Alaska. “The Last Frontier.” Just its name conjures images of beautiful mountains, stunning glaciers and wildlife. For many people, including me, visiting Alaska is a bucket list item. This June, I was able to scratch it off my list as I joined friends to set sail on an Alaskan cruise. I discovered that this incredible place is everything you (and I) dreamed it would be.
My trip began with a couple days in Seattle. Lucky for me, one of my best friends from Glynn Academy, Charlie Lipthratt, lives in there. I had the perfect guide! At the top of my list of things to do was to see the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit and the Space Needle. Dale Chihuly’s glass art is well-known worldwide. His pieces push the boundaries of contemporary art. He has developed many innovative ways to shape, color, and texturize glass to achieve his artistic vision. His Macchia bowls can be as much as four feet in diameter and blend colors in unusual and beautiful ways. Each bowl is trimmed in glass of a contrasting color that is so fine you think it is paint. The Seaforms use optic molds to strengthen the glass and give it a ribbed effect. The Sealife is exquisite with amazing attention to detail. Chandeliers, flowers, balls, globes, statues. You could spend days there and never get tired of looking at his beautiful work. The exhibit is at the base of the Space Needle, which is not only very convenient, it makes for wonderful pictures as the Space Needle reflection can be seen in the beautiful glass.
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Another experience not to be missed in Seattle is Pike’s Market. This popular stop is a wonderful mixture of farmers and fish markets, craft show, restaurants and flower shop. Charlie also took me on a kayak tour of Lake Union where parts of “Sleepless in Seattle” were filmed. The houseboat they used is still there! He showed me around the beautiful downtown with its amazing architecture. We ate in fabulous restaurants, and took a tour of underground Seattle that was both interesting and hilarious. Just ask someone from Seattle about the Sewing Machine Tax from the late 1800’s. I hated to leave the “Emerald City” but “The Last Frontier” awaited.
The Norwegian Cruise Line’s Bliss was home for the next seven glorious days with Leigh Langford as my cabin mate. We spent the first day at sea. Sitting on the balcony watching the sun rise over snow-covered mountains emerging from the gorgeous deep blue water was the most relaxing thing I have done in years. Leigh said, “The views are absolutely breathtaking!” That is where I spent most of the time on the cruise. We simply couldn’t get enough of that glorious view. We never will.
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Juneau was the first stop of the cruise. A whale watching tour in Barlow Cove was the excursion for the day. We saw a mother humpback whale that we were told was named Flame with her precious baby Bunsen. As our guide said, “that’s what happens when you let a bunch of science geeks name the whales!” Flame and Bunsen had just arrived after their eight week trip north from Hawaii. Humpbacks are 45-50 feet long and can weigh as much as 35 tons. The bottom of the humpback whale tail has markings that are as individual to them as fingerprints are to humans. It was amazing to see these beautiful creatures. We also came across a bunch of sea lions hanging out on a buoy!
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Next stop was Skagway, where I spent the morning on the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad. The breathtaking scenery and interesting history make this a must on any trip to Alaska. The White Pass & Yukon Route climbs from sea level in Skagway to 3,000 feet in just 20 miles. It was completed in 1899 when the gold rush was in full swing. The entire 1896 gold rush was started when three men found gold in the Klondike. Although the newspapers reported that they came back with “stacks of yellow metal,” the gold they found barely filled the cartridge of a Winchester rifle. Tens of thousands of men and women made the treacherous 600 mile journey in search of gold. Twelve of them got rich. Only four hundred of them actually found gold.
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After a delicious lunch and a little time wandering through the quaint town of Skagway, Leigh and I were off to our next adventure. We donned our protective suits that are reminiscent of the space suits worn in the movie “Armageddon” and boarded our ocean-raft for a high speed thrill ride with stops to see mountain goats and eagles and beautiful waterfalls. Why protective suits? It was approximately 38 degrees with the water temperature only about two degrees warmer than that. Quite a change from the 105 degree heat index we left at home.
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Our next stop was Ketchikan, a wonderfully picturesque town. Here, we set out in search of Dungeness crabs. Lynne Henry, Claudia Schneider, and her son, Mason, joined us for this fun excursion. Not only did we find the crabs, we also ate them in large quantities! Dungeness crabs are like bigger versions of our local blue crabs and are equally delicious. On the crab hunt we saw precious otters, noble eagles and dozens of sea lions lazing in the sun. We also saw the ruins of the factory where Libby’s canned salmon. The factory closed due to a salmon war and overfishing that almost wiped out the salmon population.
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The ship spent a full day going through Glacier Bay. There were magnificent mountains of ice that are thousands of years old at every turn. You can see the scratches on the mountains made by the glaciers as they pushed their way to their destination. One of the smaller glaciers was 28 stories tall. The colors were overwhelming: the light green of the water, the black of the mountains, the blue of the sky, the white of the snow, the dark green of the Sitka spruces, and the indescribable blue of the glaciers. They all combined to present a picture no camera or artist can duplicate. As Mason summed it up well, “The scenery itself speaks of God’s glory, and traveling through the area gave me a better appreciation for the earth as a whole.”
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Talking with the tour guides and locals, we learned so many interesting things. For instance, less than 10 percent of the seasonal workforce are locals. Alaska does not have a large enough population to handle the tourist season, so thousands of young adults from all over spend their summers working there. From what they told us, it’s an extremely lucrative summer job, and housing is even included. Best of all, they get to spend the summer in Alaska. We met people from Texas, Louisiana, California, Montana, New York, Oregon, Washington and more. Another crazy fact: each cruise port gets 100,000 tourists per month from the cruise ships during their season, which runs from April through September. And we think GA/FL weekend on the island is bad!
Claudia reflected on the trip, “I think my biggest take away was having the chance to drink in more examples of the diversity of our country. The landscape was so different and beautiful! I think it made me appreciate our corner of the country through a different lens.” Even the air is different there. Lynne remarked on that, saying, “I loved the clean, crisp air in Alaska. I couldn’t fill my lungs with enough of it!” I think it’s safe to say we would all jump at the chance to go back again. So, if you are thinking about crossing Alaska off your bucket list, do it! Now is a great time to start planning for next summer. It’s a trip you’ll never forget.
Julie Andrew has been a staff member of Elegant Island Living since 2014, but you’ll generally find her out doing sales or shooting photos at events for our Social Scene galleries and for other editorial stories and retail needs. By convincing her to share the photos of her recent Alaskan cruise, we managed to coax her into her first foray into writing for the magazine.
