Holiday on Ice # 6: Appendix: Ketchikan, 2007

As promised, I'm harking back ten years to a little expedition across the Canada-Alaska border which did not involve a cruise ship. 

It takes a bit of patience, and a lot of flexibility, but you can certainly enjoy southeastern Alaska on your own, and travel on your own time frame.  

All you need is a private yacht....  Okay, but keeping it practical, let's take the Alaska Marine Highway, the state ferry network.

The ferries run along an extensive network which stretches from Bellingham, Washington, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, all the way north to Whittier and Seward, south of Anchorage, and then on south west down into the chain of the Aleutian Islands.  Over such distances, it simply isn't practical to try to run to a daily schedule or even to sail at the same time on each day the ferry does operate.

While the ferries sometimes come and go at some pretty weird hours of the day or night, they can take you to places that cruise ships simply can't get into, due to the navigation hazards in many of those beautiful channels of the Inside Passage.  Those tight spots are the reason why the ferries are not big, and not getting any bigger.  Here's a picture of one near a cruise ship to prove the point.

In my case, I had taken the train from Jasper to Prince Rupert (read about that here: Into the Mists: Canada's Pacific Northwest), and then after an overnight stay boarded the early morning sailing northwards.  We cleared U. S. Customs right in Prince Rupert before boarding the ferry.  For overnight sailings, the Alaska ferries have cabins, but never enough to meet the demand so advance reservations are essential -- and you need to get them well in advance.  The cabins are utilitarian, but comfortable enough.  But if you want to be travel like a real Alaskan, bring your tent and gear on board and camp out on the broad solarium deck at the stern.  It's not only allowed, it's encouraged.  Welcome to the north!

First, a few pictures of the scenery, beginning in Prince Rupert harbour in the early morning with the veteran B.C. Ferries vessel, Queen of Prince Rupert (since retired).

The solarium deck of the ferry (no campers here because this was taken at about 10:00 am!).  Taku, as with all ships in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet, is named after a glacier in Alaska.

The inevitable cruise ship.

Arriving in Ketchikan about noon, with another inevitable moored dockside.

Ketchikan is the ultimate example of a town squeezed between the sea and the mountains with no place to go but up.  Look at a street map, and you'll see some streets marked in only as faint lines.  Those are wooden walkways and staircases -- but they have street names, and the houses along them have addresses on those streets.

Ketchikan's most famous walkway-street is Creek Street.  Today it's a popular shopping district with visitors.  But this wooden walkway, perched in the air over the waters of a salmon stream, was once the notorious red-light district.  Hence the sign at the entrance off Stedman Street, the main drag:

One house of ill repute survives as a museum -- and a fascinating one at that.  Welcome to Dolly's House.

At the back end of Creek Street, a small funicular railway takes you up the ridge to the deluxe Cape Fox Lodge, where you can get this view of the town.

A government-directed resettlement program consolidated dozens of regional native villages into a few larger settlements.  During the 1930s, the C.C.C. assembled the world's largest collection of totem poles in Ketchikan, retrieving them from the deserted village sites.  These can be seen at Totem Bight State Park north of town, and at Saxman village south of the city.  In both places, traditional clan houses are also preserved, and interpretive signs help visitors to understand the rich cultural and mythological symbolism underlying these artworks.

The biggest shopping area is on Front Street, where two cruise ships at a time can berth directly across the street from this complex of jewellery stores and restaurants.

At the north end of Front Street stands this modern native artist's interpretation of a traditional totemic symbol, called Thundering Wings.

And not too far away, as night was falling, I spotted this live version perched on a lamp post.

Holiday on Ice # 5: Into the Mists

Yesterday we stopped in Ketchikan.  And I didn’t get to see much of it at all.

The good news: I’ve actually been to Ketchikan twice before.  After I get home, I’ll do a supplementary blog post covering my trip here in 2007.

Because of Princess Cruises’ determination to squeeze in a stop in Victoria, our port call in Ketchikan is only 5½ hours long.  My excursion took up almost all of that time.  But it was a trip I’d never managed to do yet, and it was totally worth every minute of it.

