2010-6-25 Juneau, Alaska

 In Juneau, we visited a botanical garden in the Tongrass National Forest. It's called the Upside Down Forest of Glacier Gardens. Bill and I are at the entrance in the pictures below.

Here is the guide explaining the planting and history of the garden. It's a privately owned business. 

 

The upside down trees are known as the flower towers. The tops of the trees were buried in the ground. I don't understand why the trees didn't die. In any case, the roots formed a basket up in the air. The basket was filled with netting and mosses to make beds for begonias, fuchsias and petunias. The bedding plants bloom brilliantly and hang down from the overturned trees. 

This is the world's largest temperate rain forest. 

From their website:

The Mendenhall Glacier itself is a rarity, as it is one of the world’s few drive-up glaciers. It lies at the foot of Thunder Mountain, where the Bowhays acquired a large tract of land in 1985 after a landslide demolished much of the face of the mountain, uprooting nearly everything and destroying one of the main streams. Steve, a landscaper by trade, set out to restore the stream and harness its water for a hydroelectricity plant to power new greenhouses. Settling ponds were designed to slow the rate of water erosion and provide a series of waterfalls on the garden property.

Stories have it that while rebuilding the stream, Steve accidentally damaged the moving equipment and, in a fit of frustration, used the machine to pick up a large fallen tree stump and slam it upside-down into the soft mud. The image of roots hanging down like petunia vines apparently gave him the inspiration to repeat his action, inverting over 20 other dead spruce and hemlock trees in order to plant more than 75 flowers in their root bowls each year.

This is a recent picture from their website:

There is a place for gatherings. They offer wedding receptions in the room below. 

The tour took us to see the Mendenhall Glacier but I can't find any photos of it now. The next photo is Bill is standing in front of a famous tavern in Juneau. 

Because of his military service in Kodiak, Bill already knew what to expect of Alaska in the summer. I wanted to experience it for myself. I found the twilight disturbing and had trouble sleeping while we were there. We brought aluminum foil to cover the windows in the stateroom and that helped a little. 

2010-6-23 Kodiak, Alaska

We selected this cruise because it stopped in Kodiak where Bill was stationed in the Navy in 1962 and 63. He was a communications specialist working on the DEW line.

It stands for Early Distance Warning. It was aimed at keeping an eye on Russian interceptions into U.S. air space. 

Bill is pointing to Barometer Mountain in the next picture. He climbed up there and slid down a glacier, tearing out the seat of his pants and losing his wallet. The wallet overwintered on the mountain. Someone found it and returned it to him in the spring. 

This family performed for us when the ship arrived in Kodiak. 

Next is a picture of Bill at his duty station in Kodiak. He has lots of stories about Kodiak. When the wind was really whipping, the airplanes had to be tied down. There were "small people warnings" for those who weighed less than 150 pounds. They were could go airborne inadvertently just like the airplanes. 

Bill told me a story a P2v Neptune that crashed on Barometer Mountain. It was an anti-submarine plane. They had them in Kodiak because the Russians were constantly pushing the limits. (Like they are now.)

"The plane was coming in for a landing and took a wrong turn. Our officers told us not to go up there so naturally I did it anyway. The main part of the plane had already been removed. I was looking around but didn't notice a piece of metal sticking out of a tree. I bumped against it and gashed my leg. It bled very freely so I didn’t think I needed a tetanus shot. I couldn’t go to the Infirmary anyway because I would get in trouble. I cleaned it up in the shower and then put Band Aids on it. That wasn’t enough so I bound it up with a t shirt and went to bed. It hurt a lot. "

(In 2021, we ordered a Kodiak patch for his jacket.)

Here we are sailing out of Kodiak in 2010 happier than we were before our walk down memory lane. 

2010--6-22 Homer, Alaska

We got off the ship in Homer, walked around and went right back to the ship. There were many birds, including eagles, near the ship. The most interesting thing we saw was a seagull chasing an eagle.

I'm sure there were things to do here but we didn't do them for some reason. It may be that the trips weren't handicap accessible and we couldn't walk that far. 

2010-6-19 Glacier Bay in Alaska

A member of the Huna Tlingit tribe came on board the Amsterdam to tell us the following story about Glacier Bay.

From American Field Trip online:

 "I’m not sure which national park is geologically the youngest (Hawaii Volcanoes, maybe?), but Glacier Bay would certainly be in the top five. What is now a long bay surrounded by sheer peaks and winding glaciers was, only 300 years ago, a wide valley stretching away from the toe of the Grand Pacific Glacier. Home to the Huna Tlingit people from time immemorial, the valley was a fertile stretch, rich in resources and naturally protected by the mountains and the ocean.

Then, in around 1700, the Little Ice Age forever changed the landscape—cold temperatures and more snow made the Grand Pacific Glacier advance rapidly. Huna Tlingit stories described the glacier’s flow as being 'at the speed a dog runs.' Glaciologists can now back up the story of this galloping glacier—it’s called a surge glacier and 104 of them have been observed in North America (though most surge only rarely.) The glacier advanced more than 200 miles by 1750, only stopping when it hit the saltwater of the Icy Strait, which began to dissolve the glacier’s toe.

