Alaska Cruise
Whittier to Vancouver
September 6-13, 2004
Sunday afternoon we flew over the Smokies and Blue Ridge Mountains on a beautiful trip to Atlanta. At the gate waiting area we talked to another group of Alaska travelers from Alabama, everyone excited to be embarking on their first trip to the magic North Country. We were so relieved to be taxiing on the runway out of Atlanta. FINALLY, after our aborted trip in May, there was nothing but air between us and Alaska. The flight was a VERY long eight hours, but two hours out of Anchorage we started crossing the Wrangle-St. Elias Mountains. For an hour of flying there were snow covered peaks and glaciered valleys. The pilot pointed out some 19-20,000 ft peaks. It was interesting to actually see that the glaciers really were frozen rivers. I could see the black lines of the moraines outlining flow patterns.
We arrived in Anchorage at sunset, flying over Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. At the airport, we were corralled by the Princess rep who helped us collect our luggage and saw us onto a bus into town. We got a tour of downtown as we picked up and dropped off passengers at several hotels. Finally, about 11p Alaska time (3am eastern) we arrived at our hotel, and fell into bed.
Monday morning, Labor Day, we were up before sunrise, our bodies still on Eastern Time, and our minds bouncing with excitement to be in Alaska. Pete photographed a building from our hotel window as it reflected the morning sun. We collected Mom and Dad and ventured out onto the Anchorage streets in search of breakfast. We found a nice café with hearty food.
With city map in hand, we took off on our tour of Anchorage. We found the visitor center, with its little grass-roofed cabin. We walked a ways on the paved waterside trail, and were thrilled to see Denali floating on the horizon. In Anchorage, we were over 100 miles south of Denali, and it is rarely seen, because there are usually clouds obscuring it. I felt blessed that the mountain allowed me to see it. We also visited the Alaska state museum, spending time at various exhibits.
At 11am we boarded a bus for the two hour ride to Whittier, on the coast. The drive along Turnagain Arm was very scenic. The road was sandwiched in a narrow space between mountain and the inlet. The tide was out, and there were mudflats. Towards the end of the inlet we saw beluga whales chasing salmon. The bus driver stopped at a creek so we could look at the spawning salmon thrashing in the shallow water. He also stopped so we could admire a small hanging glacier in the mountain by the road. We arrived at the 2.5-mile Whittier tunnel minutes before it opened to traffic our direction. The tunnel carries railroad as well as wheeled vehicle traffic, but each direction, and each modality has to take turns.
We came out of the tunnel at Whittier and saw the Dawn Princess at the dock. Whittier residents are more likely to own a boat than a car, since the tunnel is their only connection with the inland. Most of the town’s 200 residents live in a large cement apartment building built during WWII. The building also contains schools, shops and theater. We were herded through the lines for embarking on the ship, photographed, and given a little plastic card that was our ship entrance pass and credit card. We found that when we disembarked and re-embarked at ports of call, a security guard would use the card to log us as on or off board.
We boarded the Dawn Princess and found our rooms. Our room steward, Alex, introduced us to the room. We were quickly out of the room and looking for food, which we found on Deck 14 at the Horizon cafeteria, then went on an exploratory mission to try to familiarize ourselves with our new home.
We met Mom and Dad, as we would each evening of the voyage, for dinner at our assigned restaurant, the Florentine room. Pete and Dad enjoyed flirting with the greeter. Pete practiced so he could greet her in a different language every night. It was exciting just to see what would be on the menu. There were always five courses: appetizer, soup, salad, entrée, and dessert. I loved everything, but especially trying out the appetizers and soups. Various of us had different fishes, pheasant, duck, Cornish hen, steak, beef Wellington, escargot. We tried out things we’d never had the opportunity to sample previously. My ongoing comment was “I am going to hate going back to my own cooking.”
