In September, 1999, I, my folks, and my best friend Sam sailed the Gulf of Alaska on Princess Cruise Line's Sun Princess.  We had the following itenerary:

9/6:  Sail from Vancouver
9/7:  At sea in the Inside Passage
9/8:  Ketchikan
9/9:  Juneau
9/10:  Skagway
9/11:  Glacier Bay
9/12:  College Fjord
9/13:  Dock in Seward, bus to Anchorage, plane home

Later Sam and I decided to use the weekend of the fourth and fifth to sightsee, so we added the following:

9/4:  Plane to Seattle, sightsee
9/5:  Train to Vancouver, sightsee
9/6:  Sightsee, meet my Canadian cousin for lunch, board ship

Saturday Sam and I flew uneventfully to Seattle, got settled into our suite (not as exciting as it sounds—it’s intended for business people on extended stays, like for conferences, and was basically the Motel 6 of Suites, but still nice), and headed downtown.  I spent most of my time at Pike’s Place Market, which is a combination of Fisherman’s Wharf, a farmer’s market, a craft fair, and Faneuil Hall, especially when you include the surrounding shops.  Definitely my kind of place.  We went out to a Thai noodle place for dinner, which was very good.  It was at the other end of town (Queen’s Market, I believe), so on the bus on the way we passed Seattle Center and the Space Needle.  Then we went home to bed.

Sunday we took the train to Vancouver.  We were told in advance that the scenery was spectacular, and it was.  We followed the  coast most of the way, and saw things you just can’t see by car.  There was an old boat filled with sand and plants, and this beautiful place called Chuknut Bay, all yellows and greens.  Later in Canada we saw people playing softball on the mudflats iin the rain.  We entered Canada right by the road at the friendship arch, which symbolizes unity and friendship between the US and Canada and is pretty cool.  Unfortunately, my camera was packed and it was raining and I was indoors, so I didn’t get a picture.  We also saw our first totem pole near the tracks on the shore.

In Vancouver Sam and I had a little adventure.  I had made hotel reservations and printed out a very nice map and directions to the place, but I of course left them at home.  I was sure I knew where it was, however, so I insisted we didn’t need to stop for directions.  So we trudged off lugging our luggage down Main Street in Vancouver away from the train station towards the science center.  About halfway to where I think we’re going, it starts to pour.  We keep going.  We get where I insist the hotel should be.  It’s not there.  I duck into a Chinese restaurant and look up the address in the phone book.  I’m not even close.  The hotel is 13 blocks from the train station—in the other direction.

So, Sam and I hopped a bus downtown and finally made it to our hotel.  The bonus was we at least got upgraded to a suite, and a fairly nice one, and it was great.  We just lucked out because the city was so full for the weekend but they had to honor our reservation since we'd booked so far in advance and shown up at a reasonable hour.  When we got settled we headed out to find lunch and see Stanley Park.  We ate at a hole in the wall specializing in wholesome juices and wraps, which were really good, and selling gay bars (of the candy variety).  Sam and I were tempted, but we didn’t buy any.  One thing that struck me was how openly gay-friendly Vancouver is, at least Davies Street, the shopping and eating district downtown where we were.  Many to most of the shops had rainbow flags in the windows, there were many gay shows (actually lots of adult theatres and shops in general, kinda like South Street, but more, and just popping up at random), just a really open city.  Sam says there’s some of that in the states, including Murray Ave in Pittsburgh, which I’ve walked a hundred times and not noticed (I’m perceptive, but I’m not observant.  I can pick up pretty well on people, but I’m lousy at noticing things), but not as much.  Of course, that's not taking SF's Castro District into consideration, for example, and that’s a totally different story.  Mom was going through SF for a conference on Gay Pride Day once.  She says it was very interesting and don’t get caught trying to drive as she was.

After lunch we went to Stanley Park, walked along the beach for a while, and took the free shuttle (this year free—they want to charge next year—it’s probably worth $1, but not more) to the aquarium.  That’s what I initially wanted to do because it’s supposed to be very good, but I got there and decided with the time we had left (about 2 hours), I’d rather ride the trolley around the rest of the park.  So I read all the signs and looked at the statues and fountains outside and examined the architecture and looked through the window at the gift store and declared that I’d seen the aquarium.  Then we went to see the totem poles, cutting through a cricket game on the way.  Sam and I watched for a bit and decided even comparing it to baseball we just don’t get cricket.

