We can’t avoid feeling stressed right up until we’re on the ship – that’s just our nature – and some of the stress for this trip was our own doing, but a necessity. With limited annual leave and the need to make the most of it if we want to travel as much as possible we’d booked this week’s cruise primarily because we’d be able to fly out on the Saturday morning, board the ship in the afternoon, and fly back the following week, arriving on the Sunday. That would just use up the five weekdays of leave, but there wasn’t any wiggle room for delays, and you never can tell if there will be delays.

So, with about a month to go the plan was that we’d drive to London on the Friday night to stay in a hotel, park and get the shuttle bus to the airport in the morning, then hop on our direct flight on Air Canada to Vancouver. But then we received an email. That direct flight had been cancelled. As we’d booked it through Holland America Line we were able to give them a quick call to see what our options were and we were already preparing for the possibility of having to cancel the cruise entirely at short notice and seeing what that would mean with getting refunds.

Our first option offered was to fly the day before instead. To reduce stress, definitely a good idea, but I had no more time off I could book and didn’t want to see what work would say with me taking an unpaid day off. They’d probably have been okay, to be fair, but not something I wanted to test out. However, the second option was doable, but not pleasant. We could get the first flight out of London to Paris and fly from there to Vancouver instead on Air France. A very early flight. A short transfer window. A connecting flight. On Air France. We remembered flying with Air France before. It had been terrible.

And so we took a short hop to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after a stupidly early alarm woke us up on the Saturday morning. More stress when we were told at the Air France check-in desk that we needed to check in our hand luggage too (except for my camera backpack) which we didn’t like because if both the main luggage and hand luggage didn’t make it all the way to Canada then we were going to be stuffed for clothes. This meant we also accidentally put lithium ion batteries in the hold which you’re not supposed to do. An oversight then because we didn’t think of it, but one we now make sure to tell airline operators in a bid to stop them taking our hand luggage on purpose.

At Paris we then had to transfer to another terminal. This process was fairly smooth but ate up time in our already short window to get to the next plane. Then we hit security which insisted on me taking out every single lens and other piece of camera equipment to check it all, despite it just having gone through scanners in London with no issue. We arrived at our gate to find it already in the middle of boarding so headed straight onto the plane with reservations that our luggage would make it to Canada with us.

We’d barely stopped moving since getting off the first plane and it was a relief to sit down. My wife and I were not sat together. I had been given a window seat on one side of the plane and she had been given a window seat on the other side, exactly opposite. As it turned out, we were right at the back near the toilets, and were both in just a two-seater configuration. I asked the man who was sitting next to me if he wanted a window seat because if so then he could swap with my wife, and that’s what he ended up doing. Sitting together on a flight isn’t important because we’ll both be reading, watching movies, or trying to get some sleep, but it was nice to do it.

The Air France we remembered from flying to Buenos Aires had been with the most uncomfortable seats known to mankind. Pillows and blankets could not soften the thin, hard base numbing our backsides. The food had been revolting with impossible-to-determine items triggering gag reflexes in both of us. My in-flight entertainment screen hadn’t worked properly. That had been a long, horrible flight.

This Air France flight from Paris, France to Vancouver, Canada, however, was actually very good. We had comfortable seats in a handy location for the loos, the entertainment was good, the food wasn’t awful (for airline food), and we got talking to the stewardesses stationed near us.

The flight path from Paris to Vancouver took us over Greenland and the views of the snow-covered terrain from underneath the plane to the curve of the horizon was absolutely spectacular. You can see for yourself just how incredible the pristine white landscape of Greenland is for yourself below. Because everyone on the starboard side of the plane was suddenly and very obviously mesmerised by the views we were being treated to, everyone in the middle seats and on the port side wanted to come across and look too, and because we only had two seats with a gap behind us we became the main spot for a load of fellow flyers to come and queue for a peer out of the windows. We were happy enough to oblige them leaning over to look and take photos. No point getting pissy about people wanting to admire nature.

After Greenland, of course, we flew over Canada. Thick, untouched snow gave way to jagged ridges of mountain ranges and lakes.

I’m not averse to sharing some information that almost nobody cares about in these travelogues – the opening several paragraphs of this post demonstrate that – and here’s some more.

The wingtip device on our plane – to reduce vortices forming and improve efficiency on longer flights – was the smooth-curved form known as a “sharklet” design. That wasn’t what I was interested in but now you know if you didn’t before. I was interested in the winged horse with a fishtail livery on it which didn’t seem to fit in with Air France, not that I knew much about Air France. This actually comes from one of the five air operators who merged to form Air France in 1933. The winged seahorse was the emblem of Air Orient, incorporating Pegasus the winged horse with the tail of the dragon of Annam, the symbol of the Vietnamese imperial family. The symbolism was meant to show mastery of both air and sea.

