Puppies!!! (Parts 2 and 3)

When we originally planned our trip to Alaska, we were going to do it in mid-summer. That changed to late May for three reasons: the weather is usually less rainy, it's cheaper and probably as important was that many of the animal babies - including the dogs - would be younger. The first excursion we booked after finalizing the cruise was to go to a Musher's Camp and that included puppy play time and I'm pretty sure this was the day Jess was most looking forward to. Even though we saw puppies once already on the trip, there can never be enough puppies.

By the time we got up, the ship was already docked in Skagway which was a gateway town for people on the way to the Klondike back in the early 20th century. At the time, it was one of the largest cities in Alaska (and maybe it was the largest). Now, it's a small town where cruise ships can dock and unload thousands of tourists. We disembarked and made our way to the shuttle to take us to our dog sledding experience.

It was about a 30 minute drive to the camp which was a little ways away in Dyea. The scenery was beautiful and even though it threatened to rain early, the clouds broke quickly and it turned into another sunny day. We drove around a couple different bays that were created by glaciers (so I guess they were technically fjords) until we got the base camp where we had to get on a Mercedes Benz Unimog (it was a big truck that had large tires that could go up the steep mountain).

Once we got to the top of the mountain (about 800 ft. up), we got on a dog sled with wheels and a team of 16 dogs pulled us around for about one mile. The camp is set up so that mushers can bring their dogs there and keep them conditioned during the summer. They do it here because it's a bit cooler in the summer so the dogs can do a little more running without overheating as quickly. After the sled ride - which was pretty fun - we got to pet the dogs and learn more about them. My favorite was Rolo since he looked like the current UConn logo.

We went back down the hill (briefly stopping at a scenic pull-off) and heard about the Iditarod race and what goes into preparing for it and actually running it. It turns out it's very expensive and you don't even win much if you finish first, which takes almost 9 days. After that we got to see the dogs that were there, including a couple retired dogs, a bunch of older puppies that were in an enclosure and of course the 8-week-old babies that we got to hold! There wasn't a lot of time for it but Jess managed to get a bunch of puppy cuddle time in.

After we were dropped back off into town, we headed on over to the Visitor's Center for the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park to check it out and of course, get another stamp. The park actually consists of a large part of the downtown in Skagway. Many of the old buildings are still there and have been re-purposed and the newer buildings are made to look like they'd fit in as if they were built in 1899. We walked around some, shopped and had a nice lunch a little off the main street thanks to a helpful cashier (it was lunchtime and every place on the main street of Broadway was packed). We walked around a little more enjoying the weather and scenery before getting back on the ship.

There are daily events in the main piazza on the ship and today's were sled dog puppies. The lines were crazy but we ended up talking to some people from our tour that we just happened to see there and as the line died down, we got back in line so Jess could get one last puppy in. As we were watching, the dogs looked familiar; while many of the puppies looked similar, these were very much like the ones we saw earlier that had a mother named Dandy. After taking one last picture, we found the guy that came with them and asked and sure enough, they were the same puppies we held this morning (though technically the one Jess had was a new one since he was sleeping this morning and they always leave at least one puppy with the mother so she doesn't get too anxious). The guy asked who our musher was this morning and we couldn't remember his name but we knew the names of the dogs so that was kind of sad. Jess pulled out a picture we took and the guy rattled off all of their names and said they were his dogs and some of them had even run in the Iditarod before. It turns out this was Ryan Redington and it was his grandfather who started the Iditarod in the early 70's; he's followed in the family footsteps and competed in and finished the race too. I'm pretty sure if she had her way, Jess would volunteer there just to be around all the dogs.

We ended up skipping dinner since we had so much for lunch and instead took a walk on the outside of the ship because it was such as beautiful day. We ended up seeing more rainforest today by virtue of our dog sledding trip so we canceled our pre-booked plan for Ketchikan in a couple days and that would free us up for something else. Tomorrow will be a fun day in Juneau when we have a very unique adventure...

As Jess says, "You can't not smile when you're around those puppies!" Note: This is a direct quote.

Glacier Bay From Our Room

We awoke to a more typical maritime Alaskan day that was cool, cloudy and with a little rain. Jess met up with Kate and Eileen (two of the women on our tour) for some morning exercise but it turns out the classes were canceled because the main activity for the day is Glacier Bay National Park. By the time we were getting ready, I happened to be watching the video feed from the bow of the boat and I could see a boat racing towards us. I knew park rangers would be getting on the ship but I wasn't sure how...it turns out they get alongside us by boat, match the speed and then climb up.

The majority of the day was spent cruising around the park and having the rangers guide us through wherever we were as well as provide additional information. We attended a talk by one of them about the history of the area in the main theater and not surprisingly, it was standing room only. It turns out the entire bay was covered by glaciers only 250 years ago when George Vancouver stopped by on an expedition. About 100 years later John Muir came to the area and discovered that while Vancouver's maps were very accurate elsewhere, they were very wrong here. He realized it was because the glacier is moving rapidly (geologically speaking) and carving up the mountains along the way. The park map has lines that show where the ice was in various years - in some spots, it's actually advanced miles since the 1960's but mostly it's retreated creating the fjords that are here today.

There were all kinds of wildlife - eagles and other sea birds, bears, mountain goats, sea lions and whales. Unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the boat for most of it and despite looking, I didn't see anything. They did set up a temporary ranger station so we checked it out to see if they had a passport stamp - and they did! That means Jess will have stamped three more National Parks on this trip.

As we cruised past islands, we eventually got to a few different glaciers. One, the Grand Pacific, is covered by dirt so it's not that impressive. The other, Margerie Glacier, is huge and very blue in spots and some hugs chunks calved while we were there. We also saw the blue Lamplugh Glacier and the Johns Hopkins Glacier, though we couldn't get close because seals were breeding - they use it since it's a protected area where whales can't hear the seals because the ice makes so much noise crackling.

The rest of the day was spent cruising back out of the park. We did a trivia event to pass the time and only missed one question out of twenty (to be fair, all but a few were easy - we realized the audience when one of the questions revealed Madonna was born in 1958 and someone behind us said "Wow, she's 63?"). The casino was closed because we were in US waters so we just relaxed in our room, watching the Stellar Sea Lions play right next to our boat in the rain.

We had a late dinner with Kate, Doug, Pat and Eileen and then tried to go to bed since we have an excursion in our first port and we have to be there pretty early.

As the Park Rangers say, "Don't feed the wildlife." Note: They do say this and the idiot kid below us didn't listen and we had a flock of seagulls buzzing us at the glacier because they thought we had peanut butter cookies.