Cruise ship to Alaska

This morning, we disembarked from a 12-story cruise ship after a week sailing up the Inside Passage of Alaska and back. And by we, I mean, not Sophie, Amelia or Maisie: Stephanie and David--no kids; Mickie and Bruce, Stephanie's parents; and our sister and brother-in-law, Karen and Dan. The whole thing was Mickie and Bruce's treat, and frankly, I hadn't put much thought into it; if anything, I was a little concerned about being trapped with a boatload of octogenarians eating eight five course meals a day. But after several lines snaking through the port and numerous Texans and Carolinians and boarding the ship and thinking here it is, we had a honeymoon of a week, from the very start. Part of it was that Bruce sprang for a drinks package for each of us, and we had to put our bellies to work to make it pay. Part of it was being served and pampered for seven straight days, an experience I thought I'd resist but sank into instead like a soft feather pillow. And part of it was the company, time with family after a whole year apart, a group intent and ready to enjoy the moment. Stephanie and I spent the whole week at each other's side, listening to music, watching shows, biking to glaciers, writing in notebooks, feeling the wind at our cheeks, and it was lovely.

Many people told us how wonderful our city was. We didn't meet anyone else from Seattle, and heard about only one other from the state of Washington. But when a heat wave is frying the rest of the country, our struggle to reach 70 degrees was welcome, and people were telling us how much they envied our climate here. Looking at the skyline from the cruise ship also made me see the city in a loving way. I was already feeling tenderly towards the city, being away for a year, but from the top deck it looked magical times two.

The ship was incredibly well-appointed. There were also two workers for every guest--800 to 2000, I think. This meant that we were in for a week of absurd luxury. The workers--the attendants, butlers, waiters, sommeliers, maids--everyone, were always so welcoming and gracious, engaging and pleasant, they gave one the very pleasing impression that they were happy to be there. Everyone wore a pin marking both a name and also home country, the global mix a point of pride. People worked for six month or year long shifts, often leaving babies or children or families at home, but they said this was a great opportunity in the long run. So is this just part of the fantasy? It may be. I know what I wanted to believe, though, and helping me do this were Facebook images of my former student, Sally. She moved to Canada to skate and ended up doing cruise shows, and all the pictures and commentary posted made her tours seem like an unending party. I know different workers have different levels of drudgery they face, but I hope the separation they maintain and the quarters which they secretly keep are not terrible. I hope the illusion is not too much of an illusion.

Another surprise was the entertainment. It was good! Their comedian didn't make me feel embarrassed and their magician made me wonder and their show tunes dancers were energetic and graceful and hard-working (though they were always show tunes people, with one very unfortunate Westend production about the Seventies). What I really looked forward to, though, were the aerialists, Jocka and Maria. Jocka had been a seven year national champion gymnast in Portugal, and Maria, before she was a cheerleader for the Philadelphia Eagles, was a gymnast and dancer. The two of them would climb up woozy strips of silk and dance in the air, curving and bending and sailing like branches in the wind. It was moving. The fact that they were sailing over a stage carved in a boat in the middle of the ocean wasn't something that easily remembered. I had a total crush on them both.

Before we left, I posted my weight to some friends, fearing that the pounds I was starting to lose after returning from Hungary would shoot right back up and then more. It happened. I ate and I ate, not out of boredom or because fatty dishes were shoved before me in meal after meal, as I had feared, but because there were so many new things and special items I wanted to try. Not only did I try many new cocktails and wines from around the world, I ate things that made me laugh to try them: snails and frog legs, steak tartar, quail. Below are pallets of food in preparation for the week, the quantity of which, while stunning, represents a fragment of what ended up on the boat.

Two of the meals, each following a day without shore leave, were formal. And one evening, Karen and Dan treated us all to an on-board restaurant whose service included table-side flambeaux cooking and all six of our dishes placed or lifted in simultaneity, but most of all, exquisite presentation. Here we celebrated my fortieth birthday (occurring tomorrow, damn it).

Our favorite part of the boat might have been the upper deck, within which we could take in the wild Alaskan skies and mountains. Karen and Dan spent most of their time here, walking, sitting, watching: they saw many whales, and Dan described the setting of a red moon with awe.

Our first port of call was Ketchikan. To the right is a picture of Bruce waving to us from his veranda. Stephanie and I were joining Karen and Dan, who were meeting with their friend Bob. Bob lives half of the year with the rest of his family on Whidbey and the other half here in Ketchikan, where he is a pilot for giant ships like the Celebrity Infinity. Bob took us to his home off a gorgeous coast, and then jetted us out in his boat, where we took in what was described as one of only two days in any year it's sunny, and incredible coastline and distant peaks. From his house and the pitch of stairs down to his beach, we could see another life we'd like to try. On a tree by the house, an eagle perched, and another; and around the corner was a full waterfall dipping into a wooded basin.

