Alaska II: Whittier

Alaska is full of characters.  When Dave and I lived in Fairbanks during the summer of 1972, that far northern Alaskan city was sometimes described as "the end of the schizophrenic trail."  Dave and I wished we knew the story of this man, with whom we crossed paths on June 30, 2022, in Whittier, Alaska.

On June 30, we drove south from Anchorage, as we began our circle around the Kenai Peninsula.  The day's agenda was to visit the Portage Glacier, on our way to Whittier, and then cross the Peninsula to spend the night in Kenai, overlooking Cook Inlet.

The Portage Glacier is beautiful, but shrinking.

The Visitor Center used to be on the edge of the glacier, but now the glacier is barely in view, hidden up the canyon.

It is hard to get to Whittier, although it is a major, deep water port, and one at which cruise ships often dock.  To reach Whittier from Anchorage, you have to drive through a seven-mile tunnel, built in 1943.  At that time, Whittier had a large military base to protect against a Japanese invasion through Alaska.  In fact, there was fighting between Americans and Japanese in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, although not in Whittier.  The tunnel is a single lane wide, with a train track running through the middle.  It is the longest highway tunnel in America, and one of the few servicing both railroads and cars.

We stopped at the Lazy Otter Cafe in Whittier for a bowl of chowder and some great views of Prince William Sound.
 

I loved the bright flowers, huge and healthy from the hefty doses of light during Alaska's summer.  In July, it was barely twilight at 3 a.m., and then it started getting brighter.

From the cafe, we could see the dock where many small boats were anchored.  The dock was fringed with flowers, with large mountains in the background.

The attractions of Whittier are limited, but they did include a fudge shop.

The town felt virtually deserted when we visited, but there were many containers, waiting for ships to haul them away.

Tourists from Anchorage sometimes ride the train to Whittier.  The train was certainly picturesque.

The Buckner Building, where army troops were stationed during World War II, is a moldering hulk at the edge of town.  The whole base was housed in a couple of big buildings, I suppose to make amenities more accessible during the frigid Alaskan winters.

There is a strict schedule for when cars and the train can use the tunnel, and which direction they have to travel.  We could understand the reason, and we scrupulously obeyed the schedule!

After traveling back to the main highway from Whittier, Dave and I traveled southwest to Kenai.  We ate at Louie's loud and fun bar/restaurant, with animal heads on the walls and fish on the menu.

Dave considered his dinner at Louie's to be the best meal of the trip.  My mixed seafood platter was delicious, with its pile of sauteed shrimp, salmon, and scallops.

I worked on a rush legal project during the afternoon and evening of our visit to Kenai.  We thus missed visiting an important historic site--the Holy Assumption Orthodox Church.  The Russians settled much of southern Alaska during the 1740s and kept it until selling their holdings to the US after the Civil War.  There are 30 remaining Russian Orthodox Churches in Alaska, and they are very picturesque.

Alaska I: Anchorage

 

Our trip to Alaska was part of my "ten new temples every year" goal.  The Anchorage Temple was #8 for 2022.  I thoroughly enjoyed attending a temple session in Anchorage on June 29, 2022.  It is inspiring to feel the spirit of Christ and the warmth of Church members in temples all over the country.  As we planned the trip, Dave and I decided to first visit Anchorage and then make a loop around the beautiful Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage.

Dave took these photos of the Cook Inlet, leading from the Pacific Ocean to Anchorage, as our plane emerged from the clouds and landed in Alaska.

Another photo from the plane showed the snow-capped peaks of Alaska, even at the end of June.

There were lush, large flowers everywhere we went in Alaska. 

Our first sightseeing stop was the Anchorage Museum.  It was a combination art and history museum, spacious and with beautifully presented exhibits.  I like to attend museums in every state or city we visit, to give me a better sense of how the local people see their own culture.

We heard a lot about polar bears in Alaska, starting with this installation at the Anchorage Museum.

