There is a time and place for everything.
Alaska had been on our bucket list for several years.
The popular television serial The Last Frontier had aroused interest; and so had stories about this northernmost US state (that was added to the mainland after the Russians sold the land at 2 cents per acre). Of course, the promise of great seafood and picturesque and vastly different landscapes were important factors too!
Mid-June this year proved to be ‘the time’!
After loads of research and hours of scouring the net, we zeroed in on a 7-day cruise that started from Seattle and ended there too, with 4 stops (including one in British Columbia, Canada). The latest ship in the fleet of Celebrity Cruises, Celebrity Edge, was to be our home for that week.
We are cruise buffs, and this promised to be another perfect 7-day holiday. Sightseeing, entertainment, great dining options, high levels of services and hospitality—and most importantly, all taken care of by the cruise organizers. Freed from decision making and logistics planning for 7 days—that’s a treat!
Celebrity Edge was a beautiful grand vessel and her numerous restaurants, the retail outlets, the casino, the auditorium, the open spaces, lounges, swimming pools and hot tubs, and spa were well designed and well appointed. It was truly a massive floating hotel that transported, entertained, fed and housed 3,000 passengers, looked after by a fabulous 1,000-member crew. They all spoilt the guests royally for a week.
[The Celebrity Edge: Boarding at Seattle—and at the first port of call in Ketchikan.]
[From left: Our specialty dining venue: Luminae at the Retreat; A musical extravaganza for cruise guests at the auditorium]
[Trying my luck at the Grand Casino]
The onboard activities and facilities on the ship were as attractive as were the four ports of call.
Ahoy Alaska!
Our journey from Delhi to Seattle (with a 3.5-hour stopover in Dubai) took almost 24 hours, by the shortest route—flying over the North Pole. But Emirates hospitality (inflight and in the Dubai lounge) ensured we landed fresh and springy. Landing in Seattle and collecting luggage and then completing immigration formalities was a breeze. We were most impressed with the layout, the friendliness and efficiency of the staff at Seattle Airport—that got us out of the terminal building in less than half an hour. Considering the serpentine queues at JFK, Newark or Dulles airports, it probably makes better sense to arrive at the smaller airports when entering the US.
We were first-timers in Seattle and were glad to have got two days to explore the Emerald City before our cruise. Fascinating that this small city (compared to cities of India) with a population of only 7.5 lakh, serves as the headquarters for Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon and many other tech companies. It is also the city where Starbucks was born and is headquartered since 1971. The first Starbucks outlet is still an extremely popular coffee parlour in Seattle. The queues to enter extend beyond a mile, throughout the day.
On the third day of our arrival in Seattle, we were ready to board Celebrity Edge from Smith Cove Cruise Terminal at Pier 91 of Seattle Port. The weather gods had been kind till then and had allowed us to roam the city in bright sunshine and cool temperatures. But as the ship pulled out of the port, the rain clouds gathered, and some light rain showered blessings on us as we embarked on our 7-day adventure to Alaska.
The cruise included four stops—at Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway in Alaska and Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. There were two full days at sea that were designed to give the passengers some time to enjoy the activities on the ship. And boy! What a variety of activities there were to choose from!
The ship had an inhouse celebrated naturalist, Celia Garland, who’s audio visual presentations and lectures had us enthralled—and prepared us well for the shore excursions to follow. Her first lecture was on glaciers, the second on whales and one on the bears in Alaska.
[Celia Garland presenting on the glaciers of Alaska]
Our first stop on Day 3 was at Ketchikan, a small Alaskan city that is known as the salmon capital of Alaska and is home to rich wildlife including black bears, wolves and bald eagles. The local population of this small town is approximately 10,000 but over 9,000 cruise tourists descend on this place each day, at least 5 days a week. It boosts Ketchikan’s economy, no doubt!
Ketchikan is famous for its many native American totem poles and every one of those that can be seen dotted across the town has a story to tell. These are said to be monuments created from cedar wood by the indigenous people of the region to represent and commemorate ancestry, histories, people or events.
[Totem poles in Ketchikan]
[The making of totem poles involves seasoning the wood, drawing, carving and painting and is arduous. Each pole can take up to 10 months. Installing them is another challenge]
Ketchikan and the surrounding areas have rich forests, and intricately carving these logs of wood to tell the local stories, therefore, is no surprise. But that also needs people who are trained in the craft. Yes, Ketchikan has a lot of them and some even come from as far as the adjoining states of Canada.
