Locations
Crash Course: An Alaskan Cruise to Glacier Bay
Seattle & Departure
Let me start out by saying that we didn’t really do anything in Seattle other than drive to the boat, but I do have a kind of special love for this place, I lived in Tacoma for nearly three years. I believe this city is uniquely beautiful, and we got some great views from the boat as we left the bay. Check out the one of Mount Rainer in the background. A weekend in Seattle is honestly a great time if you ever get a chance.
This first day and departure was mostly wandering and exploring, taking in the views as we headed north and becoming familiar with the Cruise Liner. I don’t want to spend too much time on this one (Glacier Bay and Haines deserve that) because I don’t think of it as being very important, suffice it to say that the ships are very cool and big, but at the end of the day it is a confined space filled with people who will end up watching movies in private cabins most of the time.
I spent as much time as on the top deck as I could while we were on the ship, hoping to take in as much as possible. This first day before anything really happens is the time to sort of get a feel for the ship and everything on board. Food, swimming, drinks, gym, games, gambling, and random events are the onboard fare. There’s also a T.V. in every cabin with movies and shows and what not. I brought my SteamDeck and ended up playing video games on the some of the slower days when we were out at sea.
One note for the whole “cruise” element that I highly recommend is getting the drink package. There is a lot of down time and sipping on a whisky sour while staring out into the mountains was the most enjoyable thing I’ve done in recent memory. I suppose this might not be everyones cup of tea but it made those slower days a lot more leisurely and helped to pass the time. When you’re far enough off the coast that there are no views the time and space can both get wonky and drawn out. The drinks were great for those empty stretches.
Juneau & The Tongass
Capital city was the first stop of the cruise, and the first excursion I booked for the trip, a Tongass Rain Forest hike up to a Mendenhall Glacier lookout. The guided hike took up a majority of our shore time here, so I didn’t really see a whole ton of town proper. When we got back to the strip I did do a quick walkthrough as I made my way back to the Cruise Ship, but it was mostly just touristy stuff (T-shirts, stickers and what not).
The Guided Hike to the Mendenhall Glacier was a mixed bag, great over all, but with a caveat of a few unfavorable conditions. The hike was relatively light and fun, we didn’t get as close to the Glacier as I thought we would, but the forrest itself was filled with wonder. The hike trail had interesting stairs, incredibly well maintained trails and interesting vegetation. Our guide also gave interesting commentary which I didn’t remember most of and don’t want to spoil for anyone who ends up there at some point.
This hike was somewhat impeded by a through line that made itself known and unpleasant during our entire cruise; the youths. I don’t generally think of myself as hating kids, but this trip was filled to the brim with brats ranging from ignorant to insufferable. In the case of our hike, it was a teen who couldn’t suffer to be without his Nintendo and cell-signal for more than 15 minutes. He also got dehydrated and whinny on the hike because he refused to drink water; stupid teenager shit.
Not much else to be said on this one that the photos don’t say themselves. Juneau, like many other Alaskan towns are the stuff of mining and fishing, which is reflected in everything and everyone. Within the Tongass we saw abandoned railroad materials and infrastructure, the markers of a time passed. Large stones with amateur engravings indicated previous recision of the great Mendenhall Iceberg. They continue to change, it seems.
Skagway & Haines
Skagway was our second stop, and another town I didn’t get a very good look at. The surroundings here were particularly beautiful, and there was an optional train ride through the mountainsides that I probably would have loved to see.
Fortunately, the activity we chose to embark on was equally enticing; a ferry ride to Haines to visit the Kroschel Wildlife center. More on the wildlife center to follow, the towns and the in between waters for now.
Skagway is another port of mines and fishing boats. I’m sure there are many things that make these towns special and unique, but these particular qualities appear nearly everywhere. This one was particularly heavy on the mine and gem side of things, nearly all the historical and tourist attractions were of a prospecting nature. Again, very little of our time was spent in the town and I didn’t really get a chance to peek under the skin, so to speak.
