| In the Spring of 2002 I sat in my car reading a new
copy of Jonathan Raban's Passage to Juneau, which I had bought after
returning Judith's copy. I was waiting at the Keystone ferry landing on
Whidbey Island for the short trip to Port Townshend on the Olympic peninsula.
Liz was playing in a basketball tournament at Sequim, but I was only able
to "drive" over to catch her Saturday games. A bald eagle was sitting on
a short perch near the shore and I was thinking how much I've enjoyed living
in this Puget Sound area these past ten years. Especially the ferries;
they somehow keep me tied to the water. I've always lived on one coast
or another, but never really felt as connected to that line where the land
meets the sea as I do here. |
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I was planning to do more traveling during the summer and always
think of taking the ferry first. All of this reminded me it was about time
I did something with all the pictures I took the year before in Alaska. |
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The original plans were to try and do a
lot of writing on the 2001 trip and to photograph and follow Raban's travelogue
the way he followed Vancouver's. In the small book club at the school where
I teach, we had read Bad Land, An American Romance, another of his
travelogue-history-essay-diary books. Not a type of book I would have chosen
myself, but the book club was all about trying what everyone else enjoyed
reading and this one made me curious to read more work by the Seattle transplant
from England. And the subject, a trip up the Inside Passage to Alaska,
really struck a chord. It was a dream of mine to make that same journey
for as long as I lived on the West Coast, and one of my personal reasons
to locate here in 1992. But life intervenes, my marriage ended, and the
trip never happened. When Judith lent me the book, she warned me the book's
ending might hit close to home: life intervened for the author when his
marriage also fell apart. Yes, I was warned, and yes, it hit very close
to home.
But my own long-awaited travel plans began to materialize. Since
Liz and I don't get school vacations that coincide too often, I would be
making it solo during the College break in early September. Having a guidebook
and a purpose for writing and taking photos seemed a good choice. The budget
didn't allow for the fancy digital camera, but snapshots should suffice
if I kept a decent journal.
So here are the photographs and I'm still working on the writing.
I did a lot of reading and used the camera every chance I could on the
way up, putting off the writing for the trip back. But life intervened
in a strange way. The last ferry leg left Juneau at 5:00 AM on September
11, 2001. The faraway events of that morning and the following days of
uncertainty and rumors cast some kind of cloud that still colors my remembrance
of a wonderful adventure. I thought putting this all together a year later
might finally put some perspective on 9-11 for me, but I don't know if
that's true. Maybe this will serve as a vehicle that I can add pieces and
recollections to as time goes on. Or maybe it's just How I Spent My Summer
Vacation one strange year. |
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The "Journal" format is based on the brief notes I took to identify
the pictures.
Everything else was written later. Jim - October 2002.
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North to Juneau
Journal
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Friday 8/31 at 6PM departed Bellingham on Alaska State Ferry M/V
Columbia.
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Set clocks back an hour to Alaska time.
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Evening trip through Canada, past Vancouver Island
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Too dark to see most of the places Raban stopped in Passage to Juneau
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Seymour Narrows trip at night 
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Bellingham Ferry Terminal
Leaving Ferry dock |
| In another area of this website, I've spent a lot of enjoyable time
these past few years maintaining a growing collection of memories from
the unique group of people I met in high school and tried to stay in contact
with since. I correspond with Steve in London probably as much as anyone.
In the year before the trip our discussions ranged from old school recollections
to the always amusing British perspective on the bizarre American presidential
election. That summer we discussed books we had read such as In the
Heart of the Sea, the true story on which Melville had based Moby
Dick. I mentioned I had been meaning to read the whale story again,
thirty years since Father Earl assigned it in American Lit. So when I told
the gang about my plans for the cruise and hope to see whales, Steve's
emails began to "call me Ishmael".
When I finally began reading the heaviest object in my backpack,
it
wasn't long before I ran across this passage:
"And, doubtless, my going on this whaling
voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn
up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between
more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must
have run something like this:
"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of
the United States"
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL"
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."
I had no idea how extensive that last listed performance would soon
become. |
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Saturday morning: spotted familiar campsite at Bella Bella
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Native-owned island is stop on BC Ferry route.
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Camped there a few nights after Vancouver Island trip in 1996.
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Town and Bella Bella Band store
Campsite near native fish processing plant on Bella Bella |
Lighthouse in Queen Charlotte Islands
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Sunday, 9/2: stop in Ketchikan. Tides dictate length of stay in each
port and ferry dock is often a taxi ride away from town center.
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Just enough time for walk along Creek Street and a stop at Annabelle's
for salmon chowder.
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No time for sidetrip to Misty
Fjords
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Ketchikan, first stop in Alaska
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Creek Street "The men and the salmon came here to spawn." |
Cruise ships dwarf town
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Only fish spawning now
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Living in the Northwest is basically the same as living in the suburbs
anywhere if you don't pay much attention to the scenery, the placenames
or the history. On the surface is the influence of Boeing, Weyerhauser,
Microsoft and Starbucks on our work, economy and traffic. Underneath is
the influence of salmon, evergreen trees, the native tribes, ferries, the
shadow of Mt. Rainier, the proximity of Alaska and British Columbia, the
political and cultural division with Eastern Washington and Idaho, the
buffer Oregon provides to California.
On my list of Big Fat Books to Reread Someday is Kesey's Sometimes
a Great Notion and Michener's Alaska. Just to see if the vantage
point of ten years in this area changes what I once read in New Jersey
and Virginia. This trip has added some visual special effects to the great
Northwest saga those books created for me. |
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Plans to sleep on deck were abandoned in favor of the TV lounge
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Another stop, possibly at Wrangell or Petersburg
in the Tongass National Forest |
Ferry terminal north of Juneau
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Monday morning 9/3 arrived Juneau
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Stayed Monday - Wednesday at Wolfhouse B&B
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Took the Mt. Roberts Tram to get away from the busy cruise ship docks
and see city of Juneau and Gastineau Channel from above.
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Alternate forms of transportation: landing floatplane points to dock
near Hangar on the Wharf, a great place for view, beer and halibut
tacos.
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Later arranged for a "Tracy Arm" cruise next day from Marine Park. Glaciers
and whales on the agenda.
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