The boat cruise to Misty Fjords National Monument covers 110 miles and lasts 4½ hours – and that’s on a high-speed catamaran cruising for most of the trip at 40 knots!  The Monument occupies a sizable chunk of the Alaskan mainland, around the back side of the island on which Ketchikan sits, Revillagigedo Island (always called “Revilla” for short, locally). 

Once we circled the southern end of Revilla Island and started back north up the Behm Canal, our first scenic attraction was the New Eddystone Rock, named by Captain George Vancouver after the famous rock stack off the southern coast of England.  This one is not a rock stack, strictly speaking, but a volcanic plug.  It fascinates me because it is a different shape from every direction, like almost all geological formations such as mountains.  But here you can two very different views in the space of a few moments.  It's also fascinating to see how the trees gain a foothold in such precarious spots.

On the low-lying rock spit beside the Rock there were a number of harbour seals hauled out and basking in the sun.  It was hard to photograph them because our noisy hydro-jet powered vessel couldn’t come close without scaring them into the water.

Soon after, we turned east into the laconically named Rudyard Bay, and entered a wonderland of scenic beauty.  Everything came together – towering cliffs, dark forests, pearly mist, blazing sun, glossy black waters, and no breeze at all – to create, once again, sheer magic.

On the journey back into Ketchikan, we spotted a pod of orcas travelling north at a good speed.  We had them in sight for several minutes.  Once again, I was plying the video camera so results will have to wait.

Back on board Ruby Princess, I climbed to the brilliantly sunny top deck for the sailaway, and got a few photos of Ketchikan from my 16-storey vantage point.

Dear old Ketchikan, with its named and numbered boardwalk stairs “streets,” its profusion of tourist stores, its fresh seafood restaurants, its unique Creek Street historic area, all lorded over by the deluxe Cape Fox Lodge.  In this picture, the Lodge is the complex of grey buildings on the ridge, and Creek Street is the line of brightly coloured houses along the base of the hill below.

We really needed and deserved a full day.  If you’ve never been here, make sure when you book a cruise that it offers a full-day stop in Ketchikan.  It’s the very least time you need if you want to get to know this fun little town a bit better.

Holiday on Ice # 4: Glacial Glory

Glacier Bay is pure magic.

Glacier Bay National Park is the northernmost point we reach on our cruise.  This is the second time I’ve been here, and the place still exudes that unique aura.

This is real wilderness, nothing less.  It’s a remote area, inaccessible by road.  There are no highways, no restaurants, no scenic view points.  The bay itself, although spacious, is largely deserted because the National Park Service strictly rations cruise ships, and permits only two to enter the park each day. 

Today, apart from the other ship following far behind us in the early morning, nothing.  Just us, the pearly sky turning later to shining blue, the shimmering water, and the towering masses of ice. 

These glaciers are fed by huge icefields high atop the mountains, which in turn are fed by the steady precipitation of the northwestern Pacific Ocean.  Think of the icefield as a giant toothpaste tube with multiple holes.  The tidewater glaciers are the streams of toothpaste squeezing out through those holes (the narrow gaps in the surrounding mountain ranges).  The force that squeezes the ice out and down is the constant, inexorable pull of gravity.

During the day, we got up close and personal with several glaciers.  On two occasions, the captain stopped the ship for a prolonged period.  When he did this, we had no trouble hearing the cracking of the ice sheet.  It’s an extraordinary noise.  A crack like an artillery gun is followed by anything up to a minute of echoes rebounding from mountains in every direction.  A more prolonged roar of thunder signals a sizable section breaking apart or collapsing, and with any luck it may be on the face.  In that case you’ll hear a further deep-throated roar as the detached fragments plunge into the water.  This process is called “calving.”

This map of the park shows some pretty extraordinary dates and ice limits.  Captain George Vancouver’s expedition in 1794 recorded an estimated ice height at the entrance to the bay of some 4000 feet (over 1000 metres).  Where did it all go? 

Before leaping to conclusions pro or contra global warming, it’s also wise to consult the oral traditions of the Tlingit (pronounced “Klingkit”), the First Nation whose traditional homeland is here.  Their oral records speak of a time when the large glacier dominating their lowland homes suddenly and dramatically grew and advanced, forcing them to load all their possessions on canoes and flee into exile.

