I suppose you faithful readers know that we recently vacationed in Alaska and in Vancouver, Canada. We had a wonderful time, as we seem always to do when we travel. This will be the first post of several about our trip. Each of us carried a camera, and between us, we took 880 photographs, in fact more than we took on our Mediterranean cruise last year! I promise not to show them all.
You probably have some idea about Alaska's size. Make no mistake about it! Alaska is vast, huge, big, and immense in so many different ways. I knew it was supposed to be big, but until I was there, I really didn't appreciate how big it truly is. Various guides loved to ask if anyone present was from Texas. Then they would say something like, "You know, Alaska is 2½ times bigger than Texas!" or "You know, if we divided Alaska in two, Texas would be the third biggest state in the nation." We heard these comments so often, that they got a little old. On the other hand, I'm definitely OK about jabbing Texas. You could put something like 429 Rhode Islands into Alaska. If you placed Alaska on top of the "lower 48", it would cover most of the central US, and its panhandle would touch Florida, while its Aleutian Islands chain would reach California. Nevertheless, Alaska ranks 48th in terms of population with about 750,000 persons, exceeding only North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
I was impressed not only with Alaska's size, but also with the amazing vastness of the open spaces, as for example, in Denali National Park, and by the numbers of mountains, rivers, glaciers and plains. The nature of the environment is interesting too, given that so much of it is covered by permafrost and has such short growing seasons. To put this into perspective, we learned that the park is about the same size as New Hampshire or Vermont at 9,492 square miles, and it takes that much land to support the relatively small populations of animals that live there. This includes no reptiles, lots of birds, and several kinds of mammals. However, there are only about 90 wolves in the entire park and a similar number of grizzly bears. There are many more caribou and moose, but those populations are not large. The point is that it takes lots and lots (and lots and lots) of land to support relatively small numbers of animals compared to what you might find in the lower 48 states.
The number of glaciers surprised me. There are amazing icy-blue glaciers in every mountain range. We saw and heard some of them quite closely, as you will learn. By the way, Denali National Park is not even the biggest national park in Alaska. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, which we did not visit, is 20,587 square miles. We did visit Glacier Bay National Park, which is sizable too at 5,130 square miles. Many more national parks and preserves are in Alaska, I suspect more than in any other state. There are numerous mountain ranges, and they are all beautiful. Many have very high peaks—Mount McKinley is the best known, of course, at 20,320 feet, it is the tallest peak in North America. We didn't see most of Alaska, most notably the large, open, roadless areas to the north towards the Arctic Circle, but we did see Anchorage, Denali National Park, and a good sampling of cities and areas in the panhandle down along the coast towards Vancouver and other parts of Canada.
A couple of other quick comments about our visit, and then I'll quit lecturing like a teacher and start reporting on our experiences. We felt fortunate to have such nice weather throughout most of the trip, given that we chose to travel early in the Alaska tourism season—temperatures in the 60s and rain that was light and misty and expected in coastal towns that have rain 300+ days of the year (often leading to gorgeous rain forests and other vegetation). Starting so far north, we saw days with nearly endless sun—we watched this change as we moved south over the course of the trip. The land parts of our trip and the cruise along the coast to Vancouver were equally enjoyable, each offering their unique treats. There were plenty of good eating opportunities, as you will learn in some of these postings, many involving seafood, especially salmon, of course.
We flew six hours nonstop from Chicago to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines. The distance was about 2850 miles, whereas the flight from Vancouver back to Chicago was about 1775 miles. Anchorage is quite a distance north. You may recognize the name of the person after whom the airport is named.
Maybe you can tell how happy we both were and how much fun we were already having later that evening when we found an excellent brew pub for dinner—The Glacier Brewhouse. I loved the several micro breweries and beers we discovered throughout our trip.
Kathie had rockfish, and I had salmon. Both were "catch of the day" offerings, and the presentations were typical of the dining we experienced throughout our vacation. Good both visually and in terms of taste.
The next morning, our first full day in Alaska, we boarded McKinley Explorer train cars owned by Holland America (our cruise line of choice) for a day-long ride to Denali National Park, where we stayed in a chalet for two nights.
The cars are pulled north by the Alaska Railroad, which has lines between most important points in the state. You can see we were high in domed cars with wonderful views of the many mountains, rivers, and other sights along the way. Beverages were available throughout the trip, and there were dining rooms in the lower levels of each car. A guide provided narration and information selectively along the way as we passed through communities and scenic areas.
One of the reasons we have so many photographs is that it is difficult to resist taking pictures of the scenes. Knowing you don't want to see picture after picture after picture of mountains, I'll try to just give you a taste.
A couple of the more interesting towns we passed through were Wasilla (more on that in a future posting—no, we didn't see Sarah, which was just fine with us), Willow, and Talkeetna. Willow is the host city for the official restart of the Iditarod dog sled race each year. As I understand, there is a ceremonial start, and then the big restart/sendoff begins in Willow. Talkeetna is the city from which most mountain climbers embark for attempts on Mount McKinley. There is an airstrip there, and they fly from that airstrip to the first base camp on the mountain. By the way, there are many, many, many airstrips in Alaska. Aviation is one of the state's major industries. Bush pilots get folks to destinations in most of the state, since there are so few roads. There are also many float plane harbors in the state, the biggest and busiest in Anchorage, where at the height of the season, takeoffs and landings occur at the rate of dozens per hour. We were told that airplanes can have priority for landing on roads, when necessary, and that vehicles must allow for that.
I love the Alaska flag with its depiction of the Big Dipper or Ursa Major constellation.
We saw quite a few critters while on the train, including caribou and moose. These are caribou.
After we arrived at the McKinley Chalet Resort (click for pictures and information), we relaxed awhile and then had dinner with many of our traveling companions at an old-time dinner-theater event within the resort. The food was quite good (salmon, of course, and ribs), and the servers soon became the entertainers. Their excellent voices and the skit they performed, about the settling of the state of Alaska, were fun.
Part 2 will continue with our tour of Denali and trip to Seward to begin the cruise portion of our vacation.
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