Floating home from Alaska

Our trip home on the Alaska ferry started in Skagway; Alaska, which punctuates the top of the picturesque north-south Lynne Canal. Standing on the deck of the MV Leconte (one of the original Alaska ferries), mountains towered over us to both the east and west sides. As we moved away from land on our way south through the Inside Passage, even the four cruise ships we left behind were dwarfed by the setting.

The Leconte is overshadowed by the cruise ship
and the mountains.  Notice Harding Glacier
at the upper left.

I was excited to be moving out onto the water. I left Lynne in the comfortable observation lounge and ventured out on the deck. The wind picked up my hair and billowed my jacket. As the land receded, the sky revealed itself, filling the space above and beyond the islands and mountains. In the coming days, from the ferry, I saw endless vistas of mountains receding into clouds, shorelines overlaid with early morning fog, and trees blurred through mist, the atmospheric conditions softening the steady, slow passage south.  In that way, all four legs of our trip on the Alaska ferry were similar, although each offered a view of a lighthouse, a glacier, or a narrow channel to define where we were. Then, the appearance of houses, piers, cruise ships, and marinas signaled that we were approaching our destinations.

The back deck of the MV Fairweather

Lynne and I took three different Alaska ferries, embarking first from Skagway, stopping for a couple of days in Haines, one night in Juneau and two nights in Sitka. I loved watching the coast diminish quickly each time we pulled away from the dock.

I felt safe and also connected with my ship community, the passengers and the crew. Occasionally, the ferry sailed past cruise ships or fishing boats, but mostly, we were alone on the rolling water. I got used to the feeling of the deck moving slightly under my feet. I had to pay attention as I walked the halls.  I held onto the railings as I went up the stairs.

Travelling on the ferry through southeast Alaska gave me a visual context for how sparsely populated this part of the world is, how much of the land is uninhabited or uninhabitable. Mountains and water separate the human holdings. Each town operates in its own sphere, claims its own part of the shoreline, apart from its nearest neighbors. “Near” is a relative word when the towns are separated by icefields or steep impassable mountains rising sharply from the sea. What ties these southeast Alaska communities together is the water, the water which provides vital transportation and livelihood to the residents.

A view of Haines, Alaska as we head south on the ferry

Each of the three ferries (the Leconte, Fairweather and the Matanuska, all named after glaciers) had comfortable indoor observation lounges with ample windows for those absorbed in the passing beauty. I brought a book to read, but hardly got a page read.  I saw some people doing jigsaw puzzles, or knitting, but most were gazing out the windows or just leaning on the railing and scanning for wildlife. With no Wi-Fi on the ship, people passed much of the time talking to each other. 

Lynne and I had fun meeting new people, like Donna and her husband Joe from Georgia. They are as old as we are (depends on your perspective how old you think late sixties is), so we were surprised to learn that they were sleeping in their VW Golf as they traveled across the lower 48 and up to Alaska. Their claim to fame: bragging rights for getting 50 mpg with their diesel engine.  We made friends with Lexie and her husband from Oregon.  They trek up to Juneau to fish in Excursion Inlet each summer. This year they were returning with 1300 lbs of halibut that they caught. Lexie is originally from Juneau, and has memories of smoking fish with her Tlingit grandmother at the family’s fish camp.  Her husband gave me good directions for gathering huckleberries on Mt. Adams.

At night, I experienced sleeping on the boat, the bed gently rocking. I had the feeling of motion and simultaneously the feeling of deep relaxation that came with leaving the navigation and driving to the crew, covering distance in the dark as we slept. In the middle of one night, extra turbulence in the water awakened me, swaying me back and forward in my bed, but I soon fell back to sleep.

A deck hand prepares the ropes for landing

At breakfast, the purser made a quick announcement over the loudspeaker, alerting us to look out the window.  Standing up to see better out the wrap-around dining room windows, we watched about eight humpback whales fishing near the ship, their breath spewing up water, their fins slicing through the surface, their broad dark flukes (tails) flipping up as they dove. Before our food could get cold, they were gone.