This advance was a product of the “Little Ice Age,” a dramatic growth of glaciers in the far north which took place across a couple of centuries spanning the 1600s to the 1800s.  The tongue of the giant glacier extended out into the Icy Strait.  When the gouging ice retreated, it had scooped out the bay and fjords we see today.  The largest remnant of that primordial glacier is the Grand Pacific Glacier (Map # 1), a huge valley glacier originating in a number of ice streams pouring down from the St. Elias Mountains. 

The other glaciers we visited are the Margerie (Map # 2), which sits at right angles to the Grand Pacific and is the fastest and most active in the park, and the Lamplugh (Map # 4).  The Johns Hopkins Glacier (Map # 3) in its spectacular mountain amphitheatre is often closed to marine access due to ice cover on the inlet which provides a natural habitat for breeding seals, and I think this is the reason why we went no farther into the inlet after viewing the Lamplugh Glacier.

Where we got lucky was with the spectacular sunshine.  I saw many mountaintops today that were obscured in cloud the last time I came to Glacier Bay.  At any rate, here are some selected photos from nearly 100 which I took today. 

The mountains along both sides of Glacier Bay as we sailed in.

Note the brilliant jade-green of the still waters.  The only wind we felt all day was what we generated ourselves with the ship’s motion.

The Grand Pacific Glacier.  Only the face lies in Alaska.  The Canada-U.S.A. border cuts directly across the glacier just behind the face.  The rocks, dirt, and gravel on top of the glacier are all either scraped off the mountains by the ice or washed down onto it by the many rivers that pour onto the glacier.

The Margerie Glacier, panoramas and close-ups.  We spent an hour sitting stopped in front of this very active ice sheet.  During that time we saw many small pieces, and one decent-sized chunk, drop into the ocean. 

A typical bergy bit drifting in the water.

The Lamplugh Glacier.  Although it’s steep, it doesn’t move as fast as the Margerie, so no major activity happened while we circled slowly in front of this one.

And just for the record, a photo from the internet of the Johns Hopkins Glacier, the one which we didn’t get to see today.  Pity.

Holiday on Ice # 3: The Road to Eldorado

Skagway today is a little village of some 800 year round residents, which expands into a larger city of several thousand every year during the cruise ship season.  On days when multiple ships are in port, it seems incredibly busy -- yet in the years 1897-99, during the Klondike Gold Rush, Skagway at times was home to as many as fifteen thousand people at once.

So was the neighbouring community of Dyea, a short distance away.  Both towns exploded into being because they served as ports of entry to the two most popular trails to the Klondike gold fields, the Chilkoot and White Passes.  Yet Skagway has survived to the present day, while Dyea has all but vanished, with only a few bits and pieces of ruins to mark its site.

The difference is the railway.  It was begun to simplify the business of each stampeder hauling a ton of food and supplies across the pass, and was actually finished all the way to Whitehorse (110 miles/178 kilometres) in the Yukon Territory in 26 months, a startling achievement by any standard.  The choice of Whitehorse as northern terminal allowed rail users to bypass all the rapids in the upper reaches of the Yukon River.

The railway stayed in business for years by hauling out the products of various mines in different areas of the Yukon.  As the mining businesses slowly dried up the line closed, only to be revived as a tourist route by the advent of cruise ships.  The White Pass and Yukon Route now operates as a tourist line in the summer cruise season as far north as Carcross (this curious name is a shortened form of "Caribou Crossing").

The map shows the area clearly.  From the shores of Lynn Canal, the long fjord of the Pacific Ocean, to Bennett Lake is a mere matter of 40 miles (63 kilometres) of track, and the original trail was even shorter.  Yet in that short distance, you climb up and over the coastal mountains into Canada and down into the interior watershed of the Yukon River.  From Bennett, the stampeders completed their journey to the Klondike in home-made boats and rafts.  Before long, these were supplemented by Mississippi-style paddlewheel steamboats, and the paddlewheel veterans remained active on the river until the coming of the Alaska Highway, which passes through Whitehorse.

So my day here had two parts: first, a ride on the historic narrow-gauge railway up to the White Pass Summit, and second, a walk into town for a few historic and natural sights.

To start off, here's an aerial view taken from the internet, showing the harbour, town, and the valley stretching inland towards the White Pass at top left.  This gives an excellent idea of the rugged, inhospitable landscape which both stampeders and railway builders had to conquer.

By Christopher Michel from San Francisco, USA - skagway, Alaska

Uploaded by Aconcagua, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7306934

One of the key features of Skagway is that every dock has a railway track. These tracks allow the tour trains of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway to start right beside the cruise ships, saving all the hassles of coming and going from the original station in town.

And the trains are impressive indeed! A consist of anything up to 20 coaches is headed up by two stout diesel locomotives. The coaches are a mix of historic cars and replicas of same. The car I rode in had been fitted with thermal windows, modern washroom, and energy-efficient stove, and the bench seats were upholstered and padded. Otherwise, it looked vintage in every respect, not least the narrow outdoor platforms at either end. These platforms are very popular with sightseeing photographers and videographers.

Our train was very nearly full, and yet was only one of two trains offered today to the passengers of this one ship. As soon as we pulled away from the dock, the track veered across the waterfront to Pullen Creek on the east side of town and followed that stream up the valley. After passing the railway’s sizable modern maintenance facility, the track began the steady climb to the summit, a climb which gets very steep indeed in some places. The steepest stretch of the line is at a grade of 3.9%, which is a stiff challenge for a conventional train using only standard rail traction

We had a very comfortable ride up and over the pass and down the British Columbia side to a point just shy of the station at Fraser (Canada Customs control point). Then our train went around a neat turning loop and headed back to Skagway. In this way, everyone got a ride on the scenic side, and a ride on the side next to the mountain wall, without anyone having to move. Smooth way to handle it!

So here’s my photo gallery of the train trip. Apologies for some slightly blurry pictures, it’s the usual problem of shooting through windows.

The inside of the train coach, and one of its occupants:

Turbulent waters of the Skagway River.  Farther upstream there are Category 6 rapids.

Looking up across the valley at a high curve and trestle....

... and looking back down from that curve 10 minutes later at the next tour train behind us.

A few minutes after we climbed into the clouds, the old cantilever bridge across Dead Horse Gulch loomed out of the mist.

It was the highest bridge of its type in the world when built in 1899, and was one of the main reasons why the railway was designated an international civil engineering landmark.

The summit plateau of the White Pass is a barren waste of tundra where lichens, mosses, and a few stunted evergreens scrabble for survival.  These miniature trees could easily be over a century old.

After we went through the turnaround and headed back down the mountain (much faster), we got the two most spectacular views of the trip:  the view ahead of the train rounding the high curve above the valley...

and the view down from the heights to Skagway harbour -- our ship is the one on the right.

Back at the dock after a trip of nearly 4½ hours, I went aboard to get some lunch and then headed back out (now in brilliant sunshine) to walk in the historic district.

The contents of the stores may be modern but the buildings are authentic, wooden, and well over a century old now.  So is the sign on the mountainside above the liquor store.

Note the alternate spelling of Skaguay on the news depot.  There were other spellings in the stampede days too.

I then walked over to Pullen Creek. It got its name from a hard-working young widow who came north in 1898 to raise money to support her boys, landed in Skagway, and worked her way up from hired laundress to become owner of her own hotel, Pullen House. The hotel remained open for as long as Harriet Pullen was alive, and stood right by the creek which now also bears her name.

Unlike the Skagway River, much broader and laden with glacial silt, Pullen Creek is a clear-water stream and so a natural breeding ground for salmon. The spawning season is almost over now, and the fish still struggling in the creek to get upstream look like they aren’t going to make it. There are a number of dead fish lying on the gravel shoals, and the living ones are showing little sign of energy, barely coping with the fairly easy current. It seems a cruel fate, but this is plainly survival of the fittest in action, as nature intended. The strongest fish survive, reach the spawning grounds and reproduce, and thus the strong strains of the species are continued and increased.

By this time, Skagway had become positively sunny (blue clouds between grey ones) and from the dock I was able to get a fine view of the ship with the mountains across Lynn Canal fjord forming the backdrop.