| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 14 February 2005 |
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We went into the old Federal Building, now housing the United States Forestry Service, and saw a couple of films, one on the Spruce Bark Beetle, and a longer one on the Tongass National Forest, which runs along most of the Inside Passage.
We also went into the 'Wolf Song of Alaska' exhibit, a sort of combination museum and gallery devoted to educating the public about wolves. There were a lot of informational signs and a lot of wildlife photographs of wolves.
We said goodbye to David G and Sherry (again) and decided to go back to the hotel and rest a bit and hope for an appetite for dinner. The hotel had cable television with about twenty channels, so we ended up watching Conan the Destroyer and dozing a bit.
About 8 PM we went out and had dinner at the Alaskan Salmon Chowder House. Mark had their red salmon chowder and Halibut Olympia (halibut with three different cheeses); I had white halibut chowder and a steamed halibut fillet. They had salmon, of course, but we have that a lot at home, as I noted before.
We went back to the room about 10 PM; the sun was still up.
August 3 (61N, 159.6W, sunrise 5:35 ADT, sunset 22:33 ADT): Anchorage, like all the other Alaskan towns we visited, has flower beds and pots all over the streets. I guess the short summer season makes Alaskans want to enjoy it as much as possible.
We had breakfast at the Downtown Deli & Cafe, recommended by the Lonely Planet. I had blueberry pancakes and a latte; Mark had eggs, sourdough pancakes, reindeer sausage, and a Ghiradelli hot chocolate. The whole espresso/cappuccino/latte scene has gotten to Alaska.
We walked around a bit, following one of the walking tours. Inside the 4th Avenue Theatre they still had the bronze murals and art deco environment, though the seats have been removed and it seems to be a banquet hall now.
About 10 AM we went to the Anchorage Historical & Fine Arts Museum (US$5 each). Because this is the Centennial of the Klondike Gold Rush, their temporary exhibit was all about the Gold Rush, which worked out well for us. We spent about forty-five minutes looking through that, then went to the history gallery for the guided tour of it.
This was given by Ruth Ellen Andersen (who has lived in Alaska twenty-nine years; apparently no one was actually born here). Alaskan history starts about 10,000 B.C.E., when the Siberian land bridge allowed migrations from Asia. It seems as though three main groups came across, the Aleuts (who seem to be related to the Ainu of Japan), the Inuit (who seem to be related to the Mongolians), and the Athabascan. (I can't remember what Asian group she related the Athabascans to, but it seems as though they are related to the Navaho and other more southerly tribes. For example, the Athabascan term for themselves is 'the Dene' while the Navahos are 'the Dine,' both pronounced with two syllables.)
Okay, I think I've got it: the Inupiaq (in the Northern part), the Yupik (in the Western part), the Alutiq (in the Southern part) are all Inuit or Eskimos, which are equivalent.
Early Russian explorers of Alaska included Simon Dezhnev (who in 1648 sailed through the Bering Strait, proving that Russia was not connected to North America), Bering (1728), and Mikhail Gvozdev (who 'discovered' America from the west in 1732). They were followed by Spanish explorers Juan Perez (1774) and Juan Bodega y Cuadra (1775), and Englishman Captain James Cook (1778).
The Alaska Purchase (in case I failed to mention it earlier) was in 1867. It passed the Senate in part because Senator Sumner talked about getting rid of the last king in North America; the sale passed there by two votes. Because of the mis-handling of the transition (such as the accidental tearing of the Russian flag when it was lowered at Sitka), almost all the Russians left, even though they could have stayed with dual citizenship.
We also saw Billy Mitchell's saddle from when he was in Alaska working on the WAMCATS telegraph line. And we heard again, in more detail, how in June 1942 the Japanese captured the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska. Attu was recaptured in May 1943 with 2351 Japanese and 549 American deaths. In August the military invaded Kiska right after a dense fog had lifted and discovered that the Japanese had evacuated it.
And hanging from the ceiling was something I had expected to see more of on this trip: a forty-nine-star flag, the official flag from January 3, 1959, to August 21, 1959.
We left that tour a bit early (actually it was running late) to get a tour of the Gold Rush exhibit by Louise Gallop.
She started by explaining that unlike the adventurers of the California Gold Rush, the Klondike Gold Rush drew ordinary people who had no other options after the Panic of 1893 and the depression following it. She told us how The Wizard of Oz is really about the gold standard, the silver standard, etc. (I knew this but a lot of people were surprised.)
The Gold Rush really started on July 17, 19897, when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced that a ship carrying a ton of gold had just docked. They were wrong-it was two tons.