The food was fun. The ship’s white jacketed cooks offered up their food cheerfully.  The kitchen was open most of the day.  It was a classic cafeteria line with trays that you slid down stainless steel rails, the heat rising from steam tables with oatmeal, soup or chili. Specials were listed on a white board for every meal.  After ten days of eating our own (very healthy, well planned) cooking while we were camping, both Lynne and I indulged in the kitchen's cooking.  The last morning, I had enough huevos rancheros to feed a ranch hand, and I enjoyed every bite.

Throughout our trip in Alaska in early August, we wore long pants and long sleeves, occasionally pulling on raincoats.  Southeast Alaska is in a rainforest, so we had expected the foggy weather, the showers, the cool air.  We had prepared for this weather and actually welcomed it after some hot days driving through southern BC. We heard occasional reports that the rest of the country was having a heat wave. 

 

Navigating the Peril Strait on the way to Sitka

The large boat that we were on for 36 hours was the MV Matanuska. It moves at approximately 19 mph (16.5 knots), day and night, carrying about 200 passengers and their RVs, cars, motorcycles, kayaks and bicycles. We traveled on it for 36 hours, from Sitka to Juneau, Juneau to Petersburg, then on to Wrangell, Ketchikan and finally our destination, Prince Rupert. For us, distances were measured in time, not miles.  Juneau to Sitka is about 110 miles as a plane flies, but took 4 ½ hours by the fast ferry MV Fairweather), or eight hours by the larger Matanuska. 

One lane of RVs being loaded on the ferry in Skagway.  Notice the smallest RV.  That's ours!
 Lynne and Winnie are standing in front.
Two cruise ships block the mountains behind the scene.

Tracing our route on the map, the ship went south from Juneau on the Chatham Strait, then east, slowing down to negotiate the Peril Strait and ending up south again on the Neva Strait to Sitka. You could skip all this cruising and instead get there in 40 minutes by plane. Instead, we returned to Juneau on the Matanuska. Our ultimate destination was Prince Rupert, 318 miles from Juneau.  We left Juneau at 5:15 am on Monday and traveled 29 hours south on the Stephens Passage to Frederick Sound and Petersburg, through the Wrangell Narrows to Wrangell, through the Clarence Strait to Ketchikan, through the Dixon Entrance to Prince Rupert.  We arrived at 10:45 am on Tuesday.

Approaching Juneau on the ferry, with a view of the Mendenhall Glacier.

I am an insider of the Alaska ferry system, because my job is to provide shoreside support to the ships which dock in Bellingham. Each week, I get to help the Alaska bound passengers through the boarding process. I chat with retirees who are taking their RVs to Alaska for their once in a lifetime trip. I answer questions for young military families who are relocating to Sitka or Kodiak or Anchorage. I help young people who are going up to Petersburg to process seafood for the season, men sending their new boats up on the ferry, homeless people who are pinning their hopes on Alaska, and Alaskan residents who came down to shop, to visit relatives, to buy a new car, or have a medical issue addressed.  I have coached young people who are pitching their tents on the top deck. I have relayed messages to the ship from distraught drivers who are caught in Seattle traffic or behind an accident and are late for the ferry. 

In the process of helping passengers, I have gotten to know some of the crew, from the watchman to the stewards to the pursers to the captains and the able bodied seamen and seawomen. It was fun to see them again in Alaska, and to meet more people who work on the ferry. 

When I was first hired, in 2010, an immediate bonus was that my training included a trip up to Ketchikan on the ferry for training.  I wrote a blog about it at the time, telling the story of going up to the bridge to see how the ship is steered, and in Ketchikan, donning a lifejacket and walking the scaffolding to learn to tie up a ship.  I was on an adventure then, although not exactly a relaxed one, as a new employee.

I am no longer new to the Alaska ferry system, yet the experience of being on the  ferry as a passenger during our recent trip was still an memorable adventure.

