Alaska - Cruise Diary Glacier Bay and Skagway

Monday. Today was another cruising day (no ports to stop) as we went into Glacier Bay for several hours to the end where Margerie Glacier lies. The National Park Service rangers climbed aboard this morning via a small boat transfer and set up on deck to talk to people, answer questions and provide a commentary as the ship sailed into the bay.

Margerie Glacier was huge. The maps show how far out it was back in 1892 and how it has receded over the years to where it is now. The glacier face is now 1 mile wide, 80 m high and goes about 30m below sea level. The ship stopped at the end and parked for an hour or so everyone could walk about to take photos and get some fresh air. It was cold but not raining thankfully. Photos never do these things justice but we tried. We were lucky to see some ‘calving’ which is where the ice breaks away like a little avalanche. This happened several times but I was not lucky enough to capture on video. You could hear the groaning and cracking of the glacier though which was awesome but eerie too. They say the glaciers move 5 feet a day here so calving is regular. There are seven glaciers in this massive bay with the Margerie Glacier being one of the most photographed features in Alaska and one of the most active faces.

We didn’t see any bears, moose or whales but fingers crossed they will come later in the week on our land tours – we did see moose in Anchorage though which was very exciting. We’ve met more people during our deck travels and notice quite a lot of Australian accents getting around. It seems quite strange now to hear it frequently but also comforting and homely. We even heard and old lady say ‘stunned mullet’ and we giggled to ourselves. Another talked about doing a ‘cooee’ and there has been lots of ‘no worries’. We also get Sky news on the TV and can see some Australian news and politics. They have little sachets of vegemite at breakfast so to our friend DunnyBum back in DC, we will bring some little packets home for you to sample.

 I had a terrible sleep last night as it was quite rough on the open sea. The ship was rocking and rolling and I was curled up in bed shitting myself as I would on a turbulent plane flight. I just get scared and I wish I didn’t. I was awake for hours and hours, only dozing in patches. I know it wasn’t really ‘that’ rough but for me, it was rough enough. I checked the bridge cam data on the television and the crosswind was about 50 knots. I can hear you ol’ Navy whites scoffing but I wore a blue uniform, not sailor whites.

Deb has the signs of a sore throat – lets hope it doesn’t lead to anything serious. There are lots of coughing passengers around so it’s a bit of germ shell aboard. They are BIG on washing hands before dinner (mandatory) and around the ship in order to minimize spreading germs. The next three days are port stops and we have a tour in each port. We are very excited about tomorrow as we are doing a dog mushing tour and get to play with the sled dogs.

Tuesday. Wow, what a great day. The ship docked early into Skagway around 5am (anything before 8am is outrageously early by my standards these days), so by the time I woke up I could see the pier and dock rock wall from our balcony. We shared the port with 3 other ships. Deb has woken up feeling worse and sick with a crappy cold as expected so she slept in a little while I went to the gym and hit the treadmill – trying to not get behind in my marathon training. I did note several of my elder passenger folk were walking their calories off too so I was not alone. I was running facing the town of Skagway (pop around 1000) and it looked lovely in the morning light and it was a good weather day ahead.

Skagway was very interesting because of its gold rush days back in 1896-1899. It is located in the Klondike Gold Rush National Park which includes the Chilkoot and White Pass trails. Skagway and nearby Dyea were the entrance points to these trails which stampeders would traverse up to the Yukon in search of gold. We watched a short movie at the National Park visitor center on the Gold Rush and it was frightening to hear what the town was like and how treacherous the Chilkoot and White Pass trails were. These trails were around 30-40 miles long but over extremely steep and narrow terrain and snow, well you can imagine how bad the snow was up here. Look at the photo to see the steep steps carved into the snow/ice. That picture of the anthill of people climbing the steep traverse is etched in my memory. They had to climb it about 40 times to get all their food and supplies to the top (mandatory to have 1 years supply of food to continue on the trail). Anyway, many did not make it to the Yukon and many died. And those that did make it, found the gold rush was over long ago. The gold rush stampede only last a few years but it was one of the most dangerous to say the least. There is now a railway that connects Skagway to Whitehorse, over the White Pass trail and it would have been nice to do this train ride today but time was against us as always.

Skagway was full of jewellery, mineral and souvenier shops. We headed straight to the Red Onion Saloon as our friend JG suggested we do the ‘ladies of the night’ tour. JG is well travelled and known for her good food, coffee and tourist tips. So, we had to do it. The Saloon was chockers (Aust for full) but they were enjoying food and drink. The 20 minute tour is called the ‘quickie’ and the madam met us at the top of the stairs to tour upstairs where the original rooms were. She was excellent, very witty and added many dirty little jibes in her commentary. It was an interesting ‘quickie’ and always saddens me that women resort to this work in order to survive which was the case for these women back in that day. The madam said that the girls could earn $60 a night/week but if they had traditional cleaning/cooking jobs, they would only earn up to $5-10 a day (or week, can’t be sure now) if they were lucky.  So understandably many women worked in the brothel. At the end of the ‘quickie’ I gave the madam a tip. She commented on where to put the $$ and Deb hadn’t noticed the $1 bills tucked around her boobs – of course I had noticed as soon as we started !!  Naturally, she was happy for my tip and happy to get a cheeky photo with me. Thanks JG, this was a good tour and certainly something different.

