Misty Fjords National Monument in the southern part of the Alaskan panhandle is truly magnificent - waterfalls plunging hundreds of feet, precipitous 3,000-foot-high cliffs scarred and scored by the retreating glaciers of the ice age, snow-capped peaks - and everywhere a magnificent carpet of deep green spruce and other trees clambering up the mountains.
Today (mid-May), contrary to the usual law of utter bloodiness and Alaska's normal climes, there's hardly a cloud in the sky, the fjords are bathed in glorious sunlight belying their name, and the panoramas that are usually shrouded in clouds and rain are superb.
Misty Fjords National Monument
Until 1978 Misty was just another part of Tongass National Forest, thus named and preserved for eternity by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 - at 17 million acres three times larger than any other national forest in the US of A.
Some seven decades later, President Jimmy Carter gave the bottom 2.2 million acres, where Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples have lived, hunted and fished for thousands of years, the additional cachet of becoming a national monument. Other than humans, it has since time immemorial been the haunt of bears, seals and bald eagles among its many other denizens.
Misty Fjords
Close-up
Today, catamarans from Ketchikan take visitors through winding channels and fjords at sea level, while float planes and helicopters lift them heavenwards to glaciers in the skies. Tragically, one of these planes was to crash in June, killing eight cruise ship passengers and the pilot.
Despite my customary animal-spotting ineptitude, even I manage to espy two bald eagles, their snowy white heads above the nests to which the pairs, who partner for life, return each breeding season.
Fjord views
Another
And another
One of the monument's most iconic sites is the Eddystone Rock, a volcanic stack garbed in green firs rising in appreciably phallic mode and superb pose at the entrance to Rudyerd Bay.
Eddystone Rock
Unfortunately, even as we speak, my view of superbity is momentarily blocked by the even larger stack of a lady's incredibly broad-beamed arse taking up the whole front of the catamaran.
Wrong close-up
Right close-up
Waterfalls
Close-up
Ketchikan, a little town of some 7,000 on one of the southernmost islands of the over 1,000-strong Alexander Archipelago, once lived from salmon fishing and lumber, its pulp mill the largest employer in southeast Alaska. But the mill closed in 1997.
Ketchikan
Small boat harbour
Fortunately for Ketchikan, which comes from the Tlingit word Kitxcan meaning 'where the eagle's wings are,' tourism came along in the shape of huge cruise ships. There are three of them in port today with a combined load of 6,000 to 7,000 passengers.
Radiance of the Seas in port
Celebrity Cruises are also in port
But unfortunately, as always, tourism has brought along with it crass commercialism, an acne of wall-to-wall brand outlets, souvenir shops, jewelleries, perfumeries, Lord alone knows what else-ries, and hokey shows like the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show with idiots rolling off logs etc.
Do you have to sell souvenirs this way?
But it's still far from unattractive. Its natural setting is perfect. Its houses follow the trees in their clamber up the mountainsides. Even Creek Street, the touristified former red-light district consisting of a boardwalk joining 30 or so reconstituted wooden houses by the creek that were once euphemistically known as 'female boardinghouses,' has its charms.
The Creek
Another view
They now sell gold jewelley instead of their charms, serve drinks, and dish out other kitsch - all, that is, except Dolly's House which has been refurbished as if for its original purpose when Dolly Arthur opened it in 1919.
Dolly's
Now for $7.50 you can tour the premises and see how life went on in the once-bawdy quarter, which locals called 'the only place where both salmon and men come up from the sea to spawn.'
A lady dressed the part in blue boa and blond braids winks at me at the entrance but I forgo the tour. I did one of those only a short while ago in the Australian gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie.
Speaks for itself
Meanwhile Rivka's on a tour of another kind - she's in heaven in the tourist shops. And I'm in hell trying to drag her back to the Radiance of the Seas for a late lunch.
For those who may have forgotten, Ketchikan is also home to the famed or infamous 'bridge to nowhere,' the proposed $400-million boondoggle to link the town with its airport on Gravina Island, home to all of 50 people, replacing the brief $5-ferry trip that takes passengers now.
Saxman Park totem poles
This pork barrel project was supported by Alaska's congressional delegation and by the famed or infamous Sarah Palin while she was governor - although she tried to slough out of it when running for vice-president.
Of more visual interest, seeing that fortunately there's still no bridge to behold, is the nearby Tlingit village of Saxman, with reputedly the largest collection of standing totem poles in the world - over two dozen - bedecked with the animals denoting the clan, sex, other details and history of family members.
Saxman Totem pole
Another
And another
Some originally adorned Tlingit villages before they were brought here and restored by Tlingit carvers in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s Depression. Others are more recent.
The most untraditional is topped by a Tlingit representation of Abraham Lincoln on a Raven clan pole. It commemorates the protection offered by the U.S. marine revenue cutter Lincoln when the Ravens were at war with the Eagle clan in the 1870s, way after the eponymous president's assassination. This is a replica as the original is in the museum in Juneau, the state capital.
The Lincoln totem
Close-up
Another tells the tale of a man who got a totem pole instead of a pearl - he drowned when his hand snagged in a large oyster.
And I'm trying to drag Rivka back to the ship after she's got her hand snagged in a souvenir shop.
Moving out to sea again
______________
By the same author: Bussing The Amazon: On The Road With The Accidental Journalist, available with free excerpts on Kindle and in print version on Amazon.