Sweathog and Mountain Woman: June 15-17, 2018 Aboard the Alaskan Dream

We docked in Auk Bay early this morning, 0800. We boarded a bus and had a narrated trip to the famous Mendenhall Glacier. We hiked about 2 miles to the closest point. There was also a beautiful waterfall here, Nugget Falls. Then back to the bus to go downtown Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Amazingly, you cannot drive to Juneau. We had the afternoon on our own. We went to the Alaska State Museum which had separate sections devoted to the Russian period of time, the native history and mining times. For all the history of the Klondike gold rush, which brought a flood of stampeding prospectors in, very little gold was actually found. We did the tourist shopping thing, all I bought was some sourdough starter. Lots of jewelry stores, and Native owned shops with authentic native hand made creations. Alaska is doing a great job honoring the Native history, mainly the Tlingit clans in this particular area. The evening meal tonight was the best of all, all you could eat prime rib, salmon and.....HUGH king crab legs. Some chunks of crab were an inch and a half square and 4 inches long. So delicious! This meal was served at a beautiful private lodge which Alaskan Dream Cruises owns on Colt Island. Still waiting for whale sightings and moose! We are having 19 hours of daylight currently!

Today we left the ship really early, 0730. Amazing that they can get 40 people up, fed and on their way! They gave us breakfast burritos and orange juice and a sack lunch. We boarded the historical White Pass and Yukon railroad which will take us into Canada. Built in 1898, it climbs 3000 feet in 20 miles! The original purpose of the railroad was to get miners to the gold fields in the Yukon. Each prospector was required to have 2000 pounds of gear. Canada was afraid the huge influx of people would drain their country of food and supplies. Later in the afternoon we went to Haines, a community just over 1000 people. It is the most authentic town, least affected by tourism so far. We spent an hour in a Hammer Museum! Ed loved it. There were upwards of a thousand different kinds of hammers and even a bike made of hammers! There was the pre World War I Fort Seward National Historic Site. There was a distillery and a brewery. We walked a lot, which was good. This is the first night we have have been even remotely hungry!

Today we traveled all night to Tracy Arm Fjord. John Muir referred to it as "a wild unfinished Yosemite." It terminated in two glaciers, Sawyer and South Sawyer. The passage was fairly narrow with steeply rising rock walls abundant with long waterfalls. We were unable to reach the more northern one because there were too many icebergs but the one we did reach was the most blue of all. All of these glaciers create their own wind, called a catatonic wind, quite brisk. On the way out of the Fjord we saw a mama seal with a tiny baby and 2 bears........then suddenly we were surrounded by 6-8 Humpback Whales, all blowing, surfacing and tail slapping. It appeared as though they were setting up bubble traps for the small krill. This will be one of the highlights of the trip. We watched for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, many people onboard are coming down with a respiratory bug, of which Ed is one.