A good flight after the stress ahead of it came to an end as we descended into Vancouver.

I’m pleased to say that all our luggage made it to Vancouver with us. We found the Holland America Line representative after clearing passport control and were soon on a bus to the cruise port.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll enjoy some partying on the aft deck as our ship, Koningsdam, sails out of Vancouver to start a week exploring Alaska.

At the airport we were met by representatives of both Holland America Line and Princess Cruises because they both operate under the same larger corporate umbrella and on this day, because their ships were right next to each other in the cruise port, they were sharing bus transfers too. We waited until enough people had arrived to fill a newly-arrived bus, then set off for the drive through Vancouver and to the cruise terminals.

We’d been warned before arriving that Vancouver cruise port could be congested and we should expect to wait in queues for a long time. That certainly seemed to be the case for the Princess passengers on our bus who we could see joining a large group in one building still waiting to board their ship, but we were the only two who were actually cruising with Holland America and this was now the middle of the afternoon. Our terminal was completely empty so we were able to check in then pass through security and passport control almost as if they weren’t there.

A note about passport control. It was weird to us at the time, although it makes perfect sense, that we’d had to pass through Canadian passport control at the airport, but then American passport control at the cruise port a few hours later because the cruise was going to American ports. Indeed, during the cruise we’d also be taking an excursion over the border into Canada and back again so we’d need to have passports checked twice more while on it, then another time when returning to Canada at the end of the cruise, and another one when leaving Canada at the airport.

We were on Koningsdam with our luggage and after doing the necessary bits for the muster it was time to actually start to relax. We had also been awake at this point for nearly twenty hours with a fair deal of stress in there to cope with so we were feeling a little frazzled. No photos of the room at this point, then, which I’d normally do, especially when boarding a new ship on a new line. Instead, the view from our balcony of Vancouver cruise port.

And we could see the Princess ship on the other side of the terminal building.

We’re not really people people. We are introverts. We like to simply stay in our cabin for the sail away because the top deck space can get busy and boisterous at this particular time. However, on Koningsdam we decided to make our way to the ship’s aft to have a couple of drinks out among the happy-to-be-cruising crowd just to see whether it would be more refined than that one time we experienced it on a P&O ship and vowed never to do it again.

Not really. In fact we were really surprised by how young and noisy the crowd was, generally. HAL has a reputation for the older, more reserved, slightly wealthier crowd. We didn’t see that so much here and we have to assume that the week-long duration made this cruise more accessible to a younger demographic.

There was music, singing, group dancing, and lots of laughter. We mostly sat and smiled and tried some drinks, but as the ship finally got underway I realised that finding good spots to take photos of the scenery we were passing was going to be more of a challenge than I’d expected.

We took another drink each back to our room for the remainder of the sail away from Vancouver and Canada.

If you cruise often enough then at some point you’ll pass beneath a bridge. We’ve passed beneath quite a few now and we added the Lions Gate Bridge to that list. There will be more information about that structure when I cover our disembarkation tour.

The remaining photos are just a small number of the shots I took from our balcony as Koningsdam twisted and turned past the islands and land masses of Canada on her way out to the ocean. The built-up areas along the shoreline gradually gave way to pleasing views of trees and mountains that hinted at the landscapes to come on this cruise.

We had dinner in the main dining room and it was very good, but there are no photos of it because we were like zombies at this point. We were contacted by friends we knew were on the ship to see about meeting up but declined due to our knackered state. We were in bed and likely fast asleep by ten in the evening after over twenty seven hours being awake.

In the next post in this series there’s a sea day before we visit the ports of Alaska so there’s an opportunity to take a look around Koningsdam. We also meet up with some old friends, make some new ones, and visit a speciality dining venue aboard the ship.

Day two of our Holland America Koningsdam cruise to Alaska was spent at sea. We’d sailed out of Vancouver the day before and we’d gone to bed early so we were awake stupidly early the following morning. It wasn’t our fault. Go back and read about our flight to Vancouver and just how long we’d been travelling to get to Canada. Did I mention we’re old? I do that occasionally but I forget how often on account of the oldness factor.

We headed towards the buffet to get breakfast but then diverted on the way as we’d heard about the New York Deli overlooking the pool area and figured that a new ship with new features would give us a chance to do something new. This was a nice, quiet spot and we ended up having breakfast here every morning to avoid the search for seats in the main buffet. On this morning we ordered some breakfast bagels but during the week we favoured Eggs Benedict more often than not.

