Juneau AK - Part 2

A view of downtown Juneau

It's kinda like a vertical alley

This ship may be double parked on Marine Way 

Eagle and Raven in iron on the Juneau Public Library

The Red Dog Saloon

A typical un-sunny day in Juneau

The June 23 weather report.  I assume // means rain.

Mt. Roberts Tram

There is an aerial tram that takes visitors up on Mt. Roberts, which overlooks downtown Juneau.  We picked a nice day to ride it up the mountain.

The view from 850 feet above downtown Juneau from the tram

They had hiking trails on the mountain

Devil's Club is very common in SE Alaska.  It is also known as devil's walking stick, hiker's nightmare and Alaskan ginseng.  You don't want to get into Devil's Club.  The thorns are barbed and break off if you try to pull them out, and they will cause a nasty staph infection.  On the other hand Devil's Club is believed to have medicinal value and has been used by the Tlingit and Haida to treat diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, among other things.

More Devil's Club

Devil's Club is a nasty bastard

Ravens are extremely popular subjects for local art

I think this is the smaller western crow rather than a raven

A little lupine in the meadow

Bad news from the health front:  It seems I have contracted an infection.  DANG!  Among other things my blood sugar has soared to levels exceeding 600 mg/dL, which is extremely high and above the upper limit for my glucose meter.  On Thursday the 22nd, I went to the urgent care clinic, and they prescribed a 10-day regimen of the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin.  We were scheduled to sail to Skagway on Saturday the 24th, but the doctor advised us to stay put for a while and await the test results.  He wanted to be sure that the Cipro was an effective treatment for the strain of infection I had.  There is no pharmacy in Skagway, so if I needed a different medication the next pharmacy is in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, where my health insurance is no good.  Such are the complications of health care and international travel.  We called the ferry office and the next available boat to Skagway  was on the Matanuska on June 28.  They said there was plenty of space on the boat.  No problem.  There are worse places to be laid over than in Juneau AK.  In the meantime we were able to extend our campsite reservation at Mendenhall Campground until the 28th.  When we talked to the ferry folks the next day they told us the Matanuska was sold out for the 28th.  What?  The other guy said there was plenty of space!!!  No problem!!!  They said we could be number 1 on the standby list, and he was very confident we would be able to get on.  "Can you guarantee it?"  "I'm very confident."  "But can you you guarantee it".   "I'm very confident."   The next available space after that is almost a week later.  We are enjoying Juneau, but it is time to move on.  So we are standby for a passage to Skagway on the 28th, with extra time on our hands.  Such is travel when there are no roads to the outside world.

These are a few of my favorite things

Our birding experts back home think this may be a red-breasted sapsucker

I think it is rare to find this many snow skis in sight of the ocean

We met a guy on Mt. Roberts who had attended the dress rehearsal for the play Treadwell Gold about the Treadwell gold mine and its collapse in 1917.  The performance was at the Perseverance Theater, a small community theater in Douglas across the bridge over the Gastineau Channel.  We attended the play and it was entertaining and informative.





A few days after the play we drove back to Douglas Island and explored the former site of the Treadwell Gold Mine.    The mine operated from 1881 to 1917, and produced over 30 million troy ounces of gold during that period.

I was really fascinated by the Treadwell story.  If you are here primarily to view the pictures, skip on down.  Otherwise following is some more information on the Treadwell Mine

From Wikipedia:

"At the height of the operation there were five mills with over 960 stamps in continuous operation, closing down only on Christmas and Independence Day. These mills were fed by four mines known as the Treadwell, 700-Foot, Mexican and Ready Bullion. At this time the mine employed over 2,000 people and was the largest hard rock mine in the world. The gold was 55% free milling and 45% embedded in pyrite, which was extracted using chlorination, smelting, and cyanidation. Power to the complex was supplied by a coal-fired power plant (later switching to oil and two hydroelectric dams).
Some of the shafts extended as much as 2,400 feet (730 m) below the surface.
In 1914, many Serbian and Greek miners at Treadwell, who made up the bulk of the miners, left to fight for their home countries in World War I.

The Treadwell had its own baseball field and team that competed with four other teams from Alaska and Yukon. There was also a natatorium, which housed a swimming pool, as well as basketball courts. 

On March 3, 1910, there was a massive explosion on the 1,100-foot level of Mexican mine. The blast was so powerful a miner on the 900-foot level died in the accident. The explosion was due to eight cases of dynamite stored in a magazine. The area was designed that in the case of an explosion, the fumes would go up through the shaft and not suffocate the miners. Unfortunately, the men killed and wounded were directly in the way of the blast. Thirty nine men and one horse were killed in total. The 1910 explosion was the worst disaster in Alaska mining history. 

