Saturday, June 18, 2011 – Juneau
Ardith was not feeling well this morning – tiredness, headache, mild stomach ache – so she stayed in our motel room while Jim did some exploration. He first took a drive around some of the town, deciding that he might like a picture of the governor’s mansion. Unfortunately, it was under renovation and swathed in plastic wrap.
Jim likes to visit state capitol buildings and since this is the capital of Alaska, that was his first stop. This is easily the least impressive of the 30 or so he has seen. From the outside it looks like a plain brick office building with a few columns stuck on the front. It was originally built as a federal office building, opening in 1931 (Alaska was a territory then). It housed the post office, some courts and some miscellaneous offices. The details on the ceiling beams in the lobby included symbols for mining, forestry and whaling and an igloo. The problem is Alaskan natives didn’t live in igloos. They were mainly used by the Canadian Inuit people. The designers were from Chicago and had never been to Alaska.
There was no fancy stairway, but there was marble lining the stairwells. Jim took a guided tour that included a visit to the state senate chamber. It was well appointed and similar to that of other states. One of the 2 families on our tour appeared to be fans of Sarah Palin. The tour guide did a great job about being neutral about questions about her. There was a picture of a stranded ship framed on one of the walls. It had been doctored to remove a pole that has supporting the bow. Photoshop just helps doing what has been done with photos for a long time.
After a bit more poking around downtown Juneau, Jim went to a tour office at 11:30. He asked about a helicopter tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was $259 for one hour, but Jim thought he would make this a splurge, he has been fairly frugal thus far. When they called the 2 places that ran flights, both said they were tentatively booked and wouldn’t know for sure until the 3rd cruise ship docked. He told them he would come back at 1:30.
Jim did more walking around downtown poking his nose around. Along the dock area, he enjoyed reading about local transportation history. One sign indicated that Wiley Post, who was the first to fly solo around the world, and Will Rogers, the famous humorist flew in to Juneau together and stayed for several days. 2 stops later, the plane crashed at Point Barrow, Alaska and both were killed. 
Jim started thinking about lunch when he saw people in long queues to get back on their cruise ship to eat. He had problems deciding on a place to eat. He didn’t want a big fancy meal – that eliminated 3 places. Some places were closed because this was Saturday and most of their customers were state government employees, 3 places didn’t have the dish(es) he wanted available. He decided to have a reindeer sausage sandwich with grilled onions at The Little Red Grill, a place that was borderline to a street food vendor. The proprietor (probably the sole employee) had worked the previous night until 5AM. She said the bars close at 3 or 4 on Friday and Saturday nights and she had reasonably good sales to the drunks. She was back in at 10 this morning!
The city had several signs around informing people about open container drinking laws. There were numerous places to place cigarette butts with signs saying that they were considered litter with a fine of $250 for a first offense. There were very few butts on the ground.
Juneau’s city library is on the top floor of a parking garage. Jim ran out of time to pay a visit.
At about 1:10 the sky ceiling lowered fairly quickly. It looked like it was right on the border of not being able to see anything from a helicopter, so Jim decided against that option. Instead, he went to the Alaska State Museum whose $5 entry fee saved him $254 (plus tax?).
The first thing he saw was a woodcarver who said he was more productive in the museum than at home with 2 young boys. He had studied with a master carver of traditional motifs from age 11 until he graduated from high school. He had made his own knives many years ago and finds them better than anything he could buy commercially.
There were displays of objects made from ivory, baleen (what many whales use for filtering their food), wood and argillite (a mineral found only nearby).
There were very good displays covering natural history, political history, maps, kayaks, umiaks, tribal arts and military history in Alaska. One incident of that especially interested Jim. In 1942, the Japanese invaded Dutch Harbor, a military installation in the Aleutians and took control of it and a few surrounding islands in the only foreign occupation of US territory since the War of 1812. In response the governor formed the Alaska Territorial Guard and large numbers of Alaska natives joined what was merged into the National Guard. The Army strongly promoted desegregation and this helped break down prejudice against Alaskan natives. Among other artifacts was a poster used to recruit natives.
Another interesting fact that was well illustrated was the influence of Russian Orthodoxy in Alaska. It is the most popular religion among natives.
