Alaska Journey - Part II 

On to Anchorage

After our great time at Denali National Park, we again boarded the McKinley Express.  It was a long trek, but the cars are comfortable with great food service, and of course scenery.  You just leave some mountains and think that is it, and another range crops up in the distance.  It was interesting to see the changes in types of foliage from Denali as we descended toward near sea level.  Denali is on the west northeast side of the Alaska Range…higher and colder.   We received periodic updates about the scenery and this history of the people.  One comment rang true “People are part of the Alaskan story!”



 

Great scenery in every direction most of the way to Anchorage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wasilla, Alaska, north of Anchorage, is home to Sarah Palin, where she was mayor before becoming governor.

 

 

Anchorage with Cook Inlet in the background.

 

July 7 – Cruise Train to Seward

The next train ride from Anchorage to Seward was on what is call the Cruise Train.  It is not the McKinley Explorer owned by Holland America.  These are tourist cars owned and pulled by Alaskan Railway.  H-A pays for the service.  They had nice large windows, but not the big second level dome like the first two days.  Our waiter was an H-A employee.  This portion of the trip was non-stop mountains with a lot of great scenery inaccessible only by train.  For a time it follows the Cook Inlet Arm at sea level on down the Kenai Peninsula.  The Kenai Mountain Range mountains are 3,000 to 4,000 feet high, which seems large quickly rising from sea level.

 

If I were to go back, I would like to fly to Anchorage and rent a car and visit a lot of the sites on this peninsula. 

 

 

We were alerted to keep an eye out for wild life.  We did see a couple moose.  Bears are in this area.  In fact 92% of all US bears are in Alaska.

The Alaskan Railway is the last “white flag railway” in the US, people who live close to the tracks can hold up a white flag and the train will stop for them.  They are charged for the distance they plan to go.  It is often their only way to town.

 



Great view along the Cook Inlet.  It was a cloudy day, put the clouds provided for dramatic photography.

 

 

 

The huge 1964 earthquake near Anchorage brought in a massive tidal wave which poured a lot of saltwater into low lying areas.  The standing sea water killed out many of the trees.  These trees in a “ghost forest” can be seen in many areas 49 years later.

 

Bartlett's Glacier

After this glorious scenery, we pulled into Seward, which is on the Gulf of Alaska, where the cruise ship sails from.  Much to our surprise, the train pulls up within about 30 yards of the ship, so we had a short walk to pull our luggage and begin processing into the Holland-America  ms Statendam.

C R U I S E

We left Seward at about 8 p.m.  Three days of trains from Fairbanks and all the scenery, knowledge acquisition and activities was so great.  We totally recommend that you add a 4-6 day mainland tour to find out about the “real” Alaska.

Now we put that behind and were excited about being on the cruise.  Our first and only cruise had been seven years earlier on Royal Caribbean, which was such a delight.  This ship, the Statendam was smaller, but still plenty big.  It’s hard to compare.  There was nothing disappointing to speak of other than noise above our cabin for about 30 minutes several nights when they were cleaning the kitchen or some part of the restaurant above us!  Oh…and a couple nights we were awakened by various vibration noises when the ship was going against small waves or at a slow speed.  It was annoying and the staff checked it out but couldn’t do much.  The ship is 20 years sold, so it has logged a lot of hours.  The ship’s capacity is 1260 and I believe we had about 1150 on board.

 

Cruising can offer so much, it can be overwhelming.  Much is included, but other things cost extra such as massages and spa time.  The off shore activities are added costs unless you just are walking around the town.  But there are plenty of other things for free, including quality entertainment each evening in the auditorium.  There are games going on in the various bars such as Trivial Pursuit.  And of course each ship has a casino. 

They have plenty of shopping as well…it’s good to watch for sale days; they announce these in your morning program delivered to your room. Prices are not bad.  It’s a good feeling when you know you don’t need or want much.  We felt no need for “trinkets.”  I did buy a nice reversible mid-weight jacket on sale for $59.

 

With two nights and a day at sea, we had time to get acclimated to the ship.  One nice free offering that I took advantage of was a classroom called Digital Workshop run by a Microsoft employee to teach various aspects of their products.  Each day they had some different sessions of interest.  I went to the digital photo editing and photo organization sessions. 

 

Kathy took a tour of the ship’s kitchen which was fascinating.  See photos below.

 

 

Excellent food is a given on these cruise.  Each night we had an extensive menu of items to pick from.  There was also the cafeteria you could go to if you did not want to go into the dining room.  We chose the dining room most of the time (for dinner) and had open seating which meant we might be seated by ourselves or another table.  We met several interesting people that way.

 

 

 

 

Dress up night!

 



 

Glacier Bay National Park

 

After the long journey at sea, the ship began the trip up Glacier Bay, which is a National Park that many people don’t know about.  It is accessible only by boat or plane.  Members of the National Park Service boarded our vessel and gave talks along the way.  It is fascinating for many reasons including the fact it is relative a newborn land. 

Glacier Bay is a product of the Little Ice Age which reached it maximum extent about 1750. In the 1600s, much of the area was glacier free.  By 1750 a huge glacier  more than 100 miles long and several thousand feet deep covered the whole area that we were seeing then quickly retreated nearly 65 miles by 1880.  More has retreated today, although it was pointed out that others are advancing.

The area was home to the Huna Tlingit people who had to move relatively quickly as the glacier grew.  Now, scientists are studying findings beneath the water and along the shore that give hints about this tribe prior to the glacial push.  The Tlingit returned eventually and are enjoying a modern life, while also embracing their homeland.

