Our last day in Alaska (tomorrow we'll technically be in Candian waters) meant a stop at Ketchkan, Alaska's first city and the salmon capital of the world (it must be true; look at the sign). Normally it rains on 2/3 of the days here and sure enough, it was raining lightly when the ship docked in mid-morning.
Originally we were going to do a walk through the rainforest and do some wildlife viewing on the water but considering we saw a lot of similar stuff in Skagway, we changed it up and did a lumberjack show instead. It was actually very busy and the place was completely full. The whole thing is a "competition" between an American side and Canadian side even though most guys are American. They have a whole show planned out complete with (corny) jokes but they do legitimately show some of the events from the lumberjack competitions you'd see on ESPN2, like pole climbs, sawing logs and chopping pieces of wood. It was entertaining though for something that wasn't terribly expensive and lasted an hour.
After it was over the 8 lumberjacks take pictures so Jess went up there. She wore a plaid shirt for the occassion and when she told the guys, they said they should celebrate and then picked her up for the picture. I think this picture rivals the puppy one for her...I'm not sure how I feel about it though.
Following the show, the rain held off but it was pretty windy so it ended up being chilly. We walked around to see some of the sights on the walking tour but it truthfully wasn't that interesting. Most of the buildings are gift shops or jewelry stores - in fact, we didn't even see many places to get something to east for lunch. After wandering around a bit and shopping - enjoying some brief sunshine along the way - we headed back to the ship. At this point, Jess has a little cold and I had a headache too (and I'm about done with crowds in tourist areas) so we just took it easy the rest of the day. After three straight days of seeing similar towns, I'm kind of glad we're not stopping in one tomorrow.
We left the dock around dinnertime and now the ship will cross over into Canadian water overnight. Tomorrow is a day at sea so maybe we'll find something fun to do during our last full day of the trip.
As the say in the forest, "A chainsaw in the hand is worth two axes in each hand." Note: No one says this.
Today, our ship stopped in the capital of Alaska where the first thing we saw out our window was a few blad eagles sitting in a tree. Juneau is the only capital that is not accessible by road; this city is surrounded by mountains and glaciers, including the one we would be visiting today: Mendenhall Glacier. When looking for excursions, we found one that involves taking a helicopter up to the glacier and then walking around on top of it. That seemed like it would be a great experience so that was how we started our day.
Neither Jess nor I have ever been on a helicopter before and we didn't really know what to expect. We arrived at the airport where the company that runs this has 8 to 10 small helicopters that can fit 5 people plus the pilot. We had a brief safety video that we had to pay attention to if we didn't want to lose our heads and then we had to get our glacier boots on (ice is slippery apparently). We had to list our weights so they could balance who was in each helicopter and then we were assigned positions to sit. We loaded up with Jess in the front and me in the back and then waited to take off.
I let the video run the entire trip out to the glacier...
It was a very different expereince from flying in a plane and I know I certaily felt closer to actually flying since you could see so much around you. We went up through the mountains and over some passes before circling around the glacier and landing in a flat spot near the terminus. There are guides there that take you around to various points of interest and they give some information and history. It's a very dynamic environment - they have to change the landing positions every so often and they said that a bunch of boulders that were near the jagged wall of ice just fell down yesterday. The ice isn't smooth but it still is slick, especially when you're moving up or down in elevation. There are very little streams of clear water running through the ice from the glacial melt and we even took a drink from it (and yes, it did taste pretty clean). The blue colors were even more pronounced on top of the glacier; I'm not sure the pictures do it justice though. It turns out we were lucky and the rain and wind held off so while it was cool, it wasn't too bad for our entire 25 minutes up there.
After the helicopter came back with the next group, we got back on and took the short ride home. This return trip is shorter and this time the wind had changed and it was much bumpier as we made the steep descent back to the airport. As we landed, the rain and wind really began and it got much colder so we got lucky once again with our timing with it being so nice for our entire time up there.
I will admit I didn't love the helicopter ride up - it was definitely more nerve-wracking than I thought it'd be and Jess agreed. That said, this was an awesome trip and we're glad we did it.
Our bus driver took us around town a little bit so we got to see the downtown area but at this point the rain really picked up and neither of us had our raincoats so we just did a little shopping and returned to the boat. The weather did clear up a little but since we only had a short day in Juneau (we had to be back by mid-afternoon), we just stayed on the ship and ate lunch here before relaxing for the afternoon. The long trip is starting to get tiring and while the whole thing has been awesome, I think we're both glad we'll be heading home in a few days.
Our last stop before Vancouver is tomorrow and it's pretty much guaranteed it's going to rain - let's hope our weather luck holds on for one more day and it ends up being pretty light.
As they say in Juneau, "There are only three ways here - air, sea or birth canal." Note: That is an actual joke our bus driver made.
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.
