Juneau

May 12 we flew Dulles-Seattle-Juneau with an  inauspicious start to our holiday.  Our flight was an hour delayed out of Seattle, which put us into Juneau an hour after the Hertz rental car office closed.  I rang the 1-800 number and was assured they would keep the desk open for the flight.  Of course we arrived to find no rental car attendants at the desk.  Waited outside in the cold for an hour with other abandoned souls for a taxi to turn up.  Most tourists arrive in Juneau via cruise ship; hence our warm welcome.

Arrived at our long suffering B&B just past midnight Alaska time (4 a.m. DC time) and fell into bed.  The Cozy Log B&B is owned by Judy and Bruce Bowler and was delightful. Probably the only B&B to be featured in a book (by Sydney Sheldon), including their dog.  Situated 3 miles from Mendenhall Glacier in the Mendenhall Valley.  We spent a wonderful pampered 3 days under the motherly care of Judy.  Amazing breakfasts every morning.  Highly recommended – didn’t need to eat again until evening J. Bruce was an environmentalist for the Alaska Highway Department so he and Chris had lots to talk about, and his after hours work as part of the local search and rescue team made for many fascinating stories. (cozylog@alaska.net or 907-789-2582)

Our main interest during that three days was to catch up on sleep – anything else was a bonus.  Juneau is a small, slightly down at the heels far North village – and the capital of Alaska. We quickly sensed that the locals have a love/hate relationship with the cruiseline visitors – up to 15,000 in one day! Given that the permanent population of Juneau is only 30,000, the city groans at the seams when the cruise ships arrive. We learned that many of the stores are owned by the cruise lines and they are the ones ‘recommended’ by the cruises as offering the best value and guarantees. One locally owned shop had a large sign pointing out that the reason they were not included on the map of shops provided by the cruise lines was because they refused to pay a kick-back to the cruise company. Ouch.

Juneau even boasted a great health food store – more comprehensive than any I’ve found in our area –and we found a great pizza café, cute kitschy shops, even a large store selling Russian art and craft – a nod to the history of Alaska belonging to Russia up until 1867. Many, many bars as well, probably reflecting a favourite local pastime during the long winter nights. However, the town is very small and it doesn’t take long to see it all on foot. But then one doesn’t come to Alaska for the urban life.    

We took the cable car up the hill towards Mt. Roberts. It was a fund raising day for the local raptor center and there were live falcon and a bald eagle at the top to view. Beautiful birds, but real killing machines. We went for a hike up the trails but the weather changed and it rained on us big time. Since we hadn’t brought our rain pants, we decided to turn around.  Juneau lies in a temperate rain forest, so you can guarantee it will rain every day – many times.  The locals have a saying – if you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes and it will change. The photo below was taken at the top with the Gastineau channel in the background.

Sunday morning we paid a visit to the Alaska State Museum which was very interesting. We enjoyed the  large display on  native culture,  showcasing  the amazing ability these tribes developed  to survive on  the local resources. It was interesting to see the conical hats they wore, quite similar to Vietnam, to protect themselves from the rain. With their Asiatic features the old photos looked a lot like China. The displays on the Russian history of Alaska were also very interesting. In the afternoon we fronted up at the Glacier Bay Wilderness Adventures office to begin our wilderness adventure!

On to the next day ...