Anchorage to Denali

The State capital of Alaska is Anchorage and with only 300,000 people, it’s not a big city.  It has a large footprint, partly because of its 5 airfields, including its international airport as well as a huge army and airforce base.  But it does house over 25% of the state’s population.  It’s quite a nice place and we wished that we’d had more time there to explore, but on our 1 free day  we’d booked a tour to a glacier camp where we were to go dog-mushing.  However, once we got to base camp at the bottom of the glacier, we were told that the upper camp (at 4000ft) was snowed in and in white-out conditions.  We were extremely disappointed, given that this was to be a high-light of the trip – dog sledding across a glacier, high up in the mountains.   Consequently, our chopper pilot took us up to a lower glacier where we took a walk on the glacier, as well as flying to another glacier to check it out as it calved into Lake George.  On our walk, we marvelled at the huge crevasses which could easily swallow us if we made a mistake and we found, embedded in the ice, the body of a frozen mouse which may have been there for hundreds if not thousands of years – photo attached.

The following day we were up very early to catch the Denali Star railway train to Denali National Park.  The train is luxurious and extremely comfortable and the trip to Denali takes some 8 hours.  We arrived in Denali (or McKinley Village) mid-afternoon to find our very comfortable lodge at McKinley Village Lodge.  Denali National Park is 6 million acres of pristine wilderness taking in Mt McKinley, the highest mountain in North America at 20,320ft.  To see it without cloud is unusual and it was true to form.  Even with a fine (but very cold) day, we could see only a faint outline of the mountain, behind the mountain range that is the Alaska Mountains.  However, we did a wilderness tour into the national park and came across many animals in the wild, including Dall mountain sheep, moose, caribou, porcupines, ground squirrels and grizzly bears, as well as many varieties of native birds, including hawks, eagles and the local ptarmigan – a ground based (but not flightless) bird similar to a bush pigeon.  The park is sensational – a spectacular landscape – and the tours are well organised and the guides very knowledgeable.  Private entry to the park is banned. 

Tomorrow we catch the train again for the second part of our journey to Fairbanks, where we get to meet Julie’s aunt and cousins, who Julie hasn’t seen since her teen years.  Much excitement!   If only we could get a good night’s sleep – the sun sets about 11pm at the moment and it’s daylight again at 4am.  It’s a little disconcerting returning from dinner with bright sunshine and a temperature of about 5 degrees.  Too cold to sit outside with our last glass of wine!

Colony Glacier falling into Lake George

Bloody cold!

Dwarfed by the glacial features.

Frozen mouse - how old is it?

Calving glacier.

Hanging out! - of the side of the Denali Star

Savage River from the rail line

Dall mountain sheep

Mountain Goat!

The Panhandle

The Panhandle is that strip of Alaskan territory which runs down the west coast of Canada, the northernmost part of which we had now reached – Haines and Skagway.  We chose to stay in Haines because the cruise boats don’t go there and it is a very pretty town with a lovely harbour and a welcome as warm as any we’ve encountered.  A feature of the town is Fort Seward which was established around 1900 to control the huge numbers of gold prospectors travelling into The Klondike, where gold was discovered in the 1890’s.  The fort area has been largely restored and converted to hotels and accommodation and is very pretty.  Again our accommodation was fairly basic but comfortable and everything is within walking distance, including a couple of great restaurants we found.

Early one morning we caught the fast ferry across to Skagway, some 40 minutes away.  Skagway harbour contained 2 Princess line cruise ships, a Disney line and a Holland America ship, total capacity of some 7000 - 8000 holiday makers and Skagway was jumping.  The town looks like a Hollywood film set  - all painted store fronts representing the wild west.  There are dozens of jewellery stores, gift shops and ice-cream parlours and people everywhere.  The main object of our visit was to ride the White Pass railway which traces the trail used by the gold diggers to get to the Klondike goldfields.  The railway is fantastic and the track is amazing, climbing some 3000 ft through the White Pass into Canada, in the distance of some 20miles.  The scenery is amazing with raging waterfalls and rapids on the Skagway River and sheer drops of hundreds of metres into ravines, where many men and horses died making their way to the goldfields.  Most of the carriages are restored originals, some dating back to 1898 and the trip is spectacular – trestle bridges and tunnels and metres of snow by the side of the line.  We stopped at White Pass as this is the entry point to Canada and the pass is surrounded by mountains covered in snow.  The conditions in the 1890’s must have been terrible for the gold diggers, but this sort of thing happened around the world, wherever gold was discovered.

