Alaska: Random Shots

This journey is now over. My family and I have parted company, each of us going back to "life in the lower forty-eight". Below is a selection of photos from our Alaska trip:

Mount Ranier taken from the airplane over Washington.

An interesting growth at Mendenhall Glacier park.

Someone's idea of an entryway in Juneau, built of skis, lots of them!

I assume the sheet metal shop in Juneau had something to do with these Wizard Of Oz sculptures.

Yes, southeast Alaska is a rainforest, marsh, moss and all.

A sunny day at Mendenhall Glacier.

Mendenhall Glacier close-up.

A young eagle sharing a meal with a raven.

Alaska just isn't Alaska without one of these, like it or not.

A marina in Sitka.

Starfish at low tide.

The best whale's tail of all.

View from Perseverance Trail

Nugget Falls

These signs are pretty common...

And so are these.

Blue Days In Juneau

Our return ferry trip from Sitka brought us back to Juneau under blue skies. At long last!! Before checking into our hotel we stopped for pizza at the Island Pub, a joint highly recommended by the young locals my kids interacted with. You never saw such a cast of characters: old, young, infants in tow. The going fashion was mostly about denim, casual, a wide range of shirt styles, not a high heel in sight. These people dress as if they just stepped off the trail or came from their fishing boats. I felt right at home.

Mendenhall Glacier in the sunshine.

Adam and Sarah woke very early the next morning for a hike of close to eleven miles coming back with stories of waterfalls, marshlands, bear, and a surprise encounter with a porcupine. No harm done there. After a lunch of elk, wild boar and water buffalo burgers we went along for another hike. Once again there were waterfalls but no wildlife. This is the trail that begins at a gold mining museum that wasn't open, but we passed some old equipment and a small portal that had really cold air literally blasting out of it, a reminder of the people who mined gold here a good century ago. It was a beautiful day and people are out en masse, on foot and on bikes,  accompanied by their dogs. The locals are in shorts, not jeans as I am.

Juneau stretches along the waterfront and is backed by mountains with snow-capped peaks. The old downtown starts on a small flat area, then it crawls up the steep mountainside, turning residential pretty quickly. Very steep and long flights of steps replace sidewalks in the uphill neighborhoods and I am amazed that the locals actually are brave enough to park vehicles on the steeper hills. It must be quite a ride on ice. At the waterfront there are multiple gift shops the locals say are owned by the cruise lines and are boarded up in the winter. Cruise ships are always docked there; once they came one to three times a week and now there are up to four boats daily...or so I was told. I discovered that the local people are really quite friendly but only after they hear you did not come on a cruise ship.

Sitka, Alaska

The long, eventless ferry ride to Sitka took most of yet another grey, rainy day. The locals bring food and sleeping bags in order to make themselves at home. There is a little snack and coffee area with big fat hot dogs, very expensive yogurt and decent coffee. The lady at the register says expectant mothers take the ferry into Juneau for prenatal care so she gets to know the children before they are born and watch them grow as they travel back and forth for whatever brings the family into town.

Sitka has about 8,000 people according to the driver of the bus we took, part of a government subsidized system with three lines and buses that are always on time. Its history is amazing. First there were the Tlinket, the native Americans that had the land the Russians thought they needed. The Russians did not treat them well and, in one notable battle in 1804, a gutsy Tlinket went into the fray weilding a blacksmith's hammer very effectively. The Tlinket retreated, slipped into the woods leaving everything behind and later resettled nearby but the Russians kept their big guns pointed at their village for years afterward. In the end, white man's diseases did what their guns couldn't, insuring Russian dominance over the area. More recently somebody got the big idea of placing a statue of the Russian commander on the hill where the original Tlinket stockade, and later, the Russian fort were located. The natives were highly offended. The statue was heavily cloaked up to the event and, when it was unveiled, they found that someone had been working away at trying to saw the good commander's head off. Evidently it was a bigger challenge than expected so they settled for sawing off his nose. What a great story!

We hiked the trails at the totem park, the only location Ive seen with a collection of totems. I somehow expected to see them everywhere. They are a record of tribal lineage and a form of storytelling that seems to have disappeared.

Tlinkit totems.

Next we went to the Fortress Of the Bears, a rehabilitation project where the bears are kept in circular enclosures that were once the huge vats of a paper mill. The bears were very cute, showing off for all they were worth in hopes of getting food handouts that we weren't allowed to give them. There were also a few small enclosures of small farm animals. The explanation is that children here can identify all salmon species by the age of five and see so many bears they are unimpressed but, since this area is not agricultural, they never see farm animals. As for the bear that are supposed to be so common here, I haven't seen one yet.

St. Michael's Cathedral is the town's only Russian Orthodox church, a centerpiece in this small town. It burned down in the 1960s, taking a whole block with it. The story is that the townspeople formed a human chain into the burning church and passed the icon paintings out, saving them all. Not so the church that was later rebuilt as it was before the fire. It has several bells in the belltower. A local woman told us the priest, father, whatever he is titled, tries to play them on occasion but, according to her, he needs more practice.

Sitka natives are an amazing bunch if their history gives an accurate portrayal. They, mostly the Native Americans, are slow talking in a way that is beginning to sound as distinctive as a deep southern accent. The local people seem to be pretty matter-of-fact, feet-on-the-ground people, helpful if asked but not outwardly friendly. Those I've passed on the street and greeted are not quick to reply in kind. I am not used to this.

Juneau Grey Days

My biggest mistake was not arriving in Juneau the same day my son did. How I regret saving money on airline tickets by flying Monday and missing Sunday, a sunny day.  Adam and Sarah were already there kayaking, hiking, and otherwise enjoying a rare crystal clear day in Juneau. One guide told them Juneau is overcast, drizzly or downright wet about 300 days a year. She said that when the sun breaks out there is an epidemic in town and they may as well declare a holiday because so many workers call in sick. So sad that I missed it!

Day one took us to Mendenhall glacier just outside of town. It really is impressive but I found it difficult to get a photo that did it justice. We hiked some trails around the park before heading out on our canoe trip. The woods here are fabulous. Blue lupines are flowering and drops of moisture on the leaves sometimes take on a beveled effect. Moss grows everywhere covering rocks and crawling up tree trunks. I would be afraid of standing still for too long lest it envelops me, too.

Our canoe ride took us closer to the glacier and all its little offspring. Some of those are incredibly blue, a refracted light thing. Our guide told us that only about ten percent of them were actually above the water and sometimes they decide to roll. A bald eagle sat atop one of them and was under attack by sea gulls that were courting on the nearby rocky slopes. The rain put a damper on the event, leaving me wet and cold for the rest of the day.

Mendenhall Glacier on a grey day.

Day two we went looking for whales. We saw parts of a few, a glimpse of a tail, an arched back, but never a whole whale. There were a lot of other whale watch boats on the water communicating by radio on a channel devoted to the quest. Capn. Alan said they mostly share the locaton of the whales but some of the new captains are very secretive. The whales were not being social but the seals and sea lions were, much to our delight. It was still rainy and grey,  about 47 degrees, less on the water, but at least we had shelter.

A drop of dew in the center of a lupine leaf.