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Juneau, Alaska

During the early morning hours we approached Juneau and by 7:30 we were tied along side the pier. The Sea Princess camera people were on hand to make sure that our arrival at the capital city was recorded. We set off for a bus tour of the Mendenhall Glacier and a local fish hatchery. Juneau is an interesting place. There are no roads or railroads into or out of the city, yet this is the capital of Alaska. All travel is by boat or airplane. There are private airplanes every where in Alaska. Down in the lower forty-eight we have our cars, in Alaska they have their airplanes. All are equiped with ski or float landing gear. On Friday nights when the high school has a football game, they fly to the location of their opponent.

The tides everywhere along the Alaskan coast are very high. This presented problems to the early settlers, including gold seekers, getting to Alaska by ship, which by the way was the only way of getting there. As we went to the Mendenhall Glacier, our first stop on this morning, the bay between Juneau and Douglas Island was barren mud. When we came back along this area after lunch, it was covered with water. The size of this area of mud transformed to water was amazing!

Mendenhall Glacier is the only glacier in Alaska accessible by car or bus. The day was sunny and very nice and it resulted in my most favorite photos of the trip. These first two, as well as the wild flower image, were taken from the Chapel by the Lake.

These next four photos are of us and the glacier. Mieko was dressed for warmth and later commented that she looked like the typical Japanese tourist. I think that I might have to agree.

On the return from the glacier, we stopped at the fish hatchery in Juneau and got a close look at a fish ladder and learned how after 5 to 7 years from being hatched, the salmon return to spawn and die. Since they were hatched at this hatchery, they will always return to this hatchery. Several thousand return and each lay thousands of eggs. There is no shortage of salmon and there never will be. We were also told that there are no “salmon farms” as there are for trout and catfish. All the salmon sold has be raised in the wild. The bears and the eagles can eat all they want and there will always be more. In my opinion, only an environmental catastrophe could reverse this process. And so ended our morning in Juneau.

For lunch we were taken on an Alaskan Salmon Bake. On arrival I suddenly thought of the "production luaus" in Hawaii and worried that this was going to be similar. Thankfully it was not! It turned out to be the best salmon we ate on the entire trip. Not only was the salmon perfect, the potato salad and beans were also delicious. Ah, then there was the beer — Alaskan Amber brewed right there in Juneau.

We took a short walk along a stream, it had salmon in it, and found this plant. It looked like the Queen Ann lace from a distance but be learned later that it was not AND that it is a toxic plant.

It has some unique features and I include two photos.

The waterfall, the stream, the forest surrounding us ALL with great food made for a relaxing wonderful lunch!

It was getting late in the day but there was more to be done. Here is a close up of the portside of the Sea Princess. Count seven windows to the right of the life boat and at the level of the orange band on the boat and that was our stateroom. It had a huge window which really made it nice to see the passing sights.

To end the day, we rode a tramway to the tops of Mount Roberts. From there we had a stunning view of Juneau and the surrounding mountains. The deformed trees on Mount Roberts were made that way by snow. These “snow crooked” trees are bent like this by movement of the snow.