Crusing the Inside Passage
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2008
1
22
Trip End
Jul 30, 2008
Haines - to Prince Rupert , Alaska
Sunday, August 30, 2009
We steamed on, ringed by forest, glaciers and snow-capped peaks. The water was crystal clear, unless it came down from the glaciers. Glacial melt contained silt dumped from the rivers that stream from the melting ice and looked muddy, unlike the characteristic blue tinge of the glaciers themselves. Arriving in Juneau from the ferry, we went straight to the Mendenhall Glacier, very close to Juneau and alive with foreign and domestic visitors. It was an excellent park facility with good information, lectures and films and paths around it for hiking. Some of them were marked "watch out for bears," so we took dead branches and rattled and knocked them together to make noise – surprised bears are more likely to attack, we were told. Of course, we saw not a one. But we did see the two streams that emptied into the glacial lakes as tumbling waterfalls, and shafts of mountain light falling through the forest. The glacier is receding – probably due to global warming – we felt lucky to see it on a beautiful day and accessible to us, and we tried to follow the motto (was it John Muir?): “First, do no harm.”
There are no roads into or out of Juneau, the state capital of Alaska. Everyone and everything arrives there by ship or by airplane. The town itself is a strange mixture of port of call for the cruise ships, complete with shops for the tourists, and government offices and assemblies. On the east end of the island there was a stream that emptied into the ocean over a rocky bed, jammed with salmon trying to go upstream to spawn. The tide was low, the stream was low, and the salmon were fin-to-fin in suspended animation, gathering strength to make an attempt upstream. Periodically, a strong male would go for it – dashing 10 or more feet in a display of strength – then fall back into the crowd. We also drove out 40 miles west on the Glacier Highway to the end of the road, passing glacial streams and walking on deserted sand beaches, listening to the silence.
Returning to the city, we checked the departure of our ferry to Sitka – it was delayed, due to a mechanical fault. So we planned to be at the ferry terminal the next morning at 6am to find the next best plan.
July 30 – 31
Luckily, the experts and parts were flown in and worked through the afternoon and evening, and the ferry left on time on the 30th. It's a high-speed craft, traveling at 34 knots and lifted off the surface of the water when planning. There was no real sense of motion at that speed. We finally had to slow down through the shallow and narrow channels - clearing the markers by feet on both sides - that twisted through the islands to Sitka on the western-most side of the Inside Passage. Fir forests grew down to the water’s edge, with sunlight streaming through them and the occasional eagle. We landed and drove into town to find lunch, stopping at Ludwig’s near the port, but open only for dinner. The chef and/or waitress directed us to a small walkway and courtyard closer to the port where we could have lunch al fresco from the two food wagons positioned there – one of them manned our chef/waitress.
Then we drove back toward the port to find our excellent B&B - An Otter’s Cove – perched on the edge of the ocean, newly built with fabulous facilities, including a fully equipped kitchen, laundry room, BBQ on the patio and a pit for late evening fires. The other guests were a couple from the Carolinas who come every year because she is a fanatical bear-watcher who gave us advice on every aspect of her craft and all the best local places.
John went to the local supermarket to buy fish for dinner and could find only bits of rock cod and a few scallops. He asked at the check-out counter where to buy salmon and other fish, and the locals said: “Buy fish? - we get ours from our friends.” Same experience the next day: we stopped at the fishing company in town, and the clerk gave us a large piece of exquisitely fresh salmon because they don’t sell any at retail. Everybody in town fishes; fish counters don’t exist.
We experienced Russian Alaska on the 31, visiting two Russian churches and the residence of the Bishop. The Russians came to harvest otter furs, which they traded to the Chinese for tea, and they dominated Alaska with power and sophistication. The Bishop’s residence, constructed by Finnish shipwrights, had beautiful wood and a complicated heating system, with excellent insulation, raised doorsteps between the rooms (to stop the circulation of cold air) and huge stoves in each room, some inter-connected, that were the equivalent of central heating. The Russian churches were replete with icons and religious art, and had screens before the altars, creating a private space between the congregation and priests. For the native experience, we went to the Sheldon Museum displaying all the original cultures of Alaska, but especially the Tlingit (pronounce 'Tl’ by putting your tongue to the top of your mouth and blowing air out the sides). These were sophisticated peoples, with defined cultural norms and excellent workmanship in their residences, garments and handicrafts. We saw traditional dances performed by a lively group of young people with gusto: the young woman announcer was clearly out of breath from the effort of dancing in-between her explanations. Then we headed off to Totem Park to see the oldest and largest collection of totem poles in Alaska, set among winding trails in the grandeur of a tall spruce forest interlaced with sunlit paths and sparkling streams. It was the site of the final battle between the Russians and the Tlingit – guess who lost - but is now an exceptional place of natural beauty.
