Everything is big in the US and Alaska is no exception. It is huge - Alaska is larger than the three largest states in the US combined - but at the same time it appears that besides Sarah Palin almost nobody lives there (the population barely reaches 700,000). And now even Palin is moving away, this really is "The Last Frontier" as it says on the local license plates. But what a fantastic place it is. It takes "Into the Wild" to another level. King Salmon fishing, following into the footsteps of "The Deadliest Catch" and wrestling with bears, you name it, we'll do it. OK maybe not the bear part, but definitely all those other things.
Wednesday 4 May 2011 - Friday 13 May 2011
We kicked off our Alaskan adventure in the South Eastern part of the State, better know as "the Panhandle". We expected snow and Eskimos and got thousands of islands, green rain forests, floatplanes, snow capped mountains and a lot of sun. Basically a rougher version of NZ.
Ketchikan
We first hit Alaskan soil in Ketchikan, a small fishing town prone to a lot of rainfall which goes by the nickname "The First City" as it is the first place you encounter when you come up from "the lower 48" (Alaskans refer to the rest of the US as "the lower 48" simply because Alaska became the 49th State to join the USA in 1959 after it was bought from the Russians for a mere $7.2 million over a century earlier).
Ketchikan - population 8,200, which makes it the 5th largest town in Alaska! - is the self-proclaimed "Canned Salmon Capital of the World" or as they say down there "We eat what we can and we can what we can't". OK, I admit that was slightly sleazy, but I read it in one of the travel guides and just couldn't resist dropping it in. Ketchikan's other two claims to fame are that it has the largest collection of totem poles in the world and that it tried to spend $400 million on the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" (linking Ketchikan to neighbouring Gravina Island, home to just 50 people and an airport). The totem poles are still there, the bridge never got built (although Sarah Palin managed to keep the money Washington gave her for it, making herself pretty unpopular in downtown Ketchikan in the process).
The tourist season is relatively short in Alaska due to the harsh winter climate. It basically runs from mid-May to the end of September. As we got there just before the season started we weren't surprised to find that we were the only guests when we checked into the Black Bear Inn. And to be honest it was great to be there before the cruise ships arrived. We were pretty much the only tourists in town. We did our best to fit in, so we went to the "Blessing of the Fleet" by the local pastor, joined the locals for the charity Lumberjack Show (an experience) and I even went snorkeling after mixing up Fahrenheit and Celsius (I should have known better, water temperatures of 42 degrees in the middle of Alaska just sounded too good to be true, and unsurprisingly it was).
And then all of a sudden it was all over. After having had Ketchikan to ourselves for a couple of days, the first cruise ships of the season arrived. The population almost doubled instantly. Right then and there we decided that we will send the next person that really pisses us off on a Disney Adventure cruise. Seven days on a ship full of little obese five year olds with an unhealthy adoration of Mickey Mouse will break the toughest of men. Most people over the age of 14 will try to drink themselves into oblivion every night. No better way to cure a hangover than having breakfast sitting next to an adult male dressed in a fluffy Donald Duck outfit. Every morning that is. I bet you will try to kill yourself by the third day and that would be taking the easy way out. Well we found out that the good thing about cruise ships is that they only stay in town for around six hours. So by the afternoon we had Ketchikan to ourselves again.
A local fisherman by the name of Tony took us King Salmon fishing on his little boat named the "All Star". Tony - a real Alaskan, just wearing a t-shirt, while we were wearing four different layers, a woolen hat, gloves and a rain jacket - tried to teach us the art of King Salmon fishing. Well we tried very hard but we failed miserably. There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on a boat like an idiot and I think we crossed it. The score ended King Salmon 1 - RJ/Em's fishing skills 0. In our defense, it was very early in the season for King Salmon and Tony hadn't managed to catch one yet either. And it didn't help that a bald eagle took off with our bait at one stage. Tony took pity and fortunately we had more luck with bottom-fishing as we managed to pull in two very ugly looking rockfish.
