Juneau, Alaska

Woke up, and the ship was going to get to Juneau a bit earlier than I expected! So I had a super fast shower on the ship, then lined up to disembark. Everyone on the ship seemed to have made good friends on the day or so it was off; it was funny to see all the people passing each other in the passage and shouting “So-and-so, have a good trip in Skagway!”

A bald eagle sat on the pier that we docked at to greet us. I’m not getting tored of those things.

There are no Starbucks in Juneau, so my morning internet routine is going to be McDonalds based. Luckily, they have fast internet and lots of electrical plugs!

Decided I was going to walk around downtown a bit, and maybe visit a museum or two. So I did! Found a parking spot, which the Milepost guidebook suggested was quite difficult. The streets are narrow, one-way one-lane parking on one side only affairs. But it’s also a pretty compact city, so it’s easy to get from one spot to another by walking. The museum had a colossal mob outside of it, so I practically wrote it off and headed downtown.

After just checking out the shops, I came to the sad conclusion that most of the area near the cruise ships were novelty stores selling the exact same inventory in different storefronts. A possible exception was the Russian store, which sold nesting dolls of all kinds, and USSR-era military patches and hats. That was a little odd to see. But getting a couple blocks further definitely improved things.

I swung back towards the main museum since I did want to check it out. Boy, was that a great decision. Ends up that today was the grand opening of the brand new museum; the governor was here for the occasion (isn’t the governor normally in Juneau? I heard some locals excitedly talking about it. Who knows?).

The Alaska State Museum in Juneau is amazing. Brand new, and not 100% finished (no gift shop), but amazing. The collection of Native American artwork is staggering, and seeing artifacts that are thousands of years old is incredible.

I saw a basket that was 5,400 years old. That’s twice as old as the Roman Empire, or actually, the founding of Rome. A basket. That amazed me more than the mammoth tusks, or tools and artifacts from a mere two thousand years ago.

There was also a Lincoln totem, which explains the strange dude in a top hat at the top of the pole in Ketchikan! I guess a tribe made a totem pole prominently featuring Lincoln; while the US wasn’t kind to the native peoples in Alaska, we weren’t outright slave trading them like some Russian colonists. However, when Lincoln’s secretary of state visited Alaska and was given gifts, he didn’t have gifts to give in return. This was hopefully out of ignorance more than out of malice, but either way, the people in Ketchikan took it upon themselves to create a totem with his effigy in an attempt to shame him and remind the people of the unpaid debt and rudeness.

Long story short, the first white dude featured on a totem pole was either Lincoln, or his rude Secretary of State.

Went to Skaters Cabin north of Juneau, which has a great view. Across the lake is a glacier; you can hear the waterfall of meltwater on a different part of a lake. What a view; and the first glacier I’ve seen so far! I think we actually went here when we did the Alaska cruise with my dad, it looks too familiar.

But it’s a great view to have from my campground.

Lesson learned for the day: I don’t have any really good equipment to deal with rain while I’m cooking / eating dinner. Sitting in a chair under an umbrella worked, but could be improved upon.

Signs around here are hard to decipher, but they say this on them: CAUTION BEAR IN AREA

Wonder what that means.