North to Alaska VII

The last time around I left us on the train to Talkeetna AK. Talkeetna is a small town with a year-round population of about 800. It's a popular tourist destination and it's other claims to fame are as a jumping-off point for expeditions setting out to climb Denali (Mt. McKinley) and as the town which was the inspiration for the quirky little Alaska town in the 90's TV show "Northern Exposure". That show was filmed in Washington State, but having been an occasional viewer of the show and having seen Talkeetna, I can see where they captured the atmosphere of the town pretty well, including the community radio station. Well, we pulled into the Talkeetna RR station and our faithful bus and driver were waiting for us. The next stop was our hotel: the Talkeetna Alaska Lodge.

It was a very nice hotel with two restaurants and a huge wood-burning fireplace in the main lobby. But it's main claim to fame is that from the patio in the back of the lobby, you can see all the way to the Alaska Range and, weather permitting, get an excellent view of Denali itself. Well, the weather only permits on the average 60 days out of any given year.

Here is a picture I found of Denali from the Lodge on a perfect day

Here is the view we saw. If you look hard, you can sort of see a bit of the mountain poking through the clouds above the dark, saddle-shaped mountain in the center.

That evening, we took a shuttle bus into the booming metropolis of Talkeetna in the pouring rain. We ended up at what I would consider the ultimate Alaska wilderness dive - a bar and restaurant called the "West Rib". We loved it. Contrary to what you might expect from the name, they did not serve ribs of any kind. The name refers to an approach route to Denali used by many climbers. What they did serve was an amazingly good seafood platter of salmon, halibut and Dungeness crab. I also tried an ale called "Ice Axe" which was around 9% alcohol. It tasted like regular ale with a shot of vodka in it. After one, I switched to Alaska Amber.

Michelle and her sister in the "West Rib"

The next day, we pretty much had to whole day to kill in Talkeetna before our train left in mid-afternoon to take us to Anchorage and the end of the trip. We went back into town and ate breakfast at a place called "The Roadhouse" which is a restaurant and bakery. Their breakfasts are so huge we were advised to order a half portion which was plenty big enough even for my appetite. Afterwards, we wandered up and down Talkeetna's two block long main street and checked out the various gift shops and galleries. There were some nice but expensive things; however, nothing jumped out and said "buy me". In the end, Michelle found a neat miniature mask in the hotel gift shop of all places. It is by a Native American artist and depicts a wolf with its prey in its jaws.

Main Street Talkeetna with the "West Rib". The "Roadhouse" is down the street to the right.

Eventually, we returned to the hotel and hung out in the lobby until it was time to get on our bus and go to the train station. It was during this time that we got the (very) partial view of Denali from the back patio.

We got on the train and headed for Anchorage. Dinner was served on the train and we saw some more scenery and eventually we wound up at our last hotel, the Marriott in Anchorage. The next day we were up at Oh dark hundred to catch our flight home via Seattle.

Well folks, that concludes the story of our Alaska adventure. I'm sure I left a lot out, but that will be stuff to bore family and friends with. Generally speaking, I would say that the cruise/land tour is the best way for the average person to see Alaska. My only recommendation would be that anyone who does this reverse the order. That is, arrange to do the Alaska interior land tour first, and then get on the ship in Seward and cruise to Vancouver. The trip can be booked this way and has the advantage that after the fairly hectic schedule of the land tour, you can look forward to the relatively relaxing cruise portion. Other recommendations (some of these are based on an earlier cruise-only trip we took): try to make it to a Dungeness crab dinner, gold-panning is fun, the WP&Y railroad is great, whale watching is very enjoyable, if your ship happens to go to Sitka (this trip didn't) there's a wonderful raptor rescue center there with close-up views of bald eagles. Also, see Denali Park, don't miss river rafting, and be sure your tour takes the riverboat in Fairbanks. Oh, and if you like beer, don't miss the Alaska Amber.

North to Alaska VI

After a bus ride of several hours, we arrived at the gates of the Denali National Park and Preserve. Denali is the Native name for the tallest mountain in North America also known as Mt. McKinley. The bus dropped us off at our hotel: The Grand Denali Lodge. It is located on top of a mountain near the Park entrance and there was a spectacular view from our room. After a few minutes to freshen up, we were off to our whitewater rafting adventure on the nearby Nenana river.

