Alaska Part VI: Icy Strait Point

Icy Strait Point was a small area that used to be a fish processing plant. A mile off of the point is a town called Hoonah, which is a small fishing village. The ship set anchor off shore and they sent the ships tender, or smaller service ships to relay people on to shore. People ride a zip line from the top of the hill beyond, down to the point. We walked around and watched people as they came down the zip line. The whole day the weather was at the verge of rain, but it held off until we returned to the ship.

We went hunting for rocks on the beach. We saw the steam from Whales from shore.



They had a path that worked its way around the coast, then through the rain forest. They had a campfire lit with picnic tables around it, and two totem poles. I could tell by the names in the small cemetery there, that there were many native Alaskans who lived in the area.

We enjoyed the walk through the rain forest. We found cool mushrooms, a squirrel and trees with weird scales for bark. We met up with our waiter from Turkey, Ozgur Isik. He was sweat on Diane. We did the rain forest walk with him, then walked the mile into the town of Hoonah.

We walked through another cemetery. It was a cute little fishing town. Ozgur bought us icecream at one of the stores. He is from Istanbul and has a degree in travel and tourism. One of his dissertation papers was on Hagia Soffia, the large church there, that I studied in school.

Hagia Sofia, Instanbul, Turkey.

Thimble berries in the foreground (like rasberries). I ate a few.

We walked back to the dock, and got Ozgur back a little late. We hope he didn't get in too much trouble.

The evening show was the comedy and music of John Joseph and Johnny B--a little border line but pretty funny.

Alaska Part V - Skagway

Skagway is a small town that served as the gateway to the Yukon during the gold rush. People would make a crazy trek over White Pass with the required year of supplies to go look for gold. The only ones that really got rich were those who found claims early on, or who sold supplies. The border between Canada and Alaska is at the summit of White Pass.

Some groups drove over the pass in style...


Some rode on a cool narrow guage train on the original tracks from the gold rush era....




We rode in a small tour bus which allowed us to stop at points along the way to take pictures.








We saw mountain sheep. They were a bright white to blend in with snow. The tour guide pointed out large fault lines.





We crossed over into Canada and saw Summit Lake in the Tourment Valley. The rocks made it difficult to trek over in summer. Part of the lake is light-colored because it is glacier-fed. The other is darker because it was fresh water fed.



On the ride back, our driver recited two poems - The Cremation of Sam McGee and another.

We stopped by the cemetery where many of the gold rushers were buried. There wasn't much top soil above bedrock, so if they couldn't get the grave deep enough, they built fences around the graves to keep the animals out.

Downtown was neat. This is Broadway, the main street. It was such a nice day. It was in the 7os. We were so furtunate with the weather. The weeks proceeding our trip were rain-filled.

The Red Onion is the main saloon in town that was around during the goldrush.

There was a Sarah Palin store.

I waited for the train to come back. It is like the Chama train, except that it didn't look like it was coal-fed.

Alaska Part IV: Juneau

This was the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. While we were at breakfast, the ship captain spoke and we all observed a moment of silence.

We walked around town (which is tiny) before our tour. It is also an isolated place. You can't drive into Juneau. The airport is in a neighboring town.

We were driven out to the Mendenhall Glacier. It feeds into a lake. It is receeding.

The lake was full of glacier chunks.

Running short on time, I ran down the trail to the waterfall next to the glacier and back. It was impressive. Appearantly, there was a bear nearby, but I didn't see it. Diane, who was in a later group was not able to walk to the waterfall because the bear was in the path.

I had a few minutes to spare, so I walked down this elevated path over the rivers and was able to see some of the spawning salmon. They had turned red, which means that they had made their final run up the river and were near death. The bears won't eat the fish when they turn red because the meat isn't as good.

After, I rode in a speed boat to go look for whales. We embarked at Auke Bay Harbour (above). Our ship captain was very young. He had been in boats all of his life. His father was the captain of one of the big ferry boats in town.