Time then for us to get our bearings on Koningsdam and also give our room steward plenty of time to clean our cabin. We started with the top deck space which featured a running track, a few typical activity areas including the ubiquitous shuffleboard area, and views out to sea. It was quiet because it was overcast and cool – we were on our way towards Alaska, after all – but there wasn’t a great sense that the top deck offered much space for the typical sun bather in better conditions.

At the aft was the swimming pool and seating around which we’d sat and enjoyed a little of the sail away from Vancouver with fellow passengers the day before. This gave us another chance to ponder about that green colour of the pool tiling and the overall effect it made. We’re used to blue pools. Blue pools feel normal. Green pools feel like blue pools have had some yellow added to them. That conjures up unpleasant imagery. Green pools feel wrong.

The staircase leading down to the aft pool featured a little glass floor panel in it. Not as large as the SeaWalk you might find on Royal-class Princess ships, but always a nice thing to see or to watch other passengers panic over.

Cruise fans love an aft view.

Some ships have lovely promenade deck spaces. Koningsdam did not, unless your idea of lovely is views of the sea blocked by lifeboats. Perhaps it looks more spectacular during an emergency when everyone is abandoning ship.

After exploring the outside spaces we then headed inside. It was either that or swim out to sea and cruise lines don’t like it when you do that. After a quick peek at the World Stage theatre spot we took advantage of there being nobody around to grab some photos of the dining room. We’d eaten there the evening before but hadn’t really been in any fit state to take it all in. The two-tier layout was very nice and we particularly liked the curved beams that felt like they could have been the skeletal structure of some great leviathan.

We popped into the Pinnacle Grill to get a feel for the space. We’d actually be dining there this evening as we’d booked this cruise with a deal that included a speciality dining for free and had pre-booked the meal.

All that really left was a quick look at the music area and some of the artwork around this deck space. With very few other people around at this time of day none of it really popped with life and none of it really wowed. In fact, we’d discovered that the general layout of Koningsdam wasn’t built around any central element that you see on other ships; no big atrium area; no main lounge in which to gather. What we’d come to realise very quickly on this week with them, though, was that Holland America put more effort into providing good service and good quality entertainment and food, and didn’t worry themselves too much with glitzy, showy, Instagram-worthy spots. A good, distinguishing point for a cruise line to make.

We got a message from friends aboard to ask if we wanted to meet up with them for lunch in the dining room and that sounded like a lovely idea so we did just that. With Paul and Carole, who we knew already and had cruised with before a few times, were Jill and Jerry (the Cruising Canucks), and we’d all hang out a lot during this week, particularly in the evenings. We chatted about our journeys to get to the ship as we’d all come different ways and we had a very nice lunch.

After lunch we took part in some trivia and won. Holland America Line cruise pins – not actually related to the cruise we were on – were prizes throughout the week and we’d end up with a few of these things over the course of our time on Koningsdam.

When we returned to our cabin in the afternoon we discovered a Holland America Line tote bag, chocolates, and a towel animal; all very welcome sights to walk in on.

We did a bit of reading and relaxing on our balcony, enjoying the gentle sea and landscape views we were passing. With Koningsdam’s arguably poor outside spaces both on the top deck and promenade deck this reinforced the importance of a balcony for us, especially on an Alaskan cruise with its high priority on nature.

As already mentioned, we’d a reservation at the Pinnacle Grill on this first sea day, and below you can see photos of the food we ordered at Koningsdam’s steakhouse. I also already mentioned that Holland America prided itself on the quality of their food and their superior service, and that’s… not quite true in this case. The food was very good, that’s true, but we had issues with the service. Upon finishing our starter the plates were removed and immediately replaced with the next course. Upon finishing our mains the plates were removed and immediately replaced with the next course. The courses could only have been delivered quicker if they’d been fired at us by cannon from the kitchen. Speciality dining should be about savouring the dishes at a pace not set by Usain Bolt.

We would visit another speciality dining venue at the end of the week with Paul, Carole, Jill, and Jerry, and we’d also not be thoroughly impressed with the overall service, but these would be the only glitches to report.

The evening was spent enjoying some of the live music aboard, having some drinks, then watching as the ship got very quiet very quickly with everyone heading off to bed for early nights so as not to miss any of the sights of Alaska they would be treated to. We were feeling more our normal night-people self and would have been happy enough to enjoy some late night disco somewhere if there’d been one. There wasn’t, though, so we got an early night for us too.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive in our first Alaskan port of call, Juneau.

