From the deck of the MV Columbia

We left Ketchikan after a couple mile run- I’m not sure if Teton or I enjoyed it more, and lunch with Peter at the New York Café. I had the recommended curry carrot soup and a salad, which leapt with flavor especially in contrast to our ferry food; Peter’s roast beef and grilled cheese sandwich- light on the horseradish- he enjoyed as well. Internet is 12 cents a minute, so we were able to post our first blog entry. Two of the massive cruise ships were in port, and it’s clear where the line is between cruise-ship-Ketchikan and the rest of it. The cruise ship part of Ketchikan is cute, frontier style buildings and even a small board-walk on either side of Ketchikan Creek, a small rocky river. The rest is typical Alaska, sprawling dirty, and unmaintained. For some reason architecture of all sorts in Alaska is completely uninspired as a general rule. Maybe it is because people would rather be out in the wilderness than worrying about their houses. Which in this place is a hard thing to argue with.

The Tongass National Forest begins just south of Ketchikan and runs northwest up the Alaskan panhandle. At 17 million acres, the Tongass is our largest national forest, and it is part of the world’s largest temperate rainforest running from south-east Alaska to northern California. As much as 200 inches of rain fall very year. It supports the world’s largest concentration of bald eagles, and 7,000 grizzly bear, as well as five species of Pacific salmon. Trees soar over 200 feet tall, and some are more than 500 years old.

Despite its size, it is worth remembering that only 2-4% of our nation’s original forest remains. Although a million acres of SouthEast Alaska’s coastal rainforest have fallen to clear cut logging, the Tongass still has almost 30% of the world’s remaining, old growth, temperate rainforest. And even as a National Forest, the Tongass is still constantly threatened with development. The 1980 Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (1980) requires that the BLM report any potential for development on all public lands, and as a result there are either identified opportunities for- or full blown development of- silver, zinc, and gold mines, uranium mine (within a National Monument), and even a request for oil and gas leases- all within the National Forest. Only 5.8 million acres of the National Forest is designated Wilderness. We mentioned in the last post how unchecked or careless development ruins the habitat of salmon- just one of hundreds of species in the cycle- which in turn adversely impacts salmon development which comes back to hurt the forest itself. Given the tiny amount of our original forest remaining, is that really how we want to treat them?

It’s tricky. The Forest Service is managed by the Department of Agriculture. The BLM, like the National Park Service, is managed by the Department of the Interior. Many people and at least as many interests have their hands in the pot of the nation’s public lands. The charter of the Forest Service is to manage public lands for shared use- development and conservation. They are looking at the balance sheet as much as they are the environmental considerations.

Canada might give us a cautionary tale with their tar sands oil development. In order to harvest oil from sand and feed the economic demand, Alberta, Canada is wiping out miles worth of boreal forest, and scraping off tons of the peat and soil below those soils to process the bitumen from the sand for oil. The result is absolute and complete destruction of the land, as well as massive quantities of toxic tailings.

I hope as a nation we might realize that these threatened lands are ours, and that we speak out about how we want to protect our public lands.

As we left Ketchikan, we cruised through the narrow channel where the Bridge to Nowhere was to be built, connecting the town of Ketchikan to its airport, which currently is connected by a small ferry. Given the very short distance the ferry from the mainland to the airport travels, and the enormous height which would be required to span the distance and yet be out of reach of the cruise ships traveling through (or ferries for that matter) it seems ludicrous someone would have considered a bridge. Though as one of the MV Columbia officials noted, Ketchikan residents were a little miffed at the term “nowhere.”

Heading through the Clarence Strait between the coast and the third largest island in the U.S. after Hawaii and Kodiak, Prince of Wales Island, I woke up from a nap on the deck to someone shouting- two whales some ways off were breaching. Again and again they breached, maybe twenty times, explosions of water erupting as they crashed back into the sea. Several hours later, a lone humpback swam south, coming to the surface to breathe and send spray into the ocean air on a gentle and rhythmic course south. Both are reminders that we are the least of the travelers on this journey north.

Something about humpbacks I’m hoping to see someday. Although they are generally more solitary than orcas, for example, who travel in pods, between mid-June and mid-July they do something called “bubblenet feeding”. As the pod finds a school of small fish, such as herring, one whale dives below the herring, blowing bubbles, disorienting and driving the school of fish to the surface. The pod of whales dives together and, in one choreographed movement, bursts from the depths to the surface, vaulting out of the water as a pod with wide mouths gaping, swallowing thousands of gallons of water and herring. I’ve only seen photographs, but I can hardly imagine anything more spectacular. The occasional boat caught in this feeding pattern has been snapped in half. Lest we think we are above the destruction Canada is seeing with their development, the herring population in Auck Bay and around Juneau has been declining precipitously since the 1970s, ostensibly as a result of development and overfishing. Understanding how all of our systems are interrelated we should respond with humility- and action.

In addition to humpback whales, gray whales, killer whales (orcas) and even, amazingly, the blue whale are making the journey. Gray whales should be between our current location and a bit further north at this point on their 10-12,000 mile migration. Bowhead whales – the most important sea mammal for native peoples from both the cultural and subsistence standpoint- and beluga whales are already north- their migration is circumpolar, as they are well adapted to remain in arctic waters. The reminder all of these mammals bring is just how much life is constantly present in the arctic seas, as inhospitable as they may seem to us,  as well as how much life arrives annually.

A short stop in Wrangell, a tiny town of 2,500 tucked into the forested hills, 15 minutes, just enough to get Teton out for a quick walk, and we already want to come back and spend time here. The mountains into Wrangell are gorgeous-they are the Coast Mountains, considered to be the tallest coastal range in the world. We are heading toward the “mountain kingdom of the northwest”, the largest national park in the country, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, htough we wont reach it for several hundred miles.  It is the largest collection of glaciers and peaks over 16,000 feet on the continent. This area is particularly known for its beauty and spectacularly poor weather. We are anxious to see the St. Elias Mountains, but the Coast Mountains themselves are incredible.  Just off shore of Wrangell are a number of small, forested islands begging a coastal exploration by kayak. We determine to get back here to spend some time. I remember a recent issue of a magazine highlighting surfing in the SE. Apparently in areas it’s very good, though it sounds cold.

All of the little towns- including our second to last stop, the moderately sized state capital of Juneau, are accessible only by boat and air. As a result the Alaskan legislature has been known to start or end late due to bad weather interrupting travel. The towns are coastal, but bounded by a range of steep mountains pitching up from the sea which, especially combined with bad weather, makes air travel precarious. In the 70s an Alaska Airline flight carrying over a hundred people crashed into a mountain taking off out of Juneau, and in the 80s a National Guard plane crashed into the same mountain. The sparse road system shared with Canada starts in Haines and Skagway. This travel by boat is having the hoped for effect of slowing us down, though. We can read, sleep, do a little work or watch the ocean- that’s it. With no internet access we can’t even check email- something of a blessing, though I can’t do as much research as I’d hoped. Maybe that’s ok. Sometimes it is good to have time to just sit.

A little bit more fun before bed. The route from Wrangell to Petersburg on the Alaska Marine Highway is through the Wrangell Narrows, initially a thin valley carved by glaciers. We are on the largest boat in the fleet, and apparently the largest vessel passing through the Narrows. The Narrows are dredged to 24 feet, and the Columbia draws at 17 feet. Parts of the Narrows are 150 feet between buoys, and the Columbia is 85 feet wide. I have to imagine it’s a lot of work to pilot the ferry through with parts of the channel nicknamed Christmas Tree Alley, Twisting Nightmare, the Ditch and Pin Ball Alley for the number of navigational aids and turns required. It does give us the chance to see a mother moose with her calf just on the shore, barely visible in the twilight, and only ten minutes later another mother moose and two calves. The proximity to shore on this part of the journey is special.

The Columbia broke down again in Juneau, so we’ve transferred to the MV Malaspina (all the boats in the fleet are named after glaciers) and now have a few hours to head into town. The typical SE weather has settled in now, light rain, low ceiling and clouds drifting in and out of forested and snow capped mountains.

We have a fabulous breakfast at The Sandpiper Cafe, get a few groceries at the Rainbow grocery, and a really good chai at the Heritage Coffee Shop where the internet is also free (with our chai). Juneau is a beautiful town with narrow streets, neatly maintained roads and buildings with character. Most impressive are the mountains which climb straight up behind town with waterfalls and fog drifting in and out of the spruce and cedar. Soon we will be back on the water and heading toward Haines.  And looking forward to the chance to explore the Tongass National Forest more on our trip south!

Special thanks to Ray Massey of the Forest Service for corrections and suggestions.

Quiet waters off of the MV Columbia

MV Columbia left Bellingham eight hours late at 2 AM Saturday morning. We squirmed around in our tent, pitched on the upper deck at the stern and surrounded by ten or fifteen other tents. Despite the quiet and clear night sky, Ursa Major and the north star leading us forward above the Alaskan flag mirroring the dipper on the mast, the sea air was punctuated by broadcast ship announcements, the deep vibration of engines and the enthusiastic conversations of the people two tents away from us who had brought pot to smoke and party. From the moment we pulled away from port, the air curling around the ship buffeted the tent mercilessly. Finally we fell into a restless sleep with the nylon of the tent snapping against our backs and cracking like whips in the wind.

The MV Columbia is the flagship of the Alaska Marine Highway system, the largest ship and the one chosen for the longest travels. We are heading to Haines a three- day trip up the inside passage, following the coast along British Columbia and the Alaska Panhandle. From there we will drive to Denali over two days, back into Canada and then back again crossing the border to Alaska. The weather is spectacularly clear, a fact about which I feel somewhat suspicious knowing how unlikely that is, but will choose instead to feel lucky. Cruising along the shore and among coastal islands covered in deep green forest and backed by spectacular mountains, many still snow covered or holding glaciers tucked into their valleys, we peek up quiet streets of the rare tiny coastal town, watch for whales and let the expanse of unpolluted sea and land soak into our bones. Once in a while clear-cut hillsides remind us of the constant peril this land faces. The scar on the land is gruesome, the more so considering its terrible impact on the ecosystem in total. Even with the sobering reminders, after travels around the world purposefully seeking out beautiful mountain regions, I still don’t think anywhere comes close to the majesty of British Columbia and Alaska.

Cruising north on the ferry is not unlike getting on the plane to Alaska in winter- you would never confuse it with a ferry in California for example. Most of the people look like Alaskans, or like they’ve spent plenty of time in Alaska. Plenty of flannel shirts, suspenders, unkempt hair. I resemble the last characteristic at this point. Most are American- we haven’t heard another accent, which surprises me a little bit.

Teton is sadly required to stay in the car on the car deck. We are on the upper car deck, which, upon loading, required us to drive onto a cable lift and then off again. The cars are packed in like sardines. Three times a day a fifteen-minute “car call allows us to quickly access our cars- and dogs. We didn’t know this would be such a rough trip for Teton. The walking option for dogs is up and down between tightly packed rows of cars on cement. After 24 hours on board, she finally braved the cement floor to pee. We are grateful. The number of cars cleaning up accidents is growing each car call. The worst she has done is to drool impressively on my baseball cap in the car.

The ferry is not only the bare bones transportation I expected; a reasonably priced if uninspired cafeteria has a few options fresher than the packaged food we brought (though also allows us to bring in our groceries for meals), a dining room, a bar, a movie lounge. There is fresh water available for water bottles. If you didn’t bring your own water bottle, a machine with Dasani bottled water will charge you $2.25 (not to mention the waste of plastic bottles) We’ve opted to camp though cabins are available if you book early enough. Showers are available for anyone, which we’ll try later today. In addition to the fifteen tents, there are maybe a hundred plastic lounge chairs where people have brought sleeping bags to sleep in the solarium, an outdoor covered area with heat lamps where we will sheepishly slink if the rains start coming hard.

Our ferry forest service guide’s enthusiasm partly makes up for lack of substance though she holds several programs a day to talk about the natural world in Alaska. Mostly high level, she nonetheless gets in some interesting facts. Of the salmon eggs laid each year, only single digit percentages will make it back to spawn. 145 million salmon are taken by commercial fishing each year. Sport fishing is a 1.4 Billion dollar industry in Alaska. She does not convincingly make what is the very important point that salmon are critical to the survival of the forests. As salmon swim up river to spawn, astonishingly close to where they themselves hatched, they die after spawning, or are caught and consumed by eagles, seagulls, wolf and bear. Some of these predators eat only the belly and heads, the fattiest portion of the fish, and leave the rest to leave nutrients in the soil. But even deep in the forest salmon DNA has been found at the top of the tallest trees (which in SE Alaska are tall indeed, the Sitka Spruce soaring from hundreds of days of rain). When predators consume the salmon and return to the forest, they leave the digested salmon remains, rich in the critical ingredient of nitrogen as well as others, in the forest in their scat. This provides the nourishment the forest needs to grow.

Maybe the biggest lesson here is the deep complexity of the interdependence of life. We have barely scratched the surface on understanding this. But when salmon are threatened, the forest is threatened. Habitat destruction through development as well as overfishing- a complex issue, as hatcheries in Alaska release over a billion salmon each year which can compete with resources of wild salmon, threaten the salmon. The Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the nation- needs salmon to survive. Our earth needs forests to survive. We cannot allow any part of this system to be destroyed without causing the ruin of the system itself- which includes ourselves.

Alarmed at the continuous violent pummeling by the wind and potential damage to the tent, Peter moved our tent back from the railing before we settled in for the second night. Several people had given up after the first windy night and opted for the solarium, and space opened up. Secured closer to the ship, the tent sits quietly. We had our dinner of thai noodles from Trader Joe’s, watched a video, I put in ear plugs, and we sleep soundly. Our previously active neighbors, including a guitarist, a drummer and a harmonica player, fortunately seemed to have worn themselves out the night before and were quiet. We’re just about caught up from the crazy week of packing and moving out of the house. And we’re now officially into our second trimester, so I’m eagerly awaiting the return of energy promised by all the books. I’m sure Peter is too, so I can pull a bit more of my own weight!

On this second full day of travel, we are pulling into Ketchikan, people hanging on the railing looking for eagles- from where we hope to post the blog- in another hour and a half and have two hours in port- Teton will finally get some fresh air and a chance for a dignified bathroom break, and we’ll get in a jog, some fresh food and air!