The mine was still yielding gold in 1917 when the Treadwell, 700-Foot and Mexican mines (excavated to a depth of more than 500 feet (150 m) below sea level under Gastineau Channel) suddenly began leaking and were evacuated. Hours later the mines collapsed. At the climax, sprays of water were sent up to 200 feet (61 m) in the air from the mine entrances. The only casualties were a dozen horses and one mule; local lore has it that one man unaccounted for used the opportunity to head for parts unknown. 

Evidence of instability had been noticed around 1909, but there was no indication of impending disaster until 1913, when major geological shifts occurred. Reinforcements were constructed but were ineffective. The last shaft was worked in a limited fashion until 1922.

  Click here to see a very interesting and informative brochure of the Treadwell Mine Historical Trail.  Today all that remains are a number of concrete foundations, and some steel artifacts overcome by nature.

Remains of the Treadwell Mill

Remains of the power plant

The shell of the salt water pumping plant still stands in the Gastineau Channel

Power plant remains

One rainy day we visited Glacier Gardens.   Steve Bowhay started Yard Doctor Landscape in Juneau in 1984. In 1998 he and his wife Cindy created the Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure on 40 acres in a mountainside in Mendenhall Valley. A tram takes visitors 580 feet up the mountain through the temperate rain forest. Steve developed the property by himself and does all the landscaping personally. One day early on a tree fell off the hill and stuck upside down in the muck. That inspired his famous signature upside down flower planters.

There is a camera 145 feet up in a tree trained on an active eagle's nest.  Click here to see the eagle cam.

View of Gastineau Channel from the look-out atop Glacier Gardens

Produce from the nursery

Upside down umbrellas at Glacier Gardens

Upside down tree planters at Glacier Gardens

The road up the mountain is a little precarious

A selfie on the tram to up the hill

Matilda met Turner walking in the campground.  Turner was a HUGE Aussie, weighing over 70 pounds. They chased each other through the Sitka spruce and western hemlock for a while.

Turner and Matilda

This alert was posted on weather.com our last night at camp.  Apparently lakes and dams form under Mendenhall Glacier, and they will sometimes breach and cause a sudden discharge into Mendenhall Lake.  Such events have caused flooding in Mendenhall CG.  When we asked about it folks said not to worry.

Special Weather Statement for Juneau Borough
and Northern Admiralty Island, Alaska

• Issuing Office: Juneau

  Source: National.Weather.Service

  7:57am AKDT, Tue Jun 27
... GLACIER DAM RELEASE INTO MENDENHALL LAKE... HYDROGRAPHS INDICATE A 
GLACIER DAM RELEASE CONTINUES ON THE MENDENHALL LAKE/RIVER FROM 
SUICIDE BASIN. AT THIS TIME THERE IS NO THREAT OF FLOODING AS THE LAKE 
LEVEL AT THE START OF THE EVENT WAS LOW. THE LAKE IS FORECAST TO REMAIN 
BELOW BANKFULL CRESTING TUE AFTERNOON AROUND 6.5 FEET BUT, THERE IS 
INHERENT UNCERTAINTY IN INITIAL GLACIAL LAKE VOLUME THAT CAN RESULT IN 
VARYING CREST HEIGHT AND TIMING. PLEASE STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER 
RADIO OR YOU FAVORITE LOCAL WEATHER NEWS SOURCE FOR UPDATES ON THIS 
SITUATION.

Mendenhall Lake did rise several feet during this event

High water on the beach at Mendenhall Lake

On our last night in Juneau we dined at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake.  They had all-you-can-eat sockeye salmon with a brown sugar and Bourbon glaze, scalloped potatoes, cole slaw, baked beans, honey cornbread, and wild blueberry cake.  YUMMY.  They also had entertainment, a singer from Hot Springs Arkansas who played a lot of James Taylor, John Denver, John Prince and some pretty good blues.  We were sitting up front, and I knew the words to most of his tunes.  He also played many of my requests.  Most folks there came from various cruise ships and only had about an hour before the buses took them away, but we were there for 3 hours and shut the place down.  It was a great time.

Gold Creek Salmon Bake

Lookin' good!  I mean the fish

Brian the Entertainer

Click here  for a short musical video of Brian doing his thing.

It looked so good I forgot to take a photo before digging in! 

Dorcas chatting with our good buddy Brian the Entertainer

The falls on Gold Creek

This was a real gold mine way back when.  I think it.s played out now.

This is not a happy sticker, but at least we're #1

On Wednesday the 28th we lined up at the ferry terminal with our fingers crossed hoping for a spot on the 8:45am sailing to Skagway.  There was good news and bad news:  The good news was that they had confirmed space for the Honda.  The bad news was that the motor home remained on standby status.  Ultimately they gave us the thumbs up to load the coach and off we went.