By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 1, 2022 | Twenty years ago, as Memorial Day rolled around, we were on a seven-day cruise to Alaska, out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Altogether, 16 of us made the trip. If you’ve never been to Alaska on a cruise, let us recommend it. While we are no fan of big ship sea cruises, this one we can recommend. The smaller the ship, generally the better.
We stopped off at four distinctly different ports in Alaska. So we weren’t trapped on the ship, but got to see these ports close up.
The fifth day on the ship we got up near a calving glacier, though the fog was so heavy that day that we didn’t see much activity at the glacier. Yet that, too, was a good experience. The temperature that morning was near 30 degrees, and anything warm was acceptable. The ship’s waiters were constantly proffering you with pricey hot chocolate; in the brisk coolness, they would sweeten it, if you wanted, with brandy. (The high cost of a cup of chocolate was nothing unusual: most everything on a cruise ship is pricey.)
The towns we visited briefly, each with its own charm:
Ketchikan: It is one of the wettest towns in the U.S., getting over 140 inches of rain a year, and yep, it was raining when we stopped. But that didn’t stop us from getting out and about, seeing among other things, a tremendous demonstration of axe-throwing from a performing group of lumbermen.
Juneau: Few towns have the charm of Juneau, a town somewhat isolated, with no highways to the outside world. It takes an airplane or boat to get there. The Capitol was something, in that its statehouse chambers are mighty small for the few members of each House. And you stay on the lookout for the governor, for when we were there, he simply walked downtown for lunch. It’s a laid-back town.
Skagway: In wet Alaska, ironically, this town gets less than 20 inches of rain a year, protected by mountains. Historically, it was a jumping off place for the Alaskan Gold Rush. Today a modern train can quickly haul you to the nearby mountain summits, a treacherous and difficult journey for the early goldseekers. It’s small, but welcomes tour boats happily.
Sitka: Perhaps the most fascinating town, since it was once Russia’s outpost in North America. You see Eastern influences everywhere. In particular, we visited the Russian Bishop’s House and the onion-domed church.
The trip ended at Seward, where we caught the Alaska Railroad to Anchorage. But we had a day in Seward, and were fascinated by their giant Alaska Sea Life Center, funded mostly from fines from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Center conducts primary research on wild creatures from this area. You can easily spend several hours watching animals or birds at their daily tasks among the exhibits.
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