Juneau

Juneau was another port in which we had some long-planned celebrations.  Our journey there from Sitka was by ferry, once again, but what a ferry!!!   This was the “Chenega”, a catamaran ferry, twice as fast as the other vessels in the Alaskan Marine Hwy fleet, very modern, and beautifully appointedl!   It took us through Peril Straits, a narrow, twisty passage between the islands of the inner passage that was eye candy indeed!   Passage through Peril Strait is only done during high tide because it is only 24 feet deep and 300 feet across in places.   It made for some up-close viewing of the lovely shoreline.  

"Chinega", a catamaran type ferryboat from Sitka to Juneau

Lounge area on Chinega

Dining area on Chinega

Zipping away from Sika on the much faster Chinega

View out Chinega's front window

Negotiating Peril Straits

Our home base for the week was at the US Forest Service Mendenhall Glacier campground.    We arrived on July 3, just in time for the three-day Fourth of July weekend, and I’ll remind you that Juneau is the capitol of Alaska!  We anticipated crowds, so made a reservation at this campground 6 months ago, and we were glad we did. The setting was truly incredible!   It wasn’t just that camp was “near” the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier—we could actually see it quite plainly from our campsite!   What an amazement!  Blue ice flowing from the enormous face of the glacier into a milky lake—milky due to the presence of “rock flour” suspended in the water—called that because the glacier grinds the rocks as finely as flour.   We felt quite privileged to be there.  We never tired of gazing at the glacier from camp and from hiking trails in the area.

View of the Mendenhall Glacier from backside of our campsite!!!

Mendenhall Glacier from hiking trail above

Short walk from visitor's center to Nugget Falls really brought out the Independence Day crowds

Can't help myself--one last view of the Mendenhall for you!

We felt even more privileged, however, to have a visit on the “schedule of events” with Bernie’s brother, Bruce, and his family here in Juneau!  Many months ago, when we were planning our trip, Bruce, his wife, Judy, and son Kyle, also decided 2015 was also their year to visit Alaska!    They booked a 14 day trip out of Wisconsin—7 days by land and 7 days by sea—which, due to a fantastic coincidence, allowed us to rendezvous in Juneau for a day!    How exiting it was to go downtown and meet them at their enormous cruise ship, take a tram ride with them up Mt. Roberts for an aerial view of the city, have a guided tour-of-the-town of Juneau, and, thanks to our ability to fit everyone into our two trucks, take them out to the Mendenhall glacier.   And then—Langrecks being Langrecks—we all went to the Alaskan Brewing Company for a brewery tour and beer tasting!!   What an incredible thing to have a family reunion in Alaska!!!    We will never forget it—never!!!

"Radiance of the Seas" brought Bruce and his family to our rendezvous in Juneau

Mount Roberts tramway to lookout above Juneau

Out- and homebound trams pass in the mists of Mt Roberts

View from atop Mt Roberts with Gastineau strait separating downtown Juneau from Douglas Island  

What goes up, must come down...

Enjoying the Mendenhall together on a sunny day!

All together for our brewery tour!

Brotherly love!

   

We also celebrated sister Kathy’s birthday here!   We had a “few” more choices of restaurants here in the capitol city than we did for mine in little Petersburg last month.   We also found a wonderful folk music concert to attend that night downtown, and rubbed elbows with the locals at a very, very low key theatre!   At the performers’  request, the time prior to the show was passed by shouting out “bad jokes” with an Alaskan flare:

“Why don’t fish do drugs?    Because they don’t want to get hooked!”

“Why does the ocean roar?   You’d roar, too, if you had crabs on your bottom!”

“How do you circumsize a whale?  With fore skin divers!"

Okay…

Happy birthday, Kathy!

Folksy theatre

"...and many more!!!"

Juneau is a beautiful place apart from the Mendenhall.   Just driving the roads reveals scenery that knocks your socks off, makes you think what a beautiful place this blue planet of our is, and how lucky we are to be alive!   Many would call these "spiritual places".   Apparently the Catholic Church did.  They found a spot on the Juneau shoreline which elicited that kind of feeling, and in 1930 built a shrine there to Saint Terese.  They also built the most amazing collection of the "stations of the cross" that we've ever seen.   We were truly moved by the peacefulness of this place.

So with beauty like this, how do you keep your eyes on the road?

    

St Therese shrine

A peaceful place to give thanks...

Stations of the cross

View of the ocean from St Therese shrine and grounds

Fishing was the other big story for us here in Juneau!!  As the ferry boat approached the harbor on our day of arrival, we noticed salmon jumping all over the ocean!   Everywhere!   A local on the boat with us said, “Yep, the chum and the humpies are running now!”  A few days later, we went fish-hunting!   We had come across a cove earlier where locals were fishing and doing very well.  We determined to go there ourselves the next day, and had the place to ourselves.  The “birthday girl” caught a lovely pink salmon on her third cast!   Well, I couldn’t let my big sister get away with that, so I caught one on my second cast!    It was an amazing experience catching 25 salmon in less than 2 hours.   Bernie, who was our self-appointed "fish-handler”, had all he could do to bleed and gut each fish before we caught another and another, but he also caught his share!   Pink salmon are also known as “humpies” due to the males developing pronounced humps on their backs as they move from the open sea to their spawning grounds up a river.   They also develop a beak-like face and darker color.   The other four species of salmon are chum (aka dog), sock-eye (aka red), king (aka chinook), and silver (aka coho).  Pinkies are the smallest of the five species but plenty big, believe me!!   We kept the less mature silvery ones, letting the other 13 we caught go on with their amorous quests up river.   As the photos show, both of our camper freezers are full to capacity now with yummy, yummy salmon!  

Birthday girl catches salmon on her third cast!

Peggy, not to be outdone, catches one on her second!

Bernie's fighting fish leaps in the air in protest!

Got 'em anyway!!

I thought photos like these were only in the tour books!

Jim and Bernie haul away the "keepers" 

Bernie begins processing the fish

Ready for the freezers!

We rounded out our salmon-educations with a visit to a fish hatchery here in Juneau.  From what we understand, fish hatcheries such as this became necessary in the late 1960s because salmon populations dwindled severely due to the over-exploitation which started in 1800.   The number of fish in the ocean then was so enormous that the supply was felt to be inexhaustible—but it wasn’t!   Luckily for us salmon-lovers, the hatcheries have been very successful in boosting fish populations.  And whereas the Macaulay fishery had been breeding and releasing all five species previously, they no longer need to aid pink salmon reproduction because their numbers have reached a point where they can breed naturally and sustain a healthy population on their own.   None of this, by the way, is to be confused with “farm raised salmon”.   The fishery just facilitates egg fertilization.  The fry are released to live freely in the sea and when caught are considered “wild” Pacific salmon. 

Fish ladder helps the salmon move from ocean to hatchery

No fish ever worked so hard to get to our plates!

Cool viewing windows under the water

Fish ladder full of chum (dog) salmon

"Hello!"

Bernie view fry tanks from above.  120 million fingerlings are released yearly, with a 2% return rate upon maturity

Unfortunately, no museums in Juneau, the state museum being closed for remodeling until 2016.   Museum or no museum, we did learn that Juneau was founded when gold was struck in Gold Creek here, and the city was named after the first guy to stake a claim—Joe Juneau.   We know so little about the era of gold-seeking, but will have that deficit corrected real soon.  Our next stop is Skagway which has plenty of museums and gold prospecting history!   We are looking forward to experiencing that!