On the Water (June 4-June 7)

 June 13, 2010
This posting will cover the time we were on the ferry.  I took lots of reading material, thinking of time sitting, just watching the scenery go by.  I never read any of it, except for a few minutes before sleep.  The scenery was spectacular- high, craggy mountain peaks everywhere you look, and abundant marine life  The other passengers provided an endless parade of interesting conversations and actions to observe.  We met several folks, many of them Aussies, with whom we have a lot in common.

The ferry had a naturalist from the Tongass National forest on board  She gave several informative and interesting presentations a day.  One of the many nice things about Amy-the -Naturalist was that she was very flexible.  If something interesting happened  while she was presenting she would stop and discuss the occurrence.

The first day we saw a huge pod of dolphins, its size apparently a rarity. We also saw whales ( minke and humpback) and bald eagles.  We saw a mom and baby humpback, and mom was teaching baby how to breach.  Bill wrote a note to the captain, asking if we could visit the bridge.  That afternoon he agreed, and the four of us were escorted up there by a cadet from the CA Maritime Academy, who was doing a summer internship with the AK Ferry Service.  The boat was built in 1962, so it had few of the modern instruments that one would expect.  We met the pilot, Jim,who was originally from Cape Cod.  Later that evening I was standing on the bow watching the beautiful sunset and along came Pilot Jim.

We were scheduled to get into Ketchican the next morning, for a three hour stop-over.

  Jim now lives there, and he offered to take the four of us on a quick tour of the town, as he had to go by his house anyway.  I immediately agreed and went off to find the others and tell them of our good fortune.

Sunday - We got up early and met Jim at the baggage cart on the dock at 7:30 AM.  Ketchican is a small town, spread along the shoreline as the mountains rear up behind it.  Part of the dock area is for cruise ships, and caters to tourists with a vengeance! Jim told us that there are more than 300 jewelers in town.

They follow the tourist trade- Caribbean in the winter and AK in the summer.  There's a lot of housing development going on, and property values are high.

  We made a whirlwind visit to the Totem garden, which had a lot of restored antique poles, as well as modern ones, from the First Nations, in this area mainly the Tlingit and Haida.  All of the public buildings and roads were in good shape, especially the schools.  The elementary school was new, having been constructed twice in the last few years  The original "new" school got mold and had to be totally redone.  It was an interesting design, all on pilings, even though it was nowhere near the water.  It turns out that, as you would imagine, the weather is nasty in winter.  Not the huge amounts of snow they see in other parts of AK, but lots of cold and snow.  If the kids had to stay inside due to bad weather, they would be inside most of the winter, so they go outside to play- under the building!  The town has a super fitness center, sports clubs, outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, etc-  lots of services for the residents.  There are many local artisans.   Of course, no visit to Ketchican would be complete without a stop by Creek Street, the restored street built over a creek that was once lined with bordellos.  Interesting point is that Ketchican is the home of the infamous "bridge to nowhere."  Friend Jim, who was quite liberal, pointed out that it was a worthy project that had gotten caught up in political rhetoric.  Apparently there was a lot of development that would have happened there, plans already made, that now cannot proceed.  It's anyones guess who is right..  Back on the boat we proceeded to Wrangell, a tiny town with no tourist facilities.

We were only allowed off for 15 min, so didn't get to look around.  Back aboard, we went through the Wrangell Narrows, where the channel is so skinny and curvy that it takes some major piloting and steering.  At some points it was so narrow that there were only 35 ft. on either side of the ferry.  Along the way we saw whales, eagles, porpoise and black bear.  The next stop was Petersburg, where many of the residents are of Norwegian descent.  There are over 1000 fishing boats there, and they were in port as the salmon run hadn't come that far up yet.  There were also more bald eagles than we had ever imagined in one place.  We counted 9 of them in one tree.  (Sorry, they don't seem to show up in the photo.)

From the deck the tree looked like a Christmas tree-a green fir with white balls on it.  From that point there was a watch for ice, though we didn't see any.  The sunset was so beautiful that we couldn't stop taking pictures.  The pink color reflected off the glaciers.


We got up at 4:00 AM the next morning, as we were supposed to disembark at 4:45 AM.  However, we soon realized that arrival in Juneau had been changed to 6:30 AM, so back to sleep we went, after a quick turn around the deck for a few last photos, in full daylight.  We left the ship and had breakfast, then looked around Juneau.  We went to the AK State Museum, which had a wonderful globe that

NASA had programmed to show all sorts of interesting stuff- from the progression of the Ice Age to where all the airplanes are in flight over the earth at any given time.  That one really made you think about the safety of flying!  There was also a great display of the First Nations crafts and life, which was very instructive about the differences between the cultures. Lunch was at Silverbow, the oldest

bakery in Juneau, where their sourdough starter is over a hundred years old.  Then we went to the Red Dog Saloon to look up Tracy, the niece of a friend, who is one of the owners.  We stopped by the

Alaskan Brewing Company for a tour, which turned out to be mostly a beer drinking session.  Alaskan Amber is now my favorite beer, and I am not much of a beer drinker!  Wish they marketed east of the left coast, but at this time their market territory is pretty limited.  Possibly a good thing!  Finally we went to our campground in the Tongass National Forest, right across the lake from the Mendenhall Glacier.  Went for a two mile hike by the lake, viewed the bergy bits floating in it, then dinner, and finally, sleep.