August 1 – 6
Awake at 5am for our 6:45 ferry departure, we threaded our way back through the channels before turning south to Petersburg – but this time low tide that made the channel markers all the more important. It seemed possible at almost every bend that we would run aground, but the captain clearly knew his channel. It was a 13-hour trip by ferry, one stop on the way, so we booked an inside cabin, without windows, but with two bunks, and took turns going sound asleep. While writing this in the forward salon on the ferry from Sitka to Petersburg, we had a whale announcement “on the port side” and saw four or five small whales – probably Orcas, according to my window neighbor. Their signature white markings on the underside of the tail were clearly visible when they dove. Soon we were surrounded by whales in several different pods. (Whales travel in pods; fish travel in schools, but whales are smarter.) Some were Orcas, but there seemed to be two or three other varieties as well. It was hard to count whales when they were diving all around the ferry and coming up on different sides, but we estimated that we saw at least twenty and maybe more.
Arriving at 8pm in Petersburg on the 1st, we found a small town built on the fishing industry, with an extensive natural harbor filled with working boats and the shores lined with fish processing factories. This was a working island, and most of the people were descendents of early Norwegian settlers. There were few tourists, no cultural sights and only one bar; everything was closed on Sunday. That gave us time on Monday to drive through the national park of virgin forests, mountain vistas and spectacular sea scapes. We traveled on gravel roads (hooray for the Jeep!), a circuit that took us around a third of the island without seeing more than two or three other cars. But we came across a school outing on a lake in the interior, which turned out to be children with disabilities enjoying the sunshine and the natural beauty. We also found a blind for viewing trumpeter swans, which migrate to the lake in the spring and seeing the pictures, wished we could return.
We checked our ferry departure Monday and found it delayed – not uncommon, as we had discovered. But we were quite pleased, since that allowed us to arrive in Ketchikan at 5 am, instead of the scheduled 1:15am, and we had booked a cabin on the ferry. Our Super 8 motel gave us early check-in as soon as they could, but it took a while. So we had breakfast and prowled the town. It is built almost completely on steep hills and alongside the river, with wooden boardwalks and hanging bridges connecting the hillsides, and a narrow strip of the present commercial town hugging the harbor. The original settlement was built on stilts over the river, which provided transportation and possibly sanitation at the same time. The old town is now a collection of artsy/tourist shops, connected by the hanging walkways, and the setting is picturesque. Forests and mountains rise up behind it. There is a 14-mile trek from the back of town through the forest to the other side of the mountain, with spectacular views after mile 7. Carol tried a bit of it, while John did some catch-up work (he telecommutes while traveling). A mile or so of steep uphill climbing on a narrow trail in the silent forest was fun; 14 miles – or even 7 – required advance conditioning.
On Wednesday, we went salmon fishing on a well-equipped fishing boat with professional quality rods and reels and a guide who knew his stuff. We were a motley crew: a young father and his 8 year-old daughter; an older man who seemed almost too bent over to hold a rod; John who had never fished before; and Carol who had fished too much when young. But somehow we all managed to hold our own and caught 15 sockeye and 4 pink salmon in less than 4 hours. The rods and reels were state-of-the-art, rigged for trawling. We watched them in their rod-holders mounted on the railing of the boat until we saw a rod bend and then took turns reeling them in. This required a fair amount of strength and lots of guidance from the guide. The little girl had to hide inside the cabin while the guide administered the coup de grace with a nasty-looking metal pike; Carol almost joined her. We split up the catch upon returning to the dock, but the father and daughter contributed theirs to the rest of us. They were on a cruise ship and couldn’t take it with them or have it sent. We sent ours to the French household in San Diego – to arrive cleaned, filleted, frozen and packed in dry ice. Not a bad result for an afternoon’s work, and being on the waters of the Inside Passage had its own rugged charm.
We had dinner and boarded the ferry at 10pm for Prince Rupert, leaving Alaska behind us. We pulled into British Columbia and headed southeast to rejoin Route 5. Towering mountains surrounded us as we drove beside lakes several miles long. We re-entered the US at the same out-of-the-way border crossing east of Vancouver - grateful for the lack of waiting time - and headed south for home.
Comments
About time John learned to fish...
Carol and john,
After personally depleting Alaska of most of its salmon, Gretchen and I were delighted to see that John has finally learned how to fish. Thanks for great pictures. Our scenery of late has been Illinois tollway, Indiana tollway, New York tollway and Mass throughway to Brandeis and return -- so your travels are much more interesting! Where are you going now?
L. Gretchen and Michael