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Alaska 2024

In August 2024, Debi and I took a cruise-rail-air trip through Alaska and Canada. We flew into Vancouver a few days early to relax and enjoy the city. Then we boarded the Noordam for a 7-day cruise up the coast of Alaska. Once we got to Whittier, we transferred to a land tour that took us from Anchorage to Denali by train. After three nights in Denali, we boarded a charter flight to Fairbanks. Then we took another charter flight to Dawson City in Canada's Yukon territory. Next was another charter flight to Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukon territory. We ended the tour with a commercial flight back to Vancouver. The trip lasted 23 days.

Photos

August 1 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We arrived in Vancouver a few days early to acclimate ourselves before joining our cruise. We walked the old Gastown district, took a Hop-On Hop-Off tour of Stanley Park, watched seaplanes take off and land, and just enjoyed the scenery.

Watching the seaplanes land and take off from Vancouver.

August 4 - Alaskan Coastal Cruise

We boarded our cruise ship today and had a great dinner at the Pinnacle Grill. It took two days for the ship to navigate the inside passage to our first port of call.

August 6 - Ketchikan, Alaska

This was our first port of call in Alaska. We took a photo safari tour in the morning and finished the day with a pub crawl.

We took a photo safari in Ketchikan, our first stop in Alaska. This river runs through the town.

August 7 - Juneau, Alaska

The capitol city of Juneau was our next port of call. We visited Mendenhall Glacier and Glacier Gardens.

August 8 - Skagway, Alaska

Skagway was a gold rush town. We took a Good Time Girls walking tour and a bus tour of the surrounding area. We finished the day with The Days of 98 Show.

Reid Creek runs behind the Gold Rush Cemetery in Skagway, Alaska.

August 9 - Glacier Bay

This was a cruise day with no ports of call. We visited Glacier Bay. It was one of the few windy, rainy, and cold days on our trip.

August 10 - College Fjord

The next day was another cruise day. Visibility was very low, but cleared enough to see the glaciers named after colleges.

August 11 - Whittier to Anchorage Cruisetrain

We disembarked at Whittier, Alaska and took the cruisetrain to Anchorage. They call them cruisetrains because they are dedicated to the cruise lines that dock in Whittier. Whittier is a natural deep water port that never freezes over. Anchorage has no port because glacial silt blocks access to the water.

August 12 - Anchorage, Alaska

Today we traveled by train back to Whittier to take a 26 Glacier Tour of Prince William Sound. We saw lots of animals, including a pod of orcas. Unfortunately, we could not get many photos. While our camera has really good zoom lens, we did not have a good way to keep it stabilized. At extreme range, we could not keep the subject in view.

Christina Richard (right) guided us through our 11-day land tour. Buses provided local transportation, but trains and charter flights provided long range transportation.

The US military constructed a one lane tunnel through the mountain between Whittier and Anchorage, Alaska. Traffic reverses direction every half hour.

We traveled by rail back to Whittier to catch the 26 Glacier Tour cruise of Prince William Sound.

August 13 - Train from Anchorage to Denali

Today we took an 8-hour train ride from Anchorage to Denali. The rail cars had a dining room downstairs and seating upstairs. Upstairs had large windows to give us great views. An eagle flew along side the train for a while, putting on a very good aerial show. The train was running late, so we arrived at Mckinley Chalet Resort too late for one of our excursions.

August 14 - Denali, Alaska

We started the day with a Tundra Wilderness Tour. The weather was great, and we saw lots of wild life. Much of the wild life was too far away to photograph. The bus was equiped with a long range video camera and displays near every seat, so we got good views. Unfortunately, attempts to photograph the displays resulted in low quality photos. We ended the days with a Denali Highway Jeep Excursion.

August 15 - Denali Visitors Center

This was a day at leisure. We went to the Denali Visitors Center, and Ron hiked some of the trails.

This video was taken on one of the hiking trails at the Denali Visitors Center

August 17 - Fairbanks, Alaska

We took a private charter flight from Denali to Fairbanks. Ron played his travel guitar in the airport while we waited for our flight. He got a unexpected round of applause after playing the Pink Panther Theme. We took a paddle wheel tour in Fairbanks to took us past a dog sled training facility and an indigenous village and fish camp. Then we visited an old gold mining site and panned for gold. We found a whopping $25 worth of gold.

August 18 - Dawson City, Yukon, Canada

On approach to Dawson City, Yukon, Canada you can see mine tailings left behind by old style gold mining operations. They use different techniques to mine gold these days that does not leave tailings. Unpon landing at the Dawson City "International" airport, we were ushered into their terminal (shown below). The hotel had a very colorful turn of the century facade, but the back of the building was pretty plain. They even had old style metal room keys.

We started with a trip to the Top of the Dome, a mountain top overlooking Dawson City. We took a walking tour to visit the cabins of Robert Service and Jack London, two famous writers who used their time in Dawson City as fodder for their literary works. Another author and television personality, Pierre Berton, spent his childhood in Dawson City.

We attended two cancan shows at Diamond Tooth Gerties the night before we left town. Ron took a hike down along the Yukon river where the Klondike river joins the Yukon. Debi decided to take the Sourtoe cocktail challenge. The cocktail is a shot of Canadian whiskey with a disembodied human toe Garnish. You must allow the toe to touch your lips to be admitted into the club.

The clear Klondike River flowing into the cloudy Yukon River at Dawson City in Canada. The Yukon is cloudy at this point because glacial runoff water feeds it. Glaciers grind the rock under them into a very fine powder that causes the cloudy water.

The Sourtoe Cocktail is a shot of Canadian whiskey with a human toe garnish.

August 21 - Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Another chartered air flight took us to Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukon. Ron took a walking tour of Whitehorse when we arrived. The next day we took a bus out to Emerald Lake. We caught it at a great time where the water still. Then we drove to Carcross for a quick stop at the shops before stopping at the Carcross Desert, a very small desert that is the only desert in Alaska. Before boarding a commercial flight back to Vancouver, we had to sample the local drink called a Sweet Beaver, a concoction of Canadian whiskey and maple syrup.