The two temporary exhibits were especially interesting to Jim. The first was on photography in Alaska from the 2nd half of the 19th century. There were hundreds of fascinating old prints and a few cameras. One was a daguerreotype of William Seward from 1845. 22 years later as Secretary of State, he purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.5 million.
There were dozens of photos of Alaska from Eadweard Muybridge, who was famous for stop motion pictures of horses (and later other animals and humans) in motion.
Another wonderful old photo showed Juneau's native section in 1887, during gold rush times.
Last, but distinctly not least was a collection of hats even bigger (but generally more serious) than Jim’s hat collection.
Ardith still wasn’t well when Jim returned. She had a high fever. They had simple things (a bagel for Ardith, a salad for Jim) from a nearby convenience store for dinner.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Ardith was feeling more human this morning. The fever she had last night was gone, but we took our time getting out of our room. Since it was about 10:30 when we left and we needed to be at the ferry terminal a bit past 12:30, we abandoned our thoughts of going up the aerial tramway on Roberts Mountain. Since our motel was fairly near the glacier, we decided to go back to the visitors’ center area so Jim could do some further hiking while Ardith rested in the car.
Not more than 100 steps from the car, Jim saw a young bear in a tree. He went back and got Ardith who really appreciated seeing it, but went back to the car to rest.
A ranger explained that the black bear was about a year old. At about this time of the year, mothers forcefully abandon their cubs. She said that 2 years ago, she watched a confrontational separation. When she returned home that evening, she called her mother to make sure her mother still loved her. The ranger is probably about 50. She also said that the bears don’t regard people who are acting calmly and aren’t noisy as a threat. A few of us watched the bear climb down from the tree and munch on some plants. The ranger pointed out a plant that will soon have berries that is poisonous to humans and most animals. Mother bears teach their cubs what to eat by example and by the scent of the plant on their breath. About a month from now, salmon will be back in the stream and the bears will cease being vegetarians.
Jim left the boardwalk style Steep Creek Trail and went along the more primitive Marine Ecology Trail. He was on there for about an hour and only saw 3 other people. He also made some observations about how people were dressed. The ranger wore a zipped up jacket and gloves. Jim wore a long sleeve shirt over a T shirt and was comfortable in the approximately 50 degree weather. 2 guys wore only T shirts on top and another was dressed much like Jim.
Jim went to the beach surrounding the lake and walked a decent way around it. It was marvelous to see the glacier and falls from a very different perspective.
He took a few panorama shots of nearly 360 degrees.
He also got to see the chunks of glacier ice more closely. It is fun to think what the chunks resemble, like viewing clouds. Jim saw 2 that made him think of whales.
Another reminded him of a Christmas tree. The structure of the ice is very different than what we normally associate with ice, more like a honeycomb.
When he was returning to the car, Jim saw evidence that a bear had been on the path very recently.
We were treated to more amazing scenery on the ferry to Haines.
The boat was smaller than our previous ferries but makes 2 round trips a day between Juneau and Haines.
We settled into the Captain’s Choice Motel and had a great view from our room.
They charged an extra $9 per night for internet use and limited the amount of traffic to a fairly small amount so we opted out. We knew prices would be higher here than at home, but the reality hit us here. At the local supermarket, 2 liter bottles of soda (called pop here) were $3.99. At home they are $1.89 but can often be found on sale for about $1. We had dinner at the Bamboo Room which was one step up from a greasy spoon, but had a lot of fun 50s and 60’s decor.
Jim’s halibut steak dinner was $28. Ardith had teriyaki chicken breast for $18. You can see the prices for burgers.
When we were waiting to board the ferry in Haines, we saw that the majority of vehicles leaving the ferry from its previous leg were carrying bicycles. There were also several people riding them off the boat. Here in Haines, there were several vehicles with bikes. Most of them had labels indicating participation in the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay Race. Several hundred riders had participated in a race that starts in the Yukon, crosses into British Columbia then into Alaska, completing its very challenging 148 mile in Haines. We were fortunate that we didn’t arrive in Haines a day earlier. There would have been nowhere to stay and the road we needed to take would have been closed until late!
There was one place of interest to Jim in Haines and he found it while wandering around town – the Hammer Museum, the only museum in the world devoted to hammers. He would have gladly paid the $3 admission to the quirky place, but it wasn’t open during the short time we were there. It was possible, however, to see things outside and through the windows.
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