 

At some point, Dan, who had just returned from a Ketchikan fishing trip on this boat with Nate, Bob and a few others, picked up a pole, and within moments caught a rockfish. It didn't take long to snag four others, and a sea cucumber.

 

We ended up eating one of the rockfish. Dan clubbed it over the head, and a few minutes later, it was breaded and gone. Here's a picture of Bob:

We also ate wiggle-fresh shrimp. Bob had two shrimp pots on the other side of the bay, and he pulled out a haul that made Karen drool. I'm not a big shell-fish guy, but I had a few--popped the heads and peeled the tails and ate the rest.

On the way back to Ketchikan, in addition to seeing the salmon run under this street of houses once run by comfort women, we went to the Saxman Totem Park.

Below right we see the Killer Clam Totem, which tells the story of a boy who drowned. The story involves getting caught in the mouth of a clam, but what you really feel is what it takes to keep telling the story of a boy's death, a mother's son. 

The next morning we floated all the way to the Sawyer Glacier at the end of Tracy Arm, a stunning fjord I have very little need to describe. We moved slowly slowly and we were still afraid to move from our lookouts on the top deck, afraid of missing a second. 

The only thing I am going to write before letting the pictures speak for themselves is that a man hung out with us for at least twenty minutes by soul virtue of my hat--the beaver cap Stephanie bought for me in Slovenia. This guy said it made him feel better about his own flop-eared monstrosity. You be the judge.

Below, the Tracy Arm.

That day we arrived in Juneau, my favorite town in Alaska when I visited it last. Stephanie and I paid for  an excursion called Bike and Brew, Mendenhall View, and it was billed as a strenuous activity, reinforced when we arrived and our leaders told us we'd be climbing a hill, so be ready. Stephanie was nervous. But it never came to pass: we were already over the hill when I asked when we'd reach it. The main thing was that it was a pleasant expedition and we met a few nice people, including some Australians on the continent for a wedding, and we got to see both sides of the Mendenhall Glacier. I was glad we did too, in part because I remembered seeing the glacier in 1992, and it looked to have shrunk to half its size. When we biked around to the other side of the lake, however, I was relieved to see that the ice still met the water, and while it was indeed much smaller, it was no ice cube.

 

 

Afterwards we sampled beers from the Alaskan Brewing Company. The samples weren't sample sizes. We had to drink fast before the next pour.

Our third stop after Ketchikan and Juneau was Skagway. Karen and Dan had told us about the train for days, and what a terrific time they'd had with the kids. In the end, Mickey and Bruce took the train, which they loved, and the rest of us rented bikes. We learned about all those men who took the boats to Skagway and climbed the White Pass on the start of a 500 mile journey to the Klondike in their search for gold, or sailed instead to Dyea, where we ended up this day, taking their thousand pounds of equipment up the ice stairs, taking months and months. When finally the few who made it reached the Klondike, they found a whole town there already, even a show touring from New York, and all the gold claims were already staked. Ha ha. 

In any event, we didn't know what to expect in Dyea. Dan and I thought we might buy some snacks there. Karen said she didn't think there was anything left but a ghost town. What we found, though, was a piece of timber that the park called "Site of a Warehouse," and that was about it. The train up the White Pass from Skagway and its deeper harbor totally wiped out what was for a shining moment a thriving community in Dyea, and the way the land reclaimed the soil and sea as its own since then was astonishing for us. Anyway, we brought our own snacks.

We also visited a cemetery for 60 men who died in an avalanche during the gold rush on April 3, 1898, a quiet spot in the woods spiked by thin boards.

Most of all, we had ourselves a bike ride. The roads were half-paved, half wiped-out, and we had to make use of all our brakes and gears. When Karen suddenly discovered the small chain rings on the front derailleur, the world was made new. We had the mountain and green waters all to ourselves, and it was a delicious day, ending with chili and chili dogs and salads and fries. Oh, and one harbor seal.

Our final evening, we four young ones walked around the harbor to downtown Victoria. 

We spent most of our time in the Empress Hotel in a First Nations Art shop, where Stephanie and I learned a whole lot we didn't know. Karen and Dan are already pretty knowledgeable. We learned about the Kwakwaka'wakw, who I knew before as the Kwakiutl from a book I once taught, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, and we learned about an artist named Tim Paul, who owns a particular shade of blue, as well as the artistic use of the blue raven. The blue raven exists in stories passed down by his family and no one else's; and if anyone other wants to use his blue, they have to get it in a potlatch or get it gifted to them. The work in the room was beautiful, and the more we learned, the more precious and intricate it all became.

Thank you, Mickie and Bruce, for a surprising and joyous holiday. Thank you, Karen and Dan, for excellent companionship. And, thank you, Stephanie, my lovely bride: I come out of this week by your side just wanting more time to share with you, overjoyed that I can have it.