Postcard from Alaska – Page 7

Alaskan Summer

About the time you read this we should have cast off lines and left the Juneau area. The plan is to spend some time exploring the Glass Peninsula and Seymour Canal, an area we have often skipped past on our way south from Juneau. We have reservations for access to the bear viewing area at Pack Creek. Stay tuned for plenty of photos of grizzly bears fishing.

With any luck we will be back in a week. Hopefully the cats are OK with the house sitters. Hopefully the fish makes it back still frozen. And maybe I will not get eaten by a bear.

Inside Passage from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo

Postcard from Alaska – Arriving Juneau

Arrival in Juneau is always pleasant. This is a very small airport, far smaller than even Kona or Hilo. As a result there are no long lines, no mile long walk to the rental car agency, no shuttle vans or snarled traffic awaiting once you do free yourself from the terminal. Walk from the gate down one flight of stairs to the single baggage claim. Forty feet from the luggage you find the rental desks, where you pick up a key and walk out into the parking lot just outside the terminal for your vehicle. As you load your luggage you can turn and see the plane sitting just the other side of the fence. A complete contrast to our experience with the enormous labyrinth that is SEA or PDX.

The jet was a 737-800 Combi model, the front half was air cargo, with a bulkhead just over the wing. We boarded and debarked by walking across the tarmac to stairs at the tail of the plane. I expect to walk across the flightline in Kona, but at SeaTac?!

Alaska Air Combi — Alaska Air flight 61 unloads cargo and passengers in Juneau

Postcard from Alaska – Tenakee Docks at Night

Going through the 1,200 photographs I took earlier this month from spending ten days out on the water. There is some pretty good stuff, and a lot of OK stuff. Time to assemble another video, but first I have to find a piece of music for it.

Postcard from Alaska – Grilled Salmon and Asparagus

A cooler full of salmon, halibut and crab. What to do? We will be eating a lot of fish for the next few months.

Time to try some new recipes… The salmon tacos were pretty good, using pan fried pink salmon. The best so far was the king salmon, mesquite grilled with olive oil and Parmesan cheese on top. Add some grilled asparagus on the side for a meal. Need to thank Tony for that recipe.

Postcard from Alaska – Orca

Scarcely a day goes by without seeing whales. Usually they are Humpbacks busily feeding in the rich Alaskan waters. But there are other whales to be seen, Orca are not common, but every trip we have seen a few. Most sightings are fairly distant, a tail on the horizon, the white plume of a blow. Close encounters will happen, a Humpback swimming by while you are anchored, a pod of Orca cruising down the same shore you are cruising up. Sometimes the whale appears when you least expect it, a sudden blow just off the bow. Cut the engine and drift, enjoying the view while giving the whale a chance to move off.

Postcard from Alaska – Arctic Terns

A small chunk of ice makes a perfect resting place for Arctic Terns. Somehow these beautiful birds fit both their name and the place. Looking as if they are made of ice themselves, grey with white and black markings, these birds just fit the environment.

Artic Terns — A group of Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) resting on a small iceberg in Glacier Bay, Alaska

Postcard from Alaska – Grizzly and Cub

Grizzly with Cub — A mother Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) and cub on the shore in Long Bay, Tenakee Inlet, AK

Postcard from Alaska – A Late Sunset

Near midsummer in Alaska the sunsets are quite late and seem to last forever. In SE Alaska we are not north of the Arctic Circle, the Sun will set, if only for a few hours. It is the long twilight that really has an effect on the psyche. A sunset that seems to last for hours. Actually, it does last for hours…

Icy Strait Sunset — Looking north to Taylor Bay from Mite Cove on a late Alaskan evening

Postcard from Alaska – Lakeshore Garden

A small lake above a remote bay on Kruzof Island, Alaska. A mile long hike through the rain forest and muskeg to climb to the shoreline. Rocks covered with moss and dwarf tress line the northern shore, creating vignettes any master Japanese gardener would treasure.

Postcard from Alaska – Docked

Small towns and settlements clustered along the water. With no roads, travel by water is the only way to reach these destinations in rural southeast Alaska. The sea provides either a highway or a runway for a float plane, making the docks the focal point of any town. This is where everyone arrives or departs, part of the life in this part of the world.

Chrisara docked in Elfin Cove — The 42′ Nordic Tug, Chrisara, docked in Elfin Cove, Alaska, 30 June 2004