A Chance that may not Come Again

(Left: The gang on the deck as the ship leaves Vancouver)

In June 2006 I sent an email out to my friends. I pointed out the fact that we would all be turning 30 in 2007 and that I thought this deserved to be celebrated. I gave a few suggestions for places we could go and then waited to see if anyone was interested.

I honestly didn't believe that I would get many people who were interested. I thought I knew the reality of most of their lives which was mortgages and looking forward to having kids. I didn't think travel was really on their minds anymore. At this point I figured that travel was my way of making up for the inadequacies of my own life.

The response to my email was overwhelming and after a few meetings there were 11 committed to go. After much debate we chose our destination – Alaska.

At five in the morning on August 2 the adventure began when I flew to Vancouver. My hotel was located in downtown Vancouver across the street from English Bay. That evening my travelling companions and I spent a few hours on English Bay beach watching the sun set.

(Right: Sunset on English Bay)

There was this man on the beach who sat on the bench on the perimeter. He was singing. He was there the night before the cruise and he was there the night I had come back from the cruise. I think he must go there every night. I don't know what he was singing but it was almost like the chants that I have heard Natives sing. It was a haunting sound.

We were up bright and early the next morning to greet the cloudy gray skies that threatened rain. We took a taxi to the pier of Canada Place where our ship, the Celebrity Mercury, awaited us.

Nine of us managed to find each other on the ship’s deck as we pulled out of Vancouver. The rain never fell and the sun had come out as we sailed under the Lion’s Gate Bridge and towards the Inside Passage.

(Left: The sun over the Lion's Gate Bridge)

The third day marked our arrival in Alaska's capital of Juneau . At the dock my friends Joe, Lisa and I caught a bus that drove us directly to the Mendenhall Glacier. We followed a trail that led us to the waterfall beside the glacier.

The waterfall was massive. I managed to get one photo in which a man is standing in the bottom right corner of the photo and is dwarfed by the waterfall. You really have to be looking for him to see him because he is quite insignificant in the overall image.

(Right: The waterfall of glacier water. See the man standing in the bottom right corner of the photo)

A mere three years ago this waterfall was covered by the glacier. The water temperature here averages 3 degrees celsius year round.

The glacier itself was beautiful and amazing. The ice has a fantastic texture and appears blue like someone has dumped Windex over it.

You can’t actually get close to the glacier as it is extremely dangerous due to calving. Calving is what occurs when chunks of ice fall off the glacier into the water below. When this occurs it can cause waves that could sweep away almost anything in its path.

(Left: The Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau)

I had wanted to walk on a glacier but it is something that cannot be done without proper equipment and an experienced guide. Glaciers have deep crevices that should you fall into one you’ll likely end up coming out as some archaeologists’ ‘Lucy’ in a few hundred years.

On day four we docked in Skagway, Alaska which is known for being the gateway to the Klondike during the Gold Rush of 1898. In Skagway I boarded the White Pass Yukon Railway which had taken gold hungry Stampeders into the Yukon. Before the railway existed the Stampeders used the Trail of 98 or the Chilkoot trail to reach the Yukon.

The train, a narrow gauge railroad, is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark along with the Panama Canal. It stretches 110 miles in length and climbs to 3000 feet from Skagway all the way to Whitehorse, Yukon. The train operated until 1982.

(Right: White Pass Yukon Railway)

This was a day in which the weather decided not to co-operate. It rained on and off and heavy fog impeded a lot of the view from the train. Despite this it was fascinating to see the trail which so many men climbed in treacherous weather with their dreams of striking it rich. Seeing the rough conditions they endured makes you realize that man is certainly capable of great things when he puts his mind to it.

Day five dawned with bright blue sunny skies. It became my favourite day of the cruise as we would spend several hours cruising past the Hubbard Glacier. Hubbard Glacier is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. It has been advancing since it was discovered by the International Boundary Commission in 1895. Hubbard crosses the border between Canada and the US and is accessible by sea through Disenchantment Bay off of the Gulf of Alaska.

This glacier was so amazing it didn’t look real. Many of the photos my friends and I took that day look as though we are standing in front of a fake background. While the weather on this cruise wasn’t overly warm it wasn’t cold either. On this day you could feel the air slowly getting colder as our ship drew closer to the glacier.

(Left: The Hubbard Glacier)

We were able to see seals sunning themselves on ice floes and the glacier calving. It proved difficult to get a photo of the glacier calving because the ship at its closest proximity to the glacier was still a kilometre away. The sound of the splash would reach your ears before your eyes could spot the chunks of ice falling into the ocean.

(Right: Hubbard Glacier)

I took several photos of the ice floating in the water surrounding the ship. In life and in the photos these chunks appear small but in reality they are quite large. Some ice floes are the size of cars and others the size of buildings.

On the sixth day we arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska. Here my friends and I all agreed to participate in the rainforest zip line canopy adventure together. The zip line course has you soaring through eight zip lines and crossing three sky bridges that run within the canopies of Sitka spruce, hemlock and cedar trees. At Its highest point you are 135 feet above the forest floor. The longest cable between two tree platforms is 745 feet long.

I have a fear of heights and have always thought that it is good to do things that scare you. This zip line course definitely tested my ability to function while dealing with that fear.

The most difficult moment for me came when I was crossing the longest line which ran through a clearing. I got caught in a cross wind and started spinning. On this line you probably get up to a speed of about 50 km/h and so I didn’t think of anything but stopping myself from moving. The result was that I ended up about 5 feet short of the platform hanging stranded in midair. I had to pull myself hand over hand back to the platform with my friends singing the Spiderman theme song to cheer me on.

(Right: Voula, Me, Lisa and Anna suited up for zip lining)

I survived the zip line ordeal with just a burn mark on my arm. When I had started spinning my left arm brushed the cable and it burned through my brand new rain coat to my arm. I was so annoyed at myself for ruining my new jacket but then several people pointed out that my arm would have looked much worse had I not been wearing the jacket.

(Left: Adam stuck in midair. The same thing happened to him and he had to pull himself back to the platform)

I went through with the zip line challenge because I needed to prove to myself that I could do things that scared me. There were moments when I just wanted them to take me down from the platform but I stuck with it and survived. I don't think that I'll ever like heights but after this experience I know that if I put my mind to it I can get past it.

The last day of the cruise was spent onboard. There was never a shortage of onboard activities. They had everything from wine tasting to high tea to karaoke.

Our group loved Karaoke so much that the ship activities staff added an extra karaoke session on the last night for us. Joe and Lisa made friends with Joel who was from California. He sang just as well as Joe and Lisa so they hit it off. On the second Karaoke night our entire group went up and sand Bohemian Rhapsody. At the part in the song in which it goes choral Joel jumped out of the audience and pretended to conduct us. It was hilarious!

On another Karaoke night Joel sang Zoot Suit Riot to which Frances and Adam danced to swing dance style. They rocked that dance floor! The funniest moment came to watch Joel sing "I bet they won't play this song on the radio" with Stuart, Adam and Joe. The boys sang acappella and Joel provided the sound effects. I captured quite a few of these moments on video.

This trip was a spectacular experience. I couldn’t have imagined a better way to celebrate my 30th birthday. I would really like to do this with them all again in the future. Sadly, I'm not sure it will happen. As Robert Frost once said "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come
back."

(The entire gang with Joel and his father at the last Karaoke night)