Aug 28 Did we mention it rains here 80% of the time? The 2-hour drive to Fairbanks was a bit boring, not the same spectacular views we’ve been seeing. But the weather cleared just in time for our sternwheeler cruise on the Chena River. Well worth it. There are many homes along the river, some are poor and run down, most are large homes, many quite opulent. The most interesting part of the cruise was meeting David Monson, husband of the legendary late Suzan Butcher, 4-time winner of the Iditarod 1000-mile Alaska dogsled race with equally famous lead dog Granite. David demonstrated to us on the ship, from shore, how the dogs are trained and how they are anxious to work pulling an ATV for what looked like maybe 2 km. We later got a photo ... read more

Sunday Aug 26 Geoff and Ferdy drove to the airport early to drop off our small car and pick up a Ford Expedition from Enterprise. Lots more room for everything! After picking up some supplies, we headed towards Denali National Park. It rained, then it rained, then it poured some more. We had read about Talkeetna as a good place to visit and that turned out to be true. The ladies immediately went off to have coffee and to shop. Geoff and Ferdy went their own way to explore. Did we mentioned it rained? After we got to Denali, we had a great salmon and jumbo shrimp Caesar salad at the Salmon Bake restaurant. Our accommodations in Denali were pretty basic. ... read more

Friday Aug 24 Ferdy didn’t have a good sleep due to a bad head cold. He slept in a bit and we still made it to the culinary show. Since this is another seaday, we keep ourselves busy on board. Another great talk on glaciers and local geology was very interesting. In late afternoon, we entered College Fjord with quite a few glaciers. The most spectacular one was Johns Hopkins Glacier, which is more than 50 km long, 2.5 km wide at the mouth, close to 100 meters above sea level, and 50 meters under water. All glaciers in this fjord are named after eastern American colleges. We observed some minor calving, not as spectacular as yesterday’s. We also saw plenty of sea otters, who are great in number here after almost having been hunted to ... read more

Wednesday Aug 22 Skagway is a really neat town. Wooden sidewalks, old buildings, whore houses converted to museums or with period-dressed good looking ladies with their legs hanging out of second story buildings pretending to drum up business (we think that at least) and commenting on Ferdy’s “nice piece of equipment”, presumably referring to the long lens on his Nikon. The only thing not reflecting the town’s past are the seventeen jewelry stores, luring in tourists just like the ladies used to. Today, we headed back into Canada. Having departed from the Yukon Heath’s Popcorn Emporium, the Alaskan Highway, or the Alcan (Alaska-Canada) as some people still call it, took us east from Skagway into northern BC and the Yukon. This was one of two trails (Chilkoot) followed by stampeders during the Gold Rush. Gorgeous scenery, ... read more

Monday Aug 20 We docked in Ketchikan at 6am. After an early breakfast, we disembarked to look around the shops before our walking tour began just before 10am. With all the cruise ships here, as many as six by 1pm, the town more than doubles its 24,000 population! Yet it did not seem that crowded. Creek street is really cool. Where Alaska’s first city began, shops line the narrow creek, sometimes overhanging it. We saw seals feeding on the salmon trying to run up the river and across the waterfalls to spawn. As the sign on Dolly’s House, an original whore house, says, both salmon and men come up here to spawn. Our Ketchikan Rain Forest Sanctuary walking tour took us into the Tongass Rain Forest, the world’s second-largest, next to the Amazon. We saw bald ... read more