Thus pushed out of their ancestral home, the Huna Tlingit found refuge in nearby islands and inlets, later settling largely in a town known now as Hoonah (pop. 745). As the ice retreated through the 1800s, the people began to return home—instead of a wide valley, though, the land was covered in seawater where the glacier had been. They now called it Sit’ Eeti Gheeyi—'the bay in place of the glacier.'”

Here is a picture of tribe members after their return to the valley was official in 2016:

Here are pictures we took of Glacier Bay:

Our ship was getting in line to see the glacier. There was more than one cruise ship and smaller ships there.

Here are some pictures from Hubbard Bay:

The next picture shows the deck of the Amsterdam. Hot split pea soup was served by the crew to keep the passengers warm and happy. It was a nice touch.

Here is a different cruise ship getting in position to see the glacier.

I was lucky enough to be on deck when one of the glaciers calved. It wasn't a big piece that fell off but, still, it made a sound like a gunshot when it broke and then there was a big splash.

2010-6-18 Skagway, Alaska (1)

Skagway is so interesting that I will make more than one post to tell you about it. One of the great things is that our ship parked close to town and we just walked in. 

According to the ship information sheet Skagway is a Tlingit word, Skagua, which means "water bunched up" or fiord. Another source said it means "windy place."

You can see our ship at the end of the street in the picture below. The historic area of downtown has been restored including false fronted buildings and wooden sidewalks. There is nothing like a wooden sidewalk to make you feel you are back in the wild west. Or in this case, back in the Gold Rush era. 

In this photo you can see the outline of another cruise ship parked next to ours. Parking is at a premium in Skagway. 

This is an eminently walkable town. It has been restored to resemble the original. It still looks like the Gold Rush town of 1897. There are dance halls, inns and saloons. 

This is the building where the Arctic Brotherhood holds their meetings. Notice the large A and B on the front. 

We picked up a walking tour map at the Skagway Convention and Visitors Bureau. It's on Broadway between 2nd & 3rd. You can easily pick it out because the front is covered with driftwood. 

We listened to an introduction to the town by a man dressed as an old-fashioned undertaker. 

He asked us all if we wanted to join the Arctic Brotherhood. I asked him if there is an Arctic Sisterhood. He said there is but they are all up at the brothel! Hahaha! 

We all laughed but we later heard stories of women who made a living in Skagway without being prostitutes. Harriet "Ma" Pullen put her four children in the care of friends in Seattle and made her way north in 1887. She was hired to be on a crew building piers. In her spare time she collected tin cans and beat them into pie tins. She made good money selling to miners and soon that became her main job. 

With her proceeds, she built a hotel called Pullen House. 

Another successful non-prostitute was Belinda Mulrooney. She bought supplies of "silk underwear, bolts of cotton cloth and hot water bottles". She transported them to Dawson City where she sold them for six times the purchase price in 1897. She went on to buy into mining claims and built a hotel in Dawson City. 

Back to the Arctic Brotherhood. We joined and got cards to show we are members. 

Here is a picture Bill took of me sitting on the stage. 

While we were walking around we saw an old machine that was used to clear snow off the railroad tracks. 

2010-6-18 Skagway, Alaska (3)

This is the story of Soapy Smith, the alias of Jefferson Randolph Smith. He is the man in the pauper's grave on my previous post. Here is his photo from Wikipedia.

The large gravestone memorial belongs to a city engineer named Frank Reid. After an altercation on the wharf, Reid shot Smith dead. Smith shot Reid in the scrotum and he lingered for 12 days before he died. 

Townspeople were so angry with Smith that they left his body on the wharf for several days before burying him. At least, that's the story we were told. 

Smith started his life of fraud while he was traveling around the American southwest. He had a fake statue of a "prehistoric man" that he charged money to see in Creed, Colorado. 

"Smith earned his nickname “Soapy” with a more conventional confidence game. Traveling around the Southwest, Smith would briefly set up shop in the street selling bars of soap wrapped in blue tissue paper. He promised the credulous crowds that a few lucky purchasers would find a $100 bill wrapped inside a few of the $5 bars of soap. Inevitably, one of the first to buy a bar would shout with pleasure and happily display a genuine $100 bill. Sales were generally brisk afterwards. The lucky purchaser, of course, was a plant." From History.com

Smith pulled off a really cruel con using what he called a telegraph machine. He had a machine with batteries in it and had a man clicking on it in his "telegraph office". He told the miners he would send a telegram to Seattle for five dollars and after that it would go Western Union to their loved ones. 

Here is an image of his telegraph office from Wikipedia. 

If they wanted to wait an hour or two, he would give them a reply from "home" for five dollars saying all was well and wishing them luck. He often made as much as $15 on this scheme. 

If anyone bothered to follow the telegraph wire out of the building, it ended about 50 feet from the office. 

Here is the news story about his death. In those days Skagway was called by its Indian name, Skaguay. This is from a site called Simanaitis Says. 

According to the story we heard, the undertaker paid for the huge memorial to Frank Reid. 

2010-6-18 Skagway, Alaska (2)

We took a delightful tour of the city from the women on this bus. 

We went all over the city, including high points with good views and the forest. 

One of the places we visited was a bird sanctuary. 

Another interesting place was Gold Rush Cemetery which is full of long ago regular residents and a few scoundrels. This young woman explained the story behind two of the gravesites.

She told a very animated tale about the man who was buried here and the one who was buried next to him in a pauper's grave.

This is a long story and a good one so I will devote the next section to it.