Seward Alaska!
We have arrived in Seward and it is still wet! While touring the city the first day we discover a street that had recently been wiped out by a recent land slide damage. The road leading out of town has been reopened but it is not anywhere near being a really good road. The land slide not only took out part of the road, but it also modified the path of the river that was descending the mountain creating a rather impressive waterfall.
Our first tour was a boat ride and of course it is still raining but off we go and although it is a cold and dreary day it was still a nice boat ride. We got to see some otters, a few Orcas and puffins.
The second day we went to the Alaska Sealife Center which strives to educate people about the sealife in Alaska. They had a special presentation concerning Puffins and although I knew about the bird it was very interesting. Pictured below is two of the stars of the show.
After the Puffin presentation we also toured the Sealife Center where we observed a lot of fish and sea mammals but one graphic that I found very interesting was the one below showing how log different mammals could hold a breath and how deep they could dive. More importantly after diving so deep each made it back to the surface! The two facts that amazed me the most was the fact that a human dove over 700 feet and that a Sperm Whale could dive 10000 feet which is just under 2 miles!
The next day we had free in the morning and in the afternoon, we have reservations at Seavey’s dog training facility and of course it is raining again. After a brief introduction we are divided into smaller groups which are guided to different holding pens containing several dogs and a training cart. We are then loaded into wheeled carts that are used to train the sled pulling dogs. According to our assigned mushers the dogs need to run every day and the short trip that we will be taking today is just a warm-up for them.
After the ride we get a chance to meet some puppies and also get some insight to the equipment and racers who participate in the Iditarod Race. One thing I learned that day was that although most dog trainers are very protective of their dogs and rarely ever sell the pups because of the way Covid-19 shut down everything the owners of this training facility had to sell of a substantial portion of their dogs just to keep the business afloat. Today they are coming back stronger than ever.
The next day we traveled to Palmer, Alaska and we are only staying two nights. When we arrived, we found out that the Alaska State Fair was being held and several members of our tour went to see what it was about. Already we have had several members of the group test positive for Covid-19 so to be safe Judy and I opted not to go to the crowded fair. We do have a couple of tours to do but once again it is raining so they may be altered to allow for the wet weather.
Palmer Alaska was a small village that was started during the depression by encouraging people to immigrate there from farming areas that were affected by the dust bowl. Of course, there were a lot of promises made to get them there and most of them were not met in a timely fashion. Yet today the people who stayed have grown into a farming region that grows all kinds of produce. Thanks to the twenty plus hours of day light and good soil.
Our first stop today is at the Palmer Visitor Center where we are introduced to the town and some of its history then we are offered a walking tour of the town, but it was somewhat abbreviated due to the rain. One memorable stop was at the Log Church. It was a very warm and inviting building and most of the city tour was completed here.
While standing around the visitor center, I spied a signpost of sort and much to my amazement I see that it is only a little over 4600 miles to Dover DE. Imagine someone thinking it was important to put something like this up.
The next part of our tour was the Colony House Museum and today the docent was a lady that had actually grown up in one of the Colony homes from the initial immigration experiment. Some of the stories she told were interesting.
Our next tour is to visit The Musk Ox Development Center. This facility practices a stress-free process to the raising and semi domestication of the animal. Our tour guide emphasized the fact that they raise semi domesticated animals. Evidently Musk Ox that are bottle fed as calves get used to being close to humans. This bond can become very dangerous for the people trying to work with them as they mature. Musk Ox are raised solely to produce some of the finest wool in the world. The walking tour of the farm was impressive to say the least. The farm has been divided into several lots that separate Musk Ox of different ages and sexes. The lots were big enough that getting good photos was pure luck. The head of the Musk Ox has a very bony base at the horns and this bony base is part of what keeps the Musk Ox from causing severe damage when they are sparing. There is also an air pocket between the skull and the brain.
Our next stop is Valdez, and as we travel there it is raining and foggy, but we are amazed by how beautiful Alaska is. I forget what the actual numbers are but there was an unbelievable number of waterfalls and glaciers. We tried to get photos of them but finding a place to stop with a sixty feet long rig is challenging.
We are supposed to take boat tour of Prince William Sound where we may see whales and glaciers. However, Judy has been unlucky enough to get the Covid 19 again so it is five days of quarantine for us Yes, I guess I could take a test and go if I am negative, but I decided to stay in the RV with Judy and Edgar. Maybe out of sympathy of her situation and possibly wondering if my “head cold” is something else. The other reason for not taking a test it that we will be going back into Canada soon and deniability is more plausible if I actually don’t know, only time will tell. Of course, it was pretty neat to be standing on the shore watching the gang sail away.
Now that we have some time to fill, we take a few road trips around Valdez and some of the memorable ones are the trip to the fish hatchery and the trip to an old glacier bay. The fish hatchery is almost directly across the bay from where we are parked but we have to drive several miles to get there, and one never knows what may be seen on the way. Although we don’t see anything on the way we are presented with a marvelous show of Sea Lions lounging around feeding on all of the Salmon swimming there. We have been told that grizzly bears frequent the site too but someone else will get to see them.
Another leg of the trip was to the remains of a receding glacier, and it turned out to be pretty moving. While we are looking around, we started talking to a man who tells us the story about his family bringing their mother there a few years ago to see the glacial pool. The story of how much his mom enjoyed it was interesting, but we all realize that as he is talking about her a rainbow suddenly appears over the pool. We admire the rainbow and continue to talk when the man realized that he has forgotten his phone and asks Judy to take a photo of him with the rainbow in the background. She did and texted it to him, in return he goes to his car and gets us some smoked salmon. We talk a few more minutes, say our goodbyes and go to our respective cars and to our amazement, as the man drives away the rainbow vanishes too!
One morning while Edgar was on a walk, I spied a very old delivery tank truck for a local oil company. Of course, I couldn’t pass up a photo of it. On another walk we go by a local park and there is a very large sign explaining the ABC’s of Bears. A was for Access to food. If you get in the way of a bear trying to feed, you are already probably in trouble! B was for Behavior (yours) make noise to make bears aware that you are near, never approach bears in the wild and always keep your food secure and out of reach. C was for Common Sense use it! On other walks we see how low the tide gets when it goes out. I swear the boat in the photo below is grounded!
Valdez is the end of the Alaskan Pipeline, and the city is aware of the impact that the pipeline has had on Valdez and Alaska so there is a rather large sculpture saluting the people who built the pipeline in a local park around the corner from where we are parked.
Our next travel day will take us back to Destruction Bay and I have already told you everything there is about camping in a gravel parking lot. At least this time it shouldn’t be raining. Tomorrow is September 1 and it is difficult to believe that in less than two weeks we will be done. We are going to Skagway where we will be staying for four nights. That sounds like a good place to start the next post on.
Actually, it is almost the end of October as I write this and although we are back in the states it amazes me how we manage to find places that have little or no phone or internet service. I swear I am seriously looking at getting a satellite internet service of some type.