Juneau, Alaska

July 12th, 2017

“Land of the Midnight Sun”

History

Founded: Juneau was founded as a gold-mining camp in 1880. It became the Alaska Territorial Capital in 1900, home of the legislature in 1912 and Alaska State Capital in 1959, upon Statehood.

Region: Juneau is located in the panhandle of southeast Alaska, 900 air miles north of Seattle and 600 air miles southeast of Anchorage. It is approximately 3,081 square miles and the only state capital in the US with no road access.

Population: 32,660 (est. 2013)

Climate: Juneau’s weather is probably not as cold as you think (unless your blood has thinned due to spending time in Arizona). Average summer days are in the 60’s, with many days reaching into the high 70’s and low 80’s – (not that bad!). Average annual precipitation is 86.1”.

Local cuisine: Juneau is home to Heritage Coffee, an international award-winning roaster; and the Alaskan Brewing CO, one of America’s most decorated craft breweries. Both go perfectly with a traditional Alaska Salmon Bake.

Juneau’s Most Famous Canine: “The Official Greeter of Juneau, Alaska” is a charming sculpture of “Patsy Ann”, an English Bull Terrier that arrived in Juneau in 1929. The pooch quickly became a fixture in town. Born deaf, Patsy had an uncanny ability to “hear” the Steamship’s approaching Gastineau Channel & never failed to greet them with a friendly hello on the dock- even if the steamships were late arriving into the channel. Visitors to Juneau are encouraged to pet the statue of Patsy Ann to ensure that they carry the blessings of friendship throughout life’s journey. Much like kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland.

Sunrise… Sunset: on June 21^st, the longest day of the year, the sun shines on Juneau for 18 hours and 18 minutes. The shortest day (December 21^st) the sun shines for only 6 hours and 21 minutes.

Port of Juneau

I was up on the deck early (6am) to watch the city/port of Juneau come into view. The Gastineau Channel was heavy laden with clouds in an eerie sort of way. The clouds hid most of the mountain range from view but still allowed the houses along the channel to be highlighted. There was no reflection of the town in the channel – just a murky shadow of the landscape as a reflection. At one point though, the top of the mountain peaked out, but still no sun.

It’s always interesting for me coming into a port looking at the houses and businesses that line the waterway. “Who lives there, do they live here year round, what do they do?” As a kid I would travel to Missouri by train from California and look out the window and wonder these same things – maybe that’s where I got my ‘Gypsyness’…

We sometimes get a ‘sneak-peak’ of the establishments along the ‘no-wake’ drift into port. On this drift we saw Tracy’s King Crab Shack right off the dock… Patti, I’m sure, made a mental note of this establishment!!! For after our tour we had an extended amount of time before sailing off into the wild blue yonder, maybe????

After disembarking the ship, which consists of leaving our coffee and tea ON the boat, (because no food or liquid are allowed on shore from the boat) we show our Grand Princess Key Card to the steward in charge of scanning our card, sort of like a cattle call, and we step into Juneau, AK.

Compared to the 2 previous ports in AK, where we have taken excursions, Juneau is a BIG city. Yes, it is the capital of AK, and it had so much going on: traffic, hustle and bustle, and lots of tourists – a thriving city. Lots of shops were open and inviting you in to show your credit card and take trinkets back to the lower 48…

Whale Watching & Salmon Bake

“Guaranteed to see a whale…”

We had no time for trinkets now as we searched for our tour, “Whale Watching and Salmon Bake” excursion. We found our bus and boarded for our drive to Auke Bay “guaranteed to see a whale or we all receive $100.00”… excursion. There were 31 people on the boat – so that’s an expensive guarantee!!!

Our bus driver has been doing this ever since he retired… he also loves his job. He, (as all our bus drivers) are not just drivers, but tour guides as well. He pointed out places to eat (recommending Tracy’s King Crab Shack as a MUST), and stories that go with different establishments, especially the Red Dog Saloon. Tall tales… who knows?

Our tour guide a Marine Biologist, Sara, met us at the drop-off zone and led us to the boat we will be chasing whales in. Come to find out it was a new boat – we climbed aboard.