The next day we tried our luck with some King Crab fishing on the "Aleutian Ballad", a crab boat which featured in the TV show "The Deadliest Catch" for two seasons. The boat is run by some former Bering Sea crabbers, who found out that they could make much more money showing some crab fishing tricks to tourist than risking their lives in the waters surrounding Dutch Harbour. This is what real men look like and they managed to pull up some crab pots with King Crab in it as well. Still in awe, we downloaded about 26 episodes of "The Deadliest Catch" as soon as we got back to our B&B.
A visit to Ketchikan wouldn't have been complete without a boat trip through Misty Fiords, a massive nature reserve full of humpback whales, seals and dolphins. We even spotted our first bears in a place called Herring Cove.
An integral part of our travels has been eating and we wouldn't want you to miss out on Ketchikan's culinary highlights. The best burgers in town were courtesy of a place called Burger Queen. Without a doubt, they also have the best slogan in town: "Burger bitch just didn't sound right". We also found a shack at Knudson Cove Marina called the Dockside Galley which had the best halibut burger we ever tasted.
We spent our last day in Ketchikan shopping for totem poles. We ran into master carver Nathan Jackson who, in between placing prank calls, showed us some of his work. We have decided that totem poles are totally awesome and I so want one for my birthday now (they are only $4,000 a foot after all...).
Petersburg
As they don't really do roads in South East Alaska, you need to take a floatplane or a ferry if you want to get around. We took the Alaska Marine Highway ferry for the 10-hour journey from Ketchikan to Petersburg. It was amazing. Not only is the trip through the "Inside Passage" filled with scenic highlights, taking the ferry is also the best way to spot humpback whales. Although we went for the soft option and took a cabin (grandly called a "Stateroom"), you have some people literally pitching a tent on deck. The ferry has to twist and turn through the 46 turns of the "Wrangell Narrows" before reaching Petersburg. The "Wrangell Narrows" is a 35km long channel that is only 90 meter wide and 6 meters deep in certain places. The locals like to call it "Pinball Alley".
Petersburg is a sleepy fishermen town of around 3,000 souls with a strange fascination of anything remotely Norwegian. As Petersburg is not on the route of the cruise ships we were once again the only tourists in town. It was great.
We checked into the Waterfront B&B, run by two sixty year olds called Sammy and LeeRoy. Especially LeeRoy was a real character - a sort of human version of a bear but then with suspenders - and not only did he make a killer breakfast, he also had some great war stories up his sleeve. Most of these stories ended with LeeRoy's standard line "Well, he got the message". One of LeeRoy's party tricks was feeding the eagles by throwing leftover salmon in the air, while bald eagles would circle above our heads and dive down at dazzling speeds to catch their snacks.
Petersburg is a real contender for the "Best Small Town of The List of 28 Award" and we once again tried our best to mix with the locals. We were soon regulars at the Javahus - the only coffee place in town, run by the fittest girl in town - and the newspaper agent even put a copy of the local "Ketchikan Daily News" aside for us every day. In the sunny afternoons we would just sit on the dock of the bay, watching the floatplanes fly by.
We also managed to get a taste of the "Little Norway Festival", an annual festival to celebrate Petersburg's Viking heritage. First we went to the fashion show at Lee's Clothing Inc, which was hilarious as it basically consisted of two girls sitting in the window for five hours chatting to each other while wearing $450 woolen Norwegian sweaters. In the evening we went to a "Viking Dinner" at Kito's Kave (no it's not a typo). Let's say it was an experience. The dinner consisted of a massive turkey leg with some corn and potatoes. And to make it a real "Viking Dinner" nobody was allowed to use cutlery, forcing everyone to eat with their hands. Apparently last year the local Valkyries provided shots from their busty bosoms, but Health and Safety got air of it and put a stop to the whole thing. I was gutted.
After the dinner there was a "Dueling Pianos" show, which basically means that there are two piano players who will play any song the crowd wants to hear as long as some dollar bills come their way. After a healthy quantity of Alaskan Ambers the crowd got with the Viking theme and got pretty rowdy. Their favourite tune was "Dick in a box". Don't ask. When we left around midnight, the two middle-aged women at our table were still busy planning their next bear hunt. Just another night in Petersburg, AK.
Next blog: Destination #26: Alaska: Into the Wild at Denali Park (Part 2)
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