Inside Passage

COLUMBIA FERRY

“Industrial, functional, slow.” Those were some of the better words I associated with ferry. How I came to characterize the Alaskan Marine Highway (ferry) is magical. The Columbia was our Ferry from Juneau down to Bellingham. Indeed, everything was less carnival and more functional than a cruise ship. What I appreciated was less canned distraction and more time for admiring the sites. The ferry schedule found us on the water more and in tourist ports less. If you want to shop for souvenirs then you want the cruise ship!

Wending our way between islands going out to Sitka must be one of the best sightseeing waterways in the world. It helped that clement weather prevailed, that is, no fog! The famous Inside Passage is what it sounds like. Islands protect calm, narrow passages between the Pacific Ocean and the North American continent. That makes for superior sightseeing on both sides of the ship. Especially the northern half of the IP reveals grand vistas of forested hills and mountains. Even better, there are no roads, lights, buildings or cell towers in evidence. This seems the way the earth was made to be. Sitting up front in the ship makes for a grand, moving view at the slow pace of the large ship. Even so, I felt it was going by too fast. I wanted more time to absorb all there was to see. I felt tempted to take the ferry back up to Alaska.

Humpback whales abound in the IP. Each new siting had us on the edge of our chairs. Fins broke the water, long backs raised up into view. Breaking flukes signaled each new dive. We counted whales until we lost track there were so many. Perhaps 100 or more. Carole talked with a citizen from a cruise ship plying the same waters. “What whales?” she asked. Must have been dancing in the disco, running on the treadmill or who knows.
Cruise Ships in Juneau


Inside Passage Shots

The other critter I wanted to see on this trip put in an appearance as we nearedthe south end of the IP. A small pod of Orcas frolicked in the channel and largely ignored our ship. Certainly, this is not SeaWorld, free Orcas do what they want!
Sitka Bay

In Ketchican we saw the now famous “Bridge to No Where” site. In the photo with the small ferry the bridge would be about there. The idea was to connect the small island where the Ketchican Airport is sited with the town. So Sarah Palin’s lobbying for the bridge was for a purpose. I suppose the cost far outweighed the benefits and would have put the ferry out of business. So much for Joe (wink!) Ferry!

Bridge to No Where location

Ketchikan

Once in Washington State we made our way to Seattle’s airport so we could fly back to Alaska! Why not bring the RV rig along? At nearly 50 feet, the cost was greater than the benefit we decided. We would be trundling back over the roads to the Lower 48. When we arrived back in Palmer where we picked up the trailer we discussed our options and decided the cold summer Alaska weather was enough and we started home ahead of schedule.

The photographer within

What will you will see in the pictures? I participate still in the moment. I feel so very priveleged for the opportunity to shoot in this present while desiring to step back in time for more pristine views. I doubt it will be this way, this good again. I wanted to share this experience and at the same time to organize for myself. Such irony, as I hate travel guides and many travelogues myself.

My photo I brought back helps remind me. I photograph to focus and think about what is. My goal to see, rather than look, is present even while the camera mediates the moment between me and the scene.Through the lens I might enter the moment and place in a new way. It’s a technology that allows me to be casual about the details and absorbing for myself what is real since I walk away with a memory on a chip. These are the two edges of the photographic sword, giving and taking

I sort, delete, edit and reconnect with the place and the moment. Sometimes I notice something missed in the moment: An eagle in the sky, a cloud glow, a smile that I might have mirrored more fully just then. I ache for the sense of being there again, and nearly touch it. Maybe that is what I am seeing, what I am trying to touch. Looking at a friend’s pictures, this may be what is missing, why its often so hard to touch the moment and gravity of what was.

So many of these places could absorb a lifetime of viewing without giving up their entirety. I imagine the seasons and wonder about the fall of turning colors, the falling fresh snow of winter, the break up in spring, the glow of the aurora borealis in the artic night. I fail to comprehend the effects. I realize I passed through a traveler and left yearning for the fullness of time in the path left behind.

At home once more, I absorb and consider the light coming and going on these mountains, on those islands and upon the channel out my window and from my home. The smiles of family, friends and community are alive and available. The fullness of life is with us all if we open ourselves to it and I found traveling and changing the sights has the advantage of prying open that window again to allow me more fullness. Its is a privelege.

Age of Work

Seward

Seward, gets my vote for most improved town in Alaska! Gone is the smelly little village of fish canneries. Twenty years ago it was a dingy town full of summer student-workers living in tents in the mud. Storefronts were old, and gray. When we discussed going there this year, I was ready to give it a miss.

Today, the town makes me feel my memories might belong to another village in a galaxy far, far away. Even in the overcast weather, Seward seemed bright and vibrant. This is a town that has cleaned up well and presents itself as tourist friendly. Storefronts seem to serve the local economy and interest tourists. Waterfront access today is easy and approachable, not muddy and slimy. The aquarium/learning center provides a quick preview of Alaskan waters and ecology with great displays. Videos on the devastating 1964 earthquake/tsunami provide great insight into the value of preparation and regeneration.

