Alaska Cruise - Winding Up

When we left Ketchikan Friday afternoon, the wind was brisk and it soon started to rain. I guess we were lucky that it didn't rain during any of our stops. The weather continued to worsen, the waves got bigger, and they closed the outside decks. That evening was a special Chef's Dinner in the main dining room where the waiters all dressed up as chefs and provided entertainment while serving. The food was excellent as usual.

It got rougher overnight, and I had trouble sleeping. We were rolling side to side, up and down, and occasionally there was a shudder as we hit a wave wrong. It wasn't scary, but it was uncomfortable. I peeked out very early Saturday morning and saw what I think was part of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

The very rough seas and headwind delayed us quite a bit. We were 2 hours late docking in Victoria and so all the shore excursions were cancelled. Mom and I hadn't booked any, anyway, but I had thought I might go over to the downtown part of Victoria and walk around. But where we docked was quite a distance aways, so since there wasn't as much time, I stayed on board.

Really, the whole trip was wonderful. The ship was beautiful, with art everywhere. Even these metal elevator doors, which could be a great quilt design.

The food was really good and there was always something new and different on offer.

The crew was friendly and helpful, and left little surprises for us in the evenings. :)

Mom says hello to her new pet.

This one really startled me when we came back to the room.\

We saw lots of real wildlife as well, although I didn't always get pictures. Whales and puffins headed to Glacier Bay, eagles in every town (including at least 20 in a single tree in Sitka). For other more exotic species, you really need to take water excursions out of the towns. Maybe next time.

Alaska Cruise - Ketchikan

Our third port was Ketchikan. We pulled in early the morning of June 11th, I believe we were supposed to be docked by 7 am. Like all Alaska 'cities', it's pretty small, but spread out along the channel as it gets too steep to build very quickly away from the water. Floatplanes are also much in evidence, and we passed several floatplane bases like this one.

Parts of the town also have a distinctly semi-industrial feel, as fish-packing is still a big industry. It was cloudy and windy.

We took a tour out to Totem Bight State Park. During the Depression, the Forest Service used CCC money to hire Native carvers to reproduce many old totem poles from abandoned Native villages. This helped preserve the culture, and helped train younger carvers.

They also built a replica clan house, using the same materials and methods.

More Ketchikan photos here.

Alaska Cruise - Sitka

We arrived in Sitka the morning of June 10th. Sitka doesn't have large piers for cruise ships, so the few that do visit have to anchor further out, and passengers have to take a tender ashore. This is one of the tender/lifeboats. It looks small, but they fit a lot of people inside. While eating lunch aboard in Juneau, we watched a small crew practice maneuvers in one of these. One person would throw a life ring out, and then with one person in the bow giving directions to the person 'driving', a third crew member would try to fish out the life ring with a long pole. It sometimes took several attempts.

Anyway, Mom and I went ashore, and boarded an old school bus for our tour. There were some loops around the town to show us typical houses (and use up time, I think), and we had 3 main stops. The first was St. Michael's Cathedral. This Russian Orthodox church was originally built by Sitka's Russian settlers. It burned down, but was rebuilt from the original blueprints. I don't think there are many, if any, Russians still in town except for the priest here, but they capitalize on the Russian heritage as that makes them stand out from the other southeast Alaskan towns.

The icons and other ornamental work inside the church are mostly original and were saved from the fire by the townspeople.

We also visited the Sheldon Jackson Museum. He was a missionary who also collected a lot of native artifacts during his time in Alaska. This was a fairly small museum, one large room, but packed with interesting objects, including several kayaks (umiaks/canoes).

There was also a performance by the New Archangel Dancers, a Russian folk dance troupe. Although none of the women members are Russian, they focus on Russian dance to honor the heritage of their town. They normally perform in a community hall, but the day we were there, there was some kind of fishing conference going on and so the performance was in a local gym instead.

More of my Sitka pictures are here.

Alaska Cruise - Juneau

After leaving Glacier Bay, we sailed through the night and woke up in Juneau. The first thing we did there was to take a tour out to the Mendenhall Glacier. This is carving out a freshwater lake as it retreats, Mendenhall Lake. Contributing to the decay of the glacier is a river running under it and breaking through at the bottom right hand corner. There are other tributaries to the lake as well. This picture is from a photo lookout point a short distance from the visitor center.

A close up of the glacier face, showing the characteristic blue colors and the waterfalls.

Our next stop was Glacier Gardens, site of a large mudslide in the 80s. The mud covered the highway below, and when crews pushed it all back up the hill, it must have been quite a mess until a local landscaper bought the property to expand his nursery business. Along with that, he restored and shored up the habitat along a stream, and eventually built trails up the hill to the edge of the Tongass National Forest and a walkway/lookout. The tour here starts with lush gardens very similar to the Pacific Northwest, then a description of these 'flower towers' - some of the trees uprooted by the mudslide were repurposed by planting them upside down in the muck, and using the roots to support moss in the manner of hanging baskets. They were profusely planted with petunias, and served as great nesting sites for small birds as well. We were also taken up the trail in golf carts, heard about the native flora of the Tongass, and got great views from the top.

The last thing we did in Juneau was to take the Mt. Roberts Tramway to the top, for more great views and a short movie about the local Tlingit tribes. This photo is looking up from the top of the tram. We were told to look for their bear - do you see him in the rock? He appears to be chasing a bird, or maybe it's the paraglider soaring over the bird rock formation.

More of my Juneau pictures are here.

Alaska Cruise - Glacier Bay

On Tuesday, June 8th, we spent the day cruising in Glacier Bay.This map, if you click on it to get a bigger version (and if it's clear enough), shows the main features of the Bay. As we went by the park headquarters at Bartlett Cove, we picked up some rangers and guides who gave talks and live commentary.

The lower part of the bay was a home to Tlingit Indians up until the late 1600s. But sometime between then and 1750, the main glacer rapidly advanced all the way to Icy Strait, pushing them out. By the end of the 1700s it had retreated about 5 miles, but had gouged out the bay so it was uninhabitable. The main glacier has now retreated a total of about 65 miles. We had a long way to go before we saw any glaciers, but there were plenty of rugged, snow-capped mountains to look at, and it was a partly sunny but hazy day.

Finally, a glacier! I believe this one is the Reid Glacier as it was a little ways down an inlet, and we didn't get too close.

This is the Marjerie Glacier, the biggest one we saw and perhaps the most active, as it was calving. It was also possible to get quite close to it, and we spent almost an hour slow cruising with it on the port side, then turned around and spent more time with it on the starboard side.

I put many more pictures of Glacier Bay in a Picasa album here.

Alaska Cruise - Leaving Seattle

Last week, my mom and I took a cruise to Alaska. Neither of us had ever cruised before, and I had never been to Alaska, while Mom had been to Anchorage and Denali years ago, but never to southeast Alaska. It was a great trip! We left Seattle on Sunday evening on the ms Oosterdam. It was too cloudy to see much, and the next day was much the same - plus we were out of sight of land anyway. I got a new camera just before the trip. The pictures seem good, but between the clouds, facing into the sun when it was out, and not knowing how to use anything but the automatic setting, many seem a bit over-exposed. So I will be doing a little bit of adjusting before I post them.

We had a verandah cabin, which gave us good views without contending for a seat in crowded public areas. It was worth the little bit extra for the upgrade. We went to Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. I found quilt shops close by in each port, and bought fabric in each, so later I should be able to make a memory quilt.