Sherrill and I visited more than 60 countries and most of the United States during our 52 year marriage. This is number 48 of a series about our lives and travels, true stories of two people discovering the world, each other, and themselves through five decades of traveling together. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series. To start at the beginning of our marriage and travels look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. Older posts are a previous series.
Four Adventurers: Cathy, Sherrill, Larry, Bruce Friendships that last over time are one of the treasures of life. Sherrill and I enjoyed several long friendships, including one with Cathy and Larry. Our daughters had grown up together. We'd helped each other in various ways, large and small, again and again. We'd taken mini-trips together—to Yosemite, Oregon, Santa Cruz, Southern California, and a camp in the Sierras. Now, the four of us embarked on a longer adventure together. How about Alaska, somebody suggested.
Okay, why not Alaska?
Okay, why not Alaska?
We agreed on the kind of trip we wanted: low key, casual, real—a trip without the expensive fun and games that would distance us from Alaska's spectacular, rugged beauty. The one we decided upon took us on a small ship—only 68 passengers—as well as a couple of old buses, an old style train, at least one float plane, and a couple of rubber rafts—plus plenty of exploration on foot. We'd get so close to the calving glaciers that we wouldn't just see them shedding parts of themselves, but would hear and feel the icy sound waves. Once, in a small bay, we watched as a mother brown bear on a narrow beach taught her two cubs how to fish—and we didn't need binoculars.
The Spirit of Discovery Our first day in Alaska, we soon found ourselves hiking around old town Fairbanks, which at times, with its nineteenth century one and two-story buildings, still suggested a frontier town. Some of the folks we passed might have been Eskimo or Native American, others could have been workers at the North Slope oil fields or at nearby gold mines, and some reminded us of university students we saw in Berkeley—altogether, an excitingly diverse population.
We also agreed that we all four didn't need to stay together all the time if we had different interests. On an afternoon side trip to the Goldstream Valley north of Fairbanks, Cathy and I met some sled dogs—and their trainer. Mary Shields lived in handsome log house under a sod roof, surrounded by 20 acres of birch and spruce trees. Inside, it was spacious, warm, and comfortable. Bookcases were filled with books that Mary had written about Alaska and sled dogs and what it was like to be a dog musher, including some books for children. Before we left, I bought one of those for my grandson.
Mary took us out to get to know her huskies. Big, beautiful, longhaired dogs with silver, gray, and white coats, they were eager to know us in return. The younger ones hurled themselves at us, cuddling and licking. It felt like being pawed by a very friendly fur coat. Overhead, feathery clouds swished slowly across the sky as if they were cleaning the blue surface. One of us asked Mary about coping with Alaska's weather, especially the winters.
"We love winter up here!" she answered. "We can go out then with the sleds and dogs. I've raised and trained teams for years," she added. "I was the first woman to cross the finish line in the Iditarod—and with the smallest team ever, only eight dogs. I couldn't live anywhere else."
Although she probably was past the age to race, it was easy to believe that this stocky, energetic woman with the graying brown hair and bright eyes would complete whatever she started.
Mary took us out to get to know her huskies. Big, beautiful, longhaired dogs with silver, gray, and white coats, they were eager to know us in return. The younger ones hurled themselves at us, cuddling and licking. It felt like being pawed by a very friendly fur coat. Overhead, feathery clouds swished slowly across the sky as if they were cleaning the blue surface. One of us asked Mary about coping with Alaska's weather, especially the winters.
"We love winter up here!" she answered. "We can go out then with the sleds and dogs. I've raised and trained teams for years," she added. "I was the first woman to cross the finish line in the Iditarod—and with the smallest team ever, only eight dogs. I couldn't live anywhere else."
Although she probably was past the age to race, it was easy to believe that this stocky, energetic woman with the graying brown hair and bright eyes would complete whatever she started.
Sherrill, University of Alaska Botanical Garden The four of us began the next day prowling through a maze of grimacing, hollow-eyed animal and human faces: an eagle with a fiercely hooked beak, an angry grizzly bear, distorted and weirdly colored human features—a fearsome, yet oddly beautiful display of native masks at the Museum of Alaska History and Art. A walk afterwards took us into a very different realm in the university's botanical garden. The display of plants and flowers blooming in the garden was unexpectedly spectacular, considering how cold the August air was. We were zipped into heavy coats, but could've picked a colorful summer bouquet. Sherrill was impressed that the flowers in the various beds were clearly labeled.
"Write those down, secretary," she told me, pointing to some tags, since I always carried a pen and three by five cards for notes. "Please."
I didn't mind, because she smiled when she said it and always used the notes when we were back home.
"Write those down, secretary," she told me, pointing to some tags, since I always carried a pen and three by five cards for notes. "Please."
I didn't mind, because she smiled when she said it and always used the notes when we were back home.
