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.