The view from our room. The river is the Nenana where we went rafting

A bus from the rafting company picked us up at our hotel and took us to their base on the Nenana river. There we were all fitted with "dry suits". These are tight fitting rubber suits which are water tight and keep one from getting wet if you should fall into the river's icy, glacial fed, thirty-five degree water. We also had to don life vests. They then herded us onto a school bus and drove us to the put-in point some thirteen miles upriver from their base. There they divided us into groups of eight or nine to a raft. Each raft was piloted by an experienced river guide who steered us with a pair of oars from a middle seat - in our case this person was a young woman who despite her youth was quite experienced and had even done raft guiding in New Zealand. Our job was simply to hold on and enjoy the trip.

I should point out that the raft trip we took was one of two possible routes. Ours was considered more of a scenic wilderness trip and less of a thrill ride in that we only experienced a few class II and one or two class III rapids (rapids go from class I to class VI with VI being the most dangerous). The other route had more of the class III rapids. However, our guide told us that ours was by far the more scenic route. I think she was probably right. Other than the other rafts, we saw no other humans or signs of humanity during nearly the entire 13 mile trip on the Nenana. It was only as we came to the end that we saw some houses along the banks. The scenery and the atmosphere was really amazing, the rapids we did shoot were a lot of fun (those suits proved their usefulness) and while it rained a little bit during the trip (who cared? Rubber suits!) it was enough to create a beautiful double rainbow which we haven't seen since we were in Hawai'i. The only bad thing is that we were not permitted to bring any cameras unless they were waterproof - so unfortunately no pictures of this trip.

Here is a picture from the Web of the area we rafted on the Nenana

By the way, the raft trip (including preparation) started at six o'clock in the evening and ended around nine forty-five - and it was still broad daylight. The sun only sets for a couple of hours a night in that part of Alaska in the summer! After the raft company took us back to our hotel, we ate a late dinner and off to bed.

The next day, we were picked up by a U.S. Parks Service bus for our Denali Park tour. The Parks service decided some years ago to ban all private vehicles from most of Denali Park in order to preserve the integrity of the eco-system. The only way to see the park by road is on the Park Service bus tours. The drivers are all park rangers and qualified naturalists, so this is probably as good a tour as you would get in any case.

The bus took us to the visitors' center at the park entrance where we watched a short film on the history of the park - and more importantly scored some coffee and bagels for breakfast at the snack bar. Then we headed off down the park road. The park was very beautiful with mountains, tundra, and taiga (taiga is a sub-arctic forest made up mostly of evergreens with some broadleaf trees). Unfortunately, we did not see much in the way of wildlife - just a couple of caribou too far away to photograph, some snowshoe hares, and some wild sheep which were pretty much just moving white dots high up on a mountain. The bus driver/naturalist said this was pretty much par for the course - seeing wildlife was a luck of the draw sort of thing.

The Savage River in Denali Park

Eventually, the bus tour wound up at the Alaska Railroad terminal in Denali Park, where we boarded a rail coach for the next leg of our trip. I found it interesting that the cruise companies have their own private rail cars for their land based tours. They are coupled on to regularly scheduled Alaska Railroad passenger trains traveling on the line between Fairbanks and Anchorage. The RCL coach was quite nice. It was two levels with the top having a full length vista dome and the lower level being a dining car and kitchen facility. On the day we left Denali bound southward to the town of Talkeetna we ate lunch on board and it was quite good. While we spent most of our time up top in the dome where the view was unobstructed, the dining deck had large picture windows so that even while eating we did not miss much of the spectacular scenery. The train also had an on-board tour guide who told us what we were looking at and answered questions.

A view of our train from our private coach. The other cars you see are regular Alaska Railroad passenger cars

Eventually, our train pulled into the town of Talkeetna AK where we were to spend the night. More on that next time.

Next: Talkeetna, a classic Alaskan gin-mill, and the elusive Mt. McKinley.

