North to Alaska (Part 3)

The next day was on the drizzly side as the ship travelled up Endicott Arm. The day was also rather chilly, as we discovered when we ventured outside to take pictures. Ice chunks - some quite sizable - floated lazily in the water. The brilliant blue of the piece below suggests it calved off the glacier in the not-too-distant past.

What glacier? you may ask. Well, Endicott Arm dead-ends at Dawes Glacier. Our little ship, combined with relatively good weather, allowed us to get within a half-mile of the glacier. That was a sight worth shivering over. The channel was just wide enough to allow the captain to safely pivot the ship 180 degrees and we sailed out again, on our way to Ketchikan.


Ketchikan, which, as the photo below indicates, is the self-proclaimed Salmon Capital of the World, is also Alaska's fourth-largest city with a population of a whopping 14,000. Still, the town had more to it than tourist shops and looked lively, even in the light rain.


The day's adventure was taking a float plane - a 1958 de Havilland Beaver - to the Alaskan mainland, into the Misty Fiords National Monument, and landing on a lake. (Island Wings, owned and operated by Michelle Madsen, is the only tour operator in the area that actually taxis to the edge of the lake and lets passengers out. Just in case you're interested. :) ) We first saw the area from the air...

...and then from the ground.

While we were there, our streak of good weather ended, and the rain started down in earnest. This dampened (ha ha) interest in sloshing about Ketchikan, though we did see much of the downtown area.

After another day at sea, the last port was Victoria, B.C. The town had grown so much since my previous visit that it was unrecognizable.

Back in Vancouver with a day to kill before the plane flight home, we rented a car and drove to Whistler, where some the skiing events of the 2010 Olympics were held. It rained the entire time, which cut down on visibility and scenery. Ah well. Whistler Village was something of a disappointment to me as well.

However, the highlight of the Whistler jaunt was this enormous waterfall, just off the highway in a small provincial park:

Normally one has to really work to get a look at a waterfall, but Mother Nature was kind and set this one less than a half mile of easy walking from the road!

Of course, then it was back to cold, hard reality.

North to Alaska (Part 2)

Our next bit of land was Juneau, hanging on to its status as capital of Alaska despite having no road access to, ah, anywhere. Arrive and depart by sea or air, your choice. It's a small town by Lower 48 standards, but very much a year-round working town, not the tiny, seasonal towns we had thus far seen. Once again, the idea of waking up to a pretty mountain seemed quite appealing. In late summer, at least.

As the picture above shows, the day was quite clear. We were told this was unusually good weather, at least a standard deviation above the mean. This was particularly good news, because the day's activities started out with a helicopter trip to a glacier.

When previous visitors to Alaska would say "And don't miss going to a glacier," I nodded politely and changed the subject. (As, indeed, I see all of you Gentle Readers nodding politely and trying to figure out a way of changing the subject on me.) "It's ice," I would think, "and I've seen ice before. Okay, so it's a lot of ice. Big deal." Trust Auntie Rhianon on this one, it's not just ice. Go ahead and do it. Don't look at the cost - you'll be working until you're 75 anyway, so enjoy it now.

Although I'm susceptible to motion sickness under the right circumstances, neither rough seas nor helicopter rides seem to bother me much. Of course, not having been in Perfect Storm-type seas or in a helicopter maneuvering to avoid enemy fire, perhaps I should amend that to "neither the kind of rough seas that one normally encounters in a cruise ship, nor helicopters in normal operation ferrying tourists." All of which is to say: don't worry about feeling ill; if I can do it, you can do it.

After getting weighed and outfitted with booties with plastic spikes on the bottom, six of us plus the pilot took off. Our pilot took the scenic route over one mountain before landing on the Herbert Glacier.

Everyone was a little apprehensive about trying to walk on melting ice (the sun was quite strong) on a noticeable slope, but the boots really did the job. Soon everyone was walking about. Well, almost everyone: one lady refused to go more than a few steps from the helicopter. I assumed that the pilot had done this before and was not suicidal, so following him was a reasonably safe bet.

What seems like flat terrain from the air turns out to be anything but. We explored crevasses that ranged from a few inches to several feet wide. Some were quite deep - perhaps 20 feet.

Newly-formed crevasses showed ice that was a brilliant blue:

There was even a small stream running through the area. Wisely or unwisely, we tasted the glacier water.






Just in case we weren't glaciered-out, the afternoon was spent at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. (They have their own webcam of the glacier; in daylight hours, look here, though I think the photo below is better.) There is a short forest trail that takes one past a stream that salmon use for spawning. Though it was late in the spawning season, the stream still had a fair number of the creatures in there. Other trails were for more adventurous hikers. Signs kept warning that one might have a close encounter with a bear, something that might sound appealing when sipping a cold martini in the comfort of the ship's bar, but didn't sound like a good idea at the time. The real star of the show, however, was the trail that led to the lake and partway around the lake. Although actually getting to the glacier would have taken considerable effort, thanks to a big waterfall that emptied into the lake (thereby requiring one to get to the top of the mountain to get around the waterfall), one could get pretty close:

Somewhat anticlimactic after landing on a glacier, but pretty spectacular nonetheless. (And, for the shutterbug in me, it was the right order, as the sun was in the right spot for good photos in the afternoon.)

I thank the weather gods for their cooperation.

Next (and last): the salmon capital of the world and a 1958 Beaver.

North to Alaska

I'm sure I've said it before, but it bears repeating: other people's vacations are generally on the dull side. If you, Gentle Reader, choose to skip over this post (and the next two, I'm afraid, though I promise not to inflict more than that), I will not think less of you.

For some time now, the Jamesons had a desire to see the Last Frontier (not to be confused with the Final Frontier, you Trekkies). At the same time, we are not adventurous people and we like our creature comforts. This led to an inevitable conclusion: cruise ship. Specifically, the Silversea Silver Shadow, a small vessel that proved to be an advantage in narrow passages.


We started from Vancouver, itself a lovely town (though substantially more congested than on my past visit, some years ago; sadly, far too many residents drive like they do in Washington, D.C., which is to say aggressively), and sailed past Vancouver Island.


After a day at sea, our first port of call was Sitka, a small town whose economy seemed to be equal parts fishing and tourism. The day was overcast, with a drizzle that occasionally turned harder. Though perhaps it was only a reflection of the weather, the town seemed depressed, and at least one carload of teenagers was less than enthusiastic about having tourists arrive: one threw a smoke bomb that landed at my feet. Hey, I'm leaving already!


The key fact about this itinerary was that everywhere one turned one encountered another spectacular view. If one likes mountains, that is, and I like mountains.


The next stop was Skagway, a tourist town that marketed its gold-mining past. We eschewed the train tour in favor of renting a car to drive the Yukon Highway north into British Columbia and then the Yukon.

The drive wound its way past mountains and gorges, with spectacular scenery around nearly every turn - and, usually, nice wide shoulders on which to park and take pictures.

Lunch (a homemade blueberry muffin) was in Carcross, a sleepy little town with a traffic jam as the highway was under repair.

We made it as far as Emerald Lake, which really did look emerald in color, before turning around somewhat short of Whitehorse.

Though the weather was quite mild, we had an occasional reminder that winters were less pleasant:


I mused on that sign for some time, as it provided no guidance regarding what to do should one encounter a snowplow in one's lane, with a mountain on one side, a steep drop on the other, and piles of snow on the shoulders.

No time to find out the definitive answer to that question, as time was running short. I filled up the car at the only gas station in Skagway, at the eye-opening price of $4.01 per gallon. (The price in Juneau, where there was competition, was around $3.35.) It's good to be a monopolist.

Next: adventures in aircraft!