I came across these words from “The Blue Boat Home” by Peter Mayer this week, and they express how I felt about our sea journey:

 I give thanks to the waves upholding me,

 hail the great winds urging me on

Greet the infinite sea before me
Sing the sky my sailor's song 

Vacation mind, Sitka, Alaska

Brown bear at Fortress of the Bear

I like vacation.  You wake up in a beautiful place, you sort of know what direction you are headed but you have time to be distracted by anything else that presents itself.  You can stop to see the view, or you can keep going.  You can go out to the bear rehab center, or you can go to the Sitka National Historic Park, or you can see the Russian Orthodox Church. Those are the kind of choices we had in Sitka, Alaska.  We did all three.

 

Sky and Winnie in Sitka

We got there from Juneau by way of a four and a half hour trip on the Alaska Ferry. An hour after we got off the ferry, we walked along the ocean front from downtown Sitka, trying to figure out why we kept seeing fish leaping out of the ocean.  A local man explained that these pink salmon were trying to loosen up their eggs in preparation for spawning at the fish hatchery.  Plop, splash, went another pink salmon throwing itself up in the air.

The trail led to a path through the woods. The quiet closed-canopy forest with large Sitka spruce and Western hemlock trees was soothing. Eighteen Tlingit and Haida totem poles and house posts were spaced along our walk. During the ferry ride, Winnie had been cooped up in the RV (not exactly cooped since the RV is spacious), so we all enjoyed stretching our legs. Lynne and I learned about the Tlingit and Haida cultures while we were at it.

We did a bit more wandering that afternoon. We actually went to part of a Russian Orthodox vesper service on Saturday night.  The Russian Orthodox church was resplendent with gold, lots of precious chandeliers, iconic paintings and an aging bearded priest in a long flowing gold robe.  The service was intoned (chanted), in a style that I had heard before in the Episcopal church, and highly stylized. The words being chanted were read out of a printed liturgy.  I enjoyed the visual richness, and I was interested to see threads of commonality with Episcopalian ritual. We didn’t stay for the whole service, but I was glad to get a glimpse of this remnant from the time when Russian people occupied Sitka.

 

Two brown (grizzly) bears playing at Fortress of the Bear

More to my taste was Fortress of the Bear, a cleverly named facility at the east end of the fourteen miles of paved road in Sitka. Fortress of the Bear re-purposes several huge old waste water treatment cisterns to provide sheltered spaces for orphaned bears: six brown bears (aka grizzlies) and three black bears from three different sibling groups. They all have been given human names, so you have this feeling of being close to wild animals while simultaneously feeling like you are watching your pets play. The bears have ponds, toys to float around with, multiple spaces to go into and camaraderie. The black bears (in a separate enclosure from the brown bears) have the stump of a tree to climb up. People have constructed platforms above the bears, so we of the two legged species can safely observe examples of four legged creatures that are bigger than we are.   Like you, I am sure, I would prefer to spontaneously see bears in their natural habitat, but since bears, and most wildlife, run away from people when they can, the chances of seeing bears playing, eating, swimming, and relaxing in broad daylight like this are slim-- except at Fortress of the Bear.  The above pictures are brown bears, which is what they call grizzly bears on the coast. 

This next picture shows the black bears.  Watching the black bears gracefully climb up the stump and stand on their two hind feet made a big impression on us.  Don’t try to get away from a black bear by climbing up a tree.

Three brother black bears at Fortress of the Bear

Sitka is a nature oriented place, and so our next stop was the Alaska Raptor Center, which was yet another chance to see eagles and other raptors up close.  They had an impressive rehab aviary for those eagles who are expected to recover and could be returned to the wild.  They also had many long term residents who are well cared for and, when possible, used for educational presentations.

One of the other choices we had in Sitka was where to camp, and even though we had reserved a site in the wooded Starragavin campground, we ended up staying at the Sitka municipal RV park, right on the waterfront, with this lovely view out the window.  I enjoyed watching the boats leaving the marina and returning from the day on open water.

