Alaska Cruise - Glacier Bay and elsewhere

Ray Sachs

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Not too far from Philly
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you should be able to figure it out...
Just got back from a week long cruise of the southern portion of Alaska, from Ketchikan in the South to Skagway farther north. I don’t generally enjoy cruises as a mode of travel, but this is one I always thought would be nice to do for the easy access to some of the scenery. And indeed the scenery was gorgeous, particularly the day we spent on a slow cruise through Glacier Bay National Park.

Three of the four towns we visited, Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan are afflicted by the same disease of all small towns with a cruise dock – they’ve been totally over-run by knick-knack stores appealing for some reason I don’t understand, to many of the tourists from those ship. All three of these towns once had real economies, gold-mining, fishing, etc. Juneau is still the state capital, but you wouldn’t know it. I can’t begrudge those making money in these towns. And, as a cruise passenger myself, I realize I’m the last person to complain! But I guess that’s why I don’t really enjoy cruises – the cruise itself is a world of tacky/luxurious make believe, but the towns we visit are now too. Which strikes me as a damn shame but inevitable.

Victoria, BC is a large enough city to only be marginally affected by this disease in the area closest to the cruise docks. And, of course, Seattle is a wonderful vibrant city with enough of a summer tourist attraction that the cruise boats which launch from there just blend right in. We lived there for years and love going back – I wish we’d have spent more time there and less on the boat to be honest.

But the cruise affords the opportunity to see and photograph some incredible scenery, so onto that. I’ll organize this into separate posts arranged chronologically including sailing through the Puget Sound and Straights of Juan De Fuca (the narrow-ish waterway connecting the Puget Sound with the Pacific Ocean), Juneau/Mendenhall Glacier, Skagway/White Pass, Glacier Bay National Park, Ketchikan/Victoria, and a few from the tacky coolness of the ship itself…

First, there’s a full set of images on Flickr, including the Seattle portion of the trip (included in a previous thread here), which you can browse if interested at:

Alaska - Seattle 2015

Oh, on the technical side, I shot with the Nikon DF and Coolpix A. Most of the scenic shooting was done with the DF, but several shots are from the Coolpix A, a camera that never ceases to amaze and please me. On the DF, I used my trusty Zeiss 25 and 21, but also two Nikon zooms - the 24-120 and the 70-300. I rarely use these zooms but I keep them because sometimes you've gotta have them, and this trip was one of those times...
 
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Glacier Bay National Park


Sailing into Glacier Bay as the morning fog breaks:


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Glacier Bay-2-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


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Glacier Bay-10-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


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Glacier Bay-19-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


The Margerie Glacier, one of the few tidewater glaciers left (those that still reach the water)


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Glacier Bay-317-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


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Glacier Bay-93-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


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Glacier Bay-302-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


The Johns Hopkins Glacier – one of the iconic views in Glacier Bay


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Glacier Bay-464-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


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Glacier Bay-609-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


One of the many glaciers that have melted back to the higher elevations


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Glacier Bay-551-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr


Sailing back out of Glacier Bay in the afternoon:


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Glacier Bay-616-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr
 
Golly gosh....I have just overdosed of some sublime photography. The power and grandeur of the natural world is beautifully captured Ray, from gushing falls to the clouds. I think you have even bestowed some taste to the tackiness of the ship.

Wonderful set.
 
Very nice set of photos. As a Vancouverite, I've jumped on the Alaska cruise 3 times. Notwithstanding the tacky stores, I always find the Alaskans to be genuine people with remarkable tolerance given all of the tourists they have to put up with.
 
Very nice set of photos. As a Vancouverite, I've jumped on the Alaska cruise 3 times. Notwithstanding the tacky stores, I always find the Alaskans to be genuine people with remarkable tolerance given all of the tourists they have to put up with.
Oh, for sure. When the cruise lines and the towns, or the state, or whoever agreed to that set of stops, what happened became an economic inevitability. And some of those towns were no doubt dying and saw this, rightly, as an economic lifeline. I fully get why those in the towns would embrace the opportunity and put up with all of the trinket hunters. What I don't get is the MANY people who get on these cruise boats and go to interesting places with interesting histories and spend all of their time shopping for tacky jewelry that you could buy ANYWHERE, and probably for a lot less. Or tons of ridiculous tee-shirts or whatever. I was happy to support the economy by hiring someone to take us up to a glacier, or to pay for a train over White Pass - I was even happy to pay too much - to see something REAL about the place, or just the natural beauty of the place.

I don't blame the residents of these areas in the least. They've got some amazing natural beauty and good for them capitalizing on it. Nonetheless, when I go to a once interesting town that has almost none of that left, I'm bummed. That's why I don't like cruises generally. I'd rather rent a place for a few weeks in a city or region I've never spent time in and just get to know it - let the culture soak in a bit. So, my bad for choosing a vacation I knew was gonna piss me off in this way, but I've sort of wanted to do it for years and I enjoyed the hell out of it despite the tacky shops that I just don't get, but which I indirectly at least help create the demand for...

-Ray
 
Nice shots Ray...'White Pass 175' and 'Glacier Bay 19' are really fine. I must admit however that many of the images showing the receding glaciers do make me a hint sad, a bit like seeing a weather and frail old elephant in its final days.
More than a hint sad for me Joe. The day in Glacier Bay was almost in equal measure one of the most stunningly beautiful days of my life - practically spiritual really - and intensely depressing. When you see where the glaciers are today vs photos and illustrations of where they were 50 and 100 years ago, it's as stark an illustration as you'll ever see of what's happening to our planet. One of the more emotionally conflicted days I can remember.

And the impact, however incremental, of all of those enormous cruise ships running around up there (there were four of them chasing each other around last week - you could see us all in a line on the last day down towards Victoria and back to Seattle) is not lost on me in the least. If, as I've heard, it's a sign of maturity to be able to hold many intensely conflicting thoughts (and feelings) at the same time, I seem to have finally arrived, because my thoughts and emotions were all over the place that day...

-Ray
 
Golly gosh....I have just overdosed of some sublime photography. The power and grandeur of the natural world is beautifully captured Ray, from gushing falls to the clouds. I think you have even bestowed some taste to the tackiness of the ship.

Wonderful set.
Thanks so much Pete - very kind words!

I have to admit to being somewhat torn when I take shots of places like this - I know it takes some level of competence to do, but OTOH it really feels like shooting fish in a barrel. When you're surrounded by such beauty it feels like it would be almost difficult not to come away with some nice photos. I felt the same way when I spent a month on the Amalfi Coast a couple years ago - one of the peak shooting experiences of my life, but how could it NOT be?

The challenge to me is to make more mundane, everyday things look interesting and occasionally beautiful, and I seem to be failing spectacularly at that lately. Mostly even seem to have lost the inspiration for it. While you can't help be inspired in places like I visited last week...

-Ray
 
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