Dearest Rachel –
Up until Wednesday, I had no idea this was a place, let alone this was where we were going to be stopping yesterday. Judging from the maps showing our ship’s progress and itinerary, I’d assumed we would be pulling into Juneau – which, ironically, would have been the first stop of this trip (barring Tokyo, and even then, we spent our time in the unfamiliar neighborhoods of Harumi and Tsukishima) that we had ever been to before. It would be fitting to end the trip at a series of destinations that we had visited with our very first cruise together as a family.
But while this place is relatively close to the capital – 35 miles away as the crow flies, which is a short hop by Alaskan standards – it’s located on a whole other island. It’s a fairly new port, too, built and run entirely by the indigenous Tlingit people who call the area home.
Although, while it’s hardly my place to advise them, calling their port “Icy Strait,” while undoubtedly accurate, seems hardly the sort of name that would draw a crowd of tourists. Sure, there are worse names (Hell, Michigan comes to mind offhand, and yet that turns out to be a name that actually attracts people to it; go figure), but advertising your port as cold and cramped doesn’t seem to me to be much of a selling point to me.
Despite knowing next to nothing about the area, we decided to make the best of it, and looked up the area with the help of our little technological aide. It turns out that the port is essentially run by the Tlingit people, who call this part of Chichagof Island home – and also live in the town of Hoonah, just a mile or two south of the port itself. So we decided to head down there, and take a look around; among other things, we were informed that our side quest of trying reindeer sausage might actually be fulfilled there.
As has been the case for the past couple of stops, however, it was not without its hiccups; the restaurant we were recommended to didn’t seem to exist – the location we were sent to appeared to be behind the local school, and pretty much vacant. It wasn’t until we stopped at a local gift shop that we had were given directions to another place – which we had already passed along our way. Even finding this new suggestion – which was right along the main street we had been walking – turned out to be difficult, as most of the buildings, including city hall, didn’t seem to have much in the way of identifiable signage.
While we were trying to retrace our steps, we received a call from home; I guess I should be grateful for the fact that, since we were already back in the States, we would be able to receive such a call in the moment, but it wasn’t what you might call good news.
It wasn’t that Dad was gone… yet… but at that moment, it was pretty clear that there was no way we would get back in time to see him off. And even if we had been able in that instant to drop everything and fly home, what would have been the point? He was all but unresponsive, spending much of his time asleep, and unable to talk when he was awake, merely gesturing with his hands as to what he wanted or didn’t want. Our presence would make little in the way of difference; and in any event, he had blessed our trip, even jokingly apologized for not being able to pick us up at the airport when we would be returning next Monday (despite it being at a relatively opportune time).
But it does hurt that we won’t see him before he goes.
Still, it was actually easier to soldier on than you might have thought. It turned out that the place we had sought was just behind us. Not the bright red building in the background of that announcement, but the one just beyond it, across an empty street. There, we got ourselves the late breakfast we had skipped aboard the ship (in fact, I’d even skipped my usual coffee, due to the limited time we had to pull ourselves together and get to our tender). And as is our custom, I gave the usual commentary on the meal, and whether it was worth the effort we’d put into hunting it down – long story short, it shouldn’t be the main reason to come here, and three stops of looking had probably built it up to something more than it could have been, but as a specific side quest, it was well worth looking into.
Honestly, this would have worked pretty well with some grilled onions, as well as the mustard; the Maxwell Street crowd would be impressed with how tasty this was.
Anyway, given how long it had taken us to get down to Hoonah – and that we’d lost track of when we needed to be back on the ship – we felt the need to hurry back, and were a little concerned about how that would work. Fortunately, the trek back went a lot faster (probably since we weren’t wandering aimlessly, among other things) and proved to be a lot shorter as a result.
Once we got back to the port, more or less, the place was quite crowded – not only were our fellow passengers there, and those of the Oceania ship, but a third ship had arrived, the MSC Poesia. It would seem that this is the inaugural run into Alaska, not only for the ship itself, but the entire cruise line; most of their itineraries tend to be in European and Caribbean destinations. Suffice to say, the place was crowded in a way that Alaska doesn’t generally tend to be. Still, we took it as a sign that we didn’t need to be in any great hurry to get back aboard ship, and even decided – since we’d walked our appetite back, after a fashion – to take in a dish of reindeer meat that the more touristy places around the port had been offering; it made for a decent contrast with breakfast.
Back at the port as we were, we decided to finish up our time ashore by riding the gondola up to the top of the mountain to see what the view was like from there. As it turned out, it’s actually quite difficult to see much into the harbor from the peak – it’s not as if we were above the tree line, even at that point – the view from the gondola itself is much more sweeping.
Behind the semi-carnival nature of the shops and stalls was a path that turned out the be a nature hike as we tentatively followed it.
Daniel, in particular, didn’t seem to be impressed; he seemed to have been expecting some kind of circuit route that would return us to the gondola station. Having to simply double back – and re-climb the route we’d already taken down a ways – didn’t strike him as “worth it.” Then again, everybody has a different idea of what it means for a moment like this to be “worth it”; the other tourists weren’t so much lying to us as having a different definition than we did.
In any event, we were actually back aboard the ship by two in the afternoon, hours before we needed to, yes, but we’d taken in all we felt we needed or wanted to. And indeed, we’d seen and done more here than we expected to – and more than we had in several other stops – so it’s not as if it was a disappointment. It seems like a good idea to come to a place with no expectations these days; that way, a destination can easily exceed them. Then again, this place sets the bar high for our last couple of stops.
Be that as it may, honey, I’d ask that you continue to keep an eye on us, and wish us well. We’re still going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 