We were very excited for our afternoon tour which was to visit the sled dog mushing kennels – this is actually a summer time training facility for the dogs to keep them fit in preparation for winter racing. We took a drive out of town and up the mountains to the dog kennels. After that it was a mog ride (big 4WD with a back) up to the sled ride track and mushers camp. Being summer time the sled ride was on wheels in the forest. There were about 4 sled teams and about 15 dogs per sled. They were barking with excitement when we arrived and did not stop barking until we got moving. Cricket would do well here I think as he is like this before we go for a walk. The dogs were incredible to say the least. Their tails were wagging and they just pulled us along with such great strength. 

 

At the end of the ride we got to pat the dogs which was really nice. We met several dog mushers (people who drive the sleds) and they absolutely love their dogs – mushing is a very popular pastime for Alaskans. They told us about the iconic Iditarod Race ‘the last great race’. The race is 1100 miles from Anchorage to Nome and the more recent Yukon Quest which is 1000 miles and considered more tougher and run up around Fairbanks. The history to the Iditarod is that Joe Redington bought a homestead not far off the Iditarod Trail which was an old dogsled route from Seward to Nome. He was fascinated by the trail and the famous ‘serum run’ that saved the town of Nome from diphtheria in 1925 when mushers used the trail to transport medical supplies across Alaska. 

Redington was worried snow mobiles might replace sled dogs so he proposed the sled race along the trail. The first race was in 1973 and the rest is history. It takes about 8 days now to finish the race and they race at night, sleep in the day. The dogs run better in colder weather at night. They run about 8 mph and the musher said his job is to hold them back to manage their endurance ability. Else they would run super fast and not make the distance. I read a bit about the people f’or and against’ the race and dog practices used by mushers and owners. I understand there would be debate. The mushers we saw today showed genuine great love for their dogs and I can only hope the sport is not like greyhound racing. We totally enjoyed seeing the dogs today and I would love to see the Iditarod Race one day – it just sounds amazing and the brief stories we heard today were very exciting to say the least.

The last thing we did was meet some puppies and they were totally gorgeous. We got to pat and cuddle them. They encourage the puppies to socialize with people so they are well prepared for their racing days ahead. This tour was amazing and I don’t think a trip to Alaska is complete without seeing these wonderful animals.

The ship sailed about 8.30 pm and we are headed to another port tomorrow. I’m writing my blog diary each day so I can remember as much as possible from our daily adventures. I’m sitting here watching the coastline slip by as we head out to sea and listening to the elephant upstairs stomp back and forth 40 times across the room. I still don’t understand the constant back and forth stomping. We have another great day in store for tomorrow with a helicopter ride to the glaciers.  

There were so many dog photos to choose from but hopefully this is a nice selection to make all you dog lovers go naaawwwww !!!!!

 

Alaska - Cruise Diary Hubbard Glacier

 Saturday. The day finally arrived to join the cruise ship, Golden Princess (of Princess Cruises). The cruise is 7 days and will take us down to Vancouver in Canada passing through Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan ports in Alaska. I was surprised that Anchorage was not too busy with tourists given the ship carries about 3000 people. I later found out that the ship had come from Tokyo so many people were already on board transiting and only a small number like us were joining for the Alaskan journey. I’ve only been on one cruise as a kid with my family and Deb has never been on a cruise so she was quite excited. The bus transfer to the ship was about a 2 hour journey from Anchorage to a small town called Whittier where the ship was docked. The weather was crap to say the least. Cold, windy and wet was the order of the day so we were glad to finally board the ship mid afternoon. The crew and passengers were a very diverse bunch of people from all corners of the globe. We noticed pretty quickly that cruising is an older person’s sport as were feeling quite young amongst the passengers. We also lacked a walking aid of some sort as there was a big collection of walking sticks, scooters and wheel chairs getting around. When we got off the bus there were two lines to queue in – elite level passengers and ‘the others’. We were in ‘the others’ and the whole bus except 4 of us, went into the elite level passengers because they have done multiple cruises – like I said, cruising is an old person’s sport. Wow, we were feeling very inexperienced. The conversation and chatter amongst the elders is all about how many cruises they have done and where they’ve been. These folks know all the routines of cruising.

