CRUISING SOUTHEAST ALASKA'S SMALL TOWNS: JUNEAU, SKAGWAY, AND SITKA

by Lee Foster

Besides Glacier Bay, the cruise ship passenger to Alaska usually visits Juneau, Skagway, and Sitka.

The southeast "panhandle" of Alaska differs sharply from the more northerly sections of the state. Precipitation here is high, comparing with Washington state, so the trees, such as Sitka spruce, grow to great heights and can be harvested for lumber or pulp.

The region is the most historic in Alaska. Sitka was the major Russian colony during their fur-gathering era. At Juneau, prospectors made the first Alaska gold discoveries. From Skagway, some 20,000 hardy miners, plus many women and children, climbed over the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898.

The region is tied together by a unique Marine Highway ferry boat system operating between Seattle and Skagway. Waterways, shoreline, and boating are major aspects of life here. Southeast Alaska has 33,000 miles of coastline, fully 68 percent of the Alaska coastline. One out of five people owns a boat. The weather is rainy, but the citizens compensate. If rain appears imminent on the Fourth of July festivities, they reschedule for the following Saturday.

GETTING TO JUNEAU, SITKA, AND SKAGWAY

Air and sea transport are the primary ways to get to this region. There are no roads to the outside world from Juneau and Sitka.

Scheduled air flights from the lower 48, especially from Seattle, or from Anchorage to the north, regularly visit Juneau. The flow of travelers is assured because Juneau is the state capital, where lawmakers from around the state convene.

The flight from Anchorage or Fairbanks to Juneau on a clear day is one of the most spectacular flights on the planet. As you leave Fairbanks, you see the spine of the Alaska Range of mountains, the vast stretches of uninhabited and rugged land between cities. The snowy peak of Mt. McKinley, highest mountain in North America, stands out majestically. And finally, as the flight progresses, you get sweeping aerial views of the glaciers of southeastern Alaska as you approach Juneau. This terrain includes Glacier Bay National Park. From the air you get a clear sense of the glaciers as rivers of ice.

Skagway can be reached by smaller commuter aircraft from Juneau. The state ferry system reaches Skagway, as do most cruise ships.

As the boat proceeds up the lovely waterways, both the scenery and the prospects of wildlife viewing are attractive. Bald eagles abound and are easy to spot because their white heads stand out against the green foliage, especially in the last hour of the trip, as the channel narrows when approaching Skagway.

Sitka is served by Alaska Airline jets, marine ferry, and cruise ships. The Alaska Marine Highway ferries visit each port as they ply their ways northward and southward.

However, the comfort and convenience of cruise ships make cruising the most popular way to travel the region.

Each of the towns is steeped in history.

JOE JUNEAU'S GOLD

Juneau began when Joe Juneau discovered gold there. It is said that Joe Juneau wept because he had made more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime. There were three major mines and a stamp mill. Juneau was selected as the state capital, historically, though it has been overshadowed by Anchorage as a developed area and a population base. There are 200,000 Alaskans in Anchorage and only 30,000 in Juneau, out of a total population in the state of only 500,000. A move to change the capital to the town of Willow, west of Anchorage, has been voted down because of the high cost of the move. Almost all of the people in Juneau, 86 percent to be exact, work for the state or federal government.

It would be hazardous to argue that in the lower 48 states there is a state capital as attractive as Juneau. Where else is there a combination of visual pleasures that exceeds the sea, mountains, glaciers, wildlife, and salmon spawning, all close to the city's edge?

In Juneau take a city tour to orient yourself to the area. Tours are available from all the hotels or cruise ships. The tour will take you outside of town to the Mendenhall Glacier. Mendenhall is one of 16 glaciers in the 1,000 square miles of ice fields around Juneau.

In Juneau, see the Alaska State Museum, with its elaborate collection of kayaks from around the state. This museum, and the museum in Fairbanks at the University, are the two best introductions to the state.

Stop for a drink at the lively Red Dog Saloon, a honky tonk with player-piano music and stuffed animals on the wall. The beverage of choice here is locally brewed Chinook beer, a hearty drink. Nearby, Alaska Hotel and Bar is another sociable drinking spot. If you converse with Alaskans here, they'll probably tell you about the $1,000/year bonus they get from the Permanent Fund, a dividend each citizen receives from the oil revenue investments made by the state. Juneau citizens may alert you to the 44 days of sunshine they get each year and the 32-foot tides that roll in from the ocean.