We saw humped back whales (above) and even an Orka, which are more rarely seen.

The whales are hard to spot. They didn't spend much time out of the water. They can hold their breath underwater for 10 minutes. The pictures above have been cropped and cropped, but were really taken from very far away.

The state capital building was quite understated. It had no grounds and was hidden behind a larger commercial building.

Anything in the flat lands is actually the mine tailings at one point, and new buildings are constructed on top such as the buildings in the picture above.

Abandoned dock near the Alaska Coast Guard headquarters in Anchorage.

I went to the Sunday "interfaith" service provided by fun for less. Steve Johnson, who was at our dinner table spoke. His dad spoke on 9/11. Elvis sang How Great Thou Art.

Alaska Part III - The Hubbard Glacier

The second day on the boat was a day at sea. Diane and I went to the exercize room at the bow of the ship and worked out. We liked the row machines. We ate breakfast in the Windjammer Cafe - The ships 24 hr buffet, then went to the Fun For Less welcome meeting at the Colony Club. It was designed like an old ship and the wood smelled like a deep smoked wood. They had drawings and then Carey Summer did a variety magic show. He did a lot of the same gags as Ron Lucas in the Buffalo Billy show we had recorded on VHS and watched over and over as kids, including the song "The Auctioneer".

That afternoon, they navigated the ship into the Yukatat Bay where the captain navigated the ship through the floating chunks of glacier and pulled our large ship fairly close to the glacier edge.

The glacier is a tidewater glacier, which means that it empties into the ocean. The mouth is over 6 miles wide. They spun the ship around 360 degrees so that everyone could see. I was out on the bow of the ship. It was cold, and there were tons of people lining the edges. I found a warm air exhaust grill and waited against it to keep warm until the ship spun around and I could see.

When glacier chunks break off at the base it is called calving. It sounds like thunder. I had fun watching for the chunks to break off.

Pulling out, they made an announcement that bears had been spotted on the port bow at the mouth of the bay. We waited 45 minutes in the Solarium (Green house-like space with a pool and lots of fake plants) in deck chairs waiting for it. They spotted something moving and we all crowded at the window to take pictures. The dark spot started moving, and then started doing jumping jacks. It was a crew member dressed in a bear suit and white tennis shoes.

They brought a chunk of ice up to the top deck and I was able to have my picture taken with said bear.

After dinner, we went to the 9:00 Temptations Tribute show. Those guys had so much energy. It was fun.

Alaska Part II - Seward

Friday morning Diane and I set out to see if we could find the Anchorage Temple. We bought bus tokens and rode the bus - or as they call it in Anchorage -- "people movers". We experienced the local flaver in the charectors sitting on the bus. One clearly was not sane. The bus driver helped us get out at the point closest to the temple. He gave us some general directions. We ran up a frontage road and couldn't find it. No one we asked knew what we were talking about. We ended up having to call a cab at a Walgreens and getting a $30 ride back to the hotel. We arrived at precisely the time we needed to board the buses in front of the hotel.

Here is a cropped image I took from the far side of the bus as we drove by it on the highway out of town. We needed to walk 3 more blocks south to have reached it.

We drove up the Turnagain Arm. The tide was running out.

We saw a bald eagle on the side of the road.

The area experienced a very large earthquake. The sea water wave brought sea water to shore and killed trees and knocked down houses.

At the rest stop I walked down the trail and looked for fossils in the shale at the road cut.

The boat was docked at Seward, AL. We boarded the boat at about 1pm and walked around. We found a hot dog stand on the 11th deck and ate hot dogs and drank hot chocolate with the Myers and their daughter and son-in-law. We found out that Diane and the Myers served in the same misison -- Palmyra New York. We looked at an impressive coal conveyor that loaded low-grade coal on boats. It gets shipped to China. They had an emergency drill where we all lined up outside. Can you find Elvis in the front row?