It seemed as if we never stopped moving the whole time we were in Alaska. There was so much to see and experience and we were determined to do it all. A vintage riverboat carried us along the glacier-fed Chena and Tenana rivers where we met three-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher, who introduced her sled dog team and newest puppies, then unexpectedly we came face to face with a group of enormous caribou (or reindeer). With their oversized heads, blunt noses, heavy bibs of white fur, and gigantic, wide-reaching antlers stabbing the air, they were intimidating beasts (despite their spindly-looking legs), but they ignored us, busily grazing in the tall green grass. We saw an Alaskan bush pilot lift his tiny plane into the air from a few hundred feet of gravel. Often, the fastest—or only—way to get around in the wild vastness of Alaska was by air, whether the plane used wheels or pontoons. The forty-ninth state, we were learning, was a different world than the lower states.
An early morning four-hour trip on the Alaska Railway took us across icy sediment-braided rivers and richly patterned carpets of red, orange, yellow, and green tundra woven from dwarf shrubs and mosses and lichens, until we reached the Mt. McKinley Chalet, where we switched to an antique bus to climb on a single-lane road toward a snow-smothered mountain range and North America's highest peak, glacier-streaked Denali. Along the way, we glimpsed moose, bear, more caribou, white-speckled Dall sheep, and plump grouse-like Ptarmigans.
An early morning four-hour trip on the Alaska Railway took us across icy sediment-braided rivers and richly patterned carpets of red, orange, yellow, and green tundra woven from dwarf shrubs and mosses and lichens, until we reached the Mt. McKinley Chalet, where we switched to an antique bus to climb on a single-lane road toward a snow-smothered mountain range and North America's highest peak, glacier-streaked Denali. Along the way, we glimpsed moose, bear, more caribou, white-speckled Dall sheep, and plump grouse-like Ptarmigans.
"Look over there!" we told each other. "Look at that one! No—over there!"
It seemed remarkable to us that we continually saw so many varieties of animals, as if they were eager for us to discover them.
It seemed remarkable to us that we continually saw so many varieties of animals, as if they were eager for us to discover them.
 Breakfast on the train |  Four of us en route to Denali |
Cathy & Sherrill on the ship Alaska catapulted us from one amazing view to another. Some of the best were from the Alyeska Ski Resort: jagged mountains topped with marshmallow whiteness, evergreen forests, ski runs, and the mirror-like surface of the Turnagain Arm of the Gulf of Alaska reflecting ragged snow-veined peaks just beyond. The view we had from the restaurant on the top floor of our Anchorage hotel wasn't bad, either: Mt. McKinley's stern white bulk, which usually was veiled by stubborn layers of clouds. Flying to Juneau opened up almost unbelievable views of several dramatically corrugated white and blue rivers of ice. Then we got an up-close view of Juneau's own Mendenhall Glacier.
The glacier was visibly melting, forming its own lake, but walking so near this force of nature still hit us in the head with how puny we really were. Those jagged blue lumps as big as small buildings floating in the lake were icebergs, shed by the glacier. More glaciers—38 of them—lurked in those mountains reflected in the lake in front of us. It almost seemed as if we'd dropped back into the Ice Age, when our ancestors trudged across fields of ice hoping to kill a mammoth—unless the mammoth killed them first or they dropped into an unexpected crevice. Twenty years later, I can vividly relive the scene and my feelings standing there with Sherrill. Sometimes, the past looms much more sharply than the present.
Shadow of float plane over giant glacier crevices Each day brought new discoveries, new ways of being astonished. A float plane trip above the 1,500 square-mile Juneau ice field rewarded us with views of five different glaciers. For the first time, we saw clearly the enormous fissures cracking open these ice rivers.
"Five or more Empire State Buildings could be stacked on top of each other in some of those cracks," the pilot told us. "Hope we don't have to land down there."
The Spirit of Discovery carried us from Juneau to Skagway while we slept, then the White Pass and Yukon Railway, originally built for miners, slowly took us up the mountain, across gorges, through tunnels, past a gold rush cemetery and the remains of the original 19th century mining trail. Images from Charlie Chaplin's ordeal in The Gold Rush flashed in my head.
"Five or more Empire State Buildings could be stacked on top of each other in some of those cracks," the pilot told us. "Hope we don't have to land down there."
The Spirit of Discovery carried us from Juneau to Skagway while we slept, then the White Pass and Yukon Railway, originally built for miners, slowly took us up the mountain, across gorges, through tunnels, past a gold rush cemetery and the remains of the original 19th century mining trail. Images from Charlie Chaplin's ordeal in The Gold Rush flashed in my head.
While Sherrill and Larry sailed from Skagway to Haines, Cathy and I flew to Glacier Bay and the Chilkat Bald Eagle Reserve, where from a rubber raft in an open river we saw, among sand bars, grassy banks, and trees, some of the world's largest concentration of bald eagles—200 to 400 the year round and up to 3,000 when spawned-out salmon were there for feasting. As the raft moved along the river, we lost count of the number of eagles around us, diving, feeding, getting ready to do it again. It was easy to believe when we saw one soaring past that its wing span was a good seven feet and when we watched them posing disdainfully on naked tree branches above the river, we had no doubt that they were the monarchs of the area.
