Our Alaska Cruise

The Alaska Cruise

Our cruise to Alaska,  aboard the Amsterdam, was magnificent. We had great accommodations, excellent food and best of all calm seas.  Actually, "best of all" was going with our friends Sara and Doug Sheldon who we met in Amman Jordan where I worked for State and Doug worked for US AID. Our last trip together was in 1984 when we went to Egypt and traveled to the Pyramids.

We embarked on Sunday July 20 at 4 pm and disembarked Sunday July 27 at 8 AM. There were 1450 passengers and 650 staff and crew. It seemed like the right proportion.

Medi just arrived on board. She thinks the Holland American Line is the best.

A four course meal was served every night. The choices each night  sometimes made final selection difficult.

Doug and Sara Sheldon. Doug met Sara when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia.

As we reached the glacier area,it suddenly got very very cold. Don't we look it?

The snow covered mountains seen from the boat.

First sight of the glacier.

The passage inwards

At the Glacier

Waterfall by the glacier

Today the real gold mined is from selling artifacts and tours to the tourists.

Given the tourist season is 5 months, the dark winter days last six months , it is not hard to believe that bars and liquor stores are popular. One town was said to have 31 bars and 18 churches.

The funny thing is this group had not even entered the bar yet.

Like all the towns we went to, Juneau has seen better times.  Juneau,the state capital, has a population of 31,000. The other towns we went to Sitka and Ketchikan have populations of 8,000 each. The next largest town is Wasilla where Sarah Palin started her political career as mayor.

Downtown Juneau

Medi charms the bear.

The Japanese restaurant charms Medi

Sitka was the second place we visited. It was like Juneau but smaller. The tour there focused more on the native Indian culture, its dances and its totem poles.

The group wanted to adopt Medi into their tribe but she told them her ship was about to sail.

This Russian Orthodox church is a reminder of the Russian involvement in Alaska

 The cafe was started in 1925 by a Japanese couple who arrived from New York.

One way to get through the long, long dark winter months.

This statue called the Pioneer stands in front of the local government building. Most of the 70,000 gold miners who headed for the gold fields did not make it. Saddest of all was the fate of the 35,000 miners who hauled 1,000 pounds of supplies up a 35 degree mountain pass only to find upon arrival all the land been staked out by the very first miners.

This is totem pole park. We learned the totem pole was carved mainly to record tribal history or tribal values. They were never meant to be "worshipped"  There were two other purposes: one was to honor someone and the other was to shame someone. We saw one honoring Lincoln and the crew of the USS Lincoln which helped bring peace to the area. We saw another shaming Secretary of State Seward who was feasted by the local tribe for five days of non stop eating and drinking. Before he could reciprocate, as local custom demanded, Seward was called away.

The "Inside Passage" made our trip smooth as can be.

How beautiful ! Our last stop was in Victoria , British Colombia  in the beautiful Butchart  Gardens which sees a million visitors a year. . We did not get off the boat until 7 30PM so there was not much light. Medi had always wanted to visit the gardens  because her mother had visited the gardens many years before and said it was one of the prettiest places she had ever been to.


Here is a short précis on Alaska

Alaska is a U.S. state situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent. Bordering the state to the east is Yukon, a Canadian territory, and the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and thePacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia  further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 731,449 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the oil, natural gas, and fishing industries, resources which it has in abundance.Tourism is also a significant part of the economy.

Although it had been occupied for thousands of years by indigenous peoples, from the 18th century onward, European powers considered the territory of Alaska ripe for exploitation. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($121 million adjusted for inflation) at approximately two cents per acre . The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.^[6]

The name "Alaska" (Аляска) had been introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used to refer to the peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut idiom, which figuratively refers to the mainland of Alaska. Literally, it means object to which the action of the sea is directed. It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.

You can learn more about Alaska on www.Wikipedia.com