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.

Juneau AK - Part 1

Our ferry passage to Juneau was scheduled to depart at 4:45 am on Sunday on June 18.  That meant a 3:45 am check in at the terminal.  A major hiccup was that the gate at Starrigavan Campground is locked from 10pm to 7am.  DANG!  So we packed up and relocated the motor home to a spot on the highway just outside the gate and were parked again by 9pm.  At least one other camper taking the ferry did the same thing.  Ironically, on this evening they did not close the gate.  Perhaps they leave it open to accommodate folks arriving or departing from the ferry after hours.

Loading up on the MV Matanuska at Sitka

On every ferry passage I have either had to back in or back out of the vehicle deck.  This was a back-in space.

Once again on the MV Matanuska

A misty morning on the passage to Juneau

A raft of sea otters

A room with a view: the solarium on the MV Matanuska

Dorcas relaxing on the solarium deck

They even have free live entertainment

Mendenhall Glacier from Auke Bay.  Is it cloudy or clear?

We are scheduled to depart on June 24 on the FVF Fairweather, which runs about five days a week between Juneau and Skagway.  The Fairweather is a "fast ferry" and can make 32 knots vs. 16.5 knots for the MV Matanuska.  It also burns 600 gallons of fuel per hour vs. 234 gph for the Matanuska, even though it is only half the length and about 1/8 the displacement.  A ferry officer said the AMHS regrets building the Fairweather and its sister ship the FVF Chenega, due to their high operating costs.

MV Fairweather departing Juneau

Juneau is the capitol of Alaska and, with a population of just over 30,000, it's the third largest city in Alaska.  While Juneau is located on the mainland, it can still only be accessed by boat or plane.  Juneau is named after Joe Juneau, a gold prospector from Quebec.

All of Southeast Alaska is in a rain forest.  The day we arrived in Juneau it was a rare sunny day.  While Juneau still gets a ton of rain, about 65 inches per year, the average rainfall has steadily decreased as we have moved north from Ketchikan (150 inches/year).  We monitor at least three on-line weather sources, The Weather Channel, WeatherBug and WeatherUnderground and find them to all provide inconsistent and inaccurate forecasts.  The most accurate forecast is from WeatherRock.com.  If the Weather Rock is wet, it's raining; if it's not wet, it's not raining.

We have Site #65 reserved for 6 nights.  This site has 50A service, water, sewer and we are getting 3 bars of 4G service.  HEAVEN!  Plus we get discounted camping using our federal geezer pass.

Site #65 at Mendenhall Glacier on a rare sunny day

Mendenhall Lake

"Woof! This water is cold!"

Alaskan Brewing Company makes some of my favorite brews, and their brewery is in Juneau.  Their distribution network is limited, and their products are not available in NC.  Consequently, I always cram the cargo bays full with Alaskan Brewing Company products before heading home from Minnesota each September.   Between the Alaskan Brewing products and Big Sky Brewing products (Moose Drool Brown Ale) that I transport, I probably break a half dozen interstate bootlegging laws.

Visiting the Alaskan Brewing Company

They have a tasting room at the brewery.  When we were here in 2011 they offered free samples in 6 oz glasses.  The sign said two samples per visit, but as long as you didn't get rowdy or fall on the floor, they didn't seem to notice how many samples you took.

Let's all belly up to the bar

I was looking forward to more free samples and intended to visit the brewery at least twice a day while we were in town.  But au contrair!  When we entered the tasting room, there were prices on the menu!!!  What???  No more free beer???  CRAP!!!  Turns out shortly after we left town in 2011, they changed their policy and began charging for samples.  They said it was necessary after some yahoo from North Carolina came through and drank all their Smoked Porter.

Availability of drafts changes daily

I have defined growlers and squealers (AKA growlettes) in a previous post, but there is another term that needs mentioning: the flight.  A flight is a sampling at a pub or brewery of a variety of beers, usually served in 4oz glasses on a wooden tray.  We had a flight of Smoked Porter, Schwarz Bier, Resonator and Barrel Aged Smoked Porter.

Enjoying a flight of Alaskan brews

 I have always liked Alaskan's Smoked Porter.  But I had never had their Barrel Aged Smoked Porter, which is a new product and is not bottled.  The Barrel Aged Smoked Porter is a limited run of regular smoked porter aged for 6 months in used whiskey barrels harvested from a distillery in Colorado.  The brew absorbs residual alcohol and flavor from the barrels as it ages, increasing its alcohol content to 11.4%, and giving it a sweet bourbon flavor.  It is a very fine porter.  I filled a growler with the Barrel Aged.  They said it would only stay fresh for a day or two.   No problem.  When I returned to refill the growler, I was horrified to learn that the Barrel Aged Smoked Porter was all gone.  DRAT!  The bartender couldn't say when more would be ready to tap.  I had to settle for a growler of the standard smoked porter.

