A birthday cruise to celebrate
Last year, I turned 50 and, as is the law, I was required to go on a cruise. I’d never been before and my husband and I always wanted to see Alaska. We booked our sevenday cruise including stops in Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, with a day set aside for glacier watching.
The absolute beauty of the coastline and mountains was breathtaking, even for seasoned West Coasters. We had beautiful weather for the entire trip with only one day of light mist. This was apparently exceptional for the time of year we went — late May.
In each of the cities we visited we decided to do local tours to get an idea of the history and lifestyle of the area. By far, my favourite was Skagway, which is unique in that it is a protected National Park. A year- round population of just over 800, the three cruise ships that came in with ours in all likelihood deposited over 5,000 people that day for shopping, touring and sightseeing. We had two tours in Skagway — a Klondike landmark bus tour and a streetwalking tour. Yes, with a ‘ real’ streetwalking good- time girl to show us the life of the Klondike women and local brothels!
In Juneau, we took a tram up to a mountain view point and saw an eagle shelter.
The trails were not yet ready to walk as there was still snow, but it was a lovely view down to the town. Our second tour was to a closed mine just outside of town. The rusted iron skeleton of the original mine was still intact and we were given a tour of a short tunnel showing the conditions the early miners would have had to endure. Our guide is also a working miner now and had a one- liner for every occasion.
Ketchikan is known for having rain almost every day. They get 13 feet of rain a year, so it was no surprise to have an overcast day when we arrived. Our tour was by bus out of town to a lodge, then by hovercraft to a crabbing operation where we got to learn the difference between boy crabs and girl crabs. ( It’s the shoes....) We returned to the lodge to gorge on as much steamed buttery crab as we could manage and they had to pull me away from the table to catch our ride back to the ship.
It was fascinating that these giant ships would cruise right into the ports which were just steps away from the downtown districts of the cities.
There was always something to do on the cruise ship, even just watching the coast go by and looking for bears and mountain sheep, or watching to see if we could spy dolphins or orca spray. We can’t wait to go again.