Alaska Cruise

by Lyle Meeres

Vancouver is an interesting starting place. Check out the amazing tourist attractions in Vancouver as you wait to board your cruise ship. We enjoyed our stay at the Sylvia Hotel.

Then enjoy your cruise through the Inside Passage to see fiords, island scenery, glaciers, and wildlife such as whales, orcas, sea lions, seals, bears and eagles.

On the Radiance of the Seas, we met Americans, Brits, French, Germans, Australians – and our servers were from Chile and Poland. The captain was Canadian.

We went to a lecture on the Gold Rush. It was a late day before we saw anything of the Inside Passage. The evening entertainment of song and dance was energetic and pleasing.

At Juneau we faced showers, but the whale cruise on a boat for 200 was a great success. Two of the dozen whales we saw rose right beside the boat. We also saw eagles, harbour seals, and sea lions, plus in the distance, we glimpsed the Mendenhall Glacier. Back on board, we paid extra for dinner in a specialty restaurant. Dinner was a treat.

Despite the rain and a cold wind, the streets at Skagway reminded us of walking Banff’s crowded sidewalks in summer, but the White Pass Rail ride was impressive. The evening
“Love and Marriage” show made us thankful we weren’t on stage since the three volunteer couples faced some questions aimed at producing shock humour. “Where was the strangest place you and your spouse made whoopie” for instance.

The next day was the highlight of the cruise. Our huge cruise ship snuggled up 500 yards from the Hubbard Glacier. It was not like seeing the Columbia Icefields, which is an excellent experience, too, but here ice floated along as we approached. We watched one huge chunk lose a bit on one side, rotate, and lose more ice from another side, and so on until it disintegrated. We had all the sound effects. Then we heard and saw calving (the breaking off of ice), and found the spires of blue ice along the edges of the four hundred foot high glacier most impressive––sort of “Harry Potter sees the crown of the Ice Queen.” The blue sky was good for photographs so the ship lowered a lifeboat with a camera crew aboard.

Ketchikan started with bits of snow, shifted to sleet, and then to heavy rain that produced rough waves. Some passengers sprouted circular tabs behind their ears and special bracelets to deter seasickness. The weather cost us our planned seaplane flights over Misti Fiords. I love small planes, but Pat was glad. I collected our refund since the cancellation was not our doing. We put on rain gear to trek along Creek Street. We didn’t mind that we could not buy carved whalebone since Canada bans taking it home. We learned that Ketchikan gets about 300 days of rain a year but this rain was welcome since they had faced a two-week drought. Rain provides drinking water.

Later, we got good views of the Inside Passage and the Sunshine Coast, and of course, when we were about to depart, we got some of the best weather of the trip.

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