The totem poles were originally brought to the park as the centerpiece of an Indian village replica the city wanted to build, but the idea fell through and just the totem poles remain.  They’re directly across the bay from Canada Place, where the cruise ship terminals are, and  we got there at 5 PM, just in time to see Holland American and Royal Caribbean ships set sail for Alaska.  That was interesting, because I’d never seen them sail from a shore perspective before, and Sam wanted to see it from the shore angle first since this was his first cruise.  It was kind of neat realizing that in 24 hours that would be us.

After we finished touring the park, we did some window-shopping and had a nice Greek dinner.  We found this one store, Moose Magnets, which specializes in souvenirs, particularly magnets, and stuffed animals.  They have this fabulous collection of battery operated critters wandering around the store, including, of course, a moose.  I could have stayed there all night, but Sam wouldn’t let me.  So we went to dinner.  Sam ordered retsina with dinner, which is a Greek wine made from pine resin.  It was interesting, and having read about it, I’m glad I tried it, but Sam and I both decided we weren’t crazy about it.

Monday morning we met a cousin of mine (first cousin twice removed, at least 70) for lunch at noon.  We left the hotel about 10 to find breakfast and after that just wandered around downtown Vancouver.  We ended up at Canada Place about 11 and got a fantastic view of the ship in dock.  I took pictures, but my camera decided to die about that point and they didn’t come out (in trying to turn off the flash, I accidentally released the film area instead.  I closed it and managed to rewind the film, but the pictures were exposed, and the camera just refused to load properly after that.  So I have a nice new camera now, for once valued at over $30).

At noon we went to meet my cousin, which we did by pure luck.  First we’d miscommunicated and he thought he was meeting us at the hotel, then we’d both hoped my dad would make it, but his bus from Seattle didn’t get in until later.  I’d met my cousin exactly once when I was 13, but I managed to spot him just as we were both about to give up.

At 5:30 we sailed amid a big party on the top two decks, and this time we got to see the totem poles across the bay.  There were lots of just random people on the dock waving, so we waved back, and that was cool.  What was less cool was the fact that they played the Love Boat them over and over as we got underway, the first of at least 10 times while we were on the cruise!  I have to admit that I find Princess’s motto “It’s not just a cruise, it’s the Love Boat” slightly sickening, especially since the mean passenger age was probably at least 50.  It was still a fun cruise, though, although the audience didn’t quite get the idea of audience participation at shows and stuff.

Tuesday we were at sea cruising the inside passage which leads along the coast of Alaska past Ketchikan, Juneau, and on up to Skagway.  I learned how to line dance and do the Macarena, which was a lot of fun, although I was stupid enough to wear themals, a turtleneck, and a flannel shirt, which I know better than to do.  I also got so into it with all the clapping that I bruised my hands, and it took me a couple of hours to figure out why my palms were purple.  The really cool thing was Mom did it with me, and we even went to the hoedown together a couple of nights later, and that was fun.  I’ve been trying to get my folks to folk dance for a while, and it’s a start.

At dinner we had a table for 8 with an ocean view, and Princess was kind enough to engage a whale to swim by the window during dinner.  We actually saw a good bit of wildlife on the cruise, which was neat.  Princess apparently has very good contracts with the animals!  :)

Wednesday was Ketchikan in the rain.  Ketchikan is know for two things:  its toem poles and its red light district.  We booked a trolley tour on the dock that took us by both, with additional stops at a salmon ladder and an eagle’s nest.  We didn’t get to see any slamon, even though it was the height of spawning season, but we did get to see an impressively rushing creek, with rapids like neither our guide nor one of the others who stopped at the ladder at the same time had ever seen.  So just seeing all of that rushing, gushing water was neat.

Ketchikan has two totem parks:  Totem Bight where I went before and which my mom prefers, and Saxman Village where Sam and I went this time because I hadn’t and Sam wanted to.  The neat thing about Saxman Village is it has an active carving shed with carvers of all three major tribes in the area.  I thought it was really interesting that most of them were quite fair and didn’t look “Indian” at all, even though they were, I assume, full-blooded.  One of the poles we saw being carved is a 16-footer going to the new speedway in Terra Haute, IN, that’s owned by the same folks who own the Indianapolis Speedway.

After visiting Saxman Village and hearing all about their Totem Poles (most of which were transported from elsewhere, and several of which are exact replicas carved because the originals were too decrepit), we went back to town to see Creek Street, the red light district.  It really is built right on a creek.  Sam toured Dolly’s House, the principal brotherl (now a museum—not still active!) and I went back to town to shop and get dry.

