Daycruising in the Alaskan Inside Passage

As the plane touched down in Juneau we could see the bald eagles circling around the airport. It seemed like a beautiful spring day, though it was already officially summer. We took the cable car up to the mountain above Juneau for a wonderful view of the town below, featuring three cruise ships in port. But the walks advertised in the literature did not eventuate because they were blocked by snow. Juneau is a pretty town and looked great with the spring flowers out in bloom - daffodils, tulips and Alaska's floral emblem, the forget-me-not. We had our evening meal at a salmon-bake, little knowing just how much salmon we would be eating over the next few days.

The next morning we were off to begin our cruise on the Sheltered Seas (June, 1999).  Our small ship could go  places the liners couldn't get near. After the freedom and all the hiking on the Canyons trip, I felt quite cooped up on the ship - too hot inside and too cold out on the deck. Spotting lots of black bears and humpback whales, sea-lions and dolphins on (fairly distant) view, we cruised to the Twin Glaciers on Tracey Arm Fjord before docking at Petersburg. We opted for a visit to the cool (read cold) temperate rainforest. It bore no resemblance to our Aussie rainforests, consisting mostly of pine trees (Sitka spruce and hemlock), lichens and mosses beside rushing streams. We also had a look at the muskeg, a bog of mossy peat-like stuff which was 12 ft deep in places. So said the guys who were building a walkway down to the salmon stream. Petersburg itself is a town still proud to show its Norwegian heritage and happy to make a bit of money exploiting it.

  The next day's cruising saw us heading to Le Compt Glacier. The scene was reminiscent of Captain Ahab looking for the white whale amid the icebergs. There were seal pups very much in evidence with their mothers, and lots of opportunist bald eagles waiting for the afterbirth. I guess it makes a change from scavenging at the salmon cannery back in Petersburg, where we counted fourteen bald eagles roosting in one tree. Just for a change, we had the halibut instead of the salmon and were very impressed.

After another night in Petersburg, the Sheltered Seas set off toward Ketchikan via Wrangell where we stopped off in the rain for a look at Chief Shakes Island and its collection of Tlingit artifacts. The voyage was very pretty through the Wrangell Narrows with land quite close on both sides and therefore inaccessible to cruise ships. Ketchikan is another tourist town visited by all the cruise ships, cashing in on its history as a frontier town. The land rises sharply from the port and the river rushes right down through it - a very pretty little town. There are a few totem poles to be seen, some right outside the hotel where we stayed. Soon it was time to head to the airport, where we queued behind a man with several cartons of bear meat, fresh from his bear hunting trip. He said that all that was required was to get the relevant permit and it was all quite legal. After acting like full-on tourists, we were glad to be heading to Denver, Washington and Boston to catch up with family and friends.