Our captain Harry, an “Old Man and the Sea” type character, and First Mate Sara were our hosts today and would guide us out to sea. Sara was exuberant, 20 something and chock full of wonderfully informative facts about whales, the waters, and even knew a few of the whales by their markings and therefore by name. Someone asked her if she was always this excited taking people out to sea, and she said she never gets tired of tracking and seeing these exquisite creatures of the sea and sharing these experiences with tourists. She remarked she had the “BEST JOB in the world!” Funny how often we heard this statement from our guides in all the ports we visited. Maybe we should check out living in Alaska… Maybe for the summer?!?! Sara does not live in Alaska fulltime, but is another guide that is thinking about spending her first winter in Juneau this season.

As we trolled out of the bay (no wake zone) the reflections of the seascape and the interplay of light and dark on the water, were ominous. At one point, we saw harbor seals soaking up the sun on a buoy. We learned from Sara that seals do not have as much blubber as whales so must come out of the cold water to warm up. Off in the distance behind the seals, is a lighthouse that is still one of the few functioning lighthouses in the U.S.

Within the first 10 minutes, we saw a whale… no refund for us – we were all ok with that!

Our captain, Harry, was very knowledgeable about whale behavior and the patterns of the water that might reflect the position of a whale. Sara was ever vigilant, scanning the horizon for spouts or fins surfacing. When there was a lull in the viewing of the whales, she filled us in on facts about the whales. They even ‘name’ the whales based on their markings, usually on the fins. Sara was almost jumping up and down when, on our journey, she saw the two whales she knew by name…

The most common whale in these waters is the Humpback. There are some Orca’s here but they are not as abundant as Humpbacks and therefore less likely to be seen. We did meet some people who had seen Orcas the day before on their tour, so we were hopeful.

At one point there were at least 8-10 whale-watching boats congregated (from numerous cruise ships) in the channel but I saw no captain power through some other boats’ space to get their tourists a better view. Sara said, “We all have to work together for the summer so we are polite and not wanting to make enemies”. We motored through Stephen Channel and then at some invisible line we crossed into the Siginaw Channel. Our captain was an ‘eagle eye’ when it came to spotting whale spouts or fins skimming/rippling the surface. I heard one tourist standing in front of us say, “It’s always good to go with a silver-haired Captain”. We felt the same, for he chased down those spots and knew where to turn next in anticipation of the direction of the whale.

We were just floating on the surface with the engines at idle, when a Humpback surfaced very close to the boat – it was awesome to behold. Such a gentle giant: a 40-ton (+/-) mammal being as curious with us and we were with her. No intent of harm – just curiosity.

I learned, that the best photo you can get of a whale is the fluke pic. A fluke is, when the whale’s tail comes out of the water which indicates that the whale is going to dive deeper and that it would be down for 20 minutes or so vs 4-5 minutes when they skim the surface. So sea captains/biologists say… they can almost set their watch to the rhythms of the whale. As it turns out it’s not so easy to guess which whale surface will display a fluke or not. I have many pictures of rippling water and the idea that a whale was just there, but I did manage to get a couple of flukes on this trip. The other factors that come into play on a whale watching excursions are… the boat is either moving or rocking: so not only do you have to have your attention on steadying the camera – but also on steadying oneself…. not to mention the moisture in the air.

We had a new boat that was just put in the Alaskan waters in May of this year – so our Captain must be a Senior Captain: he has earned the best boat!

We saw about 5 different whales (some more than once) and Sara knew 2 of them, both females, by the markings on their fins. She was so excited and I believe she would have jumped up and down with joy, except we were on a fast moving boat. We saw the “fluke” of several whale tails, as the whale lifted out of the water for a push-off indicating a deep dive was about to happen, everyone cheered – as sometimes one doesn’t get to see this phenomena (hence a ‘fluke’). We did not get to see any whales breech – when a whale jumps out of the water and smacks down on the water. We had a great time feeling lucky and grateful to see such a plethora of whale sightings.

Along the dock when we were back from sea, I noticed all these barnacles on the poles that support the dock. It was amazing how high they went up the pole. I assumed the height represented how much the low tide vs the high tide was. Audra is 6’4” and the pole of barnacles was much taller than that… Holy Crap!

Back on the bus we were whisked through a beautiful rainforest (which is all of Alaska, I think) and saw Mendenhal Glacier on the run. We were on our way to the Salmon Bake also included in our tour.

