CRUISES: Alaska the Easy Way – Cruising with Holland America

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Seventy percent of Alaska belongs to the federal government. The state has the three largest national parks in America and it’s all there awaiting your discovery if you will only invest the time.

That’s the catch. The state is vast, big enough to make Texas jealous. You’re sure going to need a vehicle. If you go with a tour operator you’ll have additional choices like journeying part of the way by train, motor coach and river boat. That’s clearly the easiest way especially for first-timers. The first Alaskan to entice tourists was Chuck West, a bush pilot who married the first Miss Alaska. He started Westours and then Westmark, the first hotel chain in Alaska. His company was snapped up in 1971 by -- of all things -- a cruise line, Holland America. (Tel 877-SAIL HAL)

Holland America was possibly the first company exploring the coastline of Alaska to realize gold still could be found deep in our 49th state, tourist gold. The cruise line had escorted passengers up the Inside Passage to view the state’s magnificent Glacier Bay and explore the coast’s historic fishing villages but found visitors needed more; they wanted to see the interior, the real Alaska. Building on the heritage of Westours, Holland America’s Zaandam now shows them exactly that: an inland tour of our largest state with shore excursions typically including in Juneau, dog sledding on the Mendenhall Glacier, in Denali National park horseback riding on the semi-frozen tundra and in Skagway, a “wilderness safari” that ends with a canoe trip to the spectacular Davidson Glacier. We did a lot of paddling on that one until the guide agreed to use his outboard motor. At a distance the glacier doesn’t seem all that large but, up close, you really feel dwarfed by the cascade of ice. And you hope, If global warming is going to melt all this stuff at once please don’t let it be right now.

In Skagway we disembarked, as the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors did in 1897. Skagway is a great walking city with distinctive saloons and old buildings that are now museums. The air is dry, the sky is blue and visibility so clear that the mountains seem much closer. We checked out the old railway station before we boarded the White Pass and Yukon Route narrow-gauge train that parallels the dramatic, nearly impossible route the “Stampeders” took to reach Dawson’s goldfields. It’s hard not to recall the past when you look down below the train groaning up the pass and survey a trail so hard that when mules died in such masses the stink of their carcasses could be smelt 50 miles away in the homes of Skagway. A prospector had to make many trips to bring in what would meet the government requirements for food and equipment supplies. The parallel Chilkoot Trail into the Yukon has been called “the world’s longest outdoor museum.” Records show prospectors were required to bring in, for example, 20 lbs. salt, 40 lbs. rolled oats, 100 lbs. navy beans, 150 lbs. bacon, 400 lbs. flour and so on. The cost in Seattle in 1898 for the entire list including clothing was $369 but in today’s dollars would be $10,709. But if you struck the mother lode, the return would be priceless.

 

Dawson arrives as a brightly painted, walking town full of interesting buildings, most with a history behind them. There’s a fascinating museum and an forlorn cemetery beside a cabin once occupied by poet Robert Service and, next door, one inhabited by novelist Jack London before it was brought o this its final resting spot. Those two authors and novelist Jack London are the writers most beloved by those who enjoyed the pioneer days of our 49^th state. We left Dawson by river boat then coach, passing Eagle (a former military camp once commanded by the celebrated Billy Mitchell and now a ghost town with its old courthouse, church and derelict streets). We came to the celebrated truck stop of Chicken, (“originally called Ptarmigan but no one could spell that name”). At Fairbanks we floated under the midnight sun on the Chena river and at Denali we mounted horses for a tundra tour that revealed aging persons have aging knees. The beauty of a cruise-tour like this one is that not only does the ground transportation deliver you to any attraction but you can evaluate long before you make choices whether a tour with its comprehensive descriptions really is something you want to do

Even tourists familiar with our National Parks system find Denali a revelation. It’s unique: It’s larger than Massachusetts and one sixth of Denali National Park and Preserve is ice, some 10,000 years old and 4,000 feet deep. Denali is so far north the sun rises and sets in the North -- but for ten summer weeks perpetual daylight reigns. This truly is the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Spring trudges in around June, summer (and the mosquitoes) show up in July and autumn bows out in August. The growing season lasts only 80 days so the park’s grizzlies become ravenous during the brief berry season. Bears attempting to bulk up for winter hibernation will eat 200,000 berries a day. (We wonder how they found that out!)

Says our driver, Denali is a land of contrasts where miniature carnations, roses and rhododendrons rise up and Golden Eagles soar with wingspans of 6 feet. It’s a place where small snowshoe hares bounce across the track of massive moose. It’s a realm of 40 foot by 40 foot limestone monoliths, 350 million year-old glacial erratic boulders -- and 56 oz. gold nuggets.

It is a land that’s larger than life. That thought persisted as we eased into our McKinley Explorer domed train for Anchorage, past Palmer, the town that demonstrates how 24 hours of daily photosynthesis can grow oversized summer vegetables like 2½ pound tomatoes, 39 pound turnips and 168 pound watermelons.

Yes. Everything is big in Alaska even its 1964 disaster was the second largest earthquake in the 20th Century.

If You Go, consider whether you really want to spend, as we did, only three days on a ship where you have to bring more dressy clothes then ten days roughing it in more comfortable outdoor garments for the adventure of Alaska. We felt more time on the ship would have been preferable but we wouldn’t have wanted to shorten the land portion either. Such is the hard life of choosing vacations!