A View of Alaskan (Part II)

 

 

A View of Alaskan (Part 1)

A Taste of Alaskan

Brewery Bound

During my first voyage to Alaska, I partook in an activity I rarely experienced in my corner of the world: bicycle riding.  Admittedly, I experienced a wealth of activities in Alaska that eluded me in my southern lifestyle, but pedaling through the state capital rejuvenated me and reminded me of my capabilities when I push beyond my comfort zone.  To top off the sights, sounds, and sensations, we ride to the local brewery for a sampling of the fare, and when back aboard ship, I order a bottle to remind me of the brilliance of the day.

Fast forward fifteen years and I find myself again on two wheels pedaling my way through Alaska.  So much has changed in a decade and a half: Mendenhall Glacier receded deeply, my skills on two wheels floundered, and my favorite brewery changed locations.  Nonetheless, I keep cycling knowing the end of the journey brings me to the delightful tastes of Alaskan Brewery.  New seasonal tastes accompany and enliven my encore visit and I am reminded how much I enjoy the tastes that a distance of 3,248 miles enhances.  And although the adage sometimes rings true that one can never go back, I did, and deliciousness ensued.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

I sit on my front porch tonight, surrounded by the remnants of the first snowfall of the season.  Mother Nature keeps her own calendar and unlike mine, she believes winter arrives more than a week before the official start of autumn.  Despite thinned blood, I face her head on and I prop up my feet on the edge of the front porch and bask in the waning sunlight and ignore the thirty-six degrees.  I will enjoy my last unofficial day of summer regardless of her parting gift.  Across the country students have been back in school, some for nearly a month, but I make enchantment in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming as long as the season will allow.  But the foot-plus glistening white blanket Mother Nature cloaked over the ground yesterday signals the end of a glorious summer in this spectacular setting.

Melancholy moments such as this one challenge me not dwell wistfully on the time that passes, but to appreciate every day, every sunset, every excursion, every wildlife sighting, and every twinkle of the night sky that I have enjoyed.  The grandest highlights and the quietest periods of reflection combine into a summer full of memories to rival a lifetime of travel.  My summer home, my quirky cabin, my vast mountains, and my porch view surround me.  My skin tingles from the cold air.  The smell of the forest accompanies each inhalation.  A foraging squirrel squeaks out his success in acquiring a stash of pine nuts for the winter.  And to my right, the final sunset of my summer fades brilliantly behind the bank of trees.  My senses savor these fading hours, and I cap off the farewell to summer with the last bottle of beer in my refrigerator: Alaskan Summer Kölsch-Style Ale.  Summer never tasted so sweet.

Besides The Bus To Wal-Mart

 

 

 

 

The Bus To Wal-Mart

What Constitutes A Tourist Attraction

 

Driving through the streets of downtown Juneau, the driver of the multi-passenger van that carried me to my excursion pointed out the highlights of third largest city in the forty-ninth state.  One might think expected sightings would include whales in Fritz Cove, or bald eagles perched in the treetops along the North Douglas Highway, or the creeks and rivers draining from Mendenhall Glacier.  When travelling to Alaska from the continental United States, the goal to see the breadth and depth of the state during the short time ashore should include these elements of nature, framed by the jagged mountains that surround the state’s capital.

 

At the helm of a van full of tourist freshly disembarked from their cruise ship, this driver skirting along Egan Drive enlightened his southern guests on what daily life along the northern Pacific coast is really like.  Juneau’s citizens were the first Alaskans to shop in a Wal-Mart Super Center, which they have only been doing for a handful of years.  On another corner, the driver drew our attention to the McDonald’s – one of only five in the over half million square miles of Seward’s Folly.  Surprisingly, the state capitol building didn’t even make the cut of notable structures worth highlighting.

 

What Constitutes Gorgeous 

 

When I step off the Norwegian Pearl in Ketchikan, I bypass the shops and sights of Creek Street, I veto the option of seeing Totem Bight Park and I head north of town to paddle around the edges of the Pacific Ocean and see the starfish clinging to the rocks and glistening in the early autumn sun.  I dodge the typical tourist sites to bask in the near silence of the kayak paddle dipping into the water and the seals sniffing their nostrils above the water’s surface.  Were it not for the chill of the walls of ice, the fjords of Glacier Bay would have been the most gorgeous views of all the scenes I enjoy in Alaska, but the perfect temperature and the tranquil scenery around me as I float on the water fill my mind with a myriad of memories in which to relish.

 

On the drive back to the cruise ship, I listen to the music of my iPod shuffle clipped to my jacket and gaze out the window as we travel down the narrow, pine-lined streets.  Not to brag when I say I have driven through all but one of the fifty states, and for all I have seen and enjoyed, nothing compares to the grandeur and beauty of Alaska.  Truly, nothing compares to the vast, beautiful scenery of the most northern state, and due to its immense size, from the Pacific to the Arctic, from the Bering Sea to the Yukon River, the entire United States is better for having Alaska as one of its fifty.  And in case you did not know how the spectacularly gorgeous the images of Alaska sparkle from nearly every vantage point, the driver of the van brings me back to this ship pointing out one of Ketchikan’s most important landmarks: the corner stop where the cruise ship employees catch the bus to Wal-Mart.  Don’t miss it!

What Would You Do For The Klondike?

The Gateway

Many cities may consider themselves the gateway to something even bigger.  Ellis Island served as the front door to millions of immigrants.  Clusters of “gateway cities” hover near the metropolises of Boston and Los Angeles.  St. Louis’ skyline screams “Gateway to the West.”  And just a few underground bus stops away from the Pike Street Market, teeming with purple jerseys headed towards CenturyLink Field, on an autumn afternoon I meander my way to a small, square, two-story display inside the converted old Cadillac Hotel that serves as the historic gateway to the Great White North: The Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park.  This über-progressive, sleek city on Puget Sound became the jumping-off point for the gold seekers of the late 19^th century.

At this Seattle unit, the importance of the city’s role in the expansion of the forty-ninth state shines like the bullion bars stacked in the front window.  Seattle can rightly take credit for being the best place to gather and prepare for the journey northward, but just as rewarding, the boom in Seward’s Folly and the Yukon fields beyond it, brought growth, energy, and excitement to the Emerald City.  Nordstrom, the man, not the store, set off for the frozen ice fields and the fortune and glory they promised, and then he brought his fortune and glory back to Seattle.  As Erastus Brainerd of the Seattle of Chamber of Commerce professed, Seattle was the point of departure.

All That Glitters

The path to riches in the Klondike gold fields required more manpower than most men possessed.  Dozens of hikes up and down the Golden Stairs of the Chilkoot Trail broke the backs of men trying to enter Canada with a thousand pounds of goods strapped to their spines.  Likewise, the horse power of three thousand horses failed as these beasts of burden fell to their deaths along the lower, but narrow and harrowing hike over the White Pass summit.  Seeking gold in the Klondike truly fit the adage of the desire to succeed, “…or die trying.”

Unfathomable to me, as I stand in the cozy shelter of this most southern piece of the Klondike historic tour, may be among the scores and scores and bustling bodies that crowded into Seattle, then Skagway, then the Yukon just before the turn of the century.  Battling the stinging, wretched, blistering cold, only a small percentage of these prospectors actually found their richest dreams realized when they finished sailing downstream on the Yukon River.  An epic journey’s inspiration and steely-cold ambition must have driven these hearty souls to pursue an adventure full of peril and only minimal possibility.  I adore a great adventure, but witnessing the passion and endurance they mustered to reach the western edge of the Canadian territory, I flatly admit I would have not braved what they braved, embraced the struggles they embraced, or pushed myself as they pushed themselves for a Klondike bar – no matter how it glimmered and glistened and glittered.

Shared by Bears and Coeds

Not Disappointed

I once heard dialogue on TV about the Grand Canyon: the one place that when people see it in person, it doesn’t disappoint.  Truthfully, just once in my decades of exploration have I visited a place that disappointed [location withheld].  How inspiring and memorable a destination impacts me is less a measure of its “breathtaking” factor and more about the simple bits of beauty and the brief moments of discovery beyond the obvious focal points.  I love the Spanish word “buscando” because I search for more than just a photographic view.  The fragrant sweetness of the Great Basin, the soft meadows tucked above the Grand Canyon (see “Jacob Lake” from January 2012), and the rolling mist hovering above Niagara Falls do not disappoint me, regardless of the expansive iconic sites just around the bend.  I look for the pieces and parts surrounding the highlights, not just the picture spot itself, to inspire me, to touch me, to alter me.

Alaska doesn’t disappoint.  Glaciers calve into the bay, mountains scrape and poke into the clouds, and turquoise-tinted waters fed by millenniums of melting ice exponentially astound those who journey northward.  As I stand on the edge of Mendenhall Lake with its frozen source across its shore, I am reminded that the thaw continues, and may be unstoppable, and I appreciate that I see the process midway between frozen block of ice and a completely liquid lake.  Believe me, a glacier is an awe-inspiring site, but getting to its edge means even more.  My legs pedal me to this site with the sweet and salty taste of the trail mix on my tongue and the cool, wet air spritzing my face.  These sensory elements of my ride all make the background more than just a perfect camera shot, because the scents and pleasures of the day combine to not disappoint, even without the awesome glacier sliding for eons through the canyon across the lake.

On My Way

Along the road to the glacier, wildflowers dominate the foreground: white daisies stand tall and perky, with low leaves, allowing them to blossom independently of their life source.  Fireweeds thrive and shoot upward showing their heartiness and durability, and their strength and determination to survive.  Forget-me-nots, the Alaskan state flower, the petite, gentle blooms, with colorful petals, offer gentleness from the harsh winters.  All three uninhabited floras remind me in their brilliant beauty of my own characteristics others overlook while driving past on their way to more spectacular vistas.  I see myself in these flowers as I move through my life: the times when I reached for my independence, and learned to stand tall on my own; the struggles that forced me to hold strong and be determined to make my life what I wanted; and the times when leaving a simple and brilliant impression spoke louder than my voice.  I take away a lot from the simplest surroundings.

As I bike to the end of the path at the University of Alaska, a paved trail shared by students and bears, I reach the beginning of a downward slope of the two-lane road.  I continue to pedal to increase my speed, and then I let go.  Stinging my face, the cool wind pinches my skin reminding me this is no dream, and it plays with my hair, lifting and dancing behind me as the bicycle flies.  No conflict, no confusion, and no clutter distract my thoughts.  Coasting downward, I exert no energy, yet the surge of adrenaline transforms into tranquility as I reach the bottom of the hill.  Serenity and satisfaction surround me, and while I choose to ride alone, I am not lonely.  Singularly exhilarated, and with the nexus of this ride still ahead, what I absorb from this journey makes reaching the destination more valuable.  Whatever glaciers lay ahead in this lifetime will never disappoint me as long as I witness and recall the splendor along the way.