That night Sam and I participated in “Anything Goes” where the cruise staff hosts games like the “Anniversary Waltz” to see who’s been married the longest (40 years in this case), the Huddle game where the goal is to get yourself in a group with just the right number of people (which I did badly at because everyone else was really cliquey and I played the game they way I think it should, really mixing myself up and around), the Hat Game (where several guys got to play musical hats and which was very amusing), and a balloon relay.

This last event was a guys against girls thing.  Given that it was semi-formal night and Andrew, one of the staff (whom I really didn’t like because I felt he overstepped the bounds of friendly, although not with me), picked 3/5 of the girls , cute 20-somethings in tight, short dresses, myself included, the guys had a distinct advantage.  Each participant got a balloon and had to hobble over to a staff member (Paul for the girls, Diane for the guys) with the balloon between their knees.  Then they had to place the balloon on the staff member’s lap and leap on it to pop the balloon.  Sam and I both participated, and between us I think we provided most of the night’s entertainment.  Sam somehow managed to overbalance and end up on the floor with Diane on top of him, and I kept overshooting the balloon and landing on nothing!  The guys beat us by a whole bunch, but we all got CD cases, and my shins seem to have recovered nicely, thank you, although they were lovely shades of yellow, purple, and turquoise for quite a while.

Thursday was Juneau, also in the rain.  Sam and I once again booked a city tour on the dock, this time one that went out to Mendenhall Glacier, the largest glacier accessible by land, once you arrive in Juneau, that is.  Juneau is the only state capital not accessible by land.  Each election the citizens of Alaska try to move the capital inland to Anchorage, but they haven’t succeeded yet.

On the way to the glacier we got to see spawning salmon and learn all about their life cycle, for the first of at least 3 times.  At the glacier we saw bald eagles (one was sitting in the trees just across from where we met our bus) and a beaver dam, plus the glacier, which really is spectacular, even though it’s shrunk by about 250 feet from when I last saw it.  This is because it’s a “retreating” glacier, which means the ice is melting faster than new ice gets added on, so the glacier literally moves back about 20 feet a year.  Sam took a helicopter ride and got to see Taku glacier, the only advancing glacier in the area, which takes on ice faster than it melts and thus moves forward about 20 feet a year and is expected to consume the river in front of it in 30 years.  One of the neatest thing about glaciers is their color.  The ice is sky blue because it’s so compressed.  The first time I saw Mendenhall I thought they poured blue paint or dye over the glacier!

In the afternoon Sam took his helicopter ride and I went on a wildlife sightseeing cruise.  We saw a bunch of wildlife – 8 humpback whales (2 mothers with calves and a group of four we saw come together to feed and then split up again), 3 harbor seals who kept popping up their little round heads to get a good look at us (I caught one looking straight at me through my binoculars, and it was sooo cute), about a half dozen or so eagles, and a bunch of Stellar Sea Lions (two bunches really, one group of adolescents basking on a buoy and one group of adults swimming while we watched the humpbacks and one of the seals watched us).  Stellar Sea Lions really give the species its name because the males have long, bushy “manes”.  My parents (same excursion, different boat) also saw a Dall’s porpoise, but we didn’t.

The day after we were in Juneau one of the helicopters with 4 cruise passengers on it got caught in a flat light and had to spend the night on a glacier.  Rescuers did manage to get up to them with supplies, but then the rescuers were trapped as well!  Fortunately, everybody was gotten safely off the glacier the next morning.  The worst that happened to Sam was his trip got delayed an hour because of a bad fuel pump.

Dinner that night was French night.  One of the other couples at our table was a pair of self-proclaimed workaholics from Utah named Susan and Bob who were on diets at the beginning of the week, signed up for all the exercise classes because they weren’t sure they could manage to relax for a whole week, and ended up having a ball.  They’re going on a Caribbean cruise in April.  So by Thursday they were having a great time (Susan was even playing Bingo regularly—but shhh. . . she doesn’t want anyone to know!  “I mean, Bingo, can you believe it?” she said).  She’s the one who got Sam hooked on escargot, and was very proud of herself for making a convert.  The rest of us just took our French bread and sopped up their sauce.  Dessert that night included Cherries Jubilee and Chantilly Swans, which are swan-shaped puff pastry filled with whipped Chantilly cream.  Bob and I got Chantilly Swans and several of the others got Cherries Jubilee.  Bob kept admiring his swan and was trying very hard to keep it intact as long as possible, and Susan kept making a grab for the head.  Finally, as Bob was explaining how you make them (he’d taken a gourmet pastry class, and claims “you wing the head”), Susan reached over and chopped off the swan’s head.  “Susan, you chopped off its head!”  “Yes, I did, and it was fun.”  I suggested we give the swan a decent burial.  Mom suggested cremation over the Cherries Jubilee.  At this point, all the women at the table are laughing hysterically and all the men are staring at us like we’re insane.  But the memory of Susan and the swans was worth it.