Salmon Bake

The Salmon Bake was held outside in a private piece of heaven owned by our tour company. As it was overcast, BUT NO RAIN, there were all sorts of canopies hung over the eating area for our dry pleasure. Even though it was not raining the dew was very heavy and they had to wipe off the picnic tables more than once. There was a campfire burning at one end of the area and marshmallows to roast, if one so desired. The menu was: fresh grilled salmon – so red they looked like red coloring had been added, baked beans, salad, grilled chicken, blueberry crumb cake, and wine or beer could be purchased. Audra, who does not like fish, was encouraged to have a piece of salmon, by the griller. She reluctantly took a piece and being a good sport, took a taste of fresh-caught sockeye salmon. She said it was good, but after one bite gave the rest to me (a ‘fishavoir’), yeah. Audra was still not a convert but she was a very good sport.

This delightful setting had a small waterfall fed pond with moss hanging from the trees and covering everything on the ground as well. Some took a walk up to the waterfall to snap a few pictures then (when you were ready) boarded a bus to take us back to the dock for souvenirs. At one point on our travels back to the dock, the driver pointed to the cloud-filled sky and pointed out a small hole filled with blue sky. He asked us if we knew what that was called (the blue hole), after no comment from the riders, he said it was a sucker hole, cause you are suckered into believing it was going to clear up… sucker!

Since we had time to wander around town before we had to be back on the ship, Patti suggested we stop by Tracy’s King Crab Shack for crab cakes. So off we went… Tracy’s was full of people getting their fill of King Crab and we had crab cakes. Not to mention we were certainly not hungry right after the salmon bake, but when in Alaska, do as the Alaskans…

After our “second lunch”, we strolled along the dock people watching, with me taking endless pictures. It was here we saw the statue of Patsy Ann the greeter, and took a picture of her and her plaque. Along the dock were many, many Ravens looking for handouts from the street vendors and tourists.

Ravens are sacred and protected to various tribes in Alaska, and throughout the world. The Ravens in AK are at least, twice as big as the ones we see in CO. They are, however, just as raucous.

In Alaska, the Koyukon tribe sees the raven as the Creator of the Earth, moon, stars, people and sun. Oral history relates that the raven first made people from rocks, but they proved to be too strong, so the raven destroyed the people and recreated them with sand instead. The Koyukon also described the raven as a trickster. They say that the raven put mosquitoes on the earth to plaque the people because, at the time, their way of life had no difficulties. They also say that water once flowed in two directions at the same time, but again the raven believed that it made life too easy for people, so he made the water flow only downstream. Because of these beliefs, the Koyukon consider the raven to be sacred. It is considered strong taboo to kill a raven in their culture.

Red Dog Saloon

After watching the ravens scavenge for handouts, we thought we would visit the Red Dog Saloon, a Juneau historic establishment. We had to wait in line for a table, as it was crowded with tourists, even in the early afternoon. Belly up to the bar… As a table became available for us we passed through swinging bar doors straight out of the early 1900’s. We tracked through the sawdust on the floor, remembering that our bus driver told the story of the proprietor, back in the day, put in because the miners were paid in gold dust, so when they paid their bill with a pinch of gold dust, some of the dust would inevitably fall on the floor. With the sawdust on the floor, no one could recover any dust on the floor. Later the proprietor would sweep up the sawdust and put it in water… the gold dust would sink and the sawdust would float. Thereby getting an extra tip from the miners. Clever proprietor…

The wait staff was dressed in period-specific costumes, as well as the piano player. The piano player had 3 tip jars on the piano: one for “child support”, another for “collige fund” and the third was for “Viagra”. The piano player was a character, belting out, singing and playing raucous tunes from the early 1900’s. He looked like he definitely belonged here.

There are many historic artifacts that adorn this historic saloon. Look carefully and you will see Wyatt Earp’s pistol hanging right over the bar. Legend has it that the outlaw lost it in a poker game. It was checked into the Marshall’s office in Juneau on June 27^th, 1900 and never claimed. An “Alternative legend” says Wyatt Earp checked the gun in at the bar because guns were not allowed in the bar. Later, playing poker with some friend he bet it in the game. He was late catching a stagecoach and couldn’t return for his gun. You choose the story you like…

On the wall behind the bar tender, there are two very large gun cases framed with dollar bills. On one pole in the middle of the downstairs bar was a stuffed bear climbing up the pole with a stuffed human doll higher up. Numerous stuffed animals and old mining equipment also decorate the walls.

After a couple of drinks and fine entertainment we left through a different exit, as we couldn’t go back out the swinging doors. As it turns out we were funneled into the adjoining room that was a tourist trap for you to buy Red Dog Saloon trinkets. Modern day clever proprietor…

Alas, it was time to head back to the ship for we would set sail for Tracy Arm Fjord in the morning.