While in Juneau, walk past the marble-columned state capitol building. Visit the historic Baranof Hotel, now restored after it was burned by a disgruntled employee. As you climb the hills in Juneau, you'll find an attractive small Russian Church and the house of Judge Wickersham. Along the waterfront, Juneau has a city park and streets decorated with antique lampposts draped in floral banners. The small Juneau City Museum interprets well the gold mining era.

SKAGWAY'S CHILKOOT PASS

Skagway boomed when miners seeking passage to the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush needed a staging area. Looking at the map, it was determined that traversing the Chilkoot Pass and then taking rivers downstream was the best way. Canadian authorities required that miners possess a year's supply of provisions before they were allowed to proceed. Skagway booms again, today, in a sense. The community of 700 people gets about 300,000 summer visitors a year, over half from cruise ships.

Skagway's main attractions amount to walking around the historic city, with a stop at the park service headquarters for a brochure on the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. There you'll see photos and displays on this major historic event. Photos, for example, show how miners used fold-up canvas boats on the Yukon River to get their supplies southward. Most of the boats were abandoned when they were found to be too flimsy. The walls of the Park Service headquarters are covered with quotes from Robert Service's poetry, with a constant theme: human perseverance in the face of crushing adversity.

For a short hike in the area, walk the nature trail near the park headquarters to the caves. More ambitious hikers use Skagway as a base for a hike of 3-5 days over the 33-mile Chilkoot Pass. The jumping off spot for the pass is near Skagway at Dyea, now a ghost town and a nature area noted for birds and wildlife. Each September some 700 runners in relay teams make a Klondike Relay through the pass. The photographic image of long lines of men, all chained together for safety, hiking in the middle of winter up the 45 degree grade of the Chilkoot Pass, is one of the most moving images of the Klondike rush. The weather here can be severe, earning for Skagway the meaning Tlingit Indians had for the word, skagua, home of the north wind.

Be sure to see the Skagway presentation of the Soapy Smith revue. In the revue you get a sense of the Gold Rush of 1898 and this consummate con man, who knew a thousand ways to separate a sourdough from his gold nuggets. The Red Onion saloon is a favorite bar, often with impromptu jam sessions led by musicians from the cruise ships. The town is compact and pleasant to walk around, examining the shops, such as Tresham Gregg's gallery of his Tlingit Indian art creation. Gradually, many of the buildings are being restored to their 1898 appearance as the National Park applies its influence and funds. The photo shop Dedman's, for example, was one of the original photo studios and still has glass plates from the gold era.

Local entertainer Steve Hite gives an informed city tour from his reconditioned touring cars. Hite was known as the Singing Conductor on the railroad.

The Klondike Highway, finished in 1978, affected the White Pass Railroad, which competed with it for passengers and freight. The main freight items are lead, copper, zinc, and silver ores, mined in the Yukon, and brought to a loading shed in Skagway, where it is taken out weekly by Russian or Japanese freighters.

A short drive out of town on the Klondike Highway takes you up the White Pass, the famous trail and railroad bed, where signs alert you to the struggle to get to the Klondike. White Pass was an alternative to the Chilkoot Pass. The White Pass was longer, but less steep. Horses could be used, but one sign along the highway indicates, at Dead Horse Pass, where 3,000 horses met their deaths on the steep grade, losing their footing or dying of exhaustion.

SITKA'S RUSSIANS

Sitka was populated by Tlingit Indians for thousands of years. Russia watched the area with interest after Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan coast in 1741. In 1799 Russian Alexander Baranov began construction of fortifications at Sitka. Baranov intended to colonize Alaska for Russia and develop the fur trade. The Tlingits resented Russian infringement, burning their fort and killing most of the people in 1802. Baranov returned in 1804 with the warship Neva and 1,000 men. He fought a decisive battle against 700 armed Tlingit. The Tlingit retreated and the Russians formally established their colony of New Archangel. Be sure to see St. Michael's Russian Orthodox cathedral and its historic icons, some from the 14th century. The cathedral was built 1844-1848, burned in 1966, then rebuilt as an exact replica.

