Gallivanting Grandma

Sunday August 25, 2019

The ship slowly moved through the beautiful mountainous Gastineau Channel and arrived in Juneau early in the morning. It was another overcast day with clouds hanging between the cliffs. We took a shuttle bus to the cablecar to go up 3800 feet to see the spectacular view from Mt. Roberts.

Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is unique because there are no roads connecting the city with the mainland due to the rugged mountains surrounding the city. The city hugs the coast at the base of the mountains and all people and goods must arrive and depart by ship or air.

The only things at the top end of the cablecar, besides the views, are a gift shop, restaurant, and a small “nature center.” For us, the best part of the climb was watching a young indigenous carver work on a totem pole.

Juneau is located within the Tongass National Forest which is 16 million acres of “one of the last remaining intact temperate rainforests in the world,” according to the Alaska Wilderness League. The region is the ancestral home of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples.

We rode the cablecar back down to the city and walked to the Alaska State Museum.

It was raining when we left the museum so we walked back along the shore toward the ship. The weather reminded me of the popular description of British weather: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes. It’ll change….” And it did!

When we reached Tracy’s King Crab Shack, we saw long lines waiting to get into the restaurant. On the street next to the crowds of people there were huge pots of boiling water filled with crabs!

We returned to the ship filled with memories of Juneau.

Saturday August 24, 2019

It was a chilly, windy, and rainy morning on the Millennium. We were 200 miles northwest of Juneau on our way to see Hubbard Glacier.

The shipboard naturalists gave running commentary as we approached the very impressive river of ice off the coast of Yakutat, Alaska.

We began to see small icebergs floating in the blue-green glacial water. A large steel excursion boat came alongside the ship and took on 50 hearty people who wanted to get closer to the glacier.

Because of the weather, the original plan was to spend a short time at the glacier.  However as we got closer, the rain stopped and the sky cleared.

Hubbard Glacier is gigantic and very impressive. The face – where the ice meets the water – is more than six miles across and 400 feet tall. It takes 400 years for ice to travel the length of the glacier, so the ice we were looking at is 400 years old.

The Millennium made many 360 degree turns and we stayed watching the glacier for several hours. I took a gazillion photos!

The excursion boat gives an idea of the relative height of the ice. There’s supposed to be more ice under the water than above it.

Every few minutes we heard ice break off and fall into the bay. The glacier frequently “calves” off icebergs which can be the size of ten-story buildings. First we heard a loud sound, like thunder. Then we looked where we thought the sound was coming from. If we were lucky, we saw the ice fall in a cascade and splash into the water.

After many hours, the ship turned and cruised out to sea and away from the very impressive Hubbard Glacier. What an experience!!

Friday August 23, 2019

I had a good nights sleep at the hotel in Seward.  When we looked out of the window from the lobby, we saw the Celebrity Millennium docked across the harbor. It was a hazy chilly morning.

The breakfast room was crowded so we happily shared a table with a middle-aged couple. The man worked in Alaskan state government and they were on their way to Juneau (the capital of Alaska) for the opening of the new legislative assembly. We had a lively conversation but largely avoided hot political topics.

We were so close to the cruise terminal, we decided to walk to the ship. It was the quickest boarding process ever and we spent the rest of the day exploring the ship and relaxing. Here are a few photos I took of the interior of the Celebrity Millennium before the crowds arrived:

It was foggy and overcast as the ship left the dock about six o’clock and headed south out of Resurrection Bay and into the Gulf of Alaska.

Thursday – August 22, 2019

I had trouble sleeping last night in anticipation of our 4:50am alarm. We had made reservations from home to take the early morning train from Anchorage to Seward. We checked out of the Embassy Suites at 5:45 – an excellent place to stay in Anchorage! – and took a taxi to the lovely Art Deco train station.

The sun was rising as we boarded and the station was crowded with foreign and American tourists.  We had good seats with easy access to the Dome Car. The train is clean and comfortable with onboard commentary given by naturalists who pointed out wildlife as we zipped along.

