May 21 - Sightseeing in Alaska

I smiled as I wrote the title for today’s post. Sightseeing! Well, even though I have partial sight, sightseeing is still an appropriate word for me to use. I think that it might even apply if one had no sight at all. There is always a lot to experience with other senses. At least, that is what my friend who is completely blind told me. I take his word on that.

Now for our stops in Alaska. Our first stop was Juneau. What a surprise it was to see this quaint rustic city nestled at the foot of the mountains.  Before our trip, I knew that Juneau was the capital city of the state and so I had expected to see some tall, fairly modern state buildings. This was absolutely not the case. There is really not much there and it took only ten or fifteen minutes to walk around almost everything.

There are always on shore excursions offered with a cruise and at Juneau we opted to do the Mt. Roberts Tramway. We waited until the day we arrived to book this thinking that it would not be worth the dollars if the weather was inclement. However, the day was cool but reasonably clear so up we went.

There was a visitor centre at the top with several walking trails leading still further upwards. Because we were so early in the season, the trails were blocked with snow and ice so we weren’t able to enjoy them. My favourite part at the summit was the free documentary film shown in the visitor centre. The film gave an excellent overview of the relationship of the original people with their land.

The guides on the tram were also informative. Our guide pointed out several sights of interest – and we also learned about five different kinds of salmon by opening our hand. Starting with the thumb, there was the chum salmon, the point finger was sockeye, the tall middle finger was king, the ring finger was silver, and of course, the pinkie finger was just that – pink.

The pictures with this post show two views looking down from the tramway. The first is of two cruise ships and the second is of the town itself. 

Two cruise ships from tramway in Juneau

Looking at Juneau from tramway