Third Day of the Cruise

This morning we arrived at Juneau.  The approach to Juneau was very picturesque.  We entered the Gastineau Channel which is a narrow straight, several kilometers long.  The channel is flanked on both sides by majestic mountains, which still have their winter snow.  The snow pack was extremely deep this year and is just starting to melt. The risk of an avalanche is high.

Juneau is the state capital of Alaska.  The town took off in the 1880’s when gold was discovered by a prospector named Joey Juneau, who is not to be confused with the former Ottawa Senator center.  It grew over the years and now has a population of 33,000 in town with a charter of 3,300 square miles. The town around the harbour seems to only extend about 5 or 6 blocks back from the harbour front.

This is a popular place for cruise ships.  Today there were 4 ships in port.  That means in excess of 10,000 tourists hitting the town at once.  The shopping area around the harbour is filled with jewellery shops and assorted souvenir stores.  Unfortunately I can’t say I saw any unique shops during our visit.

We took a tram up to the middle of Mount Roberts.  The tram stopped at a height of 3,000 feet.  From there we were provided with scenic views of the area.  We also saw several bald eagles nesting in the forest.  Because of the risk of an avalanche, they were advising people to stay off the nature trails.  Someone told Rocky that the snow pack was 24 feet deep this year.  That is a lot of snow.

Juneau from Mount Roberts

Marg, her dad and Wendy stopped at the heritage theater at the top of the tramway where they took in a concert by the Alaska Strings, which is a local family of musicians.  They thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of music that they played.  I went to see a movie on the Tlingit tribe who have inhabited this area of North America since prehistoric times.  Their unique language has 27 different sounds than can’t be found in European languages, including 4 which are exclusive to their language only.

After dinner we went to this evening’s entertainment.  The first show was Dan Bennett, a comedian / juggler, who was very funny.  His dialogs reminded me a bit of Ron James from the CBC.  One of the few lines I can remember was “it is hard to solve crime in Arkansas because all DNA is the same.”  The second show was a variety and cultural show by the Indonesian crew of the ship.  Someone should tell the cruise director that although the effort was commendable, when the entertainment value is on par with a primary school concert it is an hour of everyone’s time that they will never get back.