We were invited to Paul and Carole‘s suite – yes, suite; they’re big-spenders on occasion – to have a nose at it and admire the views from the large balcony on two sides, and we were offered the chance to stay there for the full sail into port but declined so that we could set up on our own balcony instead.

Two other ships were already docked alongside. One was another in the Holland America Line fleet, Eurodam, and the other was a ship we’d cruised on many years before, Royal Princess. HAL tend to get the best berth spots in Alaska, though, and that was the case here as our ship cruised past the Princess vessel and drew up nearer the city centre.

Juneau is the capital of Alaska, becoming so in 1906, and takes its name from that of a French-Canadian gold prospector. With the terrain around the city being so mountainous, Juneau is effectively an island city in terms of road connections to the surrounding land. What we mostly noticed on our final approach to the dock was the eclectic range of buildings in terms of size and colour, and there was a clear frontier look to most of them reminiscent of movies of westerns genre. We couldn’t really tell if these were authentic, original looks or the sort of thing you’d find in theme park recreations, though. Still, if you’re visiting Alaska then you’re likely there to see what nature has to show rather than what town builders have thrown up.

There was no point rushing to disembark until clearance had been given so we waited until we started to see a steady stream of passengers from our cruise ship heading ashore.

We’d booked an excursion for our day in Juneau – well, we’d booked one for every port on this cruise – but we had time to have a short look around the city before that started. Heading ashore the first thing we did was hunt down where we’d need to meet for our planned trip.

There were a number of places where it was possible to book trips near to where the ships dock but if I were in an advice-giving mood – and I am – then I would strongly consider booking whatever the cruise line offers if there’s a particular type of excursion you’re keen to do. The reason for this isn’t value for money, because let me assure you that these excursions were not cheap through the cruise line (and I don’t know how much of a saving you’d get direct on land), but because they sell out quickly, especially if you’ve got a few cruise ships in at once. And you almost always will do.

We’d pre-booked a trip, and our friends Paul and Carole had done so as well (and an almost identical trip, as it happens), but the other cruise bloggers we’d met on Koningsdam had decided to see what they could get at the port, and were ultimately left disappointed that all the whale-watching options while our ship was in port were sold out.

Things you can expect to see on a cruise to Alaska include fabulous landscapes like that above, and totems like those below carved by the indigenous people, the Tlingit, and there will be more about those totems and the tribes in a later post in this cruise travelogue series when we see more of them close-up on another excursion.

While we’d stopped to take a photo of one of the totems a local man who was sat at a bench nearby called out for my attention, then pointed at the metal bridge structure mounted between the two Holland America cruise ships in port. It was something else that you can likely expect to see in Alaska, but which, being a wild animal, you can’t necessarily guarantee spotting: a bald eagle. A symbol of America, of course, alongside a rapid descent into fascism, and Alaska’s largest bird of prey, and we were incredibly pleased to see one within minutes of being on land.

As it would turn out, by the end of the day we’d see dozens more bald eagles, and over the course of the cruise perhaps over fifty. We still absolutely loved spotting them gliding through the air no matter how many times we caught sight of them.

We had time for a little more wandering past the shops – Do you want something in tanzanite? No? How about some gold? What about gold and tanzanite together? Well, sorry we couldn’t tempt you, but don’t worry if you change your mind because we’re absolutely everywhere in Alaska – and past the famous Red Dog Saloon too. This establishment is the oldest of its kind in Juneau although the building itself was only moved to its present location in the 1980s. We considered visiting even though it looked a little bit of a tourist trap and rammed, but we’d spotted something more to our taste anyway so gave it a miss.

Where we ended up ahead of our excursion, instead, was at the Alaskan Brewing Public House. Anyone who knows us knows that we like craft ales and ciders, and that we always try to seek out locally-brewed drinks when we travel, preferring to experience them than simply the same old stuff you can get anywhere else. We treated ourselves to a pint each, and my wife bought a t-shirt too because that’s something she likes to do at breweries in addition to drinking. We didn’t actually realise until we were back on the ship in the evening that some of the beers were available aboard, but we’d still have visited the brewery’s pub regardless because that’s just something we do.

It was time to head to our meeting point for the excursion now so we made our way there and spotted a couple of pieces of public artwork on the way. Both showed symbolism associated with the Tlingit. The raven and the eagle are the two moeities into one of which indigenous people are born and are expected to marry those from the other.

In the next post in this Alaskan cruise series we’ll head off on the first part of our excursion in Juneau when we hike through the woods to the Mendenhall Glacier.