As the sun set, the Dawn Princess moved away from the dock. We had been in Alaska 24 hours. The top deck was full of passengers, but as the dusk deepened, and the air chilled, people became more and more rare. Pete, Mom and Dad also gave up and went down to bed, but I didn’t want to leave. Eventually I had the deck to myself. I was sitting quietly, just glad to be where I was, and watching the surrounding mountains fade into darkness. I told myself I would stay out until we passed a certain peak. Just about the time I was going to go in, I noticed a long cloud about 30 degrees up from the horizon. It had an odd color-slightly yellow. As I watched it, the yellow deepened to green, and there would be slight movement in the “cloud.” “Is this it??” I asked myself. After several minutes of watching it increase and decrease in intensity, I knew it WAS IT. I was seeing the aurora borealis. I was SO excited. And here I was alone, with no one to share the miracle. A few passengers showed up—they must have seen the lights from inside and came onto the deck. Pete and Mom and Dad were on my mind. If this were our only opportunity to see northern lights, Pete would be devastated if he missed it. I ran along the deck, caught an elevator to our cabin on the eighth deck, and burst into our room. “Pete, get up RIGHT NOW, NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!!” He was up and out of the room in 60 seconds. We couldn’t make up our minds to bother Mom and Dad—it was late, and we didn’t know if they would be as excited about Northern lights as we were (We know we’re geeky, and happy to be so, but everybody isn’t excited about the things which excite us). The show was still going on when we got back up on deck. We stayed for as long as we could, with a small crowd that had gathered-maybe 20 people. Once of the ships crew did photography, counting out a 90 second exposure. His work was on sale the next day in the ship’s photo gallery, and I intended to buy one, but didn’t get around to it. (Mom and Dad did stay up with us the next night, and the aurora danced for them, too, so I didn’t feel so bad about not waking them up the first night.)
Aurora
(c) 1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Si Kahn/Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)

When the light is low and the day is done
Aurora dances down
When she find the land that thirsts for sun
Aurora dances down
When the stars are up and the moon is dark
Aurora dances down
When the night leaps out like a fiery spark
Aurora dances down

Chorus
She'll spin and turn and chill and burn
Till your knees fall to the ground
She wears the starry crown
When the moon and sun are joined as one
Aurora dances down
Go to folkmusic.com for the rest of this wonderful song by John McCutcheon


), because the ship would be entering College Fjords with the dawn. We quickly dressed and went up to the Horizon buffet, collected breakfast delicacies, and scored a table by the window. The sky lightened as we entered the fjords, and we saw our first tidal glacier (one that comes down to the sea) from our breakfast table. It got crowded in the restaurant, so we gave up our table and went outside to admire the glaciers and try some photography. At some points during the day we connected with Mom and Dad, but they were on a different schedule than we were. They took all their meals in the sit down restaurants, because they liked the luxury. Pete and I tended to have breakfast and lunch at the buffet line, because we didn’t want to take a lot of time with meals. We all did go one afternoon to high tea, which was very elegant, but we all decided we didn’t need all the extra food when we would be eating dinner a few hours later.
Mom and Dad are bingo enthusiasts, and spent several afternoons in the bingo games. Pete and I spent most of our days on the deck, bundled up against the cool wind, enjoying sailing past mountain after mountain, and always on the lookout for wildlife. A naturalist was on board, and would announce on the ship’s loudspeaker when he sighted anything of interest. We saw the “blows” of some humpback whales but never had an actual whale sighting. We passed a large colony of Stellar’s sea lions, and some Dall’s porpoises swam along with us for a while. There was an alleged grizzly sighting on high ground. I missed the sea otter and seal sightings by being on the wrong side of the deck.
Wednesday, we entered the Glacier Bay National Park. Two park rangers came aboard and manned the loudspeaker as we sailed up to the glaciers. This was the coldest day of the trip. I think we were wearing every item of outer clothing we brought. The ship has lateral thrusters, and can turn itself in a tight circle, so wherever we were on deck, we could see all the surrounding glaciers. I hoped to see a calving, but I missed. We were far enough offshore (even though these glaciers are so huge that it seemed we were right up to them) that the sound of a calving was a second or two after the event. I heard the sound, but never saw the baby berg drop down.