North to Alaska III

Sunset at sea - taken by Michelle

Hello again. When I last left my faithful readers (all two of you) we were departing beautiful downtown Skagway AK for our next stop - Icy Strait Point: a small Native Indian fishing village and site of a former cannery. The basic entertainment choices here were: a.) a hike in the woods b.) a trip on a whale-watching boat or c.) a form of insanity called a zip line in which you are driven up a mountain for 45 minutes in a bus, wait an hour in line and then spend 90 seconds screaming as you're strapped in a harness and slide down a wire cable for 1500 feet back to where you started. Needless to say, we went whale watching.

The old cannery at Icy Point Strait

The whale watching boat was a large twin hulled power boat that had three decks and was fairly comfortable and stable. The tour was accompanied by a young woman naturalist who told us about whales and what to look for, what we were seeing etc. We did see whales. Since summer is the time the Humpback whales migrate to Alaskan waters to feed (They're not dumb - they spend winter in Hawai'i) there were plenty of sightings. In fact, we got fairly lucky as a mother Humpback and her calf surfaced near our boat and put on quite a show of rolling over, splashing their tail flukes etc. All in all it was probably the best shore excursion we had taken to that point. It was also the best whale watching we have seen since the time we were in the Gulf of Maine outside of Bar Harbor and saw a rare form of cooperative action among Humpbacks called "bubble netting". It's a way the whales work together to herd herring into a small area for easier pickings. When Michelle mentioned that we had once seen this to the naturalist on this current trip she was boggled and pretty much said that behavior was so rare as to be a kind of holy grail for whale watchers.

A humpback whale breaches - picture taken by Michelle.

After the whale watching, we walked along the small boardwalk they had on the town waterfront, watched some of the lunatics come down the zip line, and ate some great fried halibut (halibut, along with salmon, is kind of the Alaskan national fish) in a small restaurant overlooking the water. It occurs to me that I may not be doing Icy Strait justice. It is a very beautiful spot scenically and worth the stop.

That afternoon, we set sail for the Hubbard glacier. We arrived there the next morning. The Hubbard glacier is located far up a bay. It is a huge river of ice, some six miles wide which makes its way many miles down a mountain valley and ends at the salt water bay. Since glaciers are always moving forward, chunks of it are always breaking off and falling into the bay, forming small "icebergs". Apparently in Greenland this happens with even bigger glaciers which form not so small icebergs and hence what happened to Titanic. However, our bergs were not so big or dangerous (fortunately). Of course our ship's captain, a Norwegian chap who fancied himself a comedian, started coming on the ship's PA system about 7:00 AM with reports on our progress toward the glacial face and a few lame Titanic remarks thrown in for good measure. Fortunately, he was a far better seaman than comedian and he was able to safely navigate our 90,000 ton ship to within 1200 feet of the glacier. In fact, we were told that this is supposedly closer than any other cruise ship gets. Since I used to struggle to get a 1 ton sailboat within two feet of a dock, I was duly impressed by this feat.

Our closest approach to the Hubbard glacier.

Needless to say, the view of the glacier was spectacular. We were close enough to hear the roar of the ice as it began to break off from the face, and to see the splash and puff of powdery crystals as the break actually happened. It was like being in the middle of a National Geographic special. Finally, though, the ship turned around and headed back down the bay and we were on our way to Seward AK, our final port.

Next: Weird shipboard entertainment and Seward to Anchorage to Fairbanks.

North to Alaska

This seems to be sort of turning into a travel blog, but Michelle and I just got back from a two-week jaunt to the 49th State. Thought I'd post some thoughts on it here.

Our first stop was Vancouver B.C. where we were to board the Royal Caribbean Lines' "Radiance of the Seas" for the north bound journey to Seward AK via several stops on the Alaska Panhandle (the Southeastern part of AK that stretches alongside Canada toward Seattle). We got there the day before we were to board and stayed overnight at a hotel near the Vancouver airport in order to preclude any horror shows perpetrated by late flights, lost luggage etc. As it turns out, everything went smoothly with flights and luggage. Also, due to the vagaries of flight scheduling and time change we arrived in Vancouver about 10:30 AM. At that point we made a decision not to spend our one day in the city sitting on our butts in the hotel but instead to take a Vancouver city tour and see the place. It was a good decision. We booked a four-hour city highlights tour for the afternoon and off we went.

