rather would ride back down in the van), but we all made it down safe, sound, and soaked. The rain gear protected our bodies well, but our heads, hands and feet were all quite wet. (Beth's camera has the pics, so as soon as I can connect for pictures, I'll add those in - her camera hasn't worked quite as well ever since getting a tad bit wet on the bike trip)

We headed back to the Millennium to dry off a bit, and by the time we headed out for our Hike and Float, the rains had stopped and the clouds had lightened. Mom and Dad took off for a bus tour of Skagway and the White Pass. Our hike was very informative (with one of the most knowledgeable guides I’ve ever had), and after a few hours of hiking, we got into our raft back to Skagway, and the sun came out. We walked through town on the way back to our boat, enjoying the wooden sidewalks and restored buildings from the gold rush era.

Locally Owned

A common theme to all of the cruise stops we’ve made (with the major exception of Icy Strait Point) is cruise-owned shops and businesses. Many of the same jewelry stores show up in each port, and many of the souvenir stores have contracts with the ships to promote their particular store.

Because the tourist industry is so huge in these towns in the summer, local Alaskans want to be able to take advantage of the potential customers. Most of the cruise ship passengers have no idea which stores are owned by the cruise ships (or even that they are owned by the cruise companies), so the Alaska-owned stores all put up signs in their windows touting that they are locally-owned and operated. This is a really huge deal in these towns, so we did our best to shop only in these stores that benefited the local residents and paid no attention to which stores recommended by our cruise ship shopping experts.

There’s a fine line in Alaska between being happy about the cruise ship’s customer base and ruing that the thousands of visitors are ruining the small towns. In some towns (like Ketchikan), the visitors seem overwhelming. In others (Juneau), the visitors are intense, but there’s still a real feel of a city there. It’s an interesting balance to watch these towns try to maintain throughout the summer months.