Ahead of the views of the glacier, though, there was a hike to take. We are not hiking people. We’ve been on hikes and we’ve not really enjoyed the hikes. We’ve got knees and ankles and hips and backs that have firm opinions about how much exertion they’re prepared to put up with. But, we were here and no hike has killed us yet so we braced ourselves.

As it was, this particular hike – called The Trail of Time – was very gentle, largely flat, and not especially long. The reason for the name would become evident as we were guided expertly on the broadly circular route that started once we’d disembarked from the bus at a designated parking area.

It was cool, occasionally drizzly, and the guided walk featured a lot about moss. If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the different types of moss and lichen that grow in Alaskan woodland then this is the tour for you. For me it was less about the learning and more about just enjoying the look of it all. Those mossy carpets decorating the trees muffled the sounds from all directions, even muting small waterfalls where they ran alongside the hiking trail.

The Trail of Time’s name can be connected to the giant boulder markers we encountered on the walk through the trees. These boulders were inscribed by how far the glacier reached decades back and, as you’d probably expect, the oldest markers were those we first encountered with newer ones closer and closer to the end. Five minutes of walking could move you back dozens of years of glacial melt and recession. It also made the wooded area of the hike that much more interesting too, because the feel of ancient land wasn’t strictly true given how much of where we walked would have been within the extent of the glacier’s reach and covered in ice a century before.

We reached a spot on the hiking trail where we were told there was a good view of Mendenhall Glacier usually, but the weather wasn’t being too kind to us on this day, at least at this moment. Low cloud had dropped into the valley and bled all the colour and details from the sight. However, we would get more chances to see the glacier at the end of the hike and, weather being the changeable thing it is, our views of it would improve.

By the time we got around to the visitors centre and close to the lake that is one of the benefits to the local ecosystem of the glacier’s shrinkage we could see more of Mendenhall’s majesty.

Those who needed to pee got the chance to do that and when we were all ready to move on we set off for a shorter walk to where our bus would pick us up from to take us to the next part of the tour.

But there was time for a surprise – to us, at least – when someone in our group spotted a porcupine up a tree. You can just about see it resting in the crook of the branches two thirds of the way up the main trunk in the photo below. We had been told that we might see a porcupine on this hike but we hadn’t realised that they climbed trees, assuming instead that they spent their time at or maybe even below ground level. How Porcupines Live just never popped up in any school lessons for us.

In the next post in this Alaska cruise travelogue series we’ll be off on the main thing we wanted to do when visiting Alaska: spotting humpback whales. And this turned out to be spectacular!

A short bus ride from our hike near Mendenhall Glacier brought us to a marina at which there were many boats – well, you’d expect that from a marina – with a large number given over to sightseeing tours to look for whales. One of them would be ours.

We boarded, met our captain, and were given some information about the trip to come. There were rules that the whale sightseeing boats had to follow – keep the speed down when whales were around, and keep well away from the whales if possible – and seeing whales wasn’t guaranteed because you just can’t get them to agree to anything. But the boat captains talked to each other and if there were whales around then they would head to those locations, and there had been plenty of sightings recently so we should be okay.

The boat itself was ideal for sightseeing. When it was travelling at any speed there were seats inside for people to sit on but once it slowed down or was stationary the windows could be opened and folded back overhead offering uninterrupted viewing and complete exposure to the elements without any glass in the way. Furthermore, it was possible to get out front and out back onto small platform areas. There was never any trouble getting a good view of what was going on for anyone aboard.

Prior to this Alaskan cruise on Koningsdam we’d checked out videos of people also visiting the area and had seen some people we knew travelling a few months earlier in the season and just managing to spot a whale spout in the distance in torrential rain conditions which had been ultimately disappointing for them, so we’d set our expectations low so as not to be too upset if it happened to us. As it would turn out we’d have better weather and far more luck this bit later in the year.

If you’ve read about our arrival at Juneau then you might know that we’d been pleasantly surprised to see a bald eagle near the ship. During our hike we’d then seen a few more flying around and on the drive to the marina there had been more sitting on lamp posts. Then as we were cruising slowly out to the more open water where we’d hopefully spot some whales our captain slowed to point out more bald eagles sitting on the shore. Spotting bald eagles was not a problem, it was turning out, but that’s not what we were in the boat to see.

And it was very soon after that we got the heads up from the captain again that there were whales ahead. She didn’t need to get on the radio to ask where they were as the congregation of boats gave that away. We held our distance, as per the rules, but it was more than good enough to see humpback whales coming up, breathing out, then the whale flukes flicking out as they went back under. You possibly already know this but it’s the underside of the whale flukes – their tails – that are used to identify the individuals and each boat had a book of images of those tail patterns to match to. My wife actually managed to get a good enough photo on her phone to allow our guide to match it in the book and show everyone on our boat. The humpback whale’s name was Razorback, in case you’re interested.