Haines was also a very interesting place, quite a bit smaller, a stones throw south of Skagway. It was once the place of military station and contested occupation, but that time has long since passed. Haines is a natural wonderland, and clearly the right place for a wildlife refuge. This could be an incredible get away for a short period of time, but I imagine living here is quite tough and isolated.
Perhaps one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip was the fast ferry ride from Skagway to Haines. The Fjords on both sides of the inlets are incredible, a site quite unlike anything you’d ever see in the lower states. Fjords are, as far as I can tell, a glacial effect that you don’t really see anywhere close to the equator. Canada and Alaska are both filled with them. The pictures here from the ferry don’t do it justice.
The Kroschel Wildlife Center
This one absolutely deserves it’s own section for a number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that it was a far more ‘raw’ experience than everything else we saw on the trip. I wouldn’t necessarily call it unsafe, but it was a thinly contained and wild ride. I can hardly recall the names of all the different creatures we were able to see, but there were a few standouts that I have pretty vivid memories of.
The wolfs were very charming and surprisingly well behaved. These little guys had spent a majority of their lives in captivity so they were far more acclimated to human activity and being fed regularly. The same seemed to be true of the fox, owl, porcupine, and a handful of others. The baby moose, who you’d hardly believe was a baby, was also pretty acclimated.
Some other critters were quite a bit more shy and feral including some of the birds, cats and other little animals that I barely got a peak at. Overall, these were all very cool to see, as far as I could see them, and probably something I’m not likely to ever encounter again; a wholly unique Alaskan experience.
Steve Kroschel himself is also an incredibly interesting character, arguably an exhibit unto himself. I will almost certainly do a terrible job of describing it, but the show is almost a play that he acts in, filled with cute little critters and some shocking moments as well. Steve is a recurring player in many doc-style shows with alaskan wildlife, so he may be familiar to some.
I, again, do not want to harp on this for too long, but a half-dozen kids nearly ruined this experience for about 30 people. If there was one thing I could have changed about this entire trip, it would have been making it an adult only cruise. Many wealthy couples treated this trip as a dumping ground for their horribly behaved children, in which they completely ignored their children and pretended they were on a private get-away. Thinking about it makes my blood boil.
Glacier Bay National Park
Glacier Bay was, for me, the best and most appealing part of the entire trip. Our cruise ship went all the way down to the glaciers and all the way back out over the course of 8-ish hours. Early in the morning, National Park Rangers boarded the ship and spent the day doing presentations, seminars and other “park stuff.” I spent a huge portion of this day just walking across the top deck, taking pictures and drinking in the views. I don’t have nearly as much to say here, but the pictures are fantastic and still don’t do it justice.
In addition to those hours on the top deck, we sat through some of the presentations available to us from the National Park Rangers. These included information about the glaciers, whales and other unique wildlife that populate the freezing cold areas of Glacier Bay.
Ketchikan & Victoria
Ketchikan was the only Alaskan stop we made where we hadn’t planned excursions, which was honestly a pretty nice change of pace. Without anything planned we were able to just walk around and enjoy the views of the town, the kitschy little shops and all the little docks across town. I enjoyed this quite a bit even though you could say it was less “eventful” overall.
Ketchikan had one of those cool native cultural centers, a hatchery, a national park building, and a lot of the other stuff that seems to be pretty common at theses more populated towns. It also had all the usual tourist fanfare, gem stores and what not. This is probably only important to me but there were also Life Is Good store here inside a mall style store. This was a major pit stop for me!
The majority of our time here in Ketchikan was spent just walking around. There was a very cool strip style mall suspended over a river with an old whore house in it, only in Alaska. Lots of cool restaurants and little shopping strips, very similar to Juneau in that way. My brother bought an authentic whale penis knife (Ulu) here, which is very cool and unique. I believe these are designed to be a sort of multitool by the Inuit, for everything to shining, descaling and more.
Victoria (Canada) was technically our last stop but it was incredibly brief, and I didn’t even get off the boat. I’m sure it’s a lovely city, but we would have had to go through customs and the whole stop was only three hours. I did get some lovely views and pictures though, so it’s not like it was a complete waste or anything.
