journal

Skagway was originally a gold rush town with a rich history of growth during the early 20th century.  Now the cruise ships tour a charming little town set in a beautiful valley that’s part of the rainforest.  The “ads” or grafitti that you see on the rocks is reminiscent of the way the mining town advertised supplies, housing and services in the mining days.  This was the first thing we saw entering the port.  The fish swimming upstream is part of an effort to repopulate the salmon population in a stream that’s the main attraction in the city park. Touring the town brought us to the most photographed building in Skagway.  This building was constructed entirely of driftwood and has remained since 1899.  Risa and I did a little shopping in town and then had the best lunch of Alaskan King Crab legs. They truly are all they’re cracked up to be.  It was also at this lunch that we fell in love with the Alaska Brewing Company products.  Man those beers are fabulous… especially the Amber Ale and White Beer.  All this was prior to our cycling through the rainforest to the flats.  We were in the wilderness with enormous trees and little bike paths.  We even saw the remains of a mining town that had only a cemetery and the front of building left in an overgrown forest.  I really liked this cycling experience.

 Our trip to Juneau began with a tour around town and ended with a 1000 feet ascent up the hill next to the Mendenhall Glacier.  The city of Juneau was quite nice once you get out of the tourist spots.  The hike was in the biggest range of rainforest in the world – the Pacific Coast rainforest.  I was a bit surprised to know that this area was such a major rainforest but the thick vegetation and significant variety of fungi was indicative of the climate.  We hiked up really rugged and steep terrain to get to this beautiful vista.  Enjoy the photos.

Hello from Alaska.  We finally made it to the shores of the state where I have longed to be for so long.  The city of Ketchican wasn’t much prior to the cruise ship business and now it’s the first port of call and there was a perfect tour for us.  It was rainy (over 90% of days in Ketchican are rainy) and chilly so our tour to a Native American culture center, salmon fish hatchery and eagle sanctuary was the best choice.  The one surprise was the antique car collection at the culture center.  These were the cars that made it to Alaska in the early 20th century.  The totem poles and Tlingit artwork are among the most iconic designs of the Alaskan native people.  We went to a replica of their Clan House and learned about the “Potlatch”.  It’s a big family celebration, often including the raising of a totem pole. The family holding the Potlatch gains status by creating the greatest extravaganza.  It’s an honor to go into debt doing so.  Is this too reminiscent of a certain coming of age celebration, I ask?  Anyway, we saw Alaska’s only female totem pole carver.  She was a proud student of her family’s tradition especially since she is the first woman to do this.  By the way, a totem pole for your back yard would run about $2500 per foot.  The one she was working on was 50 feet – you do the math.  From there we went to an eagle sanctuary and salmon fish hatchery.  The eagles were so remarkable and so is their wing span.  Hopefully Risa was able to give you a visual of that fact.  The salmon hatchery is doing all it can to maintain the salmon population of Alaska.  They release hundreds of thousands of salmon in the sea every year.  Finally we got to the Totem Pole Center and saw more great examples of Native Alaskan artwork.  One tidbit about the art.  In order to make the paint that has survived many hundreds of years the women of the clan would mix the ore or minerals found in the earth to make the black, red and blue used in the paint with the oil from the salmon eggs.  But the binding ingredient used to keep this mixture together was the mystery our guide asked us to solve.  He said it was a substance peculiar to the women of the clan.  That really had our imaginations going wild.  After a few embarrassing guesses he revealed that it was the urine of the women.  The abundance of the female hormones found in the urine gave the paint its longevity.  Wild, huh?

Many of you may know that I am not a real “public emoter”.  Is that even a word?  Don’t know, but you get the idea.  But I was moved to tears as I stood on the deck of this magnificent cruise ship, with my sister, leaving the incredible port of Vancouver and knowing that I was taking a voyage to honor Frimit.  Mom also took this cruise and she would be thrilled to know that I was taking my dream trip with my sister.  It would only have been more perfect if Ellen could have been with us.  Alas, we were on our way from the top bridge of the ship looking at what I have to say must be one of the most beautiful ports around.  The sails on the building are part of the Vancouver convention center.  The buildings near the port have an amazing symetry of design.  That’s something I haven’t seen since I traveled in Jerusalem.  I would say this city is ready to host the Olympics in February of 2010. 

What a serendipitous occurrence to see the Rays play the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field.  As I travel around the country and get to see the baseball fields I am constantly amazed at the pure joy of our American past-time.  The approach to the field with the excited fans, the carnival atmosphere outside of the stadium and the theatrics inside.  We were well rewarded on our trip to see Seattle play.  Segway must have a strong hold here in Seattle because they were all over the place, including the baseball field entrance.  Even the artwork was great: notice the baseball chandelier and the baseball mitt sculpture.  Once inside it was a tough crowd for some hometown fans from Tampa.  But halfway through the game that we were winning came two adorable young men all crazed about the Rays.  We found out later that they were soldiers leaving for Iraq the next day.  Everyone in the surrounding area put up with their wild enthusiasm knowing they were on their way to fight this crazy war.  Love the soldier – hate the war.  By the way, the Rays lost in the 12th inning.