Alaska Cruise VI: Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia, is one of our favorite places.   It is very British, with red double decker buses, well-trimmed botanical gardens, and tea served at the lavish Empress Hotel.  It is also a place full of memories.  In 2008, Dave and I spent a weekend in Victoria with Kyle and Lisa and their children.  Bryce tried to feed a bright red apple from the fruit bowl at our hotel to a carriage horse, and Kyle, the children, and I got caught in a Chinese parade, complete with lion dancers.  The parade circled around and through the shop in Chinatown which we were visiting.

Our last stop on the cruise was an evening in Victoria, from 6 p.m. until 11:30 p.m.  We took a two-hour walking tour, leaving from the dock, and we rode back from downtown on a double decker bus.

We traipsed along the former Birdcage Walk (now Government Street), named after its nearness to the legislature (the "birdcages").  Some homes dated back to the 1800s, and others to the Arts and Crafts era of the 1920s and 1930s.  The neighborhoods were very traditional, although the citizens of Victoria are now as diverse as in any large, North American city.

We paused by the Carr House, where one of Victoria's pioneers, Richard Carr, lived.

The house is now known for his daughter, Emily Carr, who was born in 1871, the year British Columbia joined Canada.  She is a revered Victoria artist.  Emily never married and was quite controversial.  She only taught for a month at Victoria's Ladies' Art Club because she so scandalized her students by smoking and cursing.

We moseyed through Beacon Hill Park, a green oasis near the heart of the city. 

Our guide pointed out the diverse objects in the park, from strutting peacocks to carriages, to huge trees, to flower clocks and war memorials.

We stood under an immense banyan tree.

Totem poles adorn downtown parks in Victoria.

We paused at the Spaghetti Factory restaurant near the Inner Harbor.  In  2008, David and I treated Lisa's wide-eyed family to pasta before exploring the more exotic sights of the city.  Lisa and Kyle remembered that dinner as well as we did.

The Canadians have fought alongside the US and Britain in many wars. Their war memorial is on the grounds of the elegant Government House.

Parliament House is beautiful inside and out.  The parliament chambers are faced with dark wood and chandeliers.

The city of Victoria is festooned with flower baskets hanging from streetlights.

The Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building vie as the most imposing structures in the Inner Harbor.  Taking high tea at The Empress is on my bucket list.

And, of course, the Brits brought their roses!

Alaska Cruise V: Ketchikan

Our loop north ended at Ketchikan, after which we sailed back south to Victoria and Seattle.  Ketchikan is the rainiest of the Inside Passage cities, and perhaps the most picturesque.

 Bright colored, clapboard houses hug the shore.

 We were docked in Ketchikan only from 8:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m. (just after noon), because the sail to Victoria for the next day's visit was so far.   Dave and I were off the boat as soon as it docked, and we wandered the souvenir shops and fish houses.

 The lumbermen's match was just starting, and we ducked inside to watch a few of the events before meeting Kyle and Lisa for our own  excursion to an old cannery.

 Some of the best lumberjacks from Canada and Alaska participated in a mock contest between Ketchikan and Dawson, Canada.  The audience was divided in half to root for the Americans or the Canadians.

 One of the events was cutting a log in half with an ax.

 Another event was using a two-man ax to slice a wooden disk off a log.

 A third event was to split a log for firewood.

 Other events used chain saws, rather than axes.

 And still another event had the lumberjacks stand on wooden poles hooked into the tree trunks, as they cut a log on top of the stump.  In real logging, the lumberjacks are often above ground level when they cut down trees.

 We visited a cannery which used to produce thousands of cans of fish every year.  It is now abandoned, except for the fascinating tours that go there.

 We began with a nature hike through the rain forest.

 The guide pointed out the beautiful streams and waterfalls, as well as native plants and berries.

 This is a service berry, not familiar to most of us in the "lower 49".

 The cannery seemed almost haunted.

 As we walked through the different areas of the cannery, we were served five types of fish--clam chowder, ceviche, baked oysters, smoked salmon, and crab legs.

 Halibut are huge.

 The guide showed us the traps used for shrimp and crab, including the "escape holes" that let the fish out if the trap is lost at sea or not timely retrieved.

 The old buildings looked like abstract paintings to me, with their geometric shapes and rich shades of gray and dark red.

 Dave, Lisa, Kyle, and I tried out a really big trap.

 The tour sponsors got the old canning machines working again, and we watched vintage cans being made.

 We boarded an excursion boat to take us back to our ship.

 I was surprised to see an attractive woman as skipper.

 The skipper drove us near the rocky shore, where the naturalist pointed out jellyfish in the water.

 The views were spectacular throughout the bay.

 We also passed a colony of seals.

 This was a big day for ships in Ketchikan.  There were at least four boats from various cruise lines.

 These photos of a family taking a cruise in the 50's made us smile every time we passed them, on the wall near our cabin.