By Bob & Sandy Nesoff For adventure buffs there really isn’t much left to explore on this planet and it’s too early for true space tourism. Of course there are some jungles in Africa and South America, but for real luxury while sampling the “wilds,” try Alaska. The 49th state is so huge that there was a standing joke about an said: “If you’re not quiet, we’ll split our state in two and make Texas the third largest in the country.” That pretty much tells it all. There are cities-Juneau, Anchorage-Ketchikan and little hamlets too numerous to name. It’s still a fact of life in Alaska that many of its cities are unreachable by road simply because, there are no roads. Places such as Ketchikan are reached either by air or sea. Cruising up the Inside Passage you see waterfront cabins in deep wilderness that dot the waterway. Almost all have both a means of ingress and egress. It must be somewhat oxymoronic for those residents to look out the front windows of cabins located in remote woodlands and watch as ships such as the the Inside Passage. Announcements indicate that we are approaching the Hubbard Glacier and there is a sudden rush of passengers heading out to retrieve their cameras. Within minutes the railing is lined with budding photographers waiting for “that shot.” And they get it as the glacier “calves,” splits with huge chunks of ice sliding into the sea every few minutes. The excitement from the gathered passengers below is palpable as the captain maneuvers the ship as close as legally possible to the Hubbard in order to afford the passengers the best possible view. In the middle of the excitement a stowaway appears on around, he wants to sample life aboard a cruise ship. Like a Hollywood star he stands, posing amid a gaggle of amateur photographers. He’s there for a good half hour before tiring of the tourists and taking wing. Leaving the Hubbard and heading to Ketchikan, the water was rife with small ice bergs that had calved from glaciers kissing the edge of the continent
water. Passengers on Celebrity can afford themselves the opportunity to pick and reserve shore excursions on-line before sailing or options available is staggering and ranged from a motorcycle tour inland with sightings of bear and other native fauna to the Misty Fjords. The accommodations were somewhat less than Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic but the sights from the window were spectacular. There were numerous glaciers and running rivers, mountains and valleys and an explicit view of why it is so easy to become lost in the never-ending wilderness. Deplaining from the aircraft in the fjord, passengers clambered look like a balsa model aircraft.
Resident May 2012
The Cliffs of Mohr in Ireland draw tens of thousands of visitors, but they can’t match the majesty of ice cliffs formed by Alaskan glaciers.
If the fjords looked amazing from the air, they were absolutely photographs of waterfalls that had been little more than dry gulches until the rains came earlier that day. There were seals in the water and on rocks, eagles coasting overhead like feathered gliders and a variety of animals and birds that were incomparable anywhere else. The speed boat skimmed the water and rounded the islands from the fjords back to Ketchikan depositing passengers only yards from the center of town or what passed as the center of a town. Ketchikan is a small village that still hasn’t found its way into the modern world with the possible exception of the tourist-centric shops that line the waterfront, a major source of income here for the year-round residents and those who head south as soon as the chilled air comes in over the mountains. Even the tourist traps have as unique an assortment of souvenirs as can be found at any port, anywhere in the world. They range from ivory carved walruses to Indian and Eskimo jackets and the furred boots called mukluks. You can even purchase (for about $300 or more) a very unusual item that could be the talk of your Friday night poker or canasta game, an oosick. And you’d be the only one in your town who knew what an oosick was. They come carved and mounted on stands or by themselves. They look like a bone club or a femur. In actuality (are you ready?) an oosick is a walrus penis. That’s right. You heard us. We got ours from a friend in the area who picked it up at a