Day 89 – July 1 Happy Canada Day

We were up at 7:00 to beat the rush to the laundromat and showers. We wanted to see some of Valdez (even in the fog) before heading to hopefully better weather inland as forecast last night.

Valdez is what Whittier could be if it combed its hair and brushed its teeth. Primarily a commercial and recreational charter fishing centre with a strong dash of kayak rentals thrown in for good measure Valdez clearly faces the sea both geographically and economically. We walked around the waterfront marina where a mixture of pleasure craft and working boats were moored side by side. Although yesterday saw the waters leading into Valdez Arm strewn with fishing boats, this morning saw every finger dock occupied.

Valdez parking lot

We found out by talking to one of the fishermen that today was an off day, one of many set aside to allow salmon stocks to return to the streams to ensure replenishment of this valuable resource. The fisherman we were talking to was from a boat that was registered in Washington that comes up the coast for the salmon fishery.

After touring the waterfront we drove to the Maxine and Jesse Whitney Museum which houses a collection of First Nations art and artifacts collected by Maxine Whitney, who was a long time resident of Valdez. Although only one room in size it houses an eclectic array of artifacts ranging from arrow heads to basket work and scrimshaw. This is all woven amongst some tremendous taxidermy displays of moose, wolves, fox, wolverine, bison, and two full sized polar bear. As the guide books had advised, this was well worth the stop.

After gassing up and stocking the larder we headed out just as the mist of the morning turned into a full fledged rain fall. Not far out of town we pulled off the road where not one but three waterfalls plummeted down the hillside into the concrete grey waters of the Lowe River. The largest of these falls was Bridalveil. I think this is our third if not fourth Bridalveil Falls of the trip. It was the perfect spot to stop for lunch and on rainy days like this we really appreciate being able to walk back into the BRT from our seats, make a lunch, clean up and sit at the table while looking out the ‘dining room’ window at spectacular scenery, all without getting a drop of rain on our precious little heads. Life is good.

Bridal Veil Falls

Room with a view

As the road climbed out of Valdez we drove right into the thick clouds we had seen that morning capping the hills surrounding the town. At times we had to reduce speed, the visibility was so bad. We could only imagine the mountains and waterfalls that we knew were hidden from our view. However even this weather had its own beauty as the diffuse light accentuated the palette of greens on the hillsides.

Along the way we caught views of the Worthington Glacier, and by the time we reached milepost 40 outside of Valdez were passing over near dry pavement, the clouds were lifting and hints of shadow were appearing. By milepost 50 we were seeing patches of blue sky ahead. The weather continued to clear as we headed north and inland.

Worthington Glacier

At Glennallen we began to trace back over our steps along the Glenn Highway that we had taken the previous week while on our way to Anchorage. Interestingly, viewed from the other direction, the scenery still had a fresh perspective to offer us. As the driving was good and there was little reason to stop (it certainly wasn’t getting dark) we continued to drive towards Tok (toke) . The campsite before Tok, Eagle Trail was too buggy so we proceeded on past Tok, after stopping for gas, and stopped at the Tok River State Park. This was a small park right on a bend of the Tok river and we found several sites open, one of which was close to the fast flowing grey waters of the Tok.

There was left over chili in the fridge so supper prep was easy. It had occurred to me part way through the day that in all of my 61 years this was probably the first time I had ever been out of the country on July 1. Although less than 2 hours drive away I still feel like I am in another country and as beautiful as Alaska has been I am looking forward to crossing back into Canada tomorrow.

Day 88 – June 30

We were up early to allow us some time to explore Whittier in advance of our 12:45 sign in for the 1:45 ferry departure for Valdez. In hindsight we should have slept in. Not far from our campsite was the entry to the Anton Anderson Memorial tunnel to Whittier. At 2.5 miles long this one lane tunnel is the only land connection to Whittier. Serving both as vehicular and train access, traffic direction reverses every half hour. It is so straight that you can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel right from the start. My totally unfounded faith in technology, based only on a single flashing green light, assured me that in this case its was not the oncoming train – I hoped.

