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Essentials of Alaska
Shirley McDonald
August 15, 2005
After years of talking about a vacation to Alaska, my husband and I, along with two other couples, finally made that dream come true a couple of weeks ago. And what an unbelievable vacation it was! We chose a Princess Tour, with five nights inland and seven nights on the cruise ship Sun Princess.
I have to agree with the sentiment of one of our tablemates at dinner one evening on the ship (who just happened to be from Louisiana also). She said her pastor had told her that this would be a spiritual vacation because she would be so close to some of the best of His earthly creation.
Perhaps I also have to thank her for the absolutely perfect weather we enjoyed; she said she had prayed that everything would be perfect for her trip, and that it had been, down to her seeing every wild animal that she had asked to see! I had only thought to pray that it would not be so cold that I wouldn’t enjoy it, and that prayer was answered when the temperature stayed around the 50s in the day and the 30s at night (since night is practically nonexistent at this time of the year, it was in the 30s only a short time).
Our flight took us to Houston from Baton Rouge. Then it was a long seven-hour flight to Anchorage. My seatmate with the window seat spoke with a heavy Hispanic accent and slept most of the way. I found myself craning my neck in an effort to see the landscape over which we were flying. When we got over the Canadian Rockies, I couldn’t help myself — I leaned so far over her seat that I kept bumping into her arm in order to see the beauty and grandeur below me. To a born-and-raised all-my-life-in-Louisiana native, the snow-capped mountains were spectacular. Finally my excitement spread to my seatmate, who awoke and began to touch my arm and point to the ground when she saw something of extraordinary beauty. How can anyone not believe in God when s/he sees all the splendor of nature? I certainly spent 13 days considering “the wondrous works of God” (Job 37:14).
The relatively short flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks got us to the lodge about 8:30 p.m. Even though we had been traveling for more than 12 hours, we were so excited to actually be in Alaska that we walked the nature trails at the lodge until about midnight. It is impossible to sleep when there is so much beauty around you and it is still daylight outside. We had energy, energy with all that sunlight!
One problem for me: the cottonwood tree was in full bloom and the blooms were blowing everywhere. I found out quickly that I am allergic to these blooms, so I spent most of the trip fighting congestion and headaches. On any other trip I take from now on, I will have a plentiful supply of my allergy medicine!
The Trans Alaskan Pipeline System is an amazing feat, 800 miles of pipeline from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope, through rugged and beautiful terrain, to Valdez, the northernmost ice-free port in North America. The pipeline is on top of the ground if the permafrost is too close to the surface to allow for its being buried and underground if the permafrost isn’t too close to the surface of the ground. This was one of my husband’s favorite stops.
Gold mining still exists in Alaska (but not more so than when the Alaskans are panning the tourists for all they are worth), so we panned for gold. I even have $11 worth of gold dust to show for it!
The Discovery paddle wheeler took us down the Chena and Tanana rivers, stopping by the dog musher training camp of Susan Butcher (four time Iditarod champion) and visiting an Athabascan Native camp. Interesting, too, were the hot tubs in the yards of the residents along the river. The guide said that in the winter the residents sit in their hot tubs to watch the snowmobiles, cars, and planes as they travel over the frozen river. I never could figure out how they would get from the hot tub to the house without freezing to death, but of course you have to remember that I live in Louisiana, where everything shuts down for only half an inch of snow! I could not believe it when someone in one of the cities told us that the schools did not close unless the temperature was less than –20 degrees Fahrenheit.
We rode a glass-domed train that allowed us to see the breathtaking scenery to Denali National Park area. The highlight of this ride was seeing Mt. McKinley’s summit. Since it is so high (20,372 feet), the mountain has its own weather system and the summit is usually covered with clouds. Even the guide was excited when he pointed out the majestic, snow-covered mountain in the distance. In fact, we saw the summit three days in a row, and nobody else we talked to had been that blessed.
The next day we rode a motor coach to Denali Wilderness lodge, out in the wilderness at the Denali Wilderness National Park. In the park itself, an Athabascan Native spoke to us about his dying tribe. It was sad to hear him state that before the white man came, the Athabascans had lived rather well off the land, finding all the essentials from nature. However, he said, in the white man’s attempt to alleviate the perceived poverty, now many of his people are on welfare and just sit around all day watching television. I wonder — exactly who was civilized? And I thought, too, of how we Christians sometimes get so “fat” materially that we become lazy in our spiritual lives.
What a beautiful sight to see the sun set behind Mt. McKinley at 11:23 p.m. What a beautiful world God has made! The 24-hour visibility again made sleeping difficult — I didn’t want to miss one moment of these majestic surroundings.
It was interesting to listen to the bus drivers and tour guides tell how they came to live in Alaska. So many of them came to Alaska on vacation and never went back home. One of the speakers at a ranger station in the forest said that she had worked in business in California. After reading a National Geographic article with pictures of wolves in Alaska, she quit her job the next day and has been in Alaska ever since. No electricity, long and dark winter nights? This love for the wilderness and wide-open, beautiful spaces with no near neighbors must be overwhelming for them. As with so much on my trip, I began to think of the spiritual correlations. We should make our churches so inviting with such an inspiring environment that our visitors will never want to leave. The experience of receiving the Holy Spirit is so wonderful that we, like these new Alaskans, have no desire to return to our former lives. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In the spring, the wildlife are moving around, and we saw wildlife — a mother grizzly and her two cubs (far away on a mountain, thank God!), caribou, marmot, Dall sheep (like mountain goats), Canadian geese, nesting tern, and bald eagles and their nest of 25 years. Unfortunately, beavers had begun eating away the tree with the nest, and our guide said that they expected the tree (with the nest) to fall within the next couple of years. How sad, but a part of the balance of nature.
