The Inside Passage - First Impressions
by Lisa Townshend
by Lisa Townshend
Entrance to Fords Terror
I recall leaving the marina in Juneau, traveling under the bridge that connects Juneau and Douglas, seeing the floating high rises (cruise ships) in harbor at the edge of town. As I watched the city buildings shrink in size, the houses became fewer and fewer and the single road that heads south from mountain-and-sea-locked Juneau disappeared into the trees. Only electric lines remained as visible signs of civilization, and then they too, came to a halt. There we stood floating among castles of mountains, no signs of people, no noise of “progress.” I shut my cell phone off, no need or any use for it now.
Magnificent mountains delineated the fjords and channels enclosing water nearly as deep as the mountains were high. Could we really be afloat in ice-cold water that was 1,300 feet deep? The extraordinary rock formations, greenery of the mountain landscape and the emerald to aqua-colored water made this place feel ethereal. I was filled with awe and wonder and I felt God’s presence.
I thought about how John Muir felt over 100 years ago when he explored Southeast Alaska. And I thought about how our forefathers felt coming to America nearly 400 years ago. Looking out across vast lands, mostly uninhabited, unscathed by human hands and our so-called advancements of society.
I watched as wildlife came to life in this majestic place.
Eagles, our national symbol, in abundance – pairs of them sitting in treetops, in flight, and fishing along the shore. Bears roamed the water’s edge seeming to be without fear of man’s presence. Seals sat upon rocks and icebergs. Humpback whales came up for air all around, coasting along with us for a few minutes, then arching their backs and giving a final, spectacular wave to us with their tail fins before sounding. They submerged to feed about 400 feet deep for several minutes, then whoosh, up again to delight us with their exhalations as they breathed fresh air. Some whales were noisy, some emerged with just a silent, gentle spray, one with a particularly wheezy sounding blow.  Their tails were also unique and fascinating: barnacles coating them at various places, scratch marks and areas without pigmentation, myriad patterns of indentations along the edges of their tails. These were the signatures or fingerprints of the whales.
Seagulls and arctic terns flitted about in the glaciated waters.
Sandpipers scurried along the shore. There were deer and wolves walking along these islands. And the salmon swam shoulder to shoulder in the streams, returning to spawn in the waters of their birth. Soon after spawning they would die and what remained of their decomposed bodies would become nourishment for their fertilized eggs and the birds and bears.
Waterfalls popped up around every bend -- glacier fed waters -- hundreds of feet high without names. Could this really be? We name waterfalls that are three feet high in the East. And we have names for hills – mountains we call them even under 2,000 feet. There were waterfalls with signatures all their own. This one fed by a single stream dividing two mountains, that one fed by three meandering streams, and yet another fed from distant, converging waters. The rocks surrounding them displayed many hues of earth tones from beige to red to gray to brown.
Magnificent mountains delineated the fjords and channels enclosing water nearly as deep as the mountains were high. Could we really be afloat in ice-cold water that was 1,300 feet deep? The extraordinary rock formations, greenery of the mountain landscape and the emerald to aqua-colored water made this place feel ethereal. I was filled with awe and wonder and I felt God’s presence.
I thought about how John Muir felt over 100 years ago when he explored Southeast Alaska. And I thought about how our forefathers felt coming to America nearly 400 years ago. Looking out across vast lands, mostly uninhabited, unscathed by human hands and our so-called advancements of society.
Seagulls and arctic terns flitted about in the glaciated waters.
Waterfalls popped up around every bend -- glacier fed waters -- hundreds of feet high without names. Could this really be? We name waterfalls that are three feet high in the East. And we have names for hills – mountains we call them even under 2,000 feet. There were waterfalls with signatures all their own. This one fed by a single stream dividing two mountains, that one fed by three meandering streams, and yet another fed from distant, converging waters. The rocks surrounding them displayed many hues of earth tones from beige to red to gray to brown.