Friday was Skagway, amazingly enough, not in the rain!  We rented a car and followed the White Pass Railroad up into the Yukon.  The White Pass railroad follows one of the two major trails from the coast to the Klondike gold fields, the White Pass Trail.  The trail failed miserably, however, because all of the men who came looking for gold knew absolutely nothing about surviving in the wilderness, and they left their common sense at home with everything else.  They blew all their money on pack horses which they overloaded, drove to death, and left to die by the side of the trail, and then went back to get more.  Because of this, the trail became known as the Dead Horse Trail.  The other trail was the Chilkoot Trail which was too steep for horse, and the men had to carry 2,000 lbs of goods (enough for one man for one year, enforced by the mounties).  This took about 40 trips to get to the river at the top of the trail, by which time they had to wait for spring for all the ice to melt so they could sail the boats they built over the winter the rest of the way to the ice fields.  Then, when they got there, all the land had already been claimed!  Dyea, the town where the Chilkoot Trail begain, is now a ghost town.  The railroad kept Skagway alive, mainly because it was taken over by the Army Corps of Engineers during WWII when the mines had all been panned out and used as a supply line while the Army built the Alcan Highway to make defending Alaska easier.

On our way out of town we stopped at the Gold Rush Cemetery where Frank Reid and Jefferson “Soapy” Smith are buried.  “Soapy” Smith was one of the most notorious con men of the Klondike Gold Rush.  He was shot and killed instantly by Frank Reid, the town assayer, while Soapy was on his way to an anti-Soapy vigilante meeting (apparently he wanted to verbally defend himself).  Soapy did manage to get off one shot at Frank, and Frank died 12 days later.  Frank was given the burial and the tombstone of a hero, with the inscription “He died defending his town’s honor”, but Soapy’s probably the better known these days!

The drive along the White Pass Railroad was beautiful.  It follows this ravine with a river, and lots of waterfalls falling down the mountains into it and flowing along the side of the road, and every once in a while we could see the train chugging away across the ravine below us.  As we got higher up in the mountains and into Canada, we got into an area of glacial lakes, which were just gorgeous—blues and greens all mixed together as the less salty water from the glaciers mixed with the more salty water that was already there.  The last one we stopped and looked at, Emerald Lake, was the most breathtaking of all, and it had this little island in the middle all covered with green brush and yellow lichen.  We also got to see Bennett Desert, the world’s smallest desert (yes, there really is a desert in the middle of Canada’s Yukon), and CarCross (formerly Caribou Crossing) which used to be a major Mounties Barracks and is now a cute little Red Painted Mock Mountie Barracks Tourist Trap.  We had lunch at Frontierland, wheich had really nice people even if their wildlife museum and frontier town replica weren’t much (we didn’t pay the admission fee, but we craned our necks and got to see the mannequins of men and the molting stuffed caribou).  Mother got to admire all the furs and skins and speculate about trying to bring one of those home with the dogs around.

When we got back to Skagway, we dropped Sam off at the ship so he could tour the bridge and then went browsing through the shopping district.  There was this one really cute shop that had a model of Soapy Smith in a bathtub above the door and it gave off real bubbles!  The woman who owns the shop said she’d been amusing town, tourists, kids, and grown-ups all summer with that.  Mommy and I got our picture taken in front of it, which was lots of fun.

Then we went back to the ship to catch a balladeer who tells songs and stories of Alaska during the Gold Rush.  He’s where I picked up a lot of the tidbits about the potential miners I related earlier.  He also tells a wonderful tale about Michael J. Heney who seems to have “appeared full grown in Alaska history” to build the White Pass Railroad and doesn’t appear to have had an early life at all.  So Steve Hites, the balladeer, decided to go do some research at the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau (a very famous and still active saloon).  As he tells it, after about 8 beers, words appeared before him on a cocktail napkin, and thus the true story of Michael J. Heney was revealed to him.  It’s a truly hysterical song in true tall-tale style.

