Chapter Five: Juneau
Once we landed in Juneau and were able to get ground transportation (i.e., Richard and Kathy’s neighbor swapped cars so we could all fit into one vehicle), we were off to see the city where Richard and Kathy have lived for almost 30 years. Julie’s mother lived in Juneau until her heart attack in 2008 — which, unfortunately, she did not fully recover from even after surgery. Mostly what I knew of Juneau was framed by pictures from a trip Julie and Maya took there when Maya was about 3 years old, conversations about the place from my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law’s blog posts, and Richard and Kathy talking about where they lived. Now, words and pictures only do so much. Getting to see a place in person is…well, I don’t think there is a comparison.
This is Mendenhall Lake. It’s fed by a waterfall and a glacier that’s been melting more than usual due to the climate crisis. Kathy drove us there around 10 pm and it was spectacular because there was no artificial light obscuring the night sky — which was mostly clear. The image above was shot with my iPhone 12 which has a mode to capture all the available light and amplify it. So, that’s why this picture looks like a rising sun. That’s actually the moon. To give you some perspective on how dark it was, here’s some video taken from the same spot. Most of it is black, but soon you’ll see the moon.
See? Truly otherworldly. It really is difficult to capture the experience with words, images, and video, but this is about as close as you, dear reader, are going to get — unless you’ve been to Alaska, or are planning on going.
We took a hike on a trail on Mendenhall Lake (during the day) and were able to see the glacier and the waterfall in full force.
I took this arty-farty picture with a piece of the glacier in the foreground just so you can see that, yes, it’s ice!
Here’s a better view of the glacier:
And because video makes all things a little more real and vivid, here are a couple of short videos from when we got to the waterfall. The first is just the sheer power of the waterfall feeding the lake:
And then here’s one of Maya taking some pictures of Julie by the waterfall:
Another hike we did was around Mount Roberts — which you can access two ways. One is the tourist/paid route (i.e., the tram). The other is the more adventurous tourist/free route: a hiking trail. We chose the tram. It only takes about five minutes to get to the top — and by “top” I mean to 1800 feet starting at roughly sea level.
Once there, we took a looped hike to Father Brown Cross and back to the visitor center to cool off with some icy drinks. It’s usually mild and cloudy to rainy in this part of Alaska in the summer, but because we had two days of really great weather, it was actually kind of hot at times during this hike. Just when it was getting kind of warm, a cool breeze would kick in for some sweet relief.
On our last full day in Juneau, Julie, Maya, and Kathy booked a whale-watching trip. I wasn’t feeling up to going, so I opted to visit the Capitol building and a state museum.
Because whales are super majestic, I won’t bury the lede on their whale-watching adventure (which was fun, but cold at times). They got to see humpback whales, and this is probably one of the more impressive shots that Maya took:
The tour of the Capitol building was pretty good. As I noted earlier, the population of Alaska is 732,673. As a point of comparison, the population of San Francisco (as a census taken in 2021 found) is 815,201. Yes, there are more people who live in San Francisco than in the entire state of Alaska. That’s part of the reason why their state house is kind of small. But, from what the nice lady who greeted visitors at the building said to me, when their legislature is in session, the place is packed with elected folks, their staff, and people who are doing business with the government. It’s gotten so crowded that there have been plans floated to either construct a new building in Juneau or move the state capital to Anchorage or Wasilla. The seat of the territorial government was, before 1906, in Sitka, so it’s not like Juneau was always the center of government activity. Whatever happens, it won’t likely happen for a long time since the political will to undertake such a huge project isn’t there.
The state museum is curated in such a way that it really shows the history of the humans who have lived there from early tribes to the current residents. It’s a history that doesn’t sugarcoat the more brutal interactions humans have had with the environment and the animals that live there. It’s kind of depressing, but I applaud the museum for not making it all Disney-like history. I didn’t take many pictures of the exhibits, but I did capture two made me kind of chuckle (in a gallows humor kind of way). One is a t-shirt from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989, and the other was from political campaigns of the past — with the McCain-Palin sign front and center.
Except for a couple of walks, that concluded our whirlwind tour of Alaska. Four cities and lots of planes, trains, and automobiles. The places we rented were all nice, but the place in Juneau felt very familiar. And that’s because it reminded Julie, Kathy, and yours truly of San Francisco — especially the Victorian flat that Julie lived in when we first met. For Kathy, it reminded her of her grandparent’s place. It’s not hard to see why since the architecture of the place in Juneau was very similar to Victorian flats in San Francisco. Also, the smell was similar to a place I lived in on Fell Street (i.e., musty). Back then, I used to boil a combination of cinnamon sticks and cloves to keep things smelling, well, more pleasant. Kathy brought over a packet of cinnamon sticks and cloves for me to keep on a low boil — which did make the place smell better.
The apartment was really clean but because of its age (built in 1906) and location, that musty smell never really went away. Still, it was a pretty comfortable place. Instead of me writing about it, here’s a walk-thru video so you can see what the interior looks like:
So, that concludes the trip! What were my takeaways from Alaska? Well, it’s a far more ethnically diverse place than I thought it would be. The people there are also far more friendly than I expected. Alaska is geographically big. It’s a huge amount of land and the stereotype of its residents is that they are mostly libertarian/leave me the eff alone types. However — and maybe this is because we were in more populous and liberal areas of the state — the people we encountered were very easygoing, open-minded, and accommodating. And as far as the landscape goes, the places we visited were, in a way, like the Hawaiian islands. There’s a lot that’s similar, but each city we visited was also very different in terms of its terrain. I know that every place has differences, but since I didn’t know what to expect when we traveled to Alaska, the place really surprised me with its regional variations. Also, if you really want to get away from it all, Alaska is a good place to do just that. Once you get away from the tourist stuff, you’ll know why Alaska is called “The Last Frontier.”
Julie did her own blog series on our vacation. Have a look!
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