After seeing a homestead cabin, I have the utmost respect for the homesteaders. It is so small, with a dirt floor and sod roof. The flowers here were beautiful, as were many of the herbs and plants that the natives used for food and medicine.
We rode the motor coach from Anchorage to Whittier, where it rained on us for the first time. However, the rain did not detract from the beauty of the mountains and Turnagain Arm, the body of water leading to Whittier. Finally, too, a moose! It was here that I got my first, long-awaited glimpse of a glacier — and I was awestruck. Again, remember that the most ice we see here in Louisiana is in our refrigerators….
I was so enthralled with the scenery that I left the curtains to the balcony of our stateroom open so that when I awakened during the night (it never actually got dark until a couple of nights from Vancouver), I could look out to see what we were passing. It was breathtaking to awake on that first morning to a view of the glaciers in College Fjord. We stopped for a while, with a commentary available on the television or on the decks. What a beautiful color of blue…unbelievable! I think my mouth stayed agape the whole time we were here. Later in the day we saw orcas playing around — a beautiful sight also. The grandeur of God’s creation is mind boggling.
I cannot even come close to describing the beauty of Glacier Bay. Here we saw quite a few icebergs fall from the glacier into the Bay (called calving with its accompanying sound of “white thunder”). I couldn’t tear myself away from our balcony window throughout the day while Glacier Bay rangers were providing the commentary. Unbelievable majesty. Just how could all of this be happenstance and not the work of a Supreme Being?
Juneau essentials
Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, accessible only by water or air.
Mendenhall Glacier is awesome, with a beautiful waterfall nearby. Next time perhaps I will take advantage of the opportunity to fly out and land on the glacier itself…and then again, those crevasses look awfully deep and wide…. I touched the water here, and it is really extremely cold, so I don’t think I would take the canoe ride that goes right up to the glacier, either.
The whale watching tour was spectacular — how can 40-ton animals be so graceful? I can’t even imagine how many fish and seal and otter it takes to make the whale’s 1-2 tons of food each day. The sea lions sunning on the buoy were fun to watch also.
Seeing Juneau from the top of Mt. Roberts via tram provided a beautiful view of the area — river, mountains, pier, and city. There were bald eagles everywhere here (they have 25% of the world’s population of bald eagles). What a magnificent sight when they are soaring, and how still they can be when they are sitting in the top of the trees. Of course, I was intrigued with the town’s library. It is the top (fifth) floor of a parking garage; land is at a premium here, remember! And, according to our guide, it is a wonderful library.
Totem Park not only has many totems (unfortunately our guide was rather boring and longwinded in his narration of what should have been interesting fables told by the carvings on the totems), but also boasts an honest-to-God rainforest. It was lush, green, and wonderful. Creek Street was the first street built in this town, and it is built on stilts over the creek. Interesting — but, of course, now it consists mainly of…souvenir shops!
Food, food, food! Oh, my! Much too much – but I did try lots of new dishes. I finally accepted the fact that I never found a salmon that I liked.
By the second Sunday away from home, I was definitely feeling the need for an organized church service. The cruise ship provided an interdenominational service at 9:00 a.m. Of the 1,950 passengers, maybe 150 of us attended. Much of the service consisted of response readings, but because I was unfamiliar with the prayers, I paid attention to the words and was blessed, especially by these lines from one of them:
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves….
Have mercy on us and forgive us;
That we may delight in your will,
And walk in your ways,
To the glory of your name. Amen.
Maybe I was the only one with tears in my eyes. Then, how can it get any better than singing “How Great Thou Art” while looking out the window at the spectacular view of the ocean and mountains? (Of course, occasionally the view was marred by those health nuts who insisted on jogging around the deck every morning!)
Meeting people from everywhere was interesting. I became friends with a couple from Sacramento, California. (In fact, we have emailed each other twice already since we have been home.) Sharon really makes me feel guilty about my Christianity when she tells me of all she is involved in through her church. Her husband is a member of their Toolbox Ministry, and in two weeks they and 29 others from their church are going to Mexico to build a house for a homeless family. I think we are lacking in community outreach in so many of our churches.
End of trip
I had seen a sunset, so I was determined to see a sunrise. Fortunately for me, on the last morning we were near Vancouver, sunrise wasn’t until nearly 5:00 a.m. I was the only person on the deck except the workers getting ready to dock the ship when I went out to take a picture this early in the morning, but it was definitely worth it.
The flight home from Vancouver was only five hours, with mostly clear weather. I did have a window seat on this flight, so I could look down to my heart’s content (which was nearly the entire trip). I was surprised at one point to see that some small islands in a body of water formed a happy face! God does have a sense of humor, doesn’t He?
If you crave excitement such as theme parks, then don’t even try this trip. And please don’t take very young children — those 4-hour train and motor coach rides would be excruciatingly painful for them.
If you like beautiful scenery and history, you will thoroughly enjoy the Alaskan vacation as I did. You know, I really need to go back when the northern lights are visible.
© 2005, Shirley McDonald
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Shirley McDonald is a copy editor for ninetyandnine.com.