Saturday was Glacier Bay, which is considered one of the wonders of cruising.  Dad says the only thing he’s found that’s nearly as spectacular is the Panama Canal.  I haven’t seen the Panama Canal, so I think Glacier Bay is pretty thrilling.  We actually deviated from our planned route by about an hour to do something neither my folks nor I had done before.  Glacier Bay is in the shape of a Y, and nornally the cruise ships just run up one arm of the Y to Marjorie Glacier, the reason being that the other arm is closed for most of the cruising season for seal pupping.  However, about 3 weeks out of the season, starting at the beginning of September, cruise ships are allowed to go up the other arm to Johns Hopkins Glacier.  It was sooo neat.  As we approached the glacier, we saw these huge ice floes with all these little black specks on them, which Dad insisted were dirt, but I was smart enough to take a look with my binoculars to be sure, and they were seals!  Hundreds of them!  It was just like stepping into the book of baby seals on my coffee table.  I think if I had to name one sight I really wanted to see before I died, that was it, and I never dreamed I’d actually be able to see it.  It was just really, really neat and wonderful and more spectactular to me than seeing the glacier calve (break off a big chunk of ice into the water).

Saturday night was the second formal night, for which I’d brought a brand-new, tight-fitting, long, purple dress and new earrings.  The main reason for this was because the dress I’d planned to wear I could no longer fit into (well, gaining 15 pounds, however needed, will do that to a person), and I made the mistake of calling my mother to see if she felt the other dresses I was considering were fancy enough.  Unfortunately, she found out they’re both from thrift stores, although in excellent shape, and insisted I go out and buy a new dress.  I actually managed to find one I liked in under an hour and a half.  Then the second formal night comes, and I get seasick (as do most of the passengers and a good portion of the crew).  So the only people who actually get to see me in the dress are our stewardess, my mother, and Sam, the latter two of whom are also sick.  So Sam and I spend the evening lying in our cabin nibbling at tea and salad while he keeps finding movies on TV—Prince of Egypt, with the parting of the Red Sea, Six Days, Seven Nights with that lovely storm scene, and he watches them!  I could have killed him.  Although I have to admit Six Days, Seven Nights is a good movie.  I wasn’t ready to appreciate Prince of Egypt.

Sunday was very uneventful.  We cruised through College Fjord, another area of glaciers where all the glaciers are named after colleges and universities.  I had a bit of a head cold, so I slept through most of it instead of watching up on deck.  I did get to see one of the glaciers through the wonderful bridge cam piped to the TV in our room, and I got to see a couple of porpoises that swam by the ship also through the cam.  Sunday night was crab night, which was absolutely wonderful, and also baked Alaska night.  All of the Junior Waiters (really glorified busboys) parade a lighted Baked Alaska around the dining room and do a presentation.  The theme was the Macarena (yes, there was a lot of the Macarena on the ship).  It really is an impressive sight, although don’t try to take pictures (I did try, but I at least probably had more reasonable expectations than all those fools shooting flash photos—I did at least try to turn my flash off.  Not that it worked).  I did get a really great close-up of Sam, our assistant waiter Moses, and the Baked Alaska.

Monday we disembarked in Seward and took a bus to Anchorage to fly home.  On the way we learned about salmon (again) and got to see all kinds of wildlife—moose, and deer, and boar, and elk, and caribou, and muskox and rabbit, and bear, and I forget what else.  Okay, so this was in a little wildlife rehabilitation center where we stopped for a break, but they were still cute.  And I can say I saw a real moose, so it’s okay that one of my souvenirs is a Moose Christmas ornament.  For some reason I learned that I’m intensely fascinated by moose, not necessarily more than seals, but significantly enough to pass up several adorable seal ornaments to buy a dumb $2 moose.  Okay, he is adorable, and my other souvenir is a really neat hematite seal, but still, very uncharacteristic of me.  The last thing of note was this really neat mural on the side of one of the department stores in anchorage which has all kinds of whales on it—humpback, orca, and beluga among others.

All in all, we had a really good time.  Cruising is definitely the way to see Alaska, and cruising on Princess or Holland American is definitely recommended (those are the preferred lines, so you get perks like more likely to see Glacier Bay and preferential docking).  If you’re not cruising, it’s much harder to get to Ketchikan, Glacier Bay, and Juneau, and Glacier Bay in particular is spectacular.  And as mom says, cruising is economical—food, lodging, and transportation for one lump sum!
 
 

Image courtesy of World of Aminmated Gifs