Because of the shared use with trains the road bed has rails installed which from time to time seemed to want to take control of steering the beast and point us uncomfortably close to the jagged edges of the blasted out tunnel, which despite its apparent capacity to engulf a train, still seemed very narrow at those moments. Emerging from the far side of the tunnel the high clouds of our starting point in Bear Valley were replaced with a thick wall of fog and heavy mist. We followed the only road available in search of downtown Whittier.

After some fruitless searching we came to realize that in fact there is no downtown Whittier. Whittier appears just to be a place where people park their boats as the hundreds and hundreds of boats, either in the marina or parked on every available piece of real estate on shore, seem to outnumber people 10 to 1. Despite glowing descriptions of the ‘Hamlet’ of Whittier in our guide and in the brochure produced by the Whittier Chamber of Commerce (clearly an unbiased source) there is, in my mind, no better description of Whittier than a God forsaken piece of asphalted and gravelled real estate. There is no reason to be here except to leave, even if just for a day of fishing.

Stripped of its undoubtedly spectacular view by the thick fog and heavy mist of this day, on its own Whittier is home to some of the ugliest buildings I have seen this side of early Communist China. The main residential building in town, a now condo-ized former military residential slab tower, houses half of Whittier’s population, the remainder being in the ‘new’ 1950’s’ building also originally built as military and civilian employee housing. Sandwiched in between these two residential hubs is the hulking derelict of the Buckner Building, a huge multi floor abandoned grey concrete building that looks like it came from the set of the movie Shutter Island. Rats would walk by this for fear of personal injury.

With an abundance of time on our hands we went into the Inn at Whittier, the only building that appeared to have had its exterior finishes touched in the current century, which had a lovely, well appointed white table clothed dining room and wifi where we set up shop for an hour, consuming several cups of coffee, some bagels and a reindeer sausage, all of which were very tasty, while we took advantage of the wifi to touch base. It was comforting to learn that Jane and Ike had just returned home safely (after their blog had gone dark for many days) well ahead of their drop dead date. Their reports of bug infested BC and Ontario however sound less than welcoming for our homeward journey. We are now officially the tail end of the armadillo.

Our boat left 10 minutes ahead of its scheduled departure, apparently, like us, eager to get out of Whittier as soon as possible. Any hope that the gloom that engulfed Whittier was a localized condition soon faded. As the trip progressed the best we got was brighter fog punctuated by the outlines of some of the coastline as we steamed along, a disappointment after reading of the great scenery that Jane and Ike had seen on their passage earlier in the month.

Large screens at the front of the lounge showed our vessel’s course along a coastline that we couldn’t see. At one point, when our position veered considerably from the posted course on the chart, Diane reasoned that the foggy weather was causing us to move further from the shore for safety reasons, I offered that maybe we were being steered by an Italian former cruise boat captain who used navigation charts as a general suggestion rather hard and fast data.

At points the monotony of the fog was disrupted by small pieces of ice that floated by, certainly not of Titanic proportions these aqua blue sculptures served as roosts to many seabirds. I saw several salmon jumping and at one point as we saw a tour boat racing by and then stopping we watched through our binoculars while a whale performed for the charter guests by rolling over and showing its fins, blowing and flashing its tail fluke.

Bergie bit

As we passed close to Glacier Island we saw two herds of dozens of sea lions, their brown fur contrasting against the grey beach rocks. Further out from shore a sea otter nonchalantly paddled past on its back.

As we approached Valdez Arm the coastline was dotted with commercial fishing boats dropping and retrieving purse seines for the salmon that were heading for the nearby rivers. Based on the proliferation of boats it is amazing that any salmon actually make it upstream to spawn.

Running the salmon gauntlet

We arrived in Valdez (Val deez) on schedule at 7:30. Our Milepost guide listed all the RV parks in town and a quick survey showed that the three located right downtown were pretty much the same, full service, including cable and wifi , with small gravelled lots so we chose the Eagle’s Rest which had a Good SamClub discount. We got a site close to the main lodge and quickly got connected before a light drizzle started. We had a second great meal of Indian food courtesy of Erin and then spent some time on the vvvveeeeerrrryyyy slow wifi checking weather for tomorrow, which will help us to figure out our schedule for the next couple of days, before going to bed.