After a day at sea, we headed to the so-called Inner Passage - essentially a long stretch of sea between Canada and the Pacific Ocean consisting of several islands, the cities of Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Sitka, and one of the world's last remaining temperate rainforests, the giant Tongass National Forest. Our first stop, Alaska's oldest city, the Salmon Capital of the World, Ketchikan.
We only had a couple of hours here though, so we scrambled to try to see a couple of things. Here was the first place we observed the booming seaplane industry of Alaska - outside of oil, Alaska's economy depends largely on its tourism, and arguably the most profitable tourist activity (which, regrettably, we never got to do in our stay in Alaska) is taking a seaplane up to see the glaciers above.
We also took a stroll to the Totem center - Alaska is also quite famous for its rich native culture, being home to the Inuits, Aleuts, and the populous Tlingit.
However, rushed as we were, we didn't get a chance to properly explore the totem center, either!
Shortly after, we were on the boat again, on the way to the state capital, the elusive city of Juneau. Juneau is the fourth largest city in Alaska, but you couldn't hardly tell by looking at it. It's also afflicted with an incredibly rainy season, much like the rest of its inner passage brethren. Interestingly, Juneau has a single highway that stretches about 20 some odd miles across the city but features not one, but two dead ends. In fact, Juneau is only accessible by sea and by air, with no roads leading to it!
Aside from being the state capital, Juneau also is situated near the famous Mendenhall Glacier, a glacier that you can get right up close and personal to, with not much of a walk. It would be the first of many of Alaska's great blue glaciers that we would experience!
After returning from the glacier, we rode the cable car up to another mountain park, operated by the local Tlingit tribe. At the top, we got to take another short trail and see some pretty nice views of Juneau and see our first bald eagle up close! Granted, it was a captive eagle, but we don't get to see bald eagle's up close all that often (despite the fact that Florida actually has a pretty large bald eagle population)!
We also ran into some fellow Melbournians in Juneau. Aside from getting several "Go Gators" hollers throughout our trip (the Gator Nation really is everywhere!), who'd have thought we'd meet up with folks from little ol' Melbourne?
Our last stop in the Inner Passage was the gold mining town of Skagway. This little town really had an old-school flavor to it - it looks just like an old mining town in the 1800s should look like!
Despite its history as a booming mining town, Skagway today has virtually no local population, existing almost entirely due to tourism. In fact, they never really did find any gold in Skagway to begin with, so one could say that Skagway has always been home to exclusively outsiders looking for an adventure!
Cherry started feeling a bit of fatigue, so we headed back shortly after eating some excellent Dungeness crab:
That night was a special night on the
Beautiful Diamond Princess. It was the night where the crew members, instead of the professional performers, could showcase their talents on stage! After some chaotic balloons, we saw some truly impressive, and some outrageous, performances by the international crew! The highlight of the show, by far, was this Filipino singer, who sang a male/female duet, all by his lonesome!
Next time, up, Glacier Bay and our farewell to the
Beautiful Diamond Princess!