The city has developed fun ways of entertaining cruise travelers. One of the highlights of our visit to Ketchikan was a fascinating lumberjack show. What an engaging and fun show it was! Here are some highlights through pictures and videos:
[Two teams of lumberjacks perform many skillful feats, as the crowds cheer them on]
[Videao: Competition No. 1 at the Lumberjack Show: Speed Sawing]
[Video: Competition No. 2: Pole climbing]
The other highlight of Ketchikan was a meal of Alaskan King Crab legs (2 pounds per serving!) with a side of seafood chowder. For seafood lovers, such as us, this is as close to heaven as one can imagine! (See the joy on our faces in the photos below?)
[From left: Scissors worked well to extract the meat from for the crab legs; Crab & Go! Ketchikan’s best for King Crabs]
Fulfilled and well fed with no crabby feelings to show after this humongous satisfying meal, we trudged back towards the dock to board our ship. A fantastic day at the first port of call. Alaska rocks!
The next stop on our itinerary was the capital city of Alaska, Juneau.
Juneau has a population of 32,000 but receives more than 21,000 cruise passengers daily. Interestingly, this state capital has no road networks (owing to the intensely rugged terrain surrounding the city) and can only be accessed by plane or boat. Atop the neighbouring mountains, therefore, is a large ice mass from which at least 30 glaciers flow. Most famous among them is the Mendenhall Glacier. Sadly, this glacier is gradually retreating, and the green champions are hard at work to stem the erosion. We visited the glacier and realized how fragile the ecosystem was.
[Mendenhall Glacier in the background. The walk to the glacier was 3km, past the waterfall on the right.]
But the waters of Juneau enveloped by picturesque snowcapped mountains are home to… well, well, well…. or shall I say, whale, whale, whale!
When we embarked on our whale-watching tour in Juneau, we boarded a small boat from the marina with practically no expectations, other than to have a cool boat ride on the glistening azure waters. Why? Well, many trips to the jungles in Bharatpur, Corbett, Kanha, Ranthambore have been ‘duds’—with no sightings of the big cats, only deer and monkeys. So, while the tour operators in Juneau ‘guaranteed’ good sightings and offered money-back in case of a ‘dud’, we took that with a fistful of salt and boarded the boat with 42 other passengers.
[From left: The whale watching boat; Inside the boat, as we sped through the waters. It was cold outside!]
[The choppy waters, ringed by snow-capped mountains]
About 20 minutes into the speeding boat ride, the young captain slowed the vessel and announced that we had arrived at the ‘sweet spot’, and that we should all step out onto the deck and prepare to spot some of the marine mammals as they come out to the surface of the water to breathe.
The wind was strong and cold, and the boat was rocking among the big waves, but we ventured out and tried very hard to focus our cameras, as our eyes scanned the waters around.
“There’s one!” screamed one of our group members. And we got a glimpse of some large ripples in the water at a distance—and then a black fin made an appearance. “Another one there!” said another passenger and we all turned to look at another black tail diving into the water. “Oh, there are some there and they are breathing there…”. One, two, three—.no, five in a row! Wow! Some more were spotted on the other side of the boat. It seemed a large family of whales had surrounded our boat and was putting up a majestic show for us. We saw some breathing, some rolled over and showed us their fins, some others did a leap out of the water and dived back in. What an unforgettable experience! I decided to stop photographing and simply watch the show.
The captain and his staff on the boat were as excited as us and claimed that this kind of sighting had never happened in the last five years that they have been engaged on this tour. Lucky us! No question of a refund any more—on the contrary, some of us decided we would propagate the tour company’s credentials and give them a great rating on social media. They sure knew the sweet spot and had hit it hard for us.
[From left: A fin emerges….; Taking a deep breath….]
[That’s a side show!]
[Video: Bubbling, swimming, diving, cackling!]
As we headed back to the ship at the end of an unforgettable day, Celia’s lecture on whales was on our mind. She obviously had studied them well over the years and we were so glad that she had tutored us about what to expect. And the whales? Had Celia sent a word to them too, to put on their best show for us?
When we reached the boat and showered and walked in for dinner at our usual restaurant, word had gotten round that some of us had a brilliant sighting of whales that afternoon. Dinner was extended for us as we spent a lot of time answering the questions of the other guests and showing them photos and videos.