 

Our cabin was quite comfortable and we had our own balcony. Deb was getting more excited as she read all the information, logged onto the ship wi-fi and started planning her daily adventures. There are so many activities to keep everyone busy. We checked out the spa and fitness area and I might be being presumptuous, but I’m not sure the treadmills will be too popular. We checked out the running track outside on deck 7 but the freezing weather is not conducive to using that. We spent time exploring the ship and trying to work out front from back (or forward from aft as they say). We have an elephant in the cabin above us. I can’t understand how people walk so heavy and tend to run from one side of the cabin to the other about 50 times. What the fuck do people do? We finally closed our curtains around 10pm and it was still light outside so the days are going to be very long it seems.

Sunday. We woke to find the same weather as yesterday…cold, wet and windy. This day was cruising all day downwards to the Yakuta Bay where Hubbard glacier awaited us. It was a rock n roll cruise for the day due to the bad weather but it was ok thankfully. Breakfast was nice, a challenge to not overdose on calories. The food on board is plentiful. We have stuck to the buffet at the moment as we are too lazy to put on good pants to go the dining room. We are in heaven as they have Australian bacon and custard. I went to an acupuncture presentation this morning and Deb went to some photography talk.

Hubbard Glacier – man it’s huge and photos do not do it justice. According to Lonely Planet, this is the longest tidewater glacier in the world. From what I can understand, the glacier was 76 mile wide in the 80s and has receded and surged over the years and is now 8 mile wide. It is Alaska’s most active glacier. It was overcast which did not allow the full colours to show but it was huge and the ship did a few 360 spins to allow everyone plenty of time to look at it and take photos. There were lots of ice blocks in the water and I was having Titanic fears but we were quite safe it seems.  

Not much else to see today but I ended up getting some acupuncture for my shoulder. So far so good. We’ve spoken to a few people around the place as they’ve been lost or being friendly passengers. I am waiting for bingo to be scheduled as I’m keen to relive my younger years when my mum would call bingo numbers for a local fundraising organisation and my sister who was a legend at scanning sheets of tickets quicker than I could say lickity-split !!

And it's never too cold for ice cream !!

Alaska - Anchorage

We always planned to travel to Alaska in our third year and here we are. It was a 5am start from DC and 10 hours of flying through Seattle to arrive in Anchorage. The views coming in were gorgeous and a sign of wonderful things to come. Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska with a population of about 300,000 and the total Alaskan population is 735,000. Alaska was the 49^th state to join the US back in 1959 and is the biggest US state by far. Anchorage has really wide roads and is quite spread out, it’s like a huge country town. I have to say, the people have been the most friendly and helpful of all our US travels to date.

We arrived late afternoon quite tired after the long day of travel and had an early night. It was daylight until at least 9pm so we didn’t know how long the daylight lasted until the first night of the cruise (read that later). I had heard there isn’t much to do in Anchorage and most people say to go to Denali National Park which is about 4 hours drive north. However, we only had one full day to explore and Denali wasn’t feasible and we were literally on the start of the summer season so some tours and roads were not even open just yet.

We filled our day with a 1 hour trolley tour around the city and this was good for $20. It was run by young people and had a great feel about it. Some interesting points of note are that an earthquake of 9.2 on the richter scale hit Anchorage in 1964 and is the 2^nd biggest earthquake in the world behind Chile I think. It was Good Friday apparently and only one person died. Likely to have been worse if not a public holiday. Anchorage was founded by our Aussie founder Captain James Cook back in 1779 and there is nice statue of him near the water. A similar one exists in  Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne if ever you’ve been there. Interesting history of the railroad being built, gold rush days and of course oil is big source of its economic success behind tourism.

 

We went past a huge airfield called Merrill Field which is the biggest small plane airfield in the US. It was full of small planes and with 75% of the state inaccessible by road, a lot of people have pilots licenses to get around. Our tour guide said that many kids around 15 years old fly planes to school and they don’t have licenses.

In the afternoon we joined a small tour that drove out of town to the Turnagain Arm beside the water. It was a good tour where we got to see eagles soaring, fishermen on the waters edge hunting hooligan fish, beautiful snow capped mountains and drink some fresh glacier water. The highlight of the tour was visiting the Wildlife Conservation Centre which is home to many wildlife that have been injured and brought here to recover and often live out their days. We saw black and brown bears up close feeding, wolves and moose. Fantastic to see these wonderful animals. It is not a zoo and these animals have wide natural habitats to roam around and are well cared for. The last part of the tour took us to see some glaciers up on the mountains which were quite pretty and we can’t wait to see the glaciers on the cruise.

 

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Simon and Seaforts and I indulged in a nice clam chowder followed by a seafood salad platter with some Alaskan crab on the side. My sister is the crab queen and she said it was nice crab to eat but nothing beats our mudcrabs at home. I enjoyed the meal as I don’t get to eat fresh seafood very often.