Whittier to Anchorage

Our CruiseTrain awaits.

Bear Valley

The salt water marsh created after the earthquake.

The dangerous, quicksand-like, silt flats.

Teeming salmon.

The beautiful magpie.

A gull scavenging from dead salmon.

Tugboats

Sunday, August 13^th.

New logistics – getting everyone off the ship! There were 21 waves of passengers called for disembarkation from 6:15 to 12:15. I was in wave 11 at 8:25. Only 75 staterooms of people were returning to Vancouver on the ship, but hundreds of new passengers were arriving today for the south bound journey. We arrived at Whittier at 1am. So, when I woke up, I packed up my backpack with my important stuff (camera, electronics, passport, wallet, etc.) and went up to deck 9 to have breakfast. It was grey, overcast and raining again. Passengers were organized in the waves by where they were going, what tour they were on and how they were getting there. From the ship I could see the CruiseTrain waiting to take me to Anchorage. It was a bright new bubble train with large windows that went up and over the top. As we traveled, we had a guide in our car who told us the history of the area. She told us that Whittier was originally built because during the Second World War the Americans wanted to build a ‘secret’ military installation that would be difficult to spy on. This harbour with its abundant cloud cover and rain was the perfect location. It could only be reached by the sea or by air, so they blasted a 2.5-mile-long tunnel through the coastal mountains, and took only a year to complete! It is the longest tunnel in North America. She explained all the safety features and that passage it is controlled by computer as it is one way. On the other side was the lush green Bear Valley. She then told us about the area where in 1964 the largest earthquake in history occurred. It registered 9.4 on the Rictor scale and the land here dropped 12 feet! This allowed the sea from Cook’s Inlet to swamp the area and the salt water killed the spruce trees creating standing dead forests. Only 9 people here died but hundreds were killed further away by the tsunami it created.  She also told us how dangerous the silt flats are. The silt is rock that has been ground up to flour size and behaves similarly to quicksand when stepped on. People have been stuck and can't get out. The tide comes back in and they drown...The scenic train trip took about three hours to get us to Anchorage where we boarded a waiting coach which took us into town to a staging area because our hotel rooms would not be available until 4 in the afternoon. We met our land tour guide, Julie, who explained we could leave our day packs here and then told us things we could do in the meantime. I chose to go for a walk to Fish Creek where the salmon were running, and gulls were harassing them and eating the dying ones. The end of the salmon’s life is arduous as they try to swim upstream against the current, over dams and other obstacles, through a phalanx of predators to get to the same area where they were hatched only to lay their eggs and then die. Many die enroute, providing a huge exchange of nutrients from the sea back to the land and the forests that they came from. From there I walked around this small city along the coast and back to where I started. I walked for about three hours. Someone decided to make Anchorage an easy place to get around as all the streets are simply numbered or lettered, no names. My hotel, the Westgate is at 5^th and G. I am on the top floor, the 14^th overlooking the city and the inlet. After I checked in, I tried to go for dinner at the very popular BrewHouse but there was a 90-minute wait, so I went to Orso and had a seafood pasta. I was back in the room by 8, sorted photos and went to sleep by 9:30.