Juneau to Whittier to Anchorage

Sorry about the hiatus… but I’ve been busy…

So where was I? Oh yeah, back on the boat heading north through the last section of the inside passage. As we headed west from Juneau we passed the tiny community of Hoonah and fireworks were set off from what looked like a bar on the shore with a group of revelers waving good-naturedly as we sailed by. I sat in the ferry’s bar sipping vodka and tonic with Judy and Rick and Cathy and my other new friends Jocelyn and Dave, watching studiously for whales and other marine mammals.

Jocelyn works for the military and has just completed her Masters in hospital administration. Dave is her house husband with pretty strident right wing views that he’s happy to share with anyone who will listen. Interesting that the government had just paid for his wife’s study and yet he decries the Obama administration as socialist at best or communist at worst. Hmmm. They are moving back to Anchorage, Jocelyn’s hometown, to live with her parents, together with her uncle, Dave’s mother and their two young children. Quite a household!

Just as Dave started expousing the merits of Sarah Palin to the group, I spotted a pod of humpbacks out the window and we all ran onto the deck into the bracing breeze to watch the whales. Over the next hour or so I counted 23 humpbacks – many of them breeching. Dave caught one on his video and watching it back later he told me it was definitely a killer whale because it had some white on it’s belly. If only, I mentally lamented, still not having seen the seemingly illusive black fish.

As we reached the open water the rocking and rolling of the ship increased appreciably and so I took my leave and headed to bed. Lying down seemed to slightly ease the movement and I fell into a deep hypnotic sleep in my dark cubicle.

I woke with a start as we only had a short two hour stop scheduled in Yakatat and I was determined to make it ashore. I checked the time and with an hour to get organized I lurched down the hall past the beckoning sick bags to the women’s bathroom for a shower. Closing my eyes in the tiny cubicle while I washed my hair did nothing to improve my rising seasickness. The hot steam seemed to exacerbate the nausea and later in the café, an egg for breakfast seemed just too difficult to tackle. Finally we pulled up to the wharf at Yakatak and I was surprised to see that the place was tiny. No matter! I was glad to be on terra firma despite the freezing rain.

Yakatat

Umbrella aloft I marched with a purpose off the gangway and up the dirt road leading uphill from the dock. Past the general store, past the tiny timber office of the Borough of Yakatat, past the senior citizen’s centre to the top of the hill that I found to be punctuated by a pair of modest churches, separated by the formal division of a tarred section of road. Aside from a couple of half tumbled down timber dwellings, that was it for downtown Yakatat. I noticed a sign indicating a tsunami evacuation route and noted that the borough was doing a good job at risk management.

There was nothing for it, so I started back down the hill to the general store where I engaged the owner in a conversation that was quite stilted to begin. He had a hard time understanding me but we laughed together as we interpreted each other’s thick accents. I thought he had a thick accent anyway. Yakatat has a population of around 500 he told me – a thriving community. It’s actually the largest city in the whole of the USA - by area. That was the bit I couldn’t understand at first, but as we moved on to surfing we found a common language. Apparently Yakatat has an excellent swell that attracts practitioners of the sport from the world over. Also fascinatingly it’s home to the Hubbard Glacier that is one of the very few advancing glaciers left on the globe. I enjoyed a surprisingly good coffee with soy milk, no less, while sitting at a delightfully stationary table. He even let me use his wifi and check my emails. Wonderful!  Civilization in the back of beyond!

I lingered over my coffee so long that I panicked that the ferry would leave without me, so I hastily said my goodbyes and splashed back down the muddy road to the dock. I was relieved to see the ferry still held fast to the dock with its giant ropes as I passed a number of the ferry passengers with their dogs on leads enjoying the wet smells along the grassy verge of the road. On the journey passengers are allowed to bring pets with them so long as they are locked up securely in their vehicles on the bottom deck of the ship. Each morning and evening, pet exercise time was announced onboard and owners could take their animals for a quick lap of the bowels of the boat. I say bowels advisedly as the owners have to clean up after their pets during exercise time.

As we left Yakatat the swell increased, as did my green pallor. I retreated to my bed and read and dozed for most of the day, emerging occasionally to check I wasn’t missing too much scenery through the drizzling rain and low cloud. Finally in the evening I arose and headed downstairs for dinner. It was sweet that my new friends were all concerned at my disappearance for the day.

Early next morning we slid toward the dock at Whittier past the most magnificent snow clad mountain scenery. Whittier, a tiny town became important during the 2^nd world war since it had a deep port and was in close proximity to Anchorage. It was so important that the government spent an extraordinarily huge amount of money to tunnel through the mountain to gain rail access to the port for the war effort. Nowadays the 4km long one way tunnel tunnel is used alternately by trains and cars.

 Whittier Glacier

We arrived late into Whittier according to the schedule and the train I had booked back to Anchorage was long gone. I was standing on the side of the road pondering my next move when Rick and Judy pulled up next to me with their ram packed pick-up. Need a ride? Yes please!! So they squeezed me and my bag in the cab for the 45 minute run back into Anchorage.

 Whittier

Back in Anchorage I phoned the National Park Service – yes I was approved as a volunteer; work starts in the Alaska Region Office after the weekend! Woohoo!