This is part of a series called Northwest Passage et al 2024 Well, we’re off again on another long trip, the first part being the transit of the Northwest Passage which should take nearly two weeks. Then we are off to Eastern Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and ending in Nova Scotia. Why are we taking…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 All good things must come to an end, and yes, this trip did too. We arrived early in the morning after a voyage of 9,197 nautical miles, and the debarkation process began. While it was only 44 days earlier (only!), the time flew by…
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Today, we arrived in Ketchikan, AK. It has the distinction of being the “Salmon Capital of the World.” As we arrived, we also became aware of the second superlative for Ketchikan — the rainiest town in Southeast Alaska. Now that may seem like a pretty narrow area to measure, but Ketchikan has gotten up to…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today we participated in a historic first — the inauguration of a new cruise port. Located near the town of Klawock on the Pacific side of Prince of Wales Island, Port Klawok is joint venture between to Alaska native corporations and the Native village…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 While it has a bit chilly and overcast since we have hit Alaska, we are also very fortunate to have come pre-season to these ports — there are no crowds! To hear our excursion director, a port like Sitka could have 3-4 ships in…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today, we got to visit a National Park that can only be reached by ship, boat, or plane — Glacier Bay. This is a huge park — over 3.2 million acres of forest, inlet and shore, mountain peaks rising over 15,000 feet and, of…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today we visited Homer, AK, a small city on the Kenai Peninsula, around 200 miles southwest of Anchorage. It was actually settled in 1896 by a gold mining company promoter, Homer Pennock, who built quarters for 50 men. The gold mining turned out to…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today we visited Kodiak, AK, the second largest island in the US (second only to the Big Island of Hawaii). Of course, a large percentage of the island makes up the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge that is home to 3,500 Kodiak brown bears —…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 It’s been seven days since we left Japan, traveling across the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, and today we arrived in Dutch Harbor. No, that’s not the name of the town that you may have learned watching “Deadliest Catch” — it’s actually Unalaska…
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The past 6+ months have been very stressful for our family when our son was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. Luckily, he was accepted into a clinical trial and, after an immunotherapy course of treatment, he was declared in remission! As a consequence, we decided this would be the perfect time for…
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