Today no white Russians live in the Sitka area, though several Tlingit Indians with Russian names and some Russian blood do reside here. One bright aspect of the reviving interest in the Russian heritage is the New Archangel Russian Folk Dancers, a group of 30 women who entertain visitors with a repertoire of 33 Russian folk dances. Be sure to catch their daily performance in the Centennial Building, which also houses a small Sitka City Museum. Because of the declining fur supply, the Crimean War, and Russia's inability to defend Alaska, Russia eventually decided to sell Sitka and all of Alaska to the U.S., in 1867, for $7,200,000, about 2 cents per acre.

Sitka is a picturesque town surrounded by islands and backed by Mt. Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano. The main attraction here is a visit to the Russian Orthodox St. Michael's Cathedral to see the icons, canvas walls, gold-thread vestments, and ornate bibles. Some of the icons date to the 14th Century.

The second major pleasure here, within a half-mile distance, is the National Historic Park, where you can see Tlingit Indians practicing carving, weaving, and jewelry-making. At the historic park, walk the oceanside path to the site where the great battle of 1804 pitted 1,000 Russians against 700 fortified Tlingits, who were eventually overcome because of the Russian firepower. Along the path you'll see Tlingit and Haida totem poles. Today about a third of Sitka's 8,600 people are Tlingit. Interpretive displays at the park headquarters describe how the Tlingit and Russians lived.

Then visit the Sheldon Jackson Museum, a missionary's collection of artifacts gathered from the various native groups in Alaska. The museum is on a college campus of the same name, where 200 students now attend. There you'll see salmon-skin garments, masks, and many day to day artifacts of the Indian material culture, including the ceremonial eating bowls of the Tlingit.

Stop in at the Russian Bishop's House, which the Park Service is now restoring. At the house you can buy books on the Russian presence in America. The Russians made Sitka briefly the "Paris of the Pacific." Ships from 13 nations weighed anchors here. Trade goods ranged from Virginia tobacco to Flemish linens. The settlement included schools, a flour mill, a tannery, and a foundry that cast the bells for some of California's Spanish missions.

Along the Sitka waterfront, the dominant structure is the Pioneer Home, a unique Alaska institution. The Pioneer Homes are state-supported retirement homes, available to all residents who have lived in the state for 15 years. There are five pioneer homes in various areas of the state. The rationale of the Pioneer Home is partly to prevent the exodus of senior citizens by providing them with comfortable retirement accommodations. A landmark in Sitka, the Prospector Statue, stands in front of the Pioneer Home.

Sitka is a compact town, easy to walk around, with a sizable fishing fleet. If you walk beyond St. Michael's Church, you'll find Castle Hill, an easily fortified position that was the Russian stronghold. Beyond that is the Tlingit Village and a favorite local sandwich shop, Wild Strawberries.

SIDE TRIPS FROM JUNEAU, SKAGWAY, AND SITKA

Helicopter or fixed wing air flights from Juneau and from Skagway can take you over the glaciers, sometimes landing on them. Seeing the glaciers from the air gives you a perspective on them as rivers of ice. The air flight can be turbulent because cold air coming off the glacier tends to suck the air downward and create unsettling air currents.

An interesting air flight from Juneau or Skagway can take you to Haines, where you can raft the Chilkat Eagle Preserve along the Chilkat River near Haines. The eagles are so thick in this area that bush pilots must set down carefully to keep from running into them.

Sitka's islands can be enjoyed from local excursion boats. All three towns offer charter fishing boats for the traveler wishing to catch salmon and halibut.

The three towns of the southeast panhandle add a satisfying dimension to summer cruise ship trips to Alaska.

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IF YOU CRUISE TO ALASKA

Additional information on Alaska can come from Alaska Division of Tourism, P.O. Box E, Juneau, Alaska 99811-0801, phone 907/465-2010.

For information on possible cruise ships, the main mode of travel in the area, contact your travel agent.

This article was written by Lee Foster of Foster Travel Publishing. Contact him at his website www.fostertravel.com or via email at lee@fostertravel.com. Copyright Lee Foster.