PLACES I REMEMBER - 4

“And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 13:29)

For the fourth “Places I Remember” post, I want to write about Alaska. The furthest NORTH that I have ever been in my life is Glacier Bay, Alaska. That’s also the furthest WEST that I have ever been in my life. (In case you’re wondering, the furthest EAST, is the easternmost point of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the furthest SOUTH is Haiti’s southern peninsula.)

My daughter Rachel will laugh about this piece! She likes to mimic me talking about our trip to Alaska as “the trip of a lifetime”, but it really WAS! In July of 2002, Mary Ann and I went on a cruise through Alaska’s “Inside Passage”. Alaska is a HUGE state. It’s three times larger than Texas. The "Inside Passage” is a large area, in itself, but is only a small portion of the state of Alaska. When you look at a map of Alaska, the Inside Passage is the part that kind of hangs down at the southeastern most part of the state and almost looks like a “panhandle” of sorts. Much of the Inside Passage is a series of islands and waterways. In the fictional “Northern Exposure” television show, the Tlingit Indian tribe was supposed to be living halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks (where the fictional town of Cicely was located). In fact, the Tlingit tribe with its “Raven” and “Bear” clans is from the Inside Passage.

For many of the years Mary Ann and I have been married, we’ve barely been able to afford a trip to Horseneck Beach, but in 2002, I had received some inheritance money and we splurged on this wonderful vacation to Alaska. I’d always said I wanted to go to Alaska. (In fact, I’d LOVE to go back in the future and see Anchorage, Fairbanks and other places!) We flew to Vancouver, British Columbia and from “Canada Place” we took our Holland America Cruise aboard the S.S. Zandam. (Interestingly enough, Boston radio personality Michael Graham is currently with a tour group of New Englanders on a similar Holland America cruise in Alaska.)

Vancouver is a beautiful city. I remember that the day we arrived there the natives of B.C. were talking about how “muggy” it was. We Bostonians LAUGHED. They thought THAT was muggy! They’d never make it in New England or in Missouri, for that matter. It wasn’t muggy at all! For the first day or so of the cruise we sailed along the B.C. coast. There was FOREST, FOREST, AND MORE FOREST...as far as the eye could see for hundreds of miles. It was BEAUTIFUL and majestic! Alaska’s southernmost city is Ketchikan, but it was not our first port of call; Juneau the capital was.

What most people from the lower 48 would find to be strange is the ISOLATION in Alaska. You CAN’T, for instance, just get into a car in Juneau and drive to Anchorage or Vancouver, for instance. Well, you can, BUT you have to do it via Alaska’s extensive ferry system. Juneau is surrounded by mountains, forests, and very rugged terrain. The “Juneau region” is about the size of the state of Rhode Island. There are roads throughout the Juneau region, but it’s like living on an island...they all lead back to the same places! Incidentally, directly across from downtown Juneau is Douglas Island. The local high school is J.D.H.S. “Juneau Douglas High School”. The two communities kind of function as one. Juneau is pretty small for a capital city. We did notice the “Governor’s mansion”, and I wonder if Sarah Palin stayed there. From downtown Juneau we went on a half hour bus ride to Mendenhall Glacier. It’s a very impressive glacier and waterfall with a visitor center. Well, I was impressed with Mendenhall Glacier until I went to Glacier Bay!

Glacier Bay is this huge inlet surrounded by glaciers. It’s beautiful and spectacular! It’s absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. You watch the place change before your very eyes as the huge chunks of ice are falling off the glaciers and into the water, turning the water into a milky color. I was shocked that some folks on the cruise spent the whole time at Glacier Bay inside the ship’s casino or movie theater. I cannot imagine going to Glacier Bay without wanting to see it. It’s a place of WONDERS!

I enjoyed the little town of Skagway. Skagway is famous for the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. Well, actually the gold was hundreds of miles further north in the Yukon territory, but the prospectors all “landed” at Skagway, and from there journeyed hundreds of miles up the trail to the gold site. Sadly, only about 3% of them actually “struck it rich”. The number of pack animals who were abused and killed is astonishing. When a miner was “through” with an animal, he just threw of off the mountain to die! There’s actually a monument at Skagway dedicated to the pack animals who died, and there’s also a museum about the 1897 Gold Rush. Skagway is famous for the shootout between Frank Rourke and outlaw Soapy Smith. Actors actually reenact their funerals at the local graveyard! And, Skagway is famous for the White Pass and Yukon Narrow Gauge Railroad. You can ride the train twenty miles up the mountain from Skagway to the border at Fraser, B.C. At the border is a display of the U.S., Canadian, Alaska, British Columbia, and Yukon flags. (You’re at northern B.C. here, but only a very short distance from the start of the Yukon territory.) You ride the train up, and you ride it back down. The scenery is SPECTACULAR. Here’s an important hint: DON’T sign up to take the train ride for a morning run. The area tends to be foggy and you can’t see anything! Mary Ann and I took the ride in the early afternoon. It was a nice day and the scenery was great! Skagway’s another one of those, “you can’t get there from here” places in Alaska. Again, except for the ferry system, the only place you can really drive to is 67 miles along the Klondike Highway from Skagway to Whitehorse, Yukon. (As I’ve written in previous posts, don’t forget that you need a passport to travel into Canada.) People from Skagway actually drive to Whitehorse to go the the “mall”. I guess it isn’t much of a mall, but if you’re from Skagway, Alaska, you consider it a MALL!

I also did not mention about Juneau that BEARS are a big issue in more ways than one. At Juneau, a BEAR once walked right into one of the local supermarkets. The residents all have to have special cords to lock their trash cans to discourage bears from opening them up and feeding. A big deal about Juneau is that they have a McDonald’s. In fact, when it opened, a plane flew a bunch of McDonald’s food up to Skagway!

Towards the end of the cruise, we visited Ketchikan. IT has a Burger King right on the waterfront. The locals said that using the drive thru in the winter is a BRUTALLY cold experience and no native Alaskan would ever have designed this setup. Ketchican is also isolated and like Juneau, like living on an island. The place is HILLY! I don’t know WHAT they do about “handicapped access” laws, because there are stairs, stairs, and more stairs! If you live in Ketchikan, it is NOT unusual to have to climb up 27 stairs (well, in a few cases, 72 stairs!) JUST to get to your front door! At Ketchikan, we were encouraged to try a certain restaurant for their clam chowder. We were told it has the “best clam chowder anywhere”! Well, it was New England STYLE clam chowder, but ANY two-bit fish restaurant on Cape Cod has much better clam chowder than that place did! We are spoiled living in New England when it comes to clam chowder. But, Ketchikan IS the salmon capital of the world and they DO have great salmon! We also took a “duck boat” tour of Ketchikan. No, Boston and Philadelphia are NOT the only places that have duck boat tours!

I can’t even do the trip justice as I try to write about it, but listen, ALASKA is a great place to visit and I hope you get to go there sometime!