Alaska – the phenomenal last frontier.

On Wednesday August 29^th, we embarked on our seven-day Alaskan cruise which was to take us from Vancouver to Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College Fjord and Whittier.

Our voyage.

Relaxing on the balcony before departure in Vancouver.

When I began writing this blog entry we were only three days in and I had already settled nicely into the retiree lifestyle (for those who don’t know, Alaskan cruises are notorious for being “old people” cruises). I’d started my day with All-Bran for breakfast, we played bingo after lunch, I’d napped daily between 3 and 4, and we were drinking ‘old-fashioned’ cocktails before dinner; Don Draper style.  

Enjoying an Old Fashioned - our cruise drink of choice.

A view over one of our two pools.

A quest to confirm or dispel a few myths about our older human counterparts …

Well, this wasn’t my primary intention of course, though I couldn’t help but make some general observations about my fellow cruise passengers over the seven-day course of our journey. Here’s what I found in point form:

·      Myth: One should underestimate an old person. Old = slow and fragile.  

False! Never underestimate an oldie – they’re cunning and they’ll cut corners and lines to get ahead. Believe me, it happened to me several times over the course of seven days; particularly around the buffets. Old people are also really pushy buggers – always rushing to get somewhere. I really had to stand my ground a few times (again, in the buffet line, but also in tour lines too).

·      Myth: Old people like to sleep in late.

False! Oldies wake up a lot earlier than you think. I know old people like mornings but I never knew just how much until I tried to sneak into the gym “early” (a respectable 7am) to find one solitary treadmill left. Phew! My older counterparts were already pumping iron and putting themselves through their daily paces well before 7!

·      Myth: Old people are not very good with technology. They avoid it like the plague.

True and False. Well, I’m surprised to report they don’t seem to avoid technology like the plague. In fact, I found it hard to get a spot on one of the computers most of the time. They’re actually a lot more willing to embrace technology than I thought. This said, I can’t count the number of times I heard them talking to one another about being so scared they’d broken something on the computer (this is where the “not very good” part comes in).

·      Myth: It’s hard for young people to make friends with old people on cruises.  True. Not for the reasons you might think. While we had a number of social “group” sitting dinners with our fellow passengers (and enjoyed their company immensely for the most part … until they started talking about where they were when man first walked on the moon and we really had nothing to contribute to the conversation…) we found it difficult to “make friends” because a day or two after we’d dined with these people we’d run into them elsewhere on the ship, attempt to say hello and start a conversation, only to be met with completely blank stares. Clearly, they’d forgotten who we were. Equally funny and awkward.

·      Myth: All old people are empathetic and compassionate.

False. Not long after we boarded the ship, the captain announced our departure was to be delayed by an hour or so because approximately 40 passengers had not yet arrived at the terminal as their plane flight to Vancouver was delayed. Well, you should have heard the scene these oldies caused! The captain’s announcement was met with cranky groans and grunts, as well as shameless rhetorical questions asked aloud – “What? Why? On the 70 (or some other absurd number) cruises I’ve been on before they’ve never waited for people who are late!” “Why should we have to wait?” “Humph!” Sheesh oldies. Show some compassion – not quite sure why they were in such a rush, being retired and all.

While cruising was a welcome departure from our normal, busier, more spontaneous way of travel, I’m not sure I see it as a viable regular alternative. While it’s nice to embark on a completely planned, organized, hassle free journey, it’s certainly not something I could do all the time. For the most part, I felt a little like I was in a herd of cattle, being shuffled and ordered here and there in a very strict regiment. I can certainly see the benefits for older people and completely understand their attraction to this form of vacation. However, the hordes of tacky souvenir shops and cheap nasty jewelry stores (all owned by the cruise ship companies of course) were a bit too overwhelming for me and made the experience of these first few scheduled stops a little contrived and inauthentic. At times I didn’t feel as though I was experiencing the “real” town until we made sure to get away from the first few main shopping streets where the cruise ships would dock. Funnily enough the locals in many of these places appeared, to me, to view cruise ships and their passengers with distain, though I don’t believe many of these towns would have a chance in hell at survival without them. Ironic really. Nevertheless, I think we made the most of our time on the ship and certainly enjoyed the many benefits that are associated with cruising – it’s certainly the most convenient, cost effective means to see a number of Alaskan towns over a short period of time – so for the budget and time conscious traveller, I would certainly recommend a cruise as the best course of travel. If I had my time again (and if we had more time and money, naturally) I would definitely have added a trip to Denali National Park and visits to Fairbanks and Prince William Sound in … maybe even more of Alaska now I know just how amazing this place is … but I’ll get to that later.

