While in the Glacier Park Lodge I bought a copy of "Travels in Alaska" by John Muir. He was working on the book in 1914 when he died of pneumonia, and it chronicles his trips to SE Alaska in 1879, 1880, and 1890. He went to many of the same places that Mary Alice and I did, and comparing his experiences with ours was interesting. In 1879-80 the place was a howling wilderness and he is travelling mostly in indian canoes, mapping and naming places and glaciers. In 1890, 10 or 11 years later, he travels on a tourist steamship to Glacier Bay, carrying 180 passengers.. If I might quote Scott Miller "It didn't take too long..."'

June 18, 1890 "We arrived at Wrangel in the rain at 10:30 A.M. There was a grand rush on shore to buy curosities and see totem poles. The shops were jammed and mobbed, high prices paid for shabby stuff manufactured expressly for tourist trade. Silver braclets hammed out of dollars and half dollars by Indian smiths are the most popular articles, then baskets, yellow cedar toy canoes, paddles, etc. Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook-maker, however ignorant."

June 21 1890" "We arrived at Douglas Island (part of Juneau now) .... A dance-house in which Indians are supposed to show native dances of all sorts is perhaps the best patronized of all the places of amusement."

July 1, 1890 "As I set out to climb the second mountain, three thousand feet high, on the east side of the glacier, i met many tourists returning from a walk on the smooth east margin of the glacier and had to answer many questions...."

July 7, 1890. "I am writing letters in anticipation of the next steamer, the Queen. She arrived about 2:30 P.M. with two hundred and thirty tourists. What a show they made with their ribbons and kodaks! All seemed happy and enthuiastic, though it was curious to see how promptly all of them ceased gazing when the dinner-bell rang, and how many turned from the great thundering crystal world of ice to look curiously at the Indians that came alongside to sell trinkets, and how our little camp and kitchen arrangements excited so many to loiter and waste their precious time prying into our poor hut."

More on this later, but I was struck by how rapidly the place went from wilderness to tourist attraction, and by the fact that tourists then are very like tourists now.

The first unpleasant expeience we had on this trip occurred at the Gustavus airport. After two weeks of pleasant Alaskans, friendly and open, quick to smile and to start a conversation, we encountered the TSA. Big, burley, and decidedly unfriendly they went through our luggage as if they had a tip that somewhere in those suitcases was the bust that would get them the front page photo in Airport Security Magazine. Screening was the usual combination of inconvenience and waste of time – we had 3 German speaking women departing with us,and they pushed ahead of people, even to the extent of pushing their belongings tray at the security gate into them middle of ours, knocking my camera to the floor. I hope they go to China someday – they’ll meet their match at a Chinese airport.

Monday we went on the whale watching dinner cruise that the lodge sets up. Frankly, i expected a good dinner on a ship, and a few whale spouts for excitement, but it was what was available and when in Rome and like the zen monk I was following the usual practices etc.

We went down to the dock on a short path from the lodge (the town, Gustavus, is 9 miles away and has its own dock, and airport, but the Glacier Bay Lodge uses the Bartlett Cove dock). There was the MV Fairweather II. On board we found a table set for 4. That was odd because M.A. and I are only 2 people, and there were no other tables set at all. Another couple joined us in a minute. The staff wondered if we minded eating together- and we did not. The couple was a wetlands specialist from Portland and her companion, a computer programer. We had met on the ferry from Juneau and were sympacatio.

Dinner was excellent. We had to choose between two red wines: Old Truck, and Smoking Loon. Loon got the nod from me due to getting some overaired Truck at the motel restaurant in Redway. You know, the one that is not the Branding Iron. (Senior moment).
See my dining entry for the photo of the maple glazed salmon. As we ate the ship sailed for the whales. The water in Glacier bay is quite calm, despite 25 foot tides, and the trip was without incident. Soon it was a choice between dessert and whales. We went for the whales.



They were distant, they were spouting, and occasionally showing tail fins as they dove. But they were at the extreme lenght of the 18 power zoom on the Olympus and actually getting more that something to refresh the memory was not going to be possible. After 1/2 hour (the max time we are allowed to hang-out around any one group of wildllife) we sailed for what we might metaphorically call greener pastures.



Our second location was a big hit. What seems to have been going on is that a school of fish was being "harvested" at the same time by a group of seal lions and 6 whales. The sea lions would chase the fish at the surface causing a splashing line of water and sea lion glimpses to shoot out for 100 feet or so, then the whales would come up under the whole thing spouting and splashing. One spouter made a noise like a horn and the responding echo would come from the cliffs just inland from the nearly shore. This went on for at least 1/2 hour and the cameras of passengers and crew were snapping wildly the whole time. If only I had bought stock in the company that makes pixels.





Needless to say most of my shots were deleters. But a few were not. Here's the legendary two tail whale shot that wildlife photographers aspire to. I almost missed it, as you can see, and I did miss the triple.

Recently, in some other Sohum blogs, some interest has been expressed in what I have been eating on this trip. So let's get down to it. Breakfast was always 2 oz or less of cereal with whole milk, lunch as far as possible was the same (I’m on the Special K diet, but I’m doing it with Wheaties), So dinner is where the variables come in.