Bears are also a symbol of Alaska, and they are everywhere--on bear-viewing tours to Kodiak Island, as residents of the wildlife refuge center outside Anchorage, as real-life visitors to rural towns and even Anchorage itself, and as portraits in the Anchorage Museum.

For such a beautiful state as Alaska, it is not surprising that the Anchorage Museum is filled with romantic landscapes of the state--mountains, rivers, seas, and glaciers.  

Today's museums often feature exhibits about native or minority people.  The modern art section of the Anchorage Museum was filled with art by native Alaskans.  The painting above, with the numbers "1/4 + 1/16 = 3/16" marked on the girl's arm, refers to the proportions of native heritage that provide various government benefits.  I suppose the artist was saying that native people are "defined" by their bloodlines.  

Another artwork displayed the faces of native women who had been killed or maimed by domestic violence.  Violence is particularly high among Alaska's native women.

I enjoyed the displays about Alaska's history and culture almost as much as the displays of its art.

The Anchorage Museum partnered with the Smithsonian in displaying a whole wall of artifacts for each of Alaska's tribes, with a continuously running video about each tribe.  I am familiar with the Inuit (Eskimos from the far north) and Haida and Tlingit (totem pole carvers from the Inside Passage near Juneau), but there were many other tribes I had never heard of before.

Dave and I checked into the Puffin Inn, a very traditional, “cheap” motel that I had booked at Alaska prices—nearly $200 per night.  The good news was that it was clean and had two queen beds, TV, hot shower, and a floor plan identical to the thousands of cheap motels Dave and I have stayed in during the past.  It is only in such places that Dave feels comfortable and at home—there is no charm for him in B’n’Bs.  Dave yields to my visiting every museum in town and I yield to him in his choice of lodging!

We treated ourselves to a visit to the Captain Cook Hotel, Anchorage's best.

Elegant hotels often have elegant shops, and we enjoyed window-shopping the upscale Alaskan art at the Captain Cook Hotel--large sculptures of polar bears, jewelry carved from mammoth tusks, paintings of Mt. Denali.

We ate dinner at the Crow's Nest restaurant on the top floor of the Captain Cook Hotel.  "You could see Denali out that window if there weren't that haze," our waitress told us.  Instead, we looked down at a parking lot.  Oh, well.

I seldom eat at fancy restaurants, and it is always a treat.  As an enthusiastic cook myself, I carefully taste and inspect.  Later, I copy the best dishes I've tried.  For nearly a week, as we traveled through Alaska, Dave and I ordered fish at every meal, and we never tired of it!

Later that evening, we attended the temple.

Prague, Katmandu, and Dallas

A lot of things went on during our Sunday dinner on June 26, 2022.  The main thing was to tell Grant and Meg how much we love them, with a last Czech svikova dinner before they leave for Grant's medical school in Dallas.  Meg and Grant will spend three weeks in Europe before Grant starts school in early August.  They will visit Czech Republic and Slovakia, where Grant was an LDS missionary, as well well as spending a week in southern Spain. 
 

I buy the distinctive Czech dumpling bread at the bar of the Bohemian Brewery, here in SLC.  The roast beef is slow-roasted with vegetables, which are then pureed into a savory sauce and garnished with a spoonful of unsweetened cream and a spoonful of tart berry jam.  Grant says my svickova is the best he's eaten in the United States, but, or course, his mission mother made it better!

It is great fun to host our collection of babies and toddlers, who gravitate to the teddy bear and dolls.  Audrey made herself at home on the couch, while Eliza and Lily explored the family room floor.

After dinner, Mike treated us to a video he made about the trek he and Logan Neilson took through Nepal earlier in June.

Bryce was visiting with his two friends who accompanied him on a senior road trip down the coast from Seattle to California, and then through Arizona to SLC.  One was a friend from high school and the other knew Bryce all the way back to grade school!  Bryce spent a day at our St. George house, visiting Zion Park, and he spent another couple of days in SLC, visiting Park City and Lagoon Amusement Park.

And, finally, I helped Jono with some corporate documents for the water company of which he is the CEO.