Juneau AK

It's the 23rd of June 2011 and we're headed for Juneau AK, the state capital.   Juneau reminds me of Harrisburg PA to a small degree.  It's not the largest city in the state with around 30,000 population, nor is it particularly accessible.  Like Okrakoke NC in the Outer Banks, you only get there by sea or air.  Juneau is bounded by rugged mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. 

We do most of our traveling at night so we really don't spend much time waiting to get to our main destinations.  That also means we seldom see the Captain and crew in action.  Their performance back at Glacier Bay was pretty impressive, maneuvering in tight quarters.  

Juneau has a busy port with quite a variety of ships docked already. 

This morning we're up early to see the docking procedure.  As it turns out, it's not all that exciting.  The crew fire small lines at the bow and stern to men waiting on the dock.  These men reel in larger lines until the main docking line is on the dock.

After wrapping the line around one of the large pegs affixed to the structure of the dock, they use a large fork lift to slowly drag the ship up to the dock.  After that, the gangways are constructed using the forklift to place segments between the ship and segments on the dock.

The rest of the procedure is mainly administrative.  Stations are set up inside the ship and at dockside to process passengers on and off the ship.  

The view from the dock is nice, but not exactly spectacular.


We have four activities scheduled today:  the fish hatchery, the Mendenhall Glacier, a very unique temperate rain forest called the Glacial Gardens, and the Mt Roberts Tramway.  We grab a quick breakfast in the ship's Rotterdam dining room and head off to catch the bus to tour Juneau.

As we approach, we notice an increasing number of eagles in the area.  We'll see dozens of them throughout the day, but it takes some getting used to seeing them in lieu of sea gulls or robins all over the area. 

The fish hatchery was a reaction to a problem with salmon being over-fished.  A fella named Macaulay decided to start a hatchery to stimulate and sustain the salmon population in the area.  Turns out, like the gulls around Haines, salmon are also creatures of habit.  Once a generation of salmon was actually hatching at the hatchery, they return annually to repeat the cycle.  The Macaulay Hatchery now handles 150 million salmon a year.  Although designed to show the whole process, we just happened to arrive a month before the main spawning season, so there were no salmon being processed.

Pity, because it would have been impressive seeing thousands of salmon swimming up a 450 ft fish ladder and being processed for their eggs.  They did have a nice aquarium, though.

From there we re-board the bus and head for the Mendenhall Glacier.  This place is magnificent.

College Fjord had a lot of glaciers viewed from a distance.  Glacier Bay had magnificent glaciers close up but not very accessible from anything but the ship.  We had to trek back a ways by canoe to see the glacier and surrounding ecology around Haines.  This glacier, unlike all the others, is easily accessible and pretty active. 
In the above pic you can see paths people walk to get a better look.  There are also trails off to the right which circle behind the waterfall (the white coming from the side of the mountain on the right).  That waterfall is actually glacial runoff.  Gives you a pretty good idea just how much water is coming off the bottom of the glacier.  There is another waterfall coming from the face of the glacier but it is tough to see in this pic.  The glacier itself is, according to one of the travel guides, "part of the Juneau Icefield, a massive accumulation of ice and snow that stretches 85 miles north to south and 45 miles east to west, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island."

As we board the bus and depart Mendenhall Glacier, we get another reminder, as if we needed one, of how close to nature we are.  In the pic at left, that is a bear up a tree behind the National Park facility serving the glacier.

And we're off to the Glaciel Gardens.

I can't actually say I was all that excited about this stop, but after visiting I have to say it was well worth the visit.  The climate in this area has been described as a cooler, wetter Seattle, or as a temperate rain forest if your closest association with Seattle is Starbucks.

It will take a moment to process what you see above.  In 1984 there was a landslide in this area which caused a lot of damage to the foliage and effectively cut one of the main arteries in the area, the Glacier Highway.  Ten years later Steve and Cindy Bowhay purchased around 6 acres on the side of Thunder Mountain and started reorganizing it for their landscaping and nursery business.  The guides tell stories about how Steve had gained experience as a heavy machine operator, gardener, construction worker, et al.  Steve had an idea to stabilize the flow of water down the mountain, preventing further erosion and landslides and using the flow to generate hydroelectic power for their nursery business.  Some years later, while working on the property he damaged some heavy equipment.  You can imagine how he was going to explain this to his wife.  In frustration, he picked up an uprooted tree, stuck it in the soft soil, and promptly got an idea.

Yes, those tall brown things with flowers on top are actually uprooted trees now serving as flower pots (Honey, I broke the equipment, but look at the nice flowers I got you.) 

They later bought more land for a total of 51 acres and have been developing is ever since.  I have no clear idea how many flowers they've planted but they are everywhere down near the nursery at the base of the mountain, and they are beautiful. 

The tour takes small groups of us in golf carts up the side of the mountain on roads Steve has built over time.

This is not what most folks think of when they think of Alaska, but here it is.  Perfectly natural for this climate.  Steve has been busy.  Where the land will not support conventional roads, Steve build logging roads (did I mention he was also a logger at some point).  

You take logs and stick them in the side of the slope (do you see a pattern developing here), then cover these with additional logs to form a base for a road.  Steve is nothing if not eclectic. 




Eventually we make it to the top of the property.  Steve has constructed a walkway leading to an overlook which gives a terrific view of the entire valley below, from the airport to the Gastineau Channel. 

Then, after all this, there is more to see back down at the nursery.  As mentioned previously, Alaskans really do like to nurture beauty.  The Bowhays are just fortunate enough to have made a living out of it.  Good for them.

That's about it for the bus tour.  Well, not exactly.  While we were traveling around Juneau, there was a lady sneezing and hacking on the bus.  At one point she says to some of her traveling companions "it's a good thing Bronchitis is not contagious".  Anyone taking bets on that statement?  If you guessed that over the next week we developed a progressively worse cough, diagnosed on our return as bronchitis, bingo!  As they say, the gift that keeps on giving.

So, for our final event of the day, we head up the Mt Roberts Tramway.  This is your basic dual skiing gondola running from the base of the mountain to the top.

The view is magnificent.  It has the advantage over the view at the Glaciel Gardens of having an unobstructed view while Glaciel Gardens still had a lot of trees blocking some angles.  Each was quite impressive, though.  

At the top there are a variety of activities, a restaurant, a very well stocked gift shop, hiking trails, a live eagle on display, and so on.  It has been a long day though, so we don't spend as much time here and head back to gondola.  The windows of the gondola landing facility are open at the top, so while we wait we get to see an airshow put on by a pair of eagles.  I tried mightily to get either pictures or movies, but they were too fast and the viewing angles were too restricted to get anything worth sharing. 

So we finally get back to the Zaandam.  This evening features another great dinner in the Rotterdam Dining Room.  Did I mention how good the food is in the Rotterdam.  I remain amazed we didn't get charged for extra weight on our return flight after eating so well throughout the trip.