Returning to Haines, we discovered that the weekend was a holiday weekend for Memorial Day and the travelling Vietnam Wall – a replica of the one in Washington – was set up on the parade ground of the old Fort.  It was also the weekend of the Haines Brewfest, an annual event celebrating home brewers and boutique beer and the whole town was buzzing, with campervans, trucks and beer-lovers everywhere.  Every available space in the camping grounds was taken with small tents and we could only imagine what it would be like sleeping on the near-frozen ground. 

Early Saturday morning saw us loading suitcases into a small (5 seat) aircraft for a flight to Juneau, there to catch a jet to Anchorage and the next leg of our journey.  Winding our way through mountains in low cloud and rain in a small aircraft is not the best way to spend a Saturday morning and along the way we saw a number of whales in Frederick Sound, from as low as 300ft.  Our pilot, who seemed to be young enough to still be in high school, mentioned that he’d turn around if conditions got too bad, but he found a way through and we’ve lived to tell the tale.

Haines harbour with cruise ship passing by

The White Pass train climbing the mountain

Entering one of the tunnels

The old trestle bridge - now out of service.

Trestle bridge over one of the ravines

White Pass - border with Canada

Spectacular views

Wrangell - hidden gem

As we steam north on the M.V.Matanuska heading from Wrangell to Haines via Juneau, we reflected on our three days in Wrangell,  a small settlement given over to fishing, shipping, timber and tourism.  Our first impression was one of a bleak and raw town but we realised that this was not correct.  The people were warm and welcoming and we enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere, as damp and grey as the weather was.  We stayed at the Stikine Inn which is probably the best the town has to offer and as basic as the accommodation was, it was warm and comfortable and had a great restaurant which was very popular in the town.  This is a town where the huge cruise boats can’t reach because of a fairly shallow bay, subject to huge flooding from the Stikine River which runs back into Canada some 200kms plus to the headwaters.  Much of the Stikine is protected wilderness and we did a tour up the river with an extremely knowledgeable guide – Jim Leslie from Alaska Waters Tours.  We travelled up-river to the Canada border, some 60kms, to virgin wilderness looking for bears, moose and other wildlife.  It is some of the most beautiful country we have seen and showed off the Alaskan wilderness most effectively.  Spectacular waterfalls, racing river, eagles and nests and finally a huge black bear, which Jules spotted as we were returning.  We spied moose tracks, wolf tracks and bear tracks in one of the areas where these animals are commonly seen, but no live animals. 

Jim Leslie runs a shallow draft jet-boat, some 10 metres long, with twin Cummins diesels and Hamilton jets and seats up to 20 people, although we were joined by only 2 others on the Stikine River trip.  On the previous day, we toured with Jim to Petersburg and then to Le Conte glacier, in Le Conte Bay.  There were several more people on that tour, but we are still very early in the season.  There are still lots of icebergs and ice-flows floating in the waters and Le Conte Bay was choked with icebergs, so we needed the steel hull of the jet-boat to break through many difficult areas.  Jim, with his son James driving the boat, managed to get us to within 100metres or so of the face of the glacier which is quite spectacular, particularly when it is ‘calving’ – large pieces of the face of the glacier breaking away and falling into the bay with a thunderous roar.  During our time in Le Conte Bay, we encountered a whale which dived as we passed and we saw the tail as it disappeared into the depths. 

