No Fooling With This One

Since the previous blog was quite a fish story, I thought I would share with you a picture of the largest fish I caught on this trip or any other! Weighing several pounds, this 28 inch Silver Salmon was fun to catch and even more enjoyable to eat! I caught this salmon on the Kenai River in the city limits of a pleasant town called Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

Yes, Everyone Has A Fish Story

The difference between the proverbial "fish story" and my own story is that

I will fess up and say that I really didn't catch these halibut, but somebody did, perhaps years earlier! I just couldn't resist getting a picture of myself with these monsters of the deep. The photo was taken by my dad.

Valdez's Spiritual Side

If I had not already mentioned it in a previous blog, our Sunday journeys took us to different churches. Sometimes we would get ready to go and set out in our truck (with trailer in-tow sometimes)and we would look for a church where people are gathering. Other times, when we had internet provided, I would do a search for the local churches and their times of worship. In the case of Valdez, we went to a community church which took over a small strip mall. We drove by it the day before without even noticing it. We had a wonderful time and the pastor and wife stayed longer to talk and share their lives. We were the last to leave. We had heard in that service that they were participants in a monthly song fest with other churches. The location rotated and those churches that wanted to participate would volunteer their talent. We decided to go that evening. Why not?

What a pleasure we had, strangers in an isolated town, yet not strangers at all. Louise and I attended, dad declining- choosing an early night of sleep. You've heard it, the decry about divisions and denominations. This group of people packing the place and beyond, raised the roof in praise -Catholic, Lutheran, Community, Baptist and four other churches. Eight churches represented. All there were reveling in their common Lord, their common faith -true ecumenicism. They spoke also of their common work to reach out to the disenfranchised and the new students at the local community college. Louise and I were proud to be counted among their numbers.

Valdez is fortunate to have such communities of love and faith! But that wasn't all, a tradition of the town for any community gathering is shared food and desserts. It is part of their normal community life, particularly in the long cold winter months where the sun is a rare a commodity as avacados. A feast awaited us all after the hour long song fest. My favorite was the fresh salmon dip - the best I have ever tasted. We had both wished we had not eaten earlier, but we found room for some great tasty treats prepared by the kind Christian folk of Valdez. Here is a panoramic shot I took on the west edge of Valdez while standing on the docks.

The Epicenter and the Rouge Killer Whale

Here is the tranquil spot that 36 miles below it produced the 1964 massive earthquake. Also, in the same small bay is where we got to see the three Rouge Orcas, aka Killer Whales.

Although the pictures are not, in themselves, outstanding, what they represent are. Next blog I will wrap up our Valdez and Prince William Sound visit and then move south through British Columbia containing some of the best scenery we witnessed!

Happy Faces to Go With a Great Day

As we cruised calmly between the two great glaciers a couple hours ride apart, we slipped into some narrows (shown as a wake scene two posts back), only to be introduced to a calm and beautiful bay surrounded by lush green mountains, a sight not unlike many others, with the exception that HERE was the epicenter of the great Alaskan earthquake of 1964 that destroyed towns, killed people and causes havoc down the coast of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California. This quake was the most powerful ever recorded in North America, a quake that literally shook the world. I am old enough to remember the reports of destruction, but to see this serene area, it is hard to fathom. This quake resulted in the literal destruction of a small indigenous settled and such destruction in Valdez, that they moved what was left of the town out of future harms way. Prime real estate land out of Anchorage was lost forever, the land in the inner arm of the Kenai Peninsula, known by locals as the Turnagain Arm, dropped several feet, permanently altering the landscape of the town of Hope, which lost half or more of its inhabitable land. Any trip to Alaska warrants a more careful look at this historic event. In this same bay, looking upon this epicenter of regional history, we were treated to sighting of another kind, a dying breed known as Rouge Orca Whales, not to be confused with regular Orcas. There are eight males living, no females and soon all will be gone. These are genetically distinct and these Rouge are more illusive, rarely seen; they are more aggressive eaters of meat, and not just fish! Unfortunately, their soon extinction was causes by the death of all the females as a result of the Exon Valdez Oil spill of 1989. The sadness of the story was mitigated for a time by the thrill of spotting three of the remaining eight Rouges, and yours truly was the first to spot these elusive creatures. I will send you a couple of pictures in my next post as we continue this blog; there is so much more to come! I hope you are enjoying the journey.

Eastern Prince William Sound At Its Best

With memories fresh and colorful, I can recall in vivid colors and smells the experiences of our trip and the impression I had of the Alaskan coast,truly, all of it enjoyable. The long-day, day-long, 10 hour cruise on eastern Prince William Sound was magic. It was a near perfect day in all regards, sunny and cool. We were headed to see the Columbia Glacier, South central Alaska's largest tidewater glacier and the Meares Glacier, an advancing and very actively calving glacier. The first glacier we saw from a distance of at least twenty miles due to the amount of ice bergs it is producing. A natural cycle was occurring which happens about every 150 when what is known as a catastrophic melt takes place, the interplay between ice, land and ocean. The locals do not point to the glacier as proof of global warming - look elsewhere. The Meares Glacier was worth the whole day's trip. Our "large boat" approached this tidal glacier within about a 1/4 mile and we sat listen to its groans, cracks and saw some ice cascading off the glacier into its bay. Standing on the deck of the boat and witnessing this wondrous site defies words. The ice, hundreds of feet high was twisted and distressed due to the uneven ice movement of the glacier wall behind. Much of the front of this glacier was white with hues of blue and grey, but some spots were a more rich vibrant blue, an indication of tremendous pressure it bore earlier in it journey down the mountain and valley. Take a look at it yourself and experience the moments, the sights and the sounds of the glacier.