One of the speakers referred to this land as the “Geography of Hope.”      

The ship made its way to the north end of the bay where we stopped for over an hour to get closeup views of Margerie Glacier.  This was so fascinating.  For many, getting so close to these glaciers is the highlight of the trip.

It was though you could almost touch the ice.  You can see in the photos that some of the ice appears blue.  That is because the ice (which is not really ice, but heavily compacted snow), does not absorb the color blue, but rather reflects it back; hence, our eyes see the blue color with the white.  Much of gray or black you see in the photos is the debris that is carved out as the glacier pushed down from the mountain.

 

Calving, or large chunks breaking off Margerie Glacier

 

After lengthy glacier viewing, the ship headed south.  It was a great day.  We though it might not be that great due to the low clouds, but actually the guides said it was a better day to see the blueness of the ice.  This was definitely awe inspiring, especially for us flatlanders!

Haines, Alaska – July 10

The ship travels at night back down glacier Bay and around to what is called Lynn Canal and then north to a small town called Haines.   When we opened the drapes we saw sun, something not seen for any length since we got on the boat. This area gets between 200 and 300 inches of snow per year!

 

 

One of the options was to take a small boat up to a larger town – Skagway – but we opted to stay here and take a local site seeing tour.  We took a quick driving tour through what was originally historic Fort Seward, the first US military base in Alaska.  The we arrived at the American Bald Eagle Foundation’s Raptor Center, an interpretive wildlife education center.  We got to see a live feeding of Eagles and learned more about the wildlife of the area.

 

All the live creatures at this center have been injured to the extent they cannot be released into the wild.

We enjoyed the detailed information we learned about the eagles.  We saw a lot of them on our trip.

Merry KissMoose

 

After the visit to the interpretive center, we headed to the oldest working cannery in Alaska, owned and operated by the Haines Packing Company. It was started in 1917.  We saw the processing of crab and salmon  We learned that sockeye and King are the most desired salmon.  The lighter colored Chum salmon are not is good.

 

Beautiful scenery on the way to the cannery (right center).

 

 

Some of the products from Haines Cannery

Sockeye salmon left; Chum salmon right.

 

After the nice tour, we reboarded our ship for our afternoon and overnight sailing

 

 

 

 

July 11 – Juneau – Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Watching

Juneau is the capitol of Alaska, although it is far from the mainland of  the state.  It must be accessed by boat or plane by much of the state.

Our shore excursion for the day included a visit to the Mendenhall Glacier and later a nice whale watching outing with great lunch.

Mendenhall, a few miles north of Juneau, is a retreating glacier.    Alaska’s best known river of ice is part of the Juneau Icefield which exceeds 100 feet of annual snowfall.  It contains a beautiful visitor center, which every year gets a little further from from the glacier as it retreats.  At one time it was 2.5 miles further down the valley in the 1700s when the latest glaciation period began to reverse.

It was not a very nice day (at least then), but we did get good glimpses of the glacier.

 

 

 

From Mendenhall we were transported to scenic Auke Bay where we boarded a water jet-powered catamaran designed for wildlife viewing.

 

 

 

The captain had been alerted to an Orca whale pod siting.  The trip to that spot was beautiful in itself as the lowering clouds lifted and we had many good panoramas of surrounding mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soon we arrived where the small Orca pod (named T-74 group) had been spotted.  This is called a transient group that is not here all the time as opposed to resident pods.  Because of a recognized shape and markings on the dorsal fin of the pod’s leader, whale watchers know which groups these are.  This pod has been seen periodically in this area since 1977.  Transient eat other mammals.  Resident pods do not.

 

 

 

 

 

After spending significant time viewing this pod, we headed back toward Orca Lodge.  We were able to see a bit of a humpback whale (large) which had been named “Sasha.”  Again, the whales can be identified, by markings, this time in shape and notches in its tail.  Sasha travels to this area every year from Hawaii where she spends the winter (not a bad idea!). It takes 30 days for the whale to travel each direction.

 

 

This spot in the bay was close to Orca Lodge where we had a nice salmon lunch.

 

 

 

 

After lunch we took a walk around some of the touristy stores in Juneau near our boat before boarding for our trip south.

The next morning we arrived at Ketchikan.  With steady rains and shore excursions that didn’t interest us that much, we decided to stay on the boat all day.  When cruising that’s always and option and there are usually things to do to keep you occupied, or in this case, sit in a comfy chair and read…or go to the spa for a massage.

Where our ship was docked, we had a nice view of the town, through the rain. 

 

 

 After the overnight cruise, we wound up going through the “inside passage” the next day.  It was a beautiful day in the 70s and was so pleasant to sit out on the back deck and watch the beautiful scenery go by…

 

 

The last night aboard the Statendam was spent repacking for disembarking in Vancouver the next morning.  Our long trip was coming to an end.  No more getting waited on hand and foot!!!

Once we arrived in Vancouver, we could watch from our balcony as the ship was emptied and quickly loaded with tons of food for the next cruise going back north

We stayed at a hotel in central Vancouver prior to our very early flight home the next day, July 15^th.  It was a great tour…lots of information to absorb and scenery to see.  We certainly recommend spending plenty of time on a land tour as well as the cruise.  It’s a fabulous land and probably much different than wherever you have come from. 

 

We can also recommend Holland-America.  We were so impressed with how flawlessly they handled every detail, especially on the land portion of the tour.  People were going in different directions, part of different tours, and moving to different destinations each day.  Their baggage tag system was helpful and the bags were always in our room the next day!