Stop 1: Ketchikan

Our first stop was at a town called Ketchikan. Thankfully we were very fortunate to have good weather here – beautiful blue skies and a relatively warm day. In fact, after boarding the ship in the afternoon we spent the rest of our time sunbaking and reading on the deck. In Ketchikan we took a local city tour – we visited the famous salmon ladder, a prime viewing spot for local brown bears (we saw none!), saw bald eagles (including a baby bald eagle) and visited the local totem pole park – totem poles are super impressive up close! 

The Salmon Ladder.

Totem park in Ketchikan.

Steven taste-tests salmon jerkey.

The Island Princess docked in Ketchikan.

A view over Ketchikan.

Enjoying the sunshine!

Stop 2: Juneau – the capital of Alaska.

Fun fact: you can only visit Juneau via plane or boat. Juneau is a smaller town in comparison to Ketchikan. Unfortunately the weather here wasn’t too great for us but we decided we’d take a whale watching and glacier tour here anyway as we had an entire day. It was cold, rainy and freezing. Actually, I don’t think I’ve been that freezing since Banff in December/January last year (and this is just the end of Alaska summer!). While whale watching we saw a few humpbacks and some sea lions too which was pretty cool. We then went to Mendenhall Glacier and saw the waterfall nearby. We finished the day drenched and freezing but sufficiently warmed up with some crab bisque from the King Crab Shack before heading back to the ship and defrosting ourselves with hot showers, red wine and movies.

Cheeky Sea Lion played up for the cameras.

All rugged up. Juneau was FREEZING!!

Humpback whales.

A sampling of the icebergs we saw at Mendenhall Glacier.

More Mendenhall Glacier icebergs.

Steven vs the giant waterfall at Mendenhall Glacier.

King Crab Shack - best crab bisque!

Steven poses with the King Crab pot.

Stop 3: Skagway

Arriving in Skagway, a tiny town with a population of approximately 920, we took a trip on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad over the US/Canada border and into the Yukon. Thankfully the rain held off for the most part during our stay in Skagway and although it was a little foggy outside, Steven managed to take some great photos of the beautiful views that abounded. Truly stunning scenery here – it’s amazing just to sit back and take everything in. Awe-inspiring and so beautiful – the majority untouched by humanity, which, as we surveyed the divine clear glacier-fed lakes, is how I wish more of the world could be.

After the train trip we spent some time wandering around cruise ship “town” and we took off on a hike around local Lower Lake and Ice Lake – hoping, again, to spot a rogue bear but unfortunately we didn’t see one. We did see a squirrel. While it didn’t make up for not seeing a bear, it was still pretty cute. The steep hike also enabled us to witness beautiful views of more pristine, untouched wilderness, but also views of the small town below, which I can only imagine, would be cold and very isolated in winter. 

Hopping on the train for our expedition!

The train.

Some train views. Photos do not do any of this justice.

Ice Lake - the reward for our Skagway hike.