A growler filled with Barrel Aged Smoked Porter, my new all-time favorite 

Auke Bay is about 12 miles north of Juneau and is where the ferry terminal is located.  It's name comes from the Tlingit "Áak'w" meaning Little Lake.

They come in all sizes at Auke Bay

A note from the Small World Department:  We are camped near a couple from Missouri, and have spent a little time getting to know them.  They came up to visit their son Brian, who is spending his second summer in Juneau performing mission service.  While eating at a small cafe at Auke Bay Harbor, a young man noticed my NC State hoodie and asked if I was from North Carolina or had attended NC State University.  It turns out that he is currently a junior at NC State.  We chatted a bit about the NCSU now and NCSU way back when.  But that's not the small world part.  He went on to say that he was spending the summer here performing mission service.  That's when something clicked, and I asked if he happened to know Brian from Missouri, also here doing mission work.  That's when all three of the young men at the table pointed to a fourth, saying "That's Brian!"   Small world.

A busy day on Auke Bay

A load of fish hounds at Auke Bay 

One day we had an uninvited visitor at camp.  Dorcas and I were both in the coach when I saw a large black shape pass by the window behind the sofa.  What was that?  When I looked out that window again it was gone.  But then I looked out the windshield, there he was, checking out our camp.  At one point he was standing up with both front paws on the Honda, looking in the back window.

A visitor in camp: a growler of the 4-legged kind

He passed between he car and the coach and came by and knocked on the door.

Is anybody home?

No handouts here.  I guess I'll leave now.

When nobody answered the door he turned around and left, headed down a path behind our site.  As far as I know he hasn't come back.

Bye. Bye.

The Macaulay Salmon Hatchery is located just south of downtown on the Gastineau Channel.  They harvest returning salmon, collect the eggs and sperm and rear young fish for release.  Before release, the young fish are kept in large net pools to imprint that stream on them, so they will return to this exact spot to spawn after about 4 years at sea.

The fish ladder at Macaulay Salmon Hatchery

Salmon fry in the rearing tank at Macaulay Salmon Hatchery

Mr. Halibut and friends at the hatchery aquarium

Mr. Alaskan crab up close and personal

You can't spit around here without hitting an eagle

 A pretty cool fishing pier on the Gastineau Channel

We enjoyed a lunch and a brew at the Imperial Bar in downtown Juneau

There are typically 4-6 cruise ships in Juneau each day.  At about 3000 passengers each, they dump over 15,000 tourists into town each day  Downtown Juneau largely consists of jewelry stores, fur stores, t-shirt shops and bars.   The traffic is horrendous.

Downtown Juneau

 We are camped at the foot of Mendenhall Glacier, on Mendenhall Lake.  Mendenhall Lake was formed in 1929 when the glacier began to retreat.  The glacier has retreated 1.75 miles since 1929.

Mendenhall Glacier on a sunny day

Sometimes when you look up you can find a porcupine

  

The Shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux overlooks the Lynn Canal north of Auke Bay. Situated on 46 acres, the site contains a stone chapel, crypt, labyrinth, columbarium, lodge, cabin, and retreat. In 1925, St. Therese was named the patroness of Alaska.

The chapel at the Shrine of St. Therese 

The chapel is located in deep woods on a small island seen at the left.

The Labyrinth.  No way to get lost!

We splurged a bit and bought tickets for a whale watching excursion out of Auke Bay.  Humpback whales summer and feed in Alaska, and then migrate as far as 16,000 miles to Mexico or Hawaii to breed.

Can we see whales yet?

Sea lions on a channel marker in Auke Bay

On this day we saw perhaps 6-8 humpback whales, mostly from quite a distance.  They are very difficult to photograph because you don't know where they will appear, and they don't sit still for long.  First you would see the blow.  Once the whale shows a blow or two it will typically roll, displaying its distinctive humpback, as it prepares to dive.

There she blows!

I think I see another one!

A humpback whale starting a deep dive

As it makes for a deep dive it will display its fluke-shaped tail and will be down for 6-8 minutes.

And then he was gone

 Stay tuned for Juneau Part 2