Memories of Alaska

(July 14) – Happy to hear that our fellow travelers have reached their individual destinations safely, we have begun a day of adjusting to a time zone four hours earlier than Alaska’s. It’s been pretty much an all-day laundry experience, emptying our suitcases and getting two weeks of clothing cleaned.
Somehow it is now home that seems strange with no seagull’s cries, no steep mountainsides filled with fir trees and snow-covered peaks and no salty tang of the ocean wafting on the breeze. It’s good to be in familiar surroundings, of course, but oddly quiet without the ongoing conversation and laughter among friends.
As we try to isolate a place or an experience from our time in Alaska as the favorite, we find it’s impossible to select just one. Every day was filled with new sights, new sensations and a new appreciation of a part of this world that we had not known. Alaska is a place that can’t be fully acknowledged unless you’re there. In all the years we had read about it or seen the pictures, even the videos that purport to capture Alaska, none of that could capture the entirety of the “great land.”
On the plane from Anchorage to Minneapolis, I was lucky enough to sit next to a young woman who had lived several years in Alaska before returning to the Lower 48 for her job. She had been on a short visit back to Alaska to shepherd her daughters there for a week-long visit. She was on her way back to Nebraska to work, but longs to find her way back to Alaska permanently.
She spoke of her weekend hike in the park around Exit Glacier. She and her hiking buddy each spotted a bear, but didn’t immediately realize that they were each seeing a different bear. When they understood that there were two bears, they spotted a third. Because they are experienced in the outdoors, they made noise and left the area without an encounter that was close enough to endanger them further.
She talked of a 75-mile hike across Alaska that she and a friend had made years ago. Her eyes shone as she recounted their trek. Her enthusiasm for the grandeur and majesty of Alaska is like that of so many people we met. Even those who don’t want to live there year-round, those who don’t like the cold and dark of winters there, even those folks come back in May and stay through September. Then, of course, there are those whose hearts are so taken with Alaska’s magic that they do stay there all year and find special pleasures snowshoeing in winter or skiing under the lights at Mt. Alyeska or just snuggling up in their homes with a good book. We found libraries and interesting bookstores all over the place in our travels.
Or maybe they use the quiet times to express their love of Alaska in art. For every kitschy item we saw, many made in China or elsewhere that tourist souvenirs are manufactured, we saw as many pieces of Alaska-made art. There were beautiful paintings in every style imaginable, glorious sculptures in every medium, including whalebone. Alaskans love music, too, and every town had posters for local musicians. There were, naturally, thousands upon thousands of photographs of the scenery, the wildlife and the people. Some of their art speaks of the culture of the Native People, some of the state’s Russian influences. All of it shouts and salutes and sings the assets of the state and the seas that surround it.
I think about the morning walks that Mike and I took on the upper deck of the ship early each morning. As we went round and round the boat, mostly in mist, but sometimes in a steady rain, we marveled at the landscape around us. The Inside Passage isn’t just a marine highway to the next town; it is a thrill ride among the islands of Alaska’s panhandle where Sitka spruce and hemlock trees compete for attention with eagles nesting among the trees or soaring overhead.
The towns themselves arise out of the forest with color and humor, poking fun at themselves with silly signs or names painted on the rock faces near the docks. The buildings are painted in bright colors, showing off their survival in this remote place where even the state capital, Juneau, can’t be reached by road, but must be approached by boat or plane.
We loved seeing the float planes taking off and landing along the waterways wherever we went, from Ketchikan to Homer to Anchorage. They are symbols of the interdependence between land and sea in Alaska and the spirit of the people here to adapt to their environment and thrive in it.
I will carry with me memories of the wildlife that we saw wherever we went. First there were the eagles we saw from the ship. We were thrilled at our first stop in Ketchican to spot a pair of eagles on a nest just across the way from our balcony. We watched them from our room, then from the walking track, flying around from tree to tree, but never getting too far from their nest. We never saw any chicks, but they were protecting the nest from any and all other birds that came too close.
We laughed at the comical and totally cute sea otters, floating on their backs or diving and spinning in the water. We smiled at the sea lions and harbor seals when we saw them lazing in their blubbery piles on the rocks at bay’s edge. We fell in love with Woody, the steller sea lion at the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward as he seemed to play with us, diving down along the window where we watched and almost posing for our cameras. One of the keepers said that he likes people. I think she was right. We were awed by the whales—the humpbacks with their signature flukes high in the air, each one with its unique pattern, and the gray whale, surfacing so near our boat that we could almost count the barnacles on its back.
I was talking with a young woman this morning who has not yet been to Alaska, but wants to go. She said her aunt and uncle have been going there for years, returning each year to soak up its beauty and refresh their souls. I understood immediately how they must feel.
All my reflections of Alaska, like the reflections of mountainsides in still waters that took our breath away with their beauty, are filled with depths of emotions that will come back to me like daytime dreams. If Alaska were a dream, it would be the best I’ve ever had. I’m eternally grateful that it is not just a dream, but a reality that will allow me to explore it again and again.