Stop 4: Glacier Bay

Unfortunately we weren’t blessed with the best weather for this portion of our journey, but despite the foggy, rainy conditions we still managed to enjoy our day cruising around Glacier Bay. Equipped with beanies, hoodies and blankets, we occupied some covered sun lounges and stubbornly attempted to peer through the thick flog that shrouded the Bay  - as if the harder I peered, the more likely the cloud would be to dissipate! Sadly, this was not the case. Of course it would’ve been great to have really clear, beautiful weather but that’s the luck of the draw with these cruises and we tried not to dwell on the negatives. The glaciers that we did see were incredible – in both grandeur and scale.

The following day we were scheduled to spend another day of cruising – this time at the College Fjord. Unfortunately, due to a serious windstorm that was approaching the coast, the Captain had to veto this trip and dock the ship early in Whittier. Again, this was a bit of a bummer but these things can’t be helped. 

A sample of the glacier views...

 

Arrival in Anchorage

Arriving in anchorage was like stepping back in time – the vast majority of the buildings in the central, downtown area appeared quite old, though not dilapidated. I guess there’s probably only a very small window of opportunity for construction here, given the nature of the weather. Everything is fairly flat in this central area and nothing we witnessed was too “high rise”. Interestingly, there are no residential building codes in Anchorage (and yes, you can tell!) – so basically people can build whatever kind of house they want, as long as it’s able to withstand the weather conditions.

We only had a day and a half to spend in Anchorage before we were due to fly out to Las Vegas so we decided we’d try and make the most of it. Given our lack of wildlife sightings on the cruise itself, we agreed our best bet would be to hire a car and drive down the scenic Seward Highway (now, we’ve managed to drive quite a few scenic highways during our time here – but this has to be one of the most picturesque I’ve ever experienced) to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre – if the wildlife wouldn’t come to us, we’d go to them! As luck would have it, on our way to the wildlife centre a black bear ran across the highway just behind our car. So, like the nutcase tourists we are, we pulled over and jumped out of the car hoping to get a picture. By the time we located him though, he managed to quickly run back across the road. Reinvigorated in our quest for wildlife, we hopped back in the car and continued on our journey.

The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre is an organization that serves as a refuge for injured wildlife that cannot be released back into the wild for a number of reasons, so I was completely fine with it, given the circumstances. Spending the day at the wildlife centre was an amazing experience. We saw brown and black bears, ox, deer, lynx, eagles and moose, amongst other animals.  Fortunately it was a pretty quiet day at the centre, so we able to get up really close to the animals. While I say it was quiet, we did encounter one particularly crazy lady, who managed to barge her way through everyone else to take photos during the lynx feeding time and then proceeded to talk like a parrot to the bald eagle. Yes. She did.

Enthralled. Absolutely in my element.

On our way home from the wildlife refuge we pulled off the highway to explore a wetlands area which was stunning, but extremely cold. For dinner, we visited the Brewhouse and indulged in Alaskan King Crab – amazing! It’s pretty expensive but it is absolutely worth it, and not just for the novelty. Sadly I can’t say I’m a superb eater of crab. Actually, I think Steven spent the majority of dinner cringing as he watched me slowly and meticulously pick the tiniest pieces of crab out of its shell. On the few occasions I managed to pull a decent sized piece of meat out of a leg in one, whole, portion, the momentous achievement was met with his cheers and applause. 

Absolutely beautiful but....

Extremely cold!!

Dinner at the Brewhouse, Anchorage.

My dinner of Alaskan King Crab. Delish!

One could be forgiven for mistaking Alaska as part of Canada – not just the breathtaking natural beauty that abounds, but the friendliness of the people, and how Alaskans seem more cognizant and respectful of the environment than the average American. I lost track of the number of times Steven and I both uttered the words “I can’t believe this isn’t Canada”. I spent the majority of my time in Alaska just awestruck at the natural, organic beauty of this place – largely untouched by human hands, which is the way it should be. The scenery and wilderness at every turn of your head is breathtakingly beautiful and majestic. Alaska is certainly ecologically and aesthetically blessed and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to experience it during my time abroad. 

Next stop: Las Vegas!

(More images of our Alaska trip can be found here)