28 July - Thursday - Cruise Day 6 - Ketchikan

G'day All,

We arrived at Ketchikan at around 10 am, we had breakfast before docking and headed into town for some more trinkets and a browse around town. We were told that this was the town for Alaskan carved soap stone, which was something Penny wanted as a memento from Alaska, so soap stone hunting was on the agenda for most of the morning before we had to meet to go on the Cultural Tour at 1 pm. We found a great place for Soap stone called Alaskan Fine Art and found a couple of pieces to bring home. The sculptor / carver (Eddie Lee) was on site and greeted us at the counter, he has been sculpting for over 30 years and is very proud of his work.

Ketchikan harbour and township.

A unique thing in Ketchikan is that the stairs are actually streets.

We caught the bus to the Ketchikan Cultural Centre and received a full history and description of local totem poles and their meaning. Interesting stories and nice to know what the meaning is behind each pole.

Despite what Penny thought this guy is holding a fish in his left hand :-)

From there we visited a re-creation of a typical First Nation village and told about the building construction and village lay out.

First Nation handiwork

Art work on a traditional hut

Main hub for a village

Internal decoration of the main village hut

One of the many totems.

The tour finished up at around 4:30 pm and we set sail again at around 6 pm. Time got away on us and we missed main service for tea so ended up at the pizza bar for tea and had a nice pizza with a refreshing drink (rum and coke). This was our last land stop before we head back to Vancouver on Saturday morning.

Cheers
Gary and Penny

27 July - Wednesday - Cruise Day 5 - Scenic Cruising through Glacier Bay

G'day All,

Before heading down to Ketchikan the ship headed north to Glacier bay to view several of the glaciers found there; Lamplugh, John Hopkins, Grand Pacific and the biggest of them all Margerie Glacier. The day was very misty and bleak and viewing the distant glaciers at times was difficult. We arrived in glacier bay at about 6 am and I didn't hold much hope that we would be seeing too much of Margerie Glacier and given all the hype by the crew on-board that would be a real shame since the glacier is over 110 metres tall and 1.6 km long. The day didn't get any clearer however as we approached Margerie Glacier we saw a few then hundreds of small icebergs until out of the gloom reared the glacier in all its glory. We parked in front of the glacier for 30 mins on each side of the ship to allow guests from both sides of the ship to see the view from their rooms. I have to say that the view was amazing and it was impressive to hear the cracks and groans as the ice ever so slowly flowed to the ocean. We witnessed a few slabs fall from the front of the glacier into the sea and saw a couple of kayaks, dwarfed by the shear size of the glacier, paddling through the small icebergs along the length of it.

John Hopkins glacier.

The blue hues of the ice combined with the darkness and gloominess of the clouds made for a surreal scene and hopefully some great photos to come after I get time to review them.

Margerie Glacier

Centre section of Margerie Glacier

We turned from the glaciers at about 4:30 pm and headed for Ketchikan, tomorrow's destination.

Cheers
Gary and Penny