AK 2014: June 2014

Ketchikan: Our Last Stop for AK 2014 Trip

Ketchikan and the Inside Passage

Ketchikan is in the extreme southeastern part of the Inside Passage and is an Alaskan fishing village to the extreme. Fishing for King Salmon is taking place right now and Judy and I are enjoying it fresh caught in every restaurant. I had smoked king salmon and chowder today on my tour boat to Misty Fjords National Monument and Wilderness Area. There are 60 miles of roads on the island and even the international airport (international because 1x/week a flight comes in from British Columbia) is accessed from the town by a ferry boat! No road leads to it. Hiking 100 ft. off the road is right into the temperate rainforest. Today we had no rain and blue skies, very unusual according to everyone we talked to.

a fishing camp


Misty Fjords National Monument and Wilderness Area comprises 2.3 million acres. It was proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter and like so many areas in Alaska, it has no roads. I saw it by boat today.

Tlinget totems are throughout southeastern Alaska

Tlinget clan house

Ketchikan rainforest

Salmonberry

We are at the end of our 6 week Thelma and Louise odyssey! Our final Alaskan adventure will be tomorrow, June 11, when we will be getting ourselves and the van back onto the Alaska Marine Ferry. We will sail for 38 hours to Bellingham, WA which is where we boarded the ferry in early May. Dave is waiting in Seattle with our godchildren who live in Bellevue and we will pick him up on Friday June 13 so he can help Judy with the driving to Kris and Judy's home in so. CA.
Good night from Thelma and Louise and thanks for sharing our trip!

Nancy's Marine Tours

Marine Highlights

I got to take 4 marine tours on small boats. One was out of Seward on the Kenai Peninsula; the other 3 were in the Inside Passage at Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan. The highlights for me were seeing whales quite close on each of the trips but other wildlife were almost as exciting!

Ketchikan's resident Orca pod is 70 whales strong. Our boat had 15 surfacing at the same time.

Harbor Seals on an ice floe at a Seward glacier

These Surf Scoters are large sea ducks. They feed by diving for crustaceans and molluscs. We saw flocks of several hundreds all tightly packed together.

sea otter with pup

Humpback whale out of Sitka

Harlequin ducks

Orcas in Juneau

Steller's Sea Lions - this male estimated at 2000 lbs

Pigeon Guillemots lay their eggs on rocky cavities near water. They are only found in the Pacific Ocean waters. After the breeding season, birds in Alaska migrate south to open waters.

Humpback whale sifting food through the baleen plates in the mouth

Tufted Puffin

Sea otter with pup

a goodby to some magical moments

Juneau: The Inside Passage

Juneau


map of the Inside Passage

Judy and I are returning to Bellingham, WA via the Inside Passage and the Alaska Marine Ferry system. We drove the Alcan Highway to Haines, Alaska at the north end of the Inside Passage. From Haines, we put the van on a ferry and went to Sitka for several days. We caught another ferry and are now in Juneau.
Juneau serves as the capital of Alaska with no roads into it. All traffic is by air or boat. We have several days here and already one full day of sunshine which the locals relished as unusual!

entrance into Juneau harbor

Juneau is built into a steep hillside and is about 5 blocks deep.

touches of color help in a rainy environment

a cruise ship looms at the end of the street

You can not come to Juneau without a visit to the very close by Mendenhall Glacier. It is 12 miles long and a part of the Juneau Icefield. The glacier has receded 1.75 miles since 1958 and 37 ft. in 2013 alone.

nesting Barn Swallow at the Mendenhall Visitors' Center

The Mendenhall Waterfall - nothing is on a small scale in Alaska (notice the people at the base)

lupine on the trail to the waterfall

No Talon What You'll See!

Ode to Noble Eagles

I can't resist another photo of those "noble" eagles, as the Pearson household refers to them.

really...???

no talon what you'll see...so sorry...

Sitka

Sitka in southeastern Alaska

Judy and I are back on the Alaska Marine Ferry system traveling from Haines at the end of the Alcan highway to Sitka in southeastern Alaska in the Inside Passage. Sitka has no roads leading to it. Our ferry takes 20 hrs and we have an overnight berth.

an absolutely mirror surface

We saw rafts of sea otters up to 50 individuals. We were told that females and pups form their own rafts separate from the male rafts.

Sitka was settled by Tlinget people over 10,000 years ago. The Russians claimed Sitka in 1799 and the Russian Orthodox Church is prominent throughout the Inside Passage. The Alaska Purchase was signed in Sitka in 1867 when Russia decided to sell Alaska to the U.S. when they saw no future in Alaska making money for them.