dare2go

Inside Passage / Juneau to Haines


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Shortly after midday we arrived in Juneau and drove immediately to the Mendenhall Lake Campground, recommended to us by my sister's friends (Michael and Kendra) who live here in Juneau. The lake sits at the bottom of the Mendenhall Glacier and we were stunned to see how close and visible the glacier actually is from certain points in the campground. The other thing which struck Juergen as soon as we had stopped was that everything on the rainforest floor was covered with moss (interspersed with some of the biggest mushrooms he had ever seen!). We were to discover later that when a glacier recedes the first thing to start growing is lichen and then moss. These break down to produce soil and then other things can grow in the soil.
We made use of what was left of the afternoon to have a nap, before going out to help celebrate Michael's birthday, and also our wedding anniversary. My sister Bron and her husband Bob had visited Alaska last year in July and it was great to meet some of the people they spent time with here. It was also quite nice to be in a house for a change! I realised that the only large structures we usually enter are bathrooms at campgrounds and shops, museums and other impersonal places. So we were very grateful to Michael and Kendra for inviting us into their home and treating us like old friends, although they had just met us.
On Monday we spent a very lazy day at the campground. We were so tired from lack of sleep on the ferry that it was 10.00 before we even woke up. The weather was still very overcast, but not really raining. At times during the day there were even patches of blue visible and at one stage I could actually see shadows cast by the sun! But primarily it was overcast and misty. And the weather has deteriorated since then!
Tuesday we drove into Juneau, which is about 13 miles from Mendenhall Lake. We spent about two hours at the Alaska State Museum, which was very interesting. There were a couple of temporary exhibitions that I found really enjoyable. The first was a photographic exhibition entitled Alaska's Watchable Whales. Mark Kelley and John Hyde are both full-time professional photographers in Juneau and the exhibition is a collection of their photographs of humpback and killer (orca) whales taken in the local area. The photographs were accompanied by information about the science and behaviour of whales, which was really interesting. The second exhibition was a Rie Muñoz Retrospective. This artist came to Juneau in 1951 for a visit and stayed. Her work is quite naïve and almost impressionistic, and it portrays real, everyday life here in south-east Alaska, as well as folklore and legends.
As well as temporary exhibitions, the museum houses permanent exhibitions which depict Alaska's native cultures, natural history and history of non-native settlement. The natural history section includes a full-size eagle's nesting tree surrounded by a ramp. It would be easy to spend hours in this museum, but it is also possible to get overloaded! I'm sure the permanent residents could visit here again and again.
When we had absorbed all that was possible at the museum, and as it was clearing up a little we drove out to Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Centre. From the parking lot it is just a few hundred metres to a spot from where you can view the glacier just across the lake. It was quite cold as the air there comes directly off the ice, but we stayed quite some time gazing with some awe at this mighty frozen river. The weather cleared a little for us at this time for which we were quite grateful! We then went up to the visitor centre which is full of information about glaciers and has a number of telescopes through which it is possible to get up close to the glacier. There is also an auditorium which shows a short film about the glacier. Unfortunately it is also full of a constant stream of cruise ship visitors who arrive by the busload, so it is difficult to find a quiet moment to just sit and wonder at the glacier!
While we were inside the visitors centre it started to rain again. The clearing up was only just long enough for us to walk out to look at the glacier! Nearby there is also a creek in which there are many salmon. There is a boardwalk from which it is possible to view them from above. Along the bank of the creek there were remains of a bear's dinner to be seen, but unfortunately no feeding bears when we were there. I think we will almost certainly see a bear up close while in Alaska as there are so many here, but it hasn't happened yet.
On Wednesday we had an appointment at 4.00 to visit the Alaskan Brewery where you can sample their beer and hear the story of the development of the brewery and the processes involved in brewing the beer. I found the tour most interesting - the guy leading it had a very comic delivery, although at times he talked so quickly it was hard to keep up with him. We met our new Alaskan friends at the brewery and shared some talk while we sampled some beer. Everyone seemed to agree that the Alaskan Amber was the way to go. We went on to have dinner at the Prospector Hotel and the after-taste required that the Alaskan Amber was also the accompanying beverage for the halibut dinner!
Before the brewery visit we had booked the ferry for our onward journey to Haines on Friday afternoon. We also spent some time wandering around the tourists shops in the downtown area - they seemed to be just the same as in Ketchikan. It seems strange, but all the towns where the cruise ships stop have the same merchandise available in the same shops. One would think the passengers would get bored with shopping!
It rained almost all night and has rained to a greater or lesser degree all day today. I managed to do the laundry, and we are thankful that we moved to Spruce Meadows RV Park yesterday because we have electricity and can run the heater as much as we like without flattening our battery, and we can use the computer without flattening its battery and the Park offers free wifi, so we can at least make use of the time cooped up here inside our camper. We could have left on a ferry this morning, but it left at 8.00 am which meant we had to be at the terminal at 6.00 and probably would have had to get up around 4.30, so we would both have been tired and probably grumpy - not that the rain doesn't make us a bit grumpy anyway. We are hopeful that as we drive further north into the Yukon and Alaska over the weekend that things will brighten up a bit. Juergen says if we don't find some sun soon he's going to get into the truck and drive until he does....

Saturday, 19 August 2006, Haines, AK
Thursday evening we were invited once again for a fabulous dinner, this time by Virgil and Julie, and the dinner was very fresh barbecued wild salmon. I get surer every time I eat wild salmon that I won't be able to go back to eating farmed salmon at home. It is so tasty and it melts in your mouth. So we spent a very pleasant evening with our Alaskan friends and appreciated once again the hospitality of the people here.
We definitely chose the right ferry to travel to Haines. The weather was slightly clearer in Juneau on Friday morning, but the rain still persisted. As we left Juneau at 4.15 we sailed into much clearer skies. The clouds were still present but the mountains on either side were almost entirely visible and we had some amazing views of glaciers and lighthouses and waterfalls all the way to Haines. We were on one of the larger ferries so it goes fairly slow and the trip lasted 4½ hours. Haines is situated at the upper end of a fjord which is the longest and deepest in North America. Soon after leaving Juneau the ferry enters Lynn Canal, a relatively narrow inlet, which goes all the way up to Haines. We had such clear weather, compared to the trip up from Prince Rupert to Juneau, that we were really pleased to be able to see both sides of the fjord without the previously ever-present shroud of low cloud. But the most spectacular thing of all for me was the views of the glaciers.