The view from our RV

And here are some houses built on small rocky bases out in the water.

Looks like a boat is the only option for leaving this house

My biggest impression of Sitka—gosh, it is way away from everywhere.  It faces the Pacific Ocean from the west side of Baranoff Island. The only way to get there is a four to eight hour ferry ride from Juneau, or a plane ride.  Of course, Sitka is a haven for fishing.  It is filled with marinas, and fishing conversations include terms that I had to look up: long-lining and leasing halibut percentages of catch (which I still don't understand).  Only 14 miles of road are paved in Sitka.  We drove it from end to end, enjoying the Whale Park at one end and Starragavin Park at the other, the museum at Sitka National Historic Park in the middle, a good restaurant (Fly Inn Fish Inn) but then what? Sitka is a long way from stores, theatre, medical expertise, …but then again, that’s why I went there.  I wanted to see what it is like to live in a naturally beautiful place, without the traffic congestion and noise of our more populous home, and I did. 

Up next: 36 hours on the Alaska Ferry from Sitka to Prince Rupert, BC.

View from the ferry as we approached Sitka 

Stop #1 in the Yukon

A glimpse of the hard side of living and working in Rancheria, Yukon, came from our waitress, Lois. She had black shoulder length hair with bangs. 

“It takes me six hours to get hair dye,” she said, referring to the drive between Rancheria and the next closest store, three hours west.  We all laughed, “we” being the four tired and hungry female RVers from Washington state. A ball of fire, Lois tried to keep us focused through our dinner orders, switching between dodging our touristy questions, running up to the cash register, showing new arrivals their motel rooms, bringing out food from the kitchen and answering our bear questions. 

“I am not afraid of bears,” she said.  “At my age, they know I’m not going to hurt them and they can just sense it.”  Her age, in my mind, was a question.  She had the energy of a younger woman, like when she mentioned being bucked off a horse and breaking her ankle last year. She also had the war stories of someone who had wrangled tourists for many years.

“If you want to see bears, just go down to the bridge,” she said, nodding in the direction from which we had just driven. “You could come with me after I get off work.  The old bridge washed out and it is full of berries. Time and place,” she said, looking directly at us, “if you want to see bears.” 

Jerri, Lynn, Lynne and Sky with Torrie and Winnie in Yukon

I pictured the end of her work day. It would still be daylight. On this day, the end of July, the sun set at 10:30 pm. We had driven four hours today, day six of our trip north.  This afternoon we had emerged from the northern end of the Cassiar Highway, after bouncing along gravelly roads through British Columbia’s coastal mountains for 450 miles.  Under clear blue skies and temperatures in the 60’s, we were now heading on the Al-Can (Alaska highway) towards Whitehorse. This conversation with our waitress was our first chance to talk with someone who lived here, not counting the friendly African man with the British accent who attended the first gas station that we stopped at in Yukon. I didn’t sense that he was local, and I wondered how he had ended up in this makeshift business, a single pump and a simple one room wooden building with the cash box resting on a table.

Fireweed

The restaurant, 100 km (an hour) up the road, was the next sign of human habitation we encountered. It was part of a roadside lodge whose earlier glory (touted in the Milepost guidebook) had faded.  The broad dusty gravel lot edged a sprawling restaurant and motel building, fuel pumps, a tangle of trucks and rusted equipment, and a small unmanned visitor center which I later found to have a dirt floor.  At the far end of the parking lot, a log gateway with yellow flags heralded the entrance to the campground.  We followed the signs and drove down a dirt road into a camp setting in a peaceful lodge pole pine forest back from the road.