Thursday morning we woke up in Skagway, the town whose claim to fame is the staging site for the Klondike gold rush in the 1890’s. We had 8am tickets on the White Pass railroad, which was built to carry the gold seekers up into Canada where they could float rivers into the Yukon Territory. The train ride was fun. We gained elevation quickly, and when we crossed into Canada the terrain became tundra. It was all a jumble of rocks, occasional scrubby evergreen bush, little lakes dotting here and there, and hanging glaciers on the surrounding peaks. It was easy to imagine that the area had been covered by ice in the not too distant past. We got back to the ship at noon, had lunch at the buffet, and then rearranged our clothes to head out on a hike. A trail head started a quarter mile from the ship and led to Dewey Lake. It was a pleasant, if somewhat steep in places (but not as bad as New Hampshire) walk to the beautiful lake. We also walked the two miles around the lake, and were sorry to discover it was dam created. We had hoped to hike to a glacier lake. Oh well, next trip. We did a quick walking tour of Skagway and then got back on the ship to change for dinner. The ship left Skagway at sunset. We enjoyed watching the undocking maneuvers from the deck.
There was entertainment every evening, but we didn’t really make the most of it. We went to the naturalist talk one evening, another night a movie which I slept through, Mom and Dad went to some stage productions, we saw a fairly lame magician, and a nice jazz band. There was live music in the various bars, and we stopped by a few places. I think I was too exhausted from being mostly outside all day to be very interested in evening entertainment.
Friday the port of call was Juneau. A representative from the visitor’s bureau offered to drive us up to the hospital if we thought we might like to apply for a job. We did call the HR office but got the answering machine. How life can be altered by little circumstances. Who knows what might have happened if a live person had answered the phone. We bought tickets for the tram up Mt. Roberts, and walked around the visitor center there. A Tlinget Indian gave a lecture about his culture. It was my intention to hike on Mt. Roberts, but I miscommunicated with Pete, and we ended up riding the tram back down to the town. We spent the day walking around town and visiting the Alaska State Museum.
Saturday we arrived in Ketchikan, our last stop in Alaska. We bought tickets for a “duck boat,” a novelty vehicle which is a bus on land and a tour boat on water. We toured both the town and harbor of Ketchikan, with an entertaining guide. We also used the opportunity help the local economy by purchasing art. We got two animal prints, a moose and an ocean otter.
The Dawn Princess left Ketchikan with the setting sun, and we threaded our way through the straights toward Canada. We crossed the border during the night, and spent all day Sunday sailing. The weather had deteriorated, and also we were in more exposed seas, so it was rougher sailing. We were blessed the entire week with excellent, if sometimes chilly, weather. The only rain was on this last day of sailing. We entered the straight between the mainland and Vancouver Island in the afternoon. There is so little human activity visible on either shore. We spent a lot of time on deck, but saw very few boats or lights, no roads.
Monday morning we docked at Vancouver (what a difference from the small docks in the Alaska towns. The ship looked so big at the dock in Skagway, in Vancouver it was a small part of a huge waterfront. We were in an early leaving group, so we had a very hurried last breakfast on the ship, and then went down to the seventh deck to wait for our group to be called. Mom and Dad of course were having breakfast in the dining room, and they showed up just minutes before we were called. We were herded onto a bus to take us to the airport. The bus driver gave us a nice tour of Vancouver in the rain. The airport was miserable. We moved from one line to another, pushing our luggage at a rate which would lose a race with a snail. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a VIP and not have to stand in line with the masses? Finally, the line torture was over and we got to board our east-bound plane to Atlanta. We arrived home in time to fall into bed.
It took me several weeks to sort through my feelings about the trip. The cruise line was very professional, although Mom prefers Carnival (I have no comparison since this was my first cruise). Everything was done very smoothly, and the service was great. I wasn’t wild about being with so many people all the time, and don’t see myself repeating this. My next trip to Alaska will be without a group. The star of the “show” for me was Alaska, not cruising. I loved the glaciers, the mountains were breathtaking, the three towns we visited were delightful little tourist towns (well, Juneau is actually a city). Looking back, we wasted too much time in gift shops. Next trip my motto will be “More mountains, less shops.”