  We have been very impressed with the service and hospitality of all we have come across.  Not just hospitality staff, but everybody we’ve met has been friendly and helpful and keen to talk and also to listen.  The hospitality staff everywhere have been keen to please, change orders or menu items to almost all requests and have done so without query.  Of course, they’re not particularly well paid and work hard for tips, but they certainly aim to please.  We have often chosen to share meals because the serves are huge, so often a main course and salad has been more than enough for the two of us.  Hopefully we can manage to get back with as little addition to weight limits as possible.  The fish has been fresh, but fruit has been a little difficult to find as it’s all shipped in.  Halibut and salmon are common and very tasty and fresh.  Prices are quite reasonable, particularly considering the enormous serves.

Currently we’re about to dock in Juneau on our way to Haines and it will be interesting to see whether any cruise boats are in town as they regularly disgorge 3000 people each into towns of quite small size and there may be several cruise boats in town at the same time – a frightening prospect.

Waterfall along the Stikine River

Sea Lions resting on the channel bouy at Petersburg

Huge iceberg just outside Le Conte Bay

Weaving our way through the icefield in Le Conte Bay

Face of Le Conte Glacier as it calves into Le Conte Bay - thunderous noise!

North to Alaska

After arriving ONLY 40 minutes late on the Skeena we found out that it can sometimes be several hours late given that there is only one track in or out of Prince Rupert and several goods trains out of the city as this is the main shipping point for entry to north west Canada, and some of these trains are 2 km long – up to 200 trucks.  Several times along the way we were forced to wait at sidings whilst these goods trains rolled through.

We checked into our hotel for our 2 night stay and grabbed a late dinner in the bar lounge.  Our free day in Prince Rupert was taken up with a tour in a large catamaran to visit a sanctuary area for grizzly bears.  Whilst they don’t guarantee seeing grizzlies, they invariably find them and this was the case for us – we sighted 2 large males, several kilometres apart, and although they lose about a third of their body weight over winter, they were both huge.  The first one was very shy and we couldn’t get close because of shallow water, but the second bear we followed with the boat, mostly only 20 metres away, whilst it grazed on the lush grass and plants along several ‘beaches’.  We needed to maintain complete silence on the boat because they are easily spooked, but we managed to follow this magnificent animal for perhaps 20 minutes.  This was a most amazing experience. 

On our way back from the sanctuary we stopped near a native village where there is a known eagle roost and the crew threw chicken pieces into the sea, which attracted perhaps 20 or so eagles immediately beside the boat, so we managed to get some great photos of the birds swooping to pick up the food in their talons.  Another amazing experience!  Our tour lasted almost 7 hours and we arrived back at Prince Rupert in time to do a little shopping, have a shower and a drink before dinner.

We needed to be away from our hotel by 7 the next morning, as we were catching the ferry at 8.15 to Wrangell via Ketchikan – a trip of 12 hours.  This meant going through US Customs before boarding the ferry and we have never seen a more bumbling, inept performance by ‘officials’.  Just after we arrived for check-in, a tour group of New Zealand train enthusiasts arrived, some with US entry stamps already and some without.  We also had not gone into US territory to this point, so we were finger-printed, photographed, questioned and finally allowed entry.  Needless to say, the ferry left more than one and a half hours late!

As we write this, we’re steaming up the Inside Passage to Wrangell, flanked by snow-capped peaks on the mainland on our right and the string of islands on our left – most essentially uninhabited.  The scenery is quite spectacular.  The ferry is extremely comfortable and is similar in some ways to the Spirit of Tasmania, but quite a bit smaller.  It has day lounges and observation decks, a bar and a cafe which serves quite reasonable food.  It will be interesting to see what is on offer for dinner tonight as our original arrival time of 8.20 has now blown out to 10pm, too late for dinner at our hotel.  We have a free day in Wrangell tomorrow and tours booked for the next couple of days, before we catch another ferry to Haines.

Bald Eagle in flight

Looking for food

Grizzly Bear on the move

Unaware of our presence

Did I hear something?

Athabasca River thawing after a few days of sunshine.

The Icefields Parkway under a sunny sky!

Seen from our train - many black bears feeding on the new spring growth.

The Panorama car of our train "The Skeena".

The Skeena River runs from the divide though to Prince Rupert.

Another black bear grazing near the railway line - many are killed by trains and trucks on the road.