This is a popular route and the train takes about 4.5 hours to travel 114 miles to Seward. The scenery along the way is magnificent and several glaciers are clearly visible depending on the weather. Unfortunately, forest fires southeast of Anchorage cast a smoky haze on most of our route today.

About half an hour outside Seward, in a place called Moose Pass, all the passengers had to get off the train and take buses into Seward. We were told there was flooding on the tracks. The bus left us at the train station and we had an easy walk to our hotel. We had decided to arrive one day early to explore Seward before boarding the cruise ship tomorrow.

Seward, Alaska is a lucrative commercial fishing port and terminus for the Alaskan railroad. The port is a mix of commercial vessels (some of which take tourists out on fishing expeditions), pleasure boats, and cruise ships. There were several seafood processing plants in the harbor.

In the afternoon, we took a free shuttle bus to the “Historic District” of Seward. The older woman who drove the shuttle gave local information and descriptions at every stop. She said the district was only a block and a half long and we could tell we were in it by the fancy lamp poles.

We browsed slowly along the main street to the end of town, which literally comes to a point at the edge of the bay. There are less than 3,000 permanent residents in Seward. With an average annual temperature of 40 degrees and 74 inches of rain per year, living there wouldn’t appeal to me.

We took the shuttle back to the hotel just in time to see the ‘catch of the day’ for one of the tourist fishing boats. We watched them weigh and clean the fish.  Of course, we had to have king crab legs and fish for dinner!

Wednesday August 21, 2019

It was a cool 53 degrees this morning and the air was much clearer than the last couple of days. We heard reports that the forest fires were diminishing. We drove to the Alaska Native Heritage Center located just outside Anchorage. The educational and cultural center’s goal is to educate visitors and share the heritage of Alaska’s 11 major indigenous groups.

We arrived in “The Gathering Place” of the main building to hear a young man talk about his life growing up with his grandparents in northern St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Afterwards, there was a musical performance of singing and dancing.

The Heritage Center is located in a beautiful setting on Lake Tiulana. Five distinct houses were constructed around the lake to replicate Alaskan villages. They demonstrate how different indigenous groups of people lived and survived in the harsh northern climate.

In the southeastern part of Alaska, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Eyak people lived in wooden houses built out of local spruce and pine trees:

The Unangax and Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people of the Aleutian peninsula and islands built their homes largely underground or covered with earth:

The northern Inupiaq and St Lawrence Island Yupik groups also built their houses under earth and had small entrances to keep out bears and cold weather:

The Athabaskan people of the interior of Alaska built log houses out of available trees:

There were interpreters inside each house who explained how residents lived and used their hand-made tools. It was an incredible experience to hear about the peoples’ resourcefulness and survival skills. The people survived in extreme northern conditions for thousands of years.

Later, we had tea outdoors with a view of the lake. There were signs everywhere warning us about bears. When I asked the man at the cafe about the signs, he showed me his “bear spray’ which he kept close at hand, right under the counter. We didn’t see any bears….

It was still early when we left the Heritage Center, so we drove to the Anchorage Museum located downtown in the center of the city.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the ultra-modern exterior of the museum, but it was another excellent place to visit to learn about the land, peoples, art, and history of Alaska.

There was an exhibition of Salmon: catching, breeding, fishing, cooking, and eating. Also included was an explanation of the different kinds of salmon and ‘when and where’ to catch them.

Also contemporary Alaskan art:

Both the Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Anchorage Museum had excellent exhibits and were great introductions to Alaska for us first time visitors!  In the evening, we had dinner at the Moose Tooth Pub & Pizzeria. I had Margarita pizza with reindeer sausage – not bad. Later, back at the hotel we turned on Alaskan television. The most exciting program was a nature show on PBS: The Squirrel’s Guide to Success.  I’m not making this up! We didn’t watch much of it. We’ll catch it when it comes to New York!! :-)