Had that been our only or closest encounter then we’d still have been ecstatic to have seen the whales in these conditions but it would get better. Much better. Not long afterwards a smaller group of whales surfaced closer to our boat. Yes, the rules say stay away from the whales, but the whales don’t follow the rules in reverse.

We’d seen far more than we’d expected already and started to track from a distance another group that were heading down near one bit of coastline.

And then the birds that had been following along in the air over the whales started to circle and our guide and captain told us that this was a good sign we were about to see something we really hadn’t thought we’d see at all: bubble-net feeding.

Moments later we watched in utter amazement and incredible joy as the water’s surface suddenly became a mass of surfacing black bodies with wide open mouths gulping down fish that had been corralled into a pen of bubbles for consumption. Black bodies on the water became frothing, foaming white as the whales churned the area up then dove under the surface once again. The pictures don’t do it justice. Video wouldn’t do it justice. This was an emotional, uplifting, truly astonishing experience that you need to see in person.

After it was deemed there was little likelihood of seeing more of the bubble-net feeding frenzy our boat started to head off but then our captain had to suddenly stop the engine. A few whales had decided to cross right in front of us in this Alaskan waterway and it turns out that they have right of way. We were absolutely not disappointed in the slightest to get an even closer look at these magnificent creatures, but not as excited as our captain when one of the humpback whales had a poo and shot it into the air as it was submerging. Apparently, it’s a rare thing to see so she got on the radio to boast about it to other captains.

It was time to start heading back to shore for us now but that didn’t mean there weren’t more sights to see. A few more distant humpback whales were spotted and then we tracked a mother and calf for a little while; the different sizes in the humps breaking the water’s surface were very noticeable, as was the size of the spouts of air.

The sun was getting low and for a while cast the Alaskan landscape in a golden glow.

Finally, we circled a buoy for a little while where there were seals gathered. Had we not seen the whales then the seals would’ve been the stars of the trip, but after you’ve seen humpback whales surfacing nearby, bubble-net feeding, and flinging poo in the air then seals need to be a little more interesting than “sleeping on a buoy” to win the day. They were still great, of course.

An amazing excursion in Alaska, I’m sure you’ll agree.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series it’s the start of a new day in a new port and an excursion in Skagway that starts with the White Pass scenic railway trip.

After our usual breakfast we met up with our friends Paul and Carole to head ashore for the tour because they’d booked the same trip as us on this day.

Our excursion in Skagway was to start with the White Pass Scenic Railway trip.

The narrow-gauge railway running from Skagway, Alaska in America to Whitehorse, Yukon in Canada unsurprisingly owes its existence to the gold rush of the very late nineteenth century. Prior to its construction the only way from the port locations for easy shipping to and from the gold fields in Canada was on foot or by pack animal over the border at White Pass but the Canadian authorities insisted on so much winter gear for prospectors (for obvious don’t-die-in-a-snowdrift reasons) that many weren’t permitted to legally pass. The train would make transporting people and goods faster and safer.

Gold prospecting and mining gave way to mining for other minerals but by the 1930s and the Great Depression the train service was barely in use any more. Despite a surge in operation thanks to fears over Japanese attacks during World War II, and more ore-carrying requirements post-war, by 1982 the train route could not operate at anything other than a loss and closed down. Fortunately, the 1980s started to see an increase in Alaskan tourism thanks to the growth of cruise ship travel so by 1988 a pure tourist service had restarted on the White Pass line.

Now, if you book a tour to travel on the White Pass Scenic Railway route while visiting Skagway on a cruise ship then you’ll have a few options for how to do it:

• travel up and down the line and over the USA-Canada border on the train,
• helicopter to the moving train and descend to its roof by rope,
• travel up and over the border by bus, travel back down to Skagway on the train,
• travel up and over the border by train, travel back down to Skagway on the bus.

The benefit of picking one of the latter two options is that the road and the track, while running roughly parallel to each other for the most part do deviate either side of valleys frequently, so if you want to see the largest number of scenic views on your trip then those make more sense. We chose to drive up by bus then come back by train. It seemed the best choice before we went, and having done it we still think it was the best choice to make. The train in both directions might be ideal for those worried about the bus not making it to the station in time. The helicopter option is just to see whether any web scraper ever offers it as a serious suggestion.

