Doing Things Backwards

Today, after I posted my blog I got thinking of Icy Strait Point, wondering if it's on an island....so I asked Siri.  You'd think I would have thought of doing that before we left for the cruise...but I didn't!! I have a tendency to do things backwards sometimes.  Anyway...I did find out some interesting info.

-Icy Strait Point is a privately owned tourist destination just outside the small village of Hoonah, Alaska.

-it is located on Chichagof Island and owned by Huna Totem Corporation which is owned by approximately 1,350 Alaskan Natives with aboriginal ties to Hoonah and the Glacier Bay area.  Many of them are of the Tlingit people.

-it's the only privately owned cruise destination in Alaska.

-we were told it opened in 2003 but the computer said it  opened in 2004

-in 2016 the 400 foot floating dock replaced the tendering

-all shops located there are owned by Alaskans (That is so refreshing to hear after seeing so many of the shops in other ports owned and operated by Americans [and others] who only come to Alaska during cruise ship season to open their shops!)

Icy Strait Point

.

Again we docked at a very long dock.  Icy Strait opened to cruise ship traffic in 2003.  At that time passengers had to tender into shore.  Tendering is very difficult for people with mobility problems so the Elders of the tribe did counts on how many people were visiting and submitted them to prove that they could really use the dock.  This dock was built and they even have an "overgrown" golf cart running back and forth on the dock for those who have difficulty walking such a long distance. 

 

In the past the main thing at Icy Point was the fish cannery.  There was a settlement nearby so many of the workers lived there and the cannery had little houses built to house the managers of the cannery.  Today these little houses are private property and people live in them.

A large portion of the cannery buildings and some of the out buildings are now used as souvenir shops and eateries but they have a nice display of  the fish cleaning machine (known by the derogatory name "the iron Chink), the line where the fish were further cleaned, the machine that cut the fish into pieces, where the tins were filled, sealed and put into the retorts to cook.

Near the cannery building we saw these "rocks" lined up on the shore....they aren't rocks.  An old building was built on pilings, was torn down and the pilings, which had been pounded deep into the ground were cut off, leaving these stumps.

As we were walking into the cannery there was a zip line.  Apparently at the time it was built, it was the longest in the world, but someone else has since built one a bit longer.  There was also an area where they had a fire burning and benches around it so people could sit and rest for awhile.

 

Haines, Alaska

Sailing into Haines Alaska

A really large dock to tie up to.  Apparently they need these long docks and have to keep adjusting the gangway because the tides here have such a large variance.

 This bus met us at the visitor's center at the end of the dock and took us on a tour of the town.  We took the whole tour (about 15-20 minutes) then stayed on the bus so we could go to the museums.

From here we walked across the street and up the hill a little and went to the Hammer museum...every kind of hammer you could imagine!

We walked a little further and went to the library so we could get internet and check our emails.  Internet was pretty slow but we did get some stuff accomplished.  After that we walked down the hill and went into the Rapture Center.  They have a huge display of stuffed animals of the area.  Outside they have eagles, hawks and other injured birds they're caring for.  Unfortunately we ran out of time so didn't get to see them.  The bus picked us up and took us back to the ship.

Glacier Bay

This morning park rangers from Glacier Bay National Park came aboard our ship.  They're going to be setting up displays in the Crows Nest Lounge and narrating about the glaciers and the wildlife as we spend the day cruising and seeing the glaciers in the bay.  Apparently most of the glaciers are receding, one is advancing and one is holding it's own.  We were fortunate enough to see a glacier calve...where a chunk breaks off the glacier and falls into the water.  We were told that the bay is salt water but the top layer is fresh water which comes from the ice melting and calving.

 Another Ship in the bay.

 Chunks of ice floating in the water.

 Some of the ice floes have picked up dirt and debris as they've worked their way down the glacier.

More about Juneau

When we were in Juneau 22 years ago they were just starting to build this tramway to the top of the mountain.  We sat inside the Crow's Nest Lounge on the top deck at the bow and watched the helicopters taking stuff up to the top of the mountain.  We didn't go up the tramway today because it was pretty overcast to get much of a view.

There is Douglas Island across from Juneau so they built a bridge over to the Island and people live there, but have to come across the bridge to do most of their shopping.

Mendenhal Glacier

We took the tender in to shore, walked around a bit then met up with our tour.  It's been raining off and on all day, but that's to be expected on the Alaska coast.  We toured around town and saw the Red Dog Saloon...an old saloon that's been in Juneau since the gold rush.  Juneau is the State Capitol even though you can only access Juneau by water or air.  There are roads in Juneau but none of them go to another state or into Canada.

a

Our ship at anchor in the harbour.

Bus took us up to the glacier.  It's a National Park so has a viewing platform and a Visitor's Information center.  They usually show a film about the glacier but just as we got to the park the power went out so the washrooms were dark, the hand blow dryers didn't work and they couldn't show the movie.  The power did come back on about 20 minutes later, so we did get to see the displays they had there.

We were at the Mendenhal Glacier 22 years ago and were saddened to see how much the glacier had receded.  I took a picture of the photo I took 22 years ago to compare. It's not exactly at the same angle and trees have grown up in the foreground but 22 years ago the glacier was much closer to the viewing platform.

Juneau

When we got to Juneau, the first people who wanted to go ashore had to get tender tickets.  HAL's (Holland America Line) way of controlling how many people line up at one time...they are so good at crowd control and that makes it so much more pleasant for the rest of us!  We gave up our tender tickets because in our daily program we saw they had a special lunch in the dining room.  We were booked for a tour later in the day so decided to go to the dining room for lunch before tendering ashore to meet up with our tour.

This was our lunch...so good!!!!  Very glad we stayed onboard to enjoy it!