We had our first road dinner on this trip at the Thai Restaurant in Crescent City. It was our first time there, and despite seeing bubble tea posters, we didn’t have it. I remember udon noodles, but Mary Alice says I had a steak.

We overnighted in Grants Pass, with Darryl’s song running through my head. Lunch was at a highway rest stop somewhere in Oregon. But dinner, ah, dinner was at the Ginger Palace, the oriental restaurant in the lobby of the Seattle airport Ramada inn. I’ve posted pix of the fish in the tank talking with the diner, already. I think I had a steak.

Then 3 dinners on the MV Columbia – the Alaska Marine highway boat from Bellingham to Juneau. I recall great variety, but Mary Alice says I probably had steak. In my defense let me say that I am not fond of seafood, and I am fond of two things: beef, and rapid menu choices. On a menu filled with seafood and oriental dishes, how quickly one can order steak.



Our first night in Juneau we ate at Doc Waters, which is on the waterfront as you might imagine. The second night we ate at the Twisted (whatever), down by the cruise ship docks, where I did not have the coconut salmon strips with berry compote. I’m afraid that as with the fried scorpions on a stick in Beijing, my nerve gave out at the crucial moment and I had something ordinary. Night 3 we were at Donna’s, in the mall near the motel, enjoying real Merican food. Mary Alice had chicken fried steak, and I had – what? I would have liked meatloaf but I didn’t see it in time to order it. I had steak smothered in mashed potatoes with a hint of vegetables.



During Celebration we intended to lunch on Indian Frybread by Garfield, who was set up in a kind of tent outside the Alaska Native Brotherhood hall. The first Celebration day we have a kind of meat stew over rice inside the ANB hall. Frybread day 2 and perhaps a taco from the next tent down, washed down with a coke, eaten while sitting on a wall in the drizzle. Very realistic. , Day 3 lunch, after the parade, was up the hill at a storefront café where I had 1/2 of an excellent BLT and part of a pastry.

In Glacier bay we had dinner on the ship during the whale watching cruise on Tuesday.



That was maple glazed salmon and it was really good. Wednesday after an day looking at glaciers, we ate at the lodge, and I had meatloaf and peach pie. Strangely, it came with strawberry ice cream, but didn’t go with it in the culinary sense. Not wanting to offend, I ate it anyway. We went back into the kitchen and complemented the chefs on the dinner and were silent about the dessert.

Last night during a lay-over in Juneau we walked from the airport to the Travelodge where Mi Casa offers the best Mexican food in northern Juneau. I had a quesida with beef (the restaurant has no pork??). You already know what a quesida looks like, right?

Today we catch the private ferry to Glacier Park in the evening. Celebration 2008 has ended, we’ve walked the streets of Juneau and flown the Five Glaciers. What to do? The hotel shuttle will take us to within 1 mile of the Mendenhall Glacier visitor’s center, so we decide to do that. Only these darn tourists keep arriving at the airport and tying up the shuttle. We talk with another person waiting in the lobby- a computer programmer from Atlanta who is about to start his 3rd week of work on the government’s computers. He gives us a ride right to the visitor’s center – sort of for something to do on his day off. It was a really nice thing to do – typical of what Alaska does to people, I think.

Here's the Mendenhall Glacier from a spot about 1/4 of a mile from the Visitor Center - that makes us about 1 mile from the glacier itself. It's really difficult to get the scale of this glacier in a photo. It is huge.



Alaska literature is filled with information about what to do if you should meet a bear while out walking. In case you don’t follow the advice, there are also books of lurid tales of what happened to those people who did not. A recent movie takes us through the life of a man who became famous for being best buddies with the bears – until the day they ate him and his girlfriend. The ranger hikes all begin with bear encounter survival tips. Statistics encourage us to believe we will survive meeting a bear. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all human-bear interactions in the wild end up with the human unharmed – things like that. Just to be sure, the Glacier Lodge store sells Bear Pepperspray in a quite large container, with the guarantee that it “might help” if a bear attacks you. “Talk to the bear” say some people, so it will know you are not another bear- bears being notoriously nearsighted, and utterly uninterested in large beings that are not bears.

All this advice is well and good, but you don’t know what you will do when you meet a bear until you meet a bear. I found out what I would do about 1000 feet down the trail from the visitor center out to the waterfall by the Mendenhall Glacier. We were walking along, and another couple was just ahead of us, and up the hill a bit, when a bear came ambling out of the bushes a few feet from us. There is a difference in gender response here, I think, because the man’s companion ran off down the trail, despite all instructions never to run and her companion's iterations of them. I don’t know what Mary Alice did because, like the man above me, I was too busy getting my camera out and taking a picture. I snapped a good one



And then heard Mary Alice suggesting frequently that I join her at her position somewhat more distant from the bear, where she and the other man's companion were. Sounded like a good plan, really, and the bear was walking into the brush so no more good shots were coming up. So, I joined Mary Alice. Now I know what I would do if a bear appeared near me: document it. Must be my old COG training.

PS The bear buddy guy who got eaten inadvertantly documented it, also. An audio recorder got some 6 minutes of it, which gave the police investigator nightmares. Some things God does not intend for us to know, and what it feels like to be eaten alive by a bear is one of them, it seems.