She also said that Carmack was the one who staked the discovery claim because anyone staking a claim got a second one, and he was the one white man of the group (George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason, and Tagish Charley). He claimed he and thought people wouldn't stand for an Indian getting the bonus claim.
The big Chilkoot snow slide was Palm Sunday; the Alaska Earthquake was Good Friday. Does this mean something?
'The worst curse of the country is the restless spirit of the people and their willingness to stampede on the slightest rumor of a new discovery.' (Ralph Lomen, 1911)
The miners used mercury, whiskey, kerosene, and patent painkiller as a thermometer, since they froze in that order as the temperature dropped.
And though much is made of the Klondike Gold Rush, since 1880 twelve times as much gold has been mined in the rest of the United States than in Alaska, even though it's only five times the size.
Miscellaneous notes and quotes:
'Apr 1st 'All fools day' and most all the fools are here. We started for Crater at 6 AM. Storming some on the lake and before we reach the head of the canyon we met many coming back home and they were [furious?]. On top a raging snow storm but we push on. I lead as the rest are effected [sic] by the snow. I lost the trail many times but am fortunate enough not to get far away. We finally get there & load and start back. Eat lunch about a mile from Crater in a deserted [tent?]. Weather changes and we have nice evening to come home in. I bring 650# with my 3 dogs.' (Louie B. May, 1898)
'With horse flies, gnats and mosquitoes in dense profusion, the Yukon valley is not held up as a paradise to future tourists.' (Frederick Schwatka, 1883)
Jack London estimated that the Klondike stampeders spent $75,000,000 to get out $22,000,000 in gold.
The exhibit had a forty-six-star flag supposedly sewn in 1897, but also noted that the flag had forty-six stars only between 1907 and 1912.
The ethnic make-up of Alaska's population is 78% white, 8% Eskimo, 6% Indian, 3% Black, 2% Aleut, 2% API, and 1% unidentified. 2.2% are Hispanic, but this overlaps other groups.
We left just about 2 PM, arriving at the Town Square Park in front of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts where the United States Air Force Band of the Pacific was performing. Air Force Bands aren't what they used to be; gone are the John Philip Sousa marches. Now they play rock music.
We had an early dinner (grilled salmon steaks) at Blondie's. They were better than what we got on the ship. We made a quick stop at Cyrano's ('the only bookstore/cafe/playhouse in the country'), where I picked up a Turkish phrase book. Well, what better souvenir of Alaska? Then back to the hotel to get our luggage and take the shuttle to the airport.
August 4 (40.4N, 74.4W, sunrise 5:55 EDT, sunset 8:11 EDT): Red-eye flights have their pros and cons. Their pro is that you don't waste a day traveling. Their cons are everything else. The flight was full, and the seats cramped. I got three hours of pseudo-sleep. To top it off, the plane took a long time to get to the gate at Newark, and luggage took about another half-hour due to some confusion.
Well, I usually talk about how much a trip cost at this point. In this case, the cruise itself was a gift, so add some unknown amount for that.
Airfare $1371.00
Hotels 322.09
Ground Transportation 133.70
Tours 596.00
Food 161.54
Film/Developing 105.19
Miscellaneous 365.04
TOTAL $3054.56
Not surprisingly, this is the most expensive (per day) trip we have taken. What is perhaps surprisingly is that's true even not counting the cost of the cruise.
Would I recommend Alaska? That's really two questions: Alaska and cruises. Alaska has beautiful scenery, but assuming one can compare two very different types of scenery, I would have to say that I found the scenery in the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah) more breath-taking and awe-inspiring. Still, if you like Maine, or other Northern scenery, you will love Alaska.
As for the cruising, well, I guess it's like Club Med. We went to Club Med with friends once and it was okay and a way to spend a vacation with them, but not our sort of vacation. This was similar. It was a great way to be with our family while traveling around and seeing different things (an independent land trip with ten people sounds like a nightmare!), but I can't say that I would enjoy a cruise if it were just the two of us. (Well, we have taken three previous cruises, but a ten-passenger boat on the Amazon is hardly a fair comparison. The Nile and Galapagos cruises-about 120 passengers each time-is a little closer, but still off by an order of magnitude.) Sherry talked about how this was the first vacation where she 'did something' (kayaking, helicopter trip) rather than just going to a city and sightseeing. This is probably the trip in the last ten years or so in which we did the least. Someday we will probably enjoy this sort of vacation more, but right now I think we want to be out doing our own thing.
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The Shooting of Dan McGrew
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up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box
was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game,
sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love,
the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below,
and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks,
dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave
and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face,
though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink
was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,
and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me
like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare
of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass,
and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was,
and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him
was the lady that's known as Lou. |
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