Alaska is huge country; the standard pastime of an Alaskan is to find Texans in the audience and ask whether they realize how big Alaska is. Well, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas. That is always good for a laugh, and Texans better get used to this ribbing.  As a matter of fact, ten states in the USA are smaller than just the area covered by glaciers in Alaska alone. If the glaciers of the adjacent Yukon Territory and British Columbia that connect to Alaska's ice fields (often referred to as the Alaska-Yukon glaciers) are added, each of thirteen American states are smaller than the area covered by these glaciers.

    When visiting Alaska, remember that distances are enormous. There are wide open expanses with no humans around. Where far from the madding crowd a tree will fall and there is nobody to hear.  There are places for solitude and quiet enjoyment. But it is cold most of the time. In winter the sun stays away for weeks or longer.  One has to be a bit different to want to live in this state. There are more men than women in Alaska. From a woman’s point of view “The Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd.”

    Half of the population of 600,000 live in Anchorage. One in 55 Alaskans owns a pilot license. There are more private planes per capita than anywhere else in the world.

 

left: Native totem pole in Skagway.

     We were 24 days in Alaska. Half of the trip was an Alaska tour with Holland-America Lines (HAL); during the other half we were on our own. Our cruise started in Vancouver and the ports of call were Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway. After Glacier Bay National Park and College Fjord we disembarked in Seward. From there we went north to Anchorage by bus, stopping in Alyeska Resort for two days. The train took us to Denali National Park, and then to Fairbanks.   

right:The Matanuska River, east of Anchorage.

     In the second half of our trip, after our Alaska tour with HAL we flew from Fairbanks to Barrow, the uttermost northern city in the continental USA. Barrow is a place you have to visit at least once in your lifetime, before the ice melts and the place is overrun by tourists, souvenir shops, fast food franchises and assorted sores of civilization.

    Back in Fairbanks we flew to Anchorage, picked a car and drove east to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We stayed there two days and then drove back to Anchorage and then south on the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. Two days later we drove back to Anchorage and flew home. Visiting Alaska was an unforgettable experience.

above:  Glaciers in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park from a small plane..