We stopped a couple of times on the drive to the border, over the other side of which we’d join the train. You can see the sort of landscape in this part of Alaska in the photos below. The odd waterfall would cascade down rock faces, and you can get a sense of the scale of the Alaskan mountain ranges in the picture that shows our bus where it had stopped to give us all a few minutes to walk around a bend further along the road to take some shots.

Crossing the border into Canada proved to be problematic. A queue of traffic had built up ahead of us. At the border the guards were checking passports of everyone travelling. There were some buses ahead of us but mostly cars, and the time that we were supposed to be boarding the train had come and gone. Our guide assured us, though, that the train knew about the delay and would wait for us. I’m pleased to report that it did, and we were the last to arrive, with the train setting off very soon after we’d all grabbed seats.

I’d told everyone in our group we needed to be sat on the right side of the carriage as it faced forward because that would have the best views heading in this direction towards Skagway. The opposite would apply if we’d taken the train up, of course. However, the reality is that while you can’t move from carriage to carriage – they’re assigned to specific tour groups – you can get out of the front and rear of each carriage onto a small, open-sided section giving you views either way.

I ended up spending almost the entire time outside. I found that it was fairly crowded at the start because the excitement of getting out appealed to everyone, naturally, but that most people decided they’d rather sit inside soon enough and headed in. Only a few of us stood outside most of the time – it wasn’t particularly cold and the train moved at a smooth and sedate pace – and I tried to make way for anyone who’d pop out for a photo or video or two when they did so. Unlike some other passengers. Ah, selfishness, my old travelling companion, I’ve missed you.

Crossing back over the USA-Canada border by train didn’t involve a border guard stopping us there and then but we would have our passports checked again before being allowed off the train at the end of the ride.

It was fascinating and only a little disconcerting to see the partially collapsed remains of one of the original wooden trestle bridges used on the White Pass rail route. These bridges were phased out of use and replacement routes opened as the train engines got larger and heavier to move ore during the twentieth century.

As you can see, at times the train would pass very close to the rocky face of mountains.

At one point we stopped on a spur line to allow a train on the way in the other direction to pass by. We passed slowly enough and close enough that I high-fived a guy passing by on the other train. Should you do this to people in other trains as you pass? You know the answer to that. Of course you should. It’s fun to touch people at speed.

A lot of people who’d cruised to Alaska before had recommended taking the White Pass Scenic Railway trip while in Skagway and we were very happy we followed that advice. And, as I’ve mentioned already, I think heading up by bus then back down by train gives you the best experience. The landscapes along the rail route were tremendous, but then they all are in this part of the world.

In the next post in this series we jump back on our bus and pay a visit to Liarsville to try gold panning and have some lunch.

Oh, and flies. Lots of flies. So very many flies.

This was Liarsville.

Our visit began with an introduction on the bus from one of the local actresses, all frontier accent, winks, and associated bawdy comments, before she led us through the camp towards the Hippodrome for a short show.

The show was a combination of a little bit of acting and singing, all explaining a little of the history of Liarsville and how it got its name. Assuming you believe it. The general gist, though, was that this was a convenient location for the prospecting miners to return to and for journalists sent out to cover tales of the riches of the Yukon to meet up. Whether the miners embellished stories of the riches nearly in reach, or whether the journalists embellished the accounts of the miners, or whether both occurred, nobody knows. But those drawn to the area on the back of what they’d read were often somewhat disappointed by the reality and so the name Liarsville came to be. Perhaps.

We’d have paid more attention to the singing and acting had it not been for a distraction. No, not the squirrel near me, although that certainly was a factor too. It was the flies. Flies flying around is irritating, but not that big a deal. Flies landing on your clothes, your hair, your face, your arms, though. So many flies. Everyone was flicking their hands, hitting their bodies, flapping at their hair. I had my hoodie pulled up and hood on, drawn tight, just to reduce the number of flies requiring immediate slapping away, and it wasn’t enough.

The flies were such a problem that taking photographs of the other activities involved simply got relegated to the back of my mind.

Following the show we made our way to do some gold panning. Everyone was shown the technique to pan for gold and given a plate within which there was some soil, stones, gravel, and gold. That was guaranteed because it had been put there for each of us. We gathered around water troughs and set to work and quickly realised that whatever the technique for isolating gold was, we didn’t have it. It turned out, after our actress guide came to see how we were doing, that we were probably being a little too timid with the whole swirly-swirly, shakey-shakey element of panning. As she helped us uncover our flakes to keep as souvenirs she also remarked “Oh, there are a lot of flies around here today!” Yes. Yes, we knew that. I’d like to say that they were also impeding our gold panning attempts, and it might even be true.

