2023 Alaska Cruise

Icy Strait Point was created by the local Tlingit tribe as a cruise ship destination after the 1971 agreement between the state of Alaska and the indigenous people which resolve land ownership issues. This also included considerable funding for development projects.  This location used to be a major salmon canning facility but fell into disuse. They tried completely renovated this and added many facilities for experiencing the wildlife. As we were docking this morning we saw a bald eagle flying by. There is a gondola going to the top of a local mountain and a zip line for the people who want an exciting ride back down. We are having an Alaskan seafood cooking demonstration this morning.

We arrived in Sitka around 8:00 a.m. The cruise ship terminal is about 5 mi from town. Overcast and around 50°, but thankfully not raining. Our morning excursion included a performance of traditional and modern dance along with narration of the history of Sitka. It was very nice and well done.  We had a nice visit with a woman at the Lutheran Church which was originally founded in the 1840s by Finnish speaking Russians but was abandoned in 1888 after Alaska was sold to the US. It was rebuilt in the 1940s burnt down and was rebuilt in 1967 after a major fire. We walked about a mile along the waterfront to the Sitka national Park which had an interesting video and historical artifacts of the, Tlingit native Americans who have lived here for 9,000 years. While eating dinner we were again lucky to see a humpback whale spouting and swimming alongside the ship. Very exciting!

We are pulling in around 7:00 a.m. this morning cruising past snow covered peaks along the passageway. Heavily overcast but no rain. There are four other cruise ships here with 3 to 5,000 people each. The Viking ship that we are on is the smallest at about 900 people. We are anchored in the harbor and will tender back and forth to the shore. In the morning we went to the glacier gardens rainforest which is a temperate rainforest. The man who owns this has created beautiful gardens and a steep road up the mountain. One of the features is upside down trees - he has taken dead trees and stuck the base in the ground upside down with beautiful plantings on top.  We then went to the state museum which has many artifacts of the history of Alaska.  After lunch back at the ship we went back into Juneau just to wander around. Unlike many of the other Alaskan towns that were just staging points for the Gold Rush Juno actually had very large quantities of gold that were found in the early...

We arrived in Port around 7:00 a.m. this morning.  What a change from Ketchikan. Wrangell is a sleepy town of about 2,000 people and not a tourist hot spot. At the dock there were a few people selling crafts and a number of children selling garnets. Only children are allowed to harvest the garnets that are in this area. I did buy one as a souvenir. We walked a short distance to a great museum that is packed with history and artifacts. On the way back it started to mist so we didn't do much more sightseeing in town.  In the afternoon it cleared up and we walked to the petroglyph historic site. There are numerous ancient petrographs although nobody knows who made them or exactly what the purpose was. We also saw three or four young bald eagles flying around in a nest near the shore. In the evening we watched the movie Call of the Wild with Harrison Ford on the pool deck. It would be "under the stars" except it was still light out at 10:00 p.m. ...

 When we woke up this morning we were in the inland passage so it was not very wavy. It is a clear morning and we can see snow on the mountains in the distance.  My computer is still dead this morning so I will be limited in what I can do.  We were supposed to dock right in downtown Ketchikan but there are four ships here today and we are docked about 20 minutes away. They are expecting about 12,000 people from the 6 cruise ships to unload into a town of 8,000 people.  Scott noticed in eagle's nest with two eagles that was just outside our stateroom window. We took the shuttle into town and walked along the boardwalk along the shore. Ketchikan is the first major city along the Alaskan panhandle.  The town is mostly restaurants, souvenir shops and jewelry shops catering to tourists. There are many interesting plaques documenting the history of Ketchikan from its founding in the late 1800s.  We walked along Creek Street which is the historic red light distric...

 When we opened the curtains this morning we looked out at steep green hill rising up only a few hundred yards from the ship. At times in the distance we could see snow-covered peaks. It is a gray overcast morning with the temperature around 50. Carmen made coffee in the room and we relaxed with the Kingston Daily Freeman which we downloaded. The internet is spotty but surprisingly good considering the remoteness - I assume it is satellite-based. The area that we are passing through, between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland is quite narrow, often less than a mile wide.  There is quite a ferocious wind so it isn't very pleasant to go out on the deck. The waves aren't very high as it is so protected but even so the ship steadily rocks back and forth. Once we passed into the open sea it became much more wavy and the ship was really rocking and rolling. Everyone is walking around like they've had a few too many drinks 😏 My laptop seems to have suffered a cata...