upside downside stateside

I awoke with an air of expectation in complete darkness in my inside roomette as I tried to work out why the light switch wouldn’t work in ‘on’ position. Oh that’s right - you push it up to turn on in this hemisphere. Hmmm, upside down! Later I was distracted over breakfast by the view out of the café as we docked in Auke Bay at Juneau, capital city of Alaska. The ferry terminal was some 30 km distant from town so I shared a taxi with Rick and Judy. It was gently raining with low cloud all around as enroute to town Eric, our taxi driver, gave us his perspective of Juneau. We flashed past a view up a wide road toward the Mendenhall Glacier and discerned that it was almost invisible, shrouded by white billowy clouds that turned into a misty fog close to the ground. Sadly there was no time to make a closer inspection as we were only allowed around 2 hours off the ship.  I was glad to have seen it from the air, if only to know what I was missing. Eric told us the glacier was merely 3 km from his house, which to me, was just amazing. I asked him if it made his place colder having all that ice sitting so close by. He concluded it didn’t, but said at times he could hear it groaning and creaking– like hearing the sea at home, only different – frozen water moving!

I was surprised to find that Juneau is a city that cannot be reached by road! To travel here one must either fly in or come via what is known as the marine highway on a ferry or cruise ship or some other vessel. Debate has raged for well over 30 years about the construction of what has come to be known as ‘The Road’. The proposed road would be constructed through the wilderness along the edge of the Lynn Channel northward up the inside passage to link Juneau to Skagway. Opinions are divided in the community, as you can imagine. Simplifying the arguments; the pro-road advocates are concerned that the capital city status of Juneau is in danger if such a road is not constructed, as well as arguing for the perceived economic benefit that improved access would bring to the community there. The opposing view holds that the costs of such a road are just too high; the destruction of a unique and pristine wilderness; and the ongoing expenses of engineering, building and maintaining a road in treacherous terrain that is subject to the frequent catastrophic forces of nature including avalanches and rock falls. For what it’s worth, I like the marine highway.   

www.bluehighway.org/tag/juneau-access/

Avalanche on the route of the proposed road. Photo by Scott Logan, 2005.

High on the slope above town Eric pointed out a historic looking, large, white two-storey house, fronted with tall white columns, as being the Governor’s Mansion, where ex-govenor Sarah Palin once lived. As we drove past I scanned the horizon to see if I could discern Russia in the distance, but low cloud seriously reduced the visibility on this particular day!  We drove down into town past a building that he referred to as the Capitol, which was actually the Alaska State House. The Capitol, as it is fondly known, houses the Alaska Legislature and the offices for the governor of Alaska and lieutenant governor of Alaska.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When we arrived at the Red Dog Saloon, our designated meeting place, sweet strains of honky-tonk piano music filled the air, but the crush of tourists disgorged from the ubiquitous monster cruise ship dissuaded me from investigating further. I beat my retreat from the press of retail hungry humanity and wandered alone with my umbrella up the hill to the tiny Juneau-Douglas City Museum. The museum was brilliant, part art gallery, part museum, and part experiential classroom for children with costumes to try on and things to touch. I checked the crinoline for size before deciding it was probably best for me to watch the movie and learn some history about the place that way.

The site of Juneau was known as Dzantik’i Heeni, or gathering place of the flat fish, to the Tlingit, who, for thousands of years, harvested fish there and preserved it for winter using smokehouses. In 1880, Tlingit Chief Kowee guided the prospectors Harris and Juneau to this place. After finding plenty of gold they inexplicably named the creek ‘Gold Creek’ and not surprisingly precipitated the first major gold strike in the state. The town that sprang up was originally named Harrisburg but later changed to Juneau after Harris fell foul of the locals. Large-scale gold mines followed and folded, and fishing and canneries, transportation services and tourism all contributed to Juneau’s growth through the early 1900’s. Nowadays nearly half of Juneau's working population is employed by the federal, state, or local government. Tourism is the largest private-sector employer with commercial fishing and fish processing still economically important along with transportation, trading and mining.

Hungry, I wandered back into town via a backstreet café pointed out by a local in a health food shop and bought a yoghurt, a real salad and a toasted bagel that dripped butter on to me through the paperbag to take back to the ferry. I checked my emails on the free WIFI while I waited for my salad as the fortunes of world cup soccer were played out on a giant screen. I wove my way through the slow moving pedestrians and people of overly generous proportions on hired electric scooters, a convenience offered by local providers in all the cruise ports along the inside passage, listening carefully as the strains of honky-tonk piano grew louder. Back in Eric’s cab I noticed scores of bald eagles gliding, roosting and hunting all along the edge of the Gastinaeu Channel on the way back to the ferry. 

    

from the Juneau - Douglas City Museum

Eric noticed me craning my neck looking at the raptors as we drove along and produced a folio of photos his wife had taken of local wildlife, all amazing shots. As we flipped the pages of bears and moose and eagles and deer, we three agreed she could easily make her living as a wildlife photographer. Rick even got her email to buy a picture as a souvenir of the place. Nice. Back at the ferry my salad and butter rich bagel were a welcome relief from the ship-board mass produced food. As I struggled with the yoghurt cup I realised you open it on the bottom, which is on the top here. Hmmm… I chuckled to myself, there’s often a different upside in this upside down part of the planet!