 Bruce & Cathy on way to Bald Eagle Reserve |  Cathy, Chilkat River, Bald Eagle Reserve |
One drizzly morning, the Spirit of Discovery picked up a young ranger, then headed deeper into Glacier Bay National Park, where we were surprised by a black and white humpback whale rising out of the water in a white spray, flipping backwards, rough-edged fins held out, as if performing in competitive aqua gymnastics. Maneuvering through this waterway that only 250 years ago was all ice, we hugged the rocky little islands looking out for the sea lions, cormorants, eagles, and puffins that lived on them.
Three hairy mountain goats glared at us from an outcropping known as Gloomy Knob, then we came to a series of tidewater glaciers, each many miles long, hundreds of feet thick, and a good mile wide. We sailed closer and closer to several glaciers until we were just a few hundred yards from the enormous Johns Hopkins glacier, listening to creaks, snaps, and sounds of thunder as chunks from tiny to huge fell off its jagged blue face. Thousands of harbor seals sprawled on icebergs while seagulls swooped and dove, finding morsels to eat in front of the crumbling glacier faces.
Three hairy mountain goats glared at us from an outcropping known as Gloomy Knob, then we came to a series of tidewater glaciers, each many miles long, hundreds of feet thick, and a good mile wide. We sailed closer and closer to several glaciers until we were just a few hundred yards from the enormous Johns Hopkins glacier, listening to creaks, snaps, and sounds of thunder as chunks from tiny to huge fell off its jagged blue face. Thousands of harbor seals sprawled on icebergs while seagulls swooped and dove, finding morsels to eat in front of the crumbling glacier faces.
Sherrill, Sawyer Glacier, Alaska A full day slicing through the frigid water took us into a narrow canyon, where we saw the two towering blue-white faces of Sawyer glacier, jagged, crumbling, majestic. Several pods of orcas swam around the ship, one of them spraying our windows and then diving under the bow. Breaching, slapping the water with their fins, the orcas stayed with us for miles. Then much larger humpback whales appeared, one coming up to the ship, where it breached with open mouth to gather krill, its breath loud and clear.
A few days in the old Russian and Norwegian parts of Alaska gave us some variety: Sitka and Petersburg, Orthodox churches, totem poles, a raptor center for injured birds of prey, and a salmon cannery. Then we sailed into the Le Conte Inlet, close to the huge but receding Le Conte glacier, watching and listening to it shed icebergs from its mile-wide face. One piece that we watched plunge into the water was bigger than a house. Silvery gray and tan harbor seals floated on icebergs, apparently watching the show, their blubber-rounded bodies oozing over the ice. Another day, we slowly moved among a colony of mustachioed sea otters, rolling, diving, floating on their backs. Then, humpback whales surrounded us again, close enough for us to hear their exhaling breath—plus a lone male orca, feeding near a small island.
 Bruce & Sherrill on Top of the World |  Sunny Day with Neighborhood Glacier |
Our last day in Alaska began at 2:15 a.m. with a display of the Northern Lights among the stars: greenish neon curtains of light rose and fell on the enormous stage of the nighttime sky, exposing a pink and purple lining that folded and wrinkled and blew back and forth underneath.
Eventually, we cruised into Ketchikan, passed a fish factory busy at work, and saw a whale diving nearby, then docked and explored the city, including a museum that preserved the last original totem poles. We walked along a salmon-filled creek for while, and finally rode a ferry across the channel to the island with the airport and had our last view of a humpback whale. We'd often felt on our little ship as if we were merging with the nature around us, surrounded by whales, eagles, caribou, seals, even sea otters, and almost able, it seemed, to touch the calving glaciers. We could understand why people who'd chosen to live this far north felt as if they could never be happy anyplace else.
To be continued....
Eventually, we cruised into Ketchikan, passed a fish factory busy at work, and saw a whale diving nearby, then docked and explored the city, including a museum that preserved the last original totem poles. We walked along a salmon-filled creek for while, and finally rode a ferry across the channel to the island with the airport and had our last view of a humpback whale. We'd often felt on our little ship as if we were merging with the nature around us, surrounded by whales, eagles, caribou, seals, even sea otters, and almost able, it seemed, to touch the calving glaciers. We could understand why people who'd chosen to live this far north felt as if they could never be happy anyplace else.
To be continued....
 Larry, Cathy, Sherrill, Talkeeta |  |
Sawyer Glacier, Alaska, 1998
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Please pass the posts on to anybody else you think might enjoy them.
You also might enjoy reading the new bargain-priced e-book of my first novel, The Night Action, set in San Francisco's North Beach in the early 1960s. The book is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers. Click on the title or Here for the link.
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