Us and our two travelling companions on this cruise excursion, Paul and Carole, then went to get some lunch. This was a buffet style salmon bake and a chance for us to try Alaskan salmon for the first time. We were quite keen to do this because back in 2016 we’d been on a trip in Chile that included lunch near Lake Llanquihué and an amusing encounter with a loud passenger proclaiming they only ate Alaskan salmon. We’d been blown away by the quality of the farmed, Chilean fish – my wife particularly, as she hadn’t like it before then – so were interested in how much better the salmon in Alaska was.

It wasn’t. Now, to be fair that might be the way it was cooked. The salmon bake aspect of the food at Liarsville took away the ability for a direct comparison. It was still very nice, very tasty, and the food was very welcome, but we preferred the Chilean experience here because you could really taste the salmon. Plus, Chile didn’t have flies trying to land on you and the food all the time. Have I mentioned the flies? There were flies here. Lots of them. I’m not saying that every time we travel on a cruise with Paul and Carole that we encounter flies but I’m starting to get suspicious about the high frequency when compared to other people.

We enjoyed Liarsville despite the flies. It was a fun experience, regardless of its authenticity – but what can you expect with a name like that? – and worked well when combined with the other elements of this day’s tour.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll return to Skagway for a visit to the Red Onion Saloon Brothel Museum.

The final organised tour portion took us the Red Onion Saloon.

Built in the last few years of the nineteenth century the saloon didn’t just provide a place for miners to have a drink at the end of a day’s hard work. The saloon also operated as a brothel with the women based in the upstairs rooms selected by the miners picking a doll from behind the bar. It would be laid down to indicate the woman was busy, and raised back up when she was free again. The women were paid well for their services and many soon became far wealthier than most of the miners; they bought property and influence to improve their lives in Skagway, and many only needed to work for a short time.

Our quick tour of the museum began with a glass of champagne and some of this history recounted by a “madam” who was very entertaining. We were then led through the various rooms where many original artifacts remained on show and it was interesting to see the layers of wallpaper still visible. The women of the brothel were allowed to decorate their own rooms.

A silver dress was one of the most prized exhibits in the Red Onion Saloon Brothel Museum.

The museum was small and the tour a short one, requiring us to mostly file through the rooms in single file, but it was extremely interesting and helped wonderfully by the guide with her risqué commentary. I even received a compliment on the size of my equipment. Camera, of course.

In the next post in this Alaska cruise travelogue series we’ll have some time to explore Skagway on our own and we might just get to try out a few of its breweries too.

We had quite a bit of free time after our excursion in which to look around Skagway for ourselves. Our friends Paul and Carole had been on the same trip as us and were after some hardware for their vlogging equipment so we started off with a walk around to find a store that would sort them out while we all admired just how pretty the historical district area of Skagway was. There was something of a western movie film set feel to the city but, generally, the buildings genuinely are from the gold rush era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We all liked the raised wooden pavements (sidewalks if you want to be American about it) and the colours and varying-but-similar styles of the buildings.

You can see from the photo below just how close the cruise ships dock to Skagway. It’s a very easy city to walk into from the port.

After we’d located a store towards the far end of the main part of the city and Carole had bought what she needed for her camera we started back now in search of something for us. That something was beer, which won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows us, and though we’d been entertained in the Red Onion Saloon on the brothel tour we were after something a bit more authentic.

We ended up visiting two breweries in Skagway. The first of those was Skagway Brewing and the second was Klondike Brewing. Both had very different styles of drinks available and we enjoyed both locations very much. I don’t think Paul and Carole were quite so impressed; Paul’s a lager or cider drinker, and Carole likes a Sauvignon Blanc or Bloody Mary so craft ales simply aren’t their thing. They were, however, gracious in accompanying us and polite when describing their experiences.

We started to make our way back to the cruise ship now but there were still some interesting sights to see on the short walk. A number of historic train carriages used on the White Pass train route were visible and there were a few sculptures and monuments dotted around. Most poignant was one dedicated to the SS Princess Sophia which lost all hands (364 crew and passengers) in 1918. That is a link well worth reading, particularly for the letter written by someone who feared the worst during the grounding, and whose fears were well-founded.

To finish, some views of the two ships to the right of the city as we walked away from it to the port; there were berths for more ships to the left side too. Crown Princess was the second cruise ship we ever cruised on.

Our home for this week in Alaska, however, was Holland America Line Koningsdam.

In the next post in this series we’ll have a day of scenic cruising, and it’s very scenic indeed as we make our way through Glacier Bay. It’s a bay, it’s got lots of glaciers, and we even see one calve while we’re there.