That was the time we also learnt about the adventures that other guests had experienced. Apparently, at Ketchikan, a medium-sized black bear was seen standing up on two legs on the wooden bridge on Creek Street and looking down at the salmon swimming in the waters below—unfazed by the swarms of people walking in that area! The guest had taken a beautiful photo and when he shared details, we realized that we had walked on Creek Street and that exact location 7 minutes before Mr. Bear’s appearance.
The third stop on the cruise the next day was at Skagway.
This was a shorter stop of 4 hours. The town was small, and the most popular attraction here was a ride on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad vintage locomotive that runs on the steep Chilkoot trail, climbing up to a height of 2,888 ft. Steeped in history, the narrow-gauge railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering landmark, and the journey traces the century-old hike to the Klondike goldfields. It brought to life the hard work of thousands of men from different states of America and Canada who toiled for months and years in very difficult terrain and weather conditions to build this rail network. Sadly, many lost their lives in the process.
The views from the train were breathtaking and the commentary from the staff made the journey very interesting. The beauty of the forests, mountains, waterfalls and snow-covered peaks were a visual treat as we steadily rattled over the rails and wooden bridges and through some tunnels too. Passengers were not allowed to disembark, and the train wound its way up to the White Pass Summit (in Canada) and returned to Skagway in about 2.30 hours, covering a run of 45 miles.
[Clockwise from left: The White Pass rail journey: Over the wooden bridge, and into a tunnel; Inside the coach of the White Pass Railroad; a view of beautiful forests and gurgling streams]
Skagway was a short but sweet stop and post the picturesque train ride, we returned to the ship to sail away to our last stop—Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia. A pretty and compact city, it’s British colonial past shows in its Victorian architecture and the many beautiful gardens. Also called the ‘Garden City’, Victoria is named after Queen Victoria and dates to the British settlement beginning in 1843.
This last stop on our cruise was the first one in a large urban city (compared to the other stops) and so we had booked ourselves on a driving tour around the city to get a flavour of the place and its people. We saw a beautiful mix of the old and the new. Well laid out modern areas and high-end homes with gardens alongside well-preserved Victorian buildings—the capital city had a lot of grandeur. The Parliament Building, the regal Empress Hotel (where Winston Churchill was a frequent guest) were indeed impressive. The Christ Church Cathedral that closely resembled the Westminster Abbey of London; the double decker buses on the roads; the many pubs with typically British names; the large parks and gardens in most areas of the city and the names of roads—all had such a British feel. What stood out as a sharp contrast from the British-ness however, was the large and well-maintained Chinatown—apparently the second oldest in North America, after San Fransisco. We also spotted some totem poles in the gardens, and some deer freely grazing, and—will you believe it—many peacocks.
[Westminster Abbey? No Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria]
[China Town, Victoria]
[From left: The Parliament Building at Victoria; The Empress Hotel]
Victoria City was very charming, and I look forward to visiting again at a leisurely pace. The famous Butchart Gardens, the main attraction in Victoria that gave it the title of ‘Garden City’ was far from the city and time did not permit us to visit that. It shall have to wait for the next trip.
We returned to the ship as the sun was waning (at 9pm). After a buffet dinner at a restaurant that we had not tried in that week, we settled back in our stateroom for the last night on the ship. Early the next morning we would dock at Seattle Port and that would bring our 7-day cruise holiday to an end.
We were delighted with the disembarkation process that Celebrity Cruises had laid out for us. Our post-cruise flight from Seattle to New York was at noon. The night before, we were requested to place our packed bags (only those that were to be checked in for the flight) outside the suite. The cruise company handed us our boarding passes and the luggage tags for the checked in pieces of baggage while we were still on the ship and arranged to send the bags directly to the airline. Very conveniently, we walked out of the ship and drove to Seattle airport with only our handbags, and collected our checked in bags when we landed in New York. A brilliant service that was much appreciated!
We’ve ticked this item on our bucket list, but Alaska will be on our minds and in our hearts for as long as we can think. Was it worth it? Definitely! We have now flown over the North Pole; set foot on the furthest land bank on the Northern Hemisphere; seen whales, glaciers and bears at close quarters; realized how little America paid to acquire this vast and practically uninhabited land; eaten the best seafood ever—and yes, also had the pleasure of finishing a meal with a large helping of Baked Alaska, in Alaska!
As we tuck away all the sights and sounds of this fascinating holiday into our memory banks, I leave you with a quip:
(Say this very fast) “Juneau if Victoria or Ketch ikan? Alaska!”