Only one other site of the many available was occupied. We settled in adjacent sites. When three more RVs rolled in, they clustered near us, as if they also shared a bit of unease about the junkyard that edged one side of the campground, the unlabeled sites, and the isolation of it all. Each site had electricity--$20 a night for that and the use of the restroom. The TripAdvisor review had promised a nice walk along Rancheria River, but where was the river? In front of the small restroom building, four re-cycled toilets had been planted with cheerful purple petunias. The front door had been clawed by a bear. The recently swabbed down interior was a mirage of orderliness.  The door dividing the women’s side from the men’s didn’t close. Neither warped stall door latched, leaving me with a sense of imminent exposure, had there been more people around. Each of the two dark shower stalls was equipped with a peeling chair resting on a wooden pallet. Still, we were looking for respite for the night, and this was it.

Wild Barley and Fireweed

The promises of eating out after camping for three days had lured us back to the restaurant, a simple room with five tables and an open door to the kitchen.  At first, Lois didn’t take time to answer our questions with much flourish.  I asked her where she was from and she pointed out the window and said, “The bush.” I presumed that she meant a home down a track somewhere in the thousands of acres that extended around us in all directions, yet I hadn’t seen any sign of human habitation for hours along the highway that we drove. The tannin colored Rancheria River stood out from the boreal forests, stretching on endlessly. No turnoffs, no homesteads, no telephone poles, no power lines. 

According to the guidebook, Yukon’s total population: around 35,000. Two thirds of them live in the capital,Whitehorse. I guessed that ten of the residents of Yukon lived and made their living at Rancheria, perhaps fewer in the winter. The flannel shirted young guy who pumped the propane was helpful and friendly, jiggling an electrical circuit mounted to a telephone pole to get the pump working and carrying the filled propane tank back to our campsite.  Our friends had liked the skinny blond man who ran the campground, although he seemed to disappear after we arrived. 
I finally found the creek, after first heading down a likely looking path and encountering a big sign nailed to a tree: “Danger. Keep Out.” I made a second attempt in the company of two other travelers, Alaskans who had sold all their possessions and were heading to the lower 48 states to find their Shangri La, possibly in South Carolina. Just a few minutes walk past purple fireweed, blue monkshood and pink flowering wild barley, the path opened to a bend in Swift Creek with a broad flat rocky shore. My companions' dog raced to fetch a ball while Winnie (our dog) waded into the creek and lapped up its cold water.  I reveled in the quiet, the sound of rippling water, wind stirring the trees, and the undisturbed emptiness of the forest across the creek from us.

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  Many more miles have passed since we spent the night at Rancheria.  We had a glimpse of life in the north, where average January low temperatures are -20 degrees Fahrenheit.  I left with more questions than answers, but at least I now had an image of Yukon.

Grizzly at Fish Creek

I did not take this video. We had gone to Hyder, Alaska, one evening, specifically hoping to see bears from the observation platform at Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site. You have to want to be in Hyder, Alaska, because it is darn hard to get to. We had driven north and west from Bellingham for four days and camped at Meziadin Junction, BC, on the Cassiar Highway. Then we drove west 40 minutes more, stopping at Bear Glacier along the way, to Stewart, BC. We drove a few miles across the border, into the US to get to Hyder. That's the only way in. After stopping for amazing seafood at the Seafood Express food truck, we got out to Fish Creek about 7 pm.

We wanted to see what every other tourist hopes to see: wildlife, especially bears. Fish Creek was overwhelmed with chum salmon spawning, which attracts bears. The water was churning with salmon going through their end of life ritual. The eagles were all around us. We had been watching the chum salmon spawning in Fish Creek for so long that I had gone back to the car to relax, when this grizzly bear showed up. Lynne shot this video.

Turn up your sound when you play this video. At 11 seconds, you can hear the bear whimper when it misses a fish it was after. Also hear the eagles screaming overhead, and notice the water churn as the salmon frantically swim away from the grizzly. The bear finally catches a salmon about 59 seconds into the video. Watch as it eats only the salmon's eggs, then tosses the fish, still alive, back into the stream, and goes in search of its next delicacy. What a sight!
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Here's Bear Glacier: