ST. TRAVELS

Tuesday was our stop in Juneau – the capital of Alaska.  Instead of doing the usual tourist attractions, we did our own thing as a group of four on a taxi ride to the airport. 

You see, Sue and I are on a mission to visit as many of the U.S. National Parks as we can, and today we visited our 27th park:  Glacier Bay NP.  That journey required a commercial flight from the Juneau airport to fly 25 minutes to Gustavus, a town of 500, so we could get to the park visitor center and lodge. 

This flight a small 8-seater plane was spectacular – at 4,000 feet you get a view that is tantilizingly different than from the deck of a cruise ship!  

Glacier Bay National Park is, in fact on a bay, and not on a glacier!  While there are still many glaciers in this area, our focus here was on history. The visitor center is located near the shoreline at the mouth of the bay, where the glacier reached its farthest point when it was rapidly expanding in the 18th century.  

This is the glacier than forced the Tlingit people from their homes here in 1750. I was amazed to learn that it only took 100 years for this glacier to grow oveer two miles in length. Then I was astounded to hear it shrunk back to its previous size in only 80 years! 

This past year the Tlingit people erected a tribal house near the shoreline, and all wood was carved by a small group of natives. We got a private tour of the meeting house by Wally, a member of the frog clan, who explained the story of the totems and wood carvings. This was a magical hour seeing the intricate wood carvings.  

We then took a one-mile nature walk, guided by a park ranger, near the visitor center who explained how the ponds were formed and the symbiotic relationship of trees, ferns, lichen, and land.  

On the return trip, the airline needed two planes to take all the booked passengers.  All seats were taken on both planes, and Ted was asked to sit in the co-pilot seat on the 8- seater plane, and Mike got his  asked to sit in the co-pilot seat of the 4-seater plane!