Vancouver seen from the top of the Harbour Centre Tower

Vancouver is a really lovely city with what seems to be an excellent quality of life and it is surrounded by considerable natural beauty. It's located on a peninsula among various bays and river deltas. As a result it has excellent deep water port facilities along with many recreational areas such as beaches and small boat marinas. Our tour was on a bus with a number of stops throughout the city. The tour guide was very knowledgeable about the city, but he was also a bit of a character. For one thing, he ended every statement with "eh". Now I know this is supposedly a common practice in Canada, but he did it so much it was almost a caricature - he reminded me of the Mackenzie brothers, the two beer-drinking mock Canadians on the old Second City TV show. He also claimed to be a drummer in a rock band and an expert on the city's various micro-brews. He may have been that last thing-I tried a pint of his recommended beer and it was quite good. Anyhoo, the tour took us to Stanley Park, a green oasis of a peninsula adjacent to downtown, and various sections of the city including Chinatown, "Gastown" (a kind of hip restaurant and shopping district) and a stop to take the elevator to the top of the Harbour Centre Tower which is their version of the Space Needle but not as tall (but with a great view of the city). My favorite stop on the tour was called Granville Island. It is a small, artificial island in a creek near downtown and is sort of the Vancouver Greenwich Village. Lots of galleries, shops, theaters, and restaurants crowded into a walkable space and surrounded by water and boats. We ate dinner there in a Tapas bar called the Sandbar - it was quite good. To sum up: it was an enjoyable first day of vacation and the next morning we were up bright and early and off to the "Radiance of the Seas".

"Radiance of the Seas"

We showed up early for the boarding - they said 1:00 PM, but we got there at around 11:00 in the morning and pretty much walked right on the ship. We had a nice cabin with a balcony and kind of a sitting area; also, the bed was very comfortable. As for the public areas of the ship they were very tastefully done - lots of wood and artwork. The ship was fairly new so it had a huge central atrium that ran from deck 4 to deck 11 with glass-enclosed elevators. It had the other usual cruise ship stuff: a theater for evening shows, a casino (where I actually won at Blackjack unlike Las Vegas) and lots of bars including a nice piano bar with a fairly talented chap who played and sang requests. Of course since it was a cruise they pretty much fed you continuously in various places around the ship. Unfortunately, the food was for the most part not outstanding. It was decent but I've personally had much better on other cruise lines. But we went to see Alaska, so stuffing our faces was secondary. Enough description of the ship, if you've been on one modern cruise ship, you've been on them all.

After a day at sea we docked at our first port: Ketchikan Alaska. We booked two shore excursions there: a crab boat trip and "feast" and "The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show". The crab boat trip was on a sort of enclosed patio boat where they took you up an inlet to some crab pots which they hauled out for some marine biology type measurements on the Dungeness crabs they caught. They then let the crabs go. It was moderately interesting. The best part was the "feast". They took us back to a lodge along the inlet and fed us mass quantities of steamed Alaskan Dungeness crab. These are not the king crab caught on the "Deadliest Catch" TV documentary. They are actually caught like our east coast blue crabs in salt water inlets and bays. They resemble our crabs a little but they seem to be meatier and the meat is sweeter. Eating them is similar to eating the blues - basically a slob's convention of cracking claws and digging out meat with bits flying all over the place - great fun! The feast included one beverage of choice. Fortunately one of the choices included a pint of Alaska Amber beer. Mmm, steamed crabs and good local brew. Doesn't get much better than that.

Me, stuffing my face with Dungeness crab

After the feast they bussed us back to the dock and it was a two-block walk to the lumberjack show. It was fun watching them saw huge logs and climb tall poles and try to log roll one another into a pond. It was staged in the form of a good natured competition between two teams with lots of clowning and shouting. After that, it was back on the ship and off to Juneau. More on that tomorrow.

The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show