While in Juneau….

Our stay in Juneau turned out to be the longest stop so far.  Bruce had some work that required him to be in an office environment (paperwork, printing, scanning, faxing, etc.) while Ron & Lynn were trying to connect with some friends from Nanaimo and meet up with them in Haines, AK.  Their friends were driving up in their car and so their dates weren’t firm.

While in Juneau… we walked, and walked, and walked! 

Juneau does not have a road that connects to the Alaska Highway.  The only way into Juneau is by air or sea.  There is a stretch of highway that the locals call “The Road” and it runs north and south. If you are heading to the end of the road, which is 40 miles north of downtown, the locals call it “Out the Road”.  This stretch of highway dead-ends on each side. 

The Aurora Marina, where we moored Second Chance during our stay, is north of the downtown cruise ship area, north of most retail stores and more in the local residential area.

We arrived on Saturday and while we waited for Ron & Lynn to be able to cross under the Douglas Street Bridge we walked into town to get a lay of the land and a restaurant for lunch.

Once it was low tide we went down to the docks to help Contessa tie up.  While on the docks we met Tom & his wife Tish who live in Port Ludlow in the winter and run a charter cruise ship business from May to October in Alaska. 

Tom recently hosted the Discovery Channel film crew who came to Alaska to film a segment on bears!  He took them to The Pack Creek estuary on Admiralty Island, known to the Tlingit tribe as “Kootznoowoo”, meaning the fortress of the bears.  This island is home to more than 1,600 brown bears!  You have to get a viewing permit from the US Forest Service and they only issue a set number of permits each day from July through late August.  Tom offered for us all to come see the slide show he prepared for the Juneau Chamber of Commerce – so of course we accepted his offer happily!  WOW!  What a show!  I can’t wait to tune into the Discovery Channel show when it is aired!!  Fabulous bear shots!

This is the view on the docks after dinner around 8:30pm AK time

 

On Sunday we took advantage to go to one of three museums in town, The Alaska State Museum.  This was originally founded as a district museum and library in 1900 and today is the official repository of the state’s history and has over 27,000 artifacts, works of art, and natural history specimens.  The town is currently constructing a new building for the museum which will be a much larger facility and just a couple of blocks away.

We enjoyed the museum, although smaller than most of the museums we have visited in the past.  It was interesting to read the museums information on some of the displays.  They were written more in a manner of “we have heard that” rather than factual.  It was also interesting to compare what the museum was saying regarding the pieces and what we had heard from some of the guides and the Alaska Natives.  The museum covered the following various topics:  Alaska Natives, Wildlife, Early Exploration & Russian America, Alaska political and economic history, Mining and Minerals and Maritime History.  It was all very interesting.  Next time we are in Juneau I would like to see the other two museums.

 

On Monday, 06.24.2013, we all took the Mount Roberts Tramway from the downtown cruise ship docks up to the top of Mount Roberts.  It was a beautiful day and the view was spectacular! 

 

 

Once we got to the Mount Roberts Observatory we had some lunch in their restaurant.  Our waitress was an Alaska Native from the Tlingit tribe and was able to give us a little of the history of the Tramway.  The State of Alaska gave the Tlingit tribe land which includes Mount Roberts.  The tribe came up with the Tramway project as an income source for the tribe.  It took 18 months and $17 million dollars to build.  The cost to ride the tramway is $30 roundtrip.  I don’t recall any non-Tlingit employees with the tramway.  Anyway, it’s a great idea and very well maintained.

At the restaurant I had Russian dumplings which are handmade each day by a local Russian and they were absolutely fabulous!  I strongly considered ordering more to go!

After lunch Lynn and I visited the galleries and gift shops while Bruce & Ron took a hike up to the top of the mountain where they got an even better view.

 
Ron & Lynn have decided to leave for Skagway on Tuesday, 06.25.2013, on Contessa and will be meeting up with their friends in Haines either before arriving in Skagway or afterwards.  Rather than run Second Chance up and back the 200 miles round trip Bruce & I have decided to take the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to Skagway and leave Second Chance in Juneau.

This plan gives Bruce and I a couple of days to get some boat chores done before we catch the ferry.  I was able to lay two coats of varnish on the cap rails and Bruce was able to install a ProMariner TruePower 600 Watt Inverter in the cabin. 

When we are out at anchor if we want to have 110 volt electricity in the cabin we have had to run an extension cord from the pilot house inverter back to the cabin.  And in Alaska if we’ve anchored near a river stream we have had to deal with black/horse flies – we don’t want to have to crack the door open to run an extension cord and possibly have black flies get into the cabin.  Now this problem has been solved!  Yeah!!

 

One walk we really enjoyed while we were in Juneau was a pleasant surprise.  After doing chores all day we decided to take in a movie.  So we walked downtown to the movie theater and afterwards we decided to walk further up the hill and then north to the marina – rather than walk north to the marina on the waterfront as we have been doing.  So up the hill we went.  What we found was the Governor’s House which was built in 1912 for $40,000.  The Governor’s House is not quite at the top of the hill and is located in a residential area.  Surprisingly, this area is not just fancy mansions but regular and lower end houses.  The neighborhood was very quiet and had a great feeling to it.  From there we were able to walk along the top of the hill and then down into the marina area.  I wish we had found this walk sooner!

Here are a few pictures of some of the downtown in Juneau: