Finding the Real Alaska

It is over 100 miles from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan, the Port of Entry into the United States. Dixon Entrance can be a nasty piece of open water and our slow speed forces us to cross it over two days. In our case we stop overnight at Dundas Island before completing the crossing in advance of predicted bad weather.

After an 8 hour run under power and sail we reach Ketchikan and check into customs. We had to purchase a “cruising permit” and, as a foreign vessel, were now required to report into every major port we stop at while in the state. Homeland security and all that.

Entering Rudyerd Bay

Ketchikan is a boom to bust town of somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand people, depending on the time of year. Gold, fish and logs came and went, and now they mine for gold in the pockets of tourists, thousands of them who arrive by cruise ship, usually six a day. These are huge floating hotels which spew out thousands of tourists each day into the streets. They are met by dozens of teeshirt and jewelry shops, art galleries, tour companies and suspiciously new-looking historical buildings. The huge number of jewelry shops is startling. The whole surreal scene begs the question - what Alaska are tourists really looking for?

We strike out in search of something real under the glitzy surface and strike gold. The friendly barkeep at the Red Snapper Bar, where we stop for a pint of Alaska Amber. She describes herself as a typical Alaskan – a transplant from the south, liking the natural beauty but concerned about the high levels of drug and alcohol addiction, and angry that so many foreign owners reap the profits of the tourist trade and take it with them when they leave after the season.

Alaskans don't like the government – any government. On a city bus we sit across from an old guy with a husky at his feet who you'd swear just stepped out of the bush after a month panning gold. After a 10 minute dissertation on the evils of government, he waves back to us as he gets off the bus and yells, “In Alaska we don't say goodbye unless you work for the government”.

We stop to talk to a native gentleman painting a design on a war canoe paddle. He gives us a lesson in aboriginal history. His great grandfather was a Tsimshian who fled to Alaska in 1862 to escape poverty and feuding missionary groups in Canada, preferring instead to face the lack of welcome from the local Tlingit people.

We did visit, by bus, Totem Bight Historical Park complete with beautifully carved totem and a replica clan house and further south on Tongass Narrows to Saxman, a native community, with a historic totem sight with a clan house in use and a carving shed.

Having discovered some real Alaskans and visited historic totem sites, we cast off the dock the next day and start the 150 mile circumnavigation of Revillagigedo (say that fast) Island. This takes us up the Behm Canal to the Misty Fjords National Monument, where most boaters don't get to because of its off-the-beaten-track remoteness. The attraction is Rudyerd Bay and Punchbowl Cove, a narrow 5-mile long fjord sided by sheer rock cliffs that soar over 3000 feet high. These were formed when the land mass of North America collided with the ocean floor over 100 million years ago. Or so we read. The water here is milky green and waterfalls cascade hundreds of feet down the vertical walls. Like another planet! Few people get to see the Misty Fjords in the sun. As Pam is fond of saying – We are blessed.

Melody in the Punchbowl

It's too deep to anchor here and we retreat to Manzanita Bay. We try to anchor in 80 feet but snag a submerged tree on a rocky bottom – not good. Did we mention that our windlass, that back-saving piece of machinery that pulls up the anchor and chain, seems to be giving up the ghost? So we trace our steps back 8 miles to Shoalwater Passage, where a serene, eerily quiet bay, punctuated by the hoots of a Great Horned Owl, awaits us. We declare “Yard Arm”, that time of day for a glass of wine when the sun sets over the yard arm of a sailboat, adjusted quite liberally for the extended Alaskan day.

We pass by New Eddystone Rock, a lava pinnacle named by Captain Vancouver when he was up Behm Canal looking for the Northwest Passage. It reminded him of Eddystone Rock in Plymouth, England. Apparently the glaciers could not grind away the hard lava conduit that was part of an ancient underwater volcano. Of course he never found the Northwest Passage.

Behm Canal

The next 3 days wash by us and the weather holds. Yes Bay (pronounced 'yass', meaning mussels in Tlingit) puts on a nature show – a large black bear feeds on the river delta, then a grizzly bear makes its way to the grassy shore to roll and frolic, the end of day descends with the eerie calls of a lone loon as the sun sinks behind the mountain.



Rudyerd Bay



We are running low on fuel and have dipped into our reserve containers strapped to the deck, which forces us to complete the circumnavigation and return to Ketchikan. Tomorrow we will recommence our journey north to Wrangell. We are now 2/3rds of our destination – Glacier Bay,