We ate dinner in the Cascade dining room. There is a water feature with a grand piano at the grand stair (see above). There were 12 people at our table. I had a tasty sea bass dinner.

After dinner I explored the ship. I shot a few baskets on the court at the top of the ship. The boat pulled out of the harbour at dusk. The boat was very calm. I didn't get sea sick.

Alaska Part I - Anchorage

Welcome to my journal entry for my Alaska trip. I put in a crazy 7 hours of work in on Wednesday before my 5pm flight - two big meetings and the Architects from Atlanta in town. I ran home and scrambled to get everything together. I remembered everything except my hooded waterproof jacket. Diane's neighbor was kind enough to give us a ride. We had television on the flight and I watched the Republican presidential candidate debate. We had a 2-hour layover in Seattle. We watched the sunset and a jumbo cargo jet parking.

The flight to Anchorage was over 3 hours. We watched Anne of Green Gables on my IPOD. I brought a splitter so that we could both listen to it. We arrived at 11pm, which is 1am MST. We discovered that only two other people on our flight were on the cruise, and there was no one at the baggage claim to claim us. A kind girl helped us find a hotel shuttle.

Our 14th floor hotel room had a kitchenette and a living room. The hotel had 2 undersized and slow elevators, which made everything interesting. At one point I was jambed in the elevator with 6 Brazillians and their luggage. There were 8 Brazillian couples who were on our same cruise. Our room overlooked the Cook Inlet as well as the airport. We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I found a fun for less person and found out what the plan was.

We did a day tour that took us up two hours north to Talkeetna, Alaska. Our bus driver was also our tour guide. Lawrence was from Georgia and had lived there since March. He knew a lot. Talkeetna is the furthest north I've ever been. At this latitude, only 5 types of trees can grow. The sides of the roads were lined with trees and fireweed. It is a red plant with flowers. When the flowers all go to seed all of the way to the top of the plant, you know you that snow is only a few weeks away. The seeds were at the top and they were awaiting snow at any day.

Our tour guide told us about how muddy rivers are filled with silt and are glacial-fed. Clear waters are spring or run-off fed. Glacial silt is triangular shape. The silt deposits are worse than quicksand, and if you get stuck, you can't be pulled out without a special air pump. U-shaped valleys are carved by glaciers. V-shaped valleys are carved by rivers. Any jagged peaks are above the elevation of glaciers, which round off all the rocks they pass over.

We passed the city that sells the most duct tape in the world, and Sarah Palin's home town - Wasilla.

At Talkeetna we took a river boat cruise. The boats docked next to the railroad tracks. The Alaska passenger train passed by while we were waiting.


One of the most direct routes to Nome is via the railroad.


On the river we could see Mt McKinley (Denali), as it poked its head through the clouds for only about 15 minutes. It is so large and magestic. It took my breath away. One can't look at that mountain and doubt that there is a God, who created it. The base of the mountain is at 2,000 feet above sea level, and the peak is at 23,200 ft. When people climb it, they drop them off at the glacier fields at 7-10,000 ft.

Midway on the river cruise, we went on a nature walk. Our "naturalist" carried a shot gun in case we ran into bears. She showed us replicas of a typical Inuit hunting camp, as well as a fur trapper cabin.

Dog sled at the fur trapper cabin.

We stopped at the Iditarod Headquarters. The symbolic start of the race is Anchorage -- where people put in bids to get a ride on the dog sleds as they pass through town. The real start is at the train station in Wasilla. The headquarters is also in Wasilla. We watched a film on the race at the visitors center.


These energetic dogs gave everyone a ride around a trail in a cart on wheels. I have video but will spare you.


There are fewer roads in Alaska than in the city of Los Angeles. Our guide explained that everyone gets around on ATVs. You can see in the picture above that just about everywhere a walking path, then dirt ATV trail parallel most roads.

Returning from our trip, we saw a moose at the intersection. The military base had moose gates to let them come and go freely through their base.

Sunset shot from our hotel room. The snow on the mountains is fresh snow.