I had hoped to see a couple of new creatures on this trip. Puffins were number one on my list. The other was orcas. I saw puffins in the aquarium. That was good, but caged creatures? Its easy, its interesting, but somehow still wrong. So on our boat tour to Fjords National Park I was on high puffin alert. The naturalist answered my puffin question with, “no question we’ll see puffin. We always see ‘em out there.” Yahoo! puffins coming up. On the way we saw the glacier, whales, eagles etc. The best was the puffins we saw on the cliffs from the Fjordland. My photos show little guys that are much more exciting to me than being five feet away from the aquarium puffins. We also saw Murres and lots of other sea birds. (You will likely need to click this photos to get them large enough to see what they are!)





Best of all on that tour was seeing the puffins flying like footballs with wings. I had the video camera and got a shot of those fast fluttering short wings and that was my high point on that cold weather day. Maybe I'll get the video posted here eventually.

Flukes from the hump back whales wave goodbye as they plunged in a sound. Two eagles fit close and personal in one photo shot off the bow of the boat. I was cold, cold, cold standing out on the deck.
Then there are the glaciers. Exit Glacier is the only part of the FNP one can drive to. It’s the tip of the ….ice field. What’s over the crest and out of sight is a huge ice field driving the glacier down like frosting hanging over a cake ledge. The glacier we expected to approach quite closely was blocked by a huge wall of ice. Only kayaks go beyond that wall back to watch the calving action up close. Plenty of ice flow in the waters to make it look like we fell in a giant cocktail glass.

My final opinion: If you have only a brief time for the Kenai Peninsula while in Alaska, make sure Seward is on your list.

Boats in Alaska/Yukon

Alaska is a Mecca for paddling. Here the Inuit and Inupiat developed kayaks using skins, bones and driftwood along with double-ended paddles. These personal, form-fitting little boats are ideal for cold water fishing, whaling and hunting. The museums proudly display authentic, historical kayaks I studied for their elegant lines and use of highly skilled sewing and assembling. Sewing was indeed the early high tech that made artic and sub-artic life possible. Traditional kayak skills and materials are still in sporadic production of these boats.

The Tlingkit dugout is a sleek beauty and the picture here of a fiberglass racing reproduction is testimony to the timeless heritage of this design. Its difficult not to find harmony with the Tlingkit art whether functional like these boats or ceremonial and decorative.


French voyagers plied the rivers and lakes in larger voyager canoes based on even earlier first nations war canoes. These large canoes were designed for hauling furs and supplies all across much of North America. The photo shows a design (new to me) for sturdily seating the steersperson in the back of a voyager replica. Its unlikely tractor seats were traditional in this position! This long craft took 6th place in the Yukon River Quest this year. That’s a 400 mile + race from Whitehorse to Dawson!



I had to include another photo of my inflatable kayak on Moon Lake for this collection as well as some Tupperware kayaks in seen in the modern exploration by tourists. My green inflatable kayak is not traditional but it will satisfy my need to paddle. I rented a kayak at Glacier Bay after leaving mine in Anchorage. I paddled cutoff, passable only at high tide. The tide currents through that close passage kept me alert in time and space. I had to make sure I passed back across the cutoff before being stranded on the mud for 6 hours awaiting the next high tide flood.

Incidentally, you can double click these photos or right click them and they should expand to get larger!

Would you like a bit of Whitehorse? On the shores of the upper Yukon, 1700 miles from the Bering Sea this here’s another gold rush town that made it intact into the 21st Century. The pristine white sternwheeler sits there on the bank, never to plow the river churning that huge paddle wheel again. The follies play to a crowd of tourists in gold miners’ seats. An attractive visitors center aches to engage weary tourists in the fetching ways of the town. Music plays in the parks, cake is served on Canada Day. Museums feature the fossil past, the flood of miners flowing up the Chilcoot Trail from Skagway, the trains and transportation and the artifacts of yesteryear. Guides walk the city in costumes from 19th century and explain the Whitehorse that was and the Whitehorse that is.


There is an eager lass handing out invitations to free interpretive hikes into the wilds beginning at the edge of town. For the less venturesome, handsome paved trails promenade the waterfront. A cute little trolley car whisks people along the front street. Whitehorse is thriving when the dust through many a gold rush camp would be hard put to shiver up a ghost of the golden past. Today’s gold comes from my pocket, the tourist, eager to soak up the far north experience.



The cabin belonging to Sam Magee from Robert Service's poem: The Cremation of Sam Magee

Yukon Ahead from top of the trailer!

Even though we covered an immense block of North America there is only so much that fits in the window of the truck. There is only so much that can be seen from the ridge top in one instant. There are limits to the here-and-now experience that makes the larger scope impossible to comprehend all at once. A large North America map helps, but it is, after all, just a map. A space picture is better, but not the same thing as being there. As it rained much of the time there was often little sense of direction. Even though I turned the wheel of the truck, what was ahead was generally, just that, ahead. My sense of a new direction was not truly registered. It felt very much the same to drive east or west as south or north. Only by employing some trick was it possible to understand the direction. Look at the compass, check the GPS, go find where the sun is located. That would help, but up ahead is the road and the great expanse of terrain.

While we were in the Yukon, I thought maybe we didn’t really need to go to Alaska. How could it be any different? Its far north, there’s lots of short frizzled trees with odd tilts from perma frost. The roads all undulate from frost heaves and the sun stays up all the time in deep summer. I wasn’t remembering Alaska too well. The Yukon is largely landlocked up to the Arctic. To experience fjords, dive into Alaska by driving down to Skagway or Haines. The water is often dominant in the Alaskan experience with so much coast. To see glaciers, move on to Alaska. While the Yukon has them, they are mostly up and out of sight.