Alaska

WHEN TO GO

In Alaska, expect to find more than one season crammed into a single day. The Southeast and Southcentral regions generally experience high rainfall and moderate temperatures. However, most of Alaska experiences the magic of the midnight sun, which means more daylight hours to fill up. What bliss.

A visit to Alaska is an unforgettable experience. Remote, wild and exotic, as only unreachable regions can be, it is a feast for the soul. Southern Alaska is also made up of temperate rainforests, making it an invaluable biosphere.

Alaska is the largest American state and nearly one-fifth as large as the US. It extends through four time zones and its coastline is as long as the rest of the US. Originally a Russian territory, it was ravaged by Russian fur hunters who practically depleted the land of its wildlife, especially sea otters. In 1867, the Tsar sold the state to the USA for $7,200,000, a little less than two cents an acre! In 1898, gold was discovered in Alaska, resulting in a mad rush of prospectors and miners. After the gold was exhausted, some of the prospectors left, while some stayed back as settlers. The discovery in 1968 of the richest oil fields in North America brought prosperity back to Alaska, particularly after the construction of the 800-mile long pipeline between Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean and Valdez on the Pacific Coast.

We were a group of Indians on an American liner that set sail from Seattle. Surprisingly, the second largest nationality, after the Americans, was Indian, including NRIs and visitors from India. The cruise was a feast of theatre, musicals and music (including the mesmerising voice of Vincent Talarico), hobbies, lectures and food. The food was so tempting, even the vegetarian selection (including Indian vegetarian), that one forgot the battle of the bulge, and ate from morning to night!

Our first stop was Ketchikan, located on an island, a former Indian fishing camp. The name comes from a Tlingit phrase meaning eagle with spread-out wings. It has a rich Indian heritage, including the oldest collection of totem poles. The seaplane was a thrilling experience, like something out of a James Bond film! It was owned and operated by a young woman who flew through the fjords in inclement weather till we saw black bears fishing for salmon, sea lions and seals sunbathing and vast expanses of forest. The seals came in so many colours white, light brown and black. They were a gorgeous contrast to the scene around us turquoise water, deep green vegetation and white suncapped mountains, all tempered by a cool wind and cloudy sky.

The next visit was to Tracy Arm fjord, where a glacier once deposited gravel and rock and created a bar that can be seen at low tide. Inside the bar, the water quickly rises to over 1000 feet. The fjords were formed 10,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, when the glaciers withdrew, and sea water entered the valleys, flanked by tall ice-capped mountains. We could see global warming at work: although we were in early June, the beginning of summer, the icebergs had already melted, and the ship had to navigate very carefully between the floating blocks of ice.

The fjord led to Juneau, the capital of Alaska and once the largest gold mine in the world. We got onto a boat and went whale watching and soon spotted huge hump-backed whales. These enormous mammals sport in the water, jumping up high and splashing down, come up to breathe every few minutes, letting out a spout of water, while mamma protects her baby even as she enjoys playing with him. There were five sea lions on a pontoon, nasty quarrelling creatures who obviously did not believe in live and let live. Each was trying to push the others off the pontoon, and all five prevented a sixth from getting up. Since sun bathing is its favourite pastime, this was especially cruel.

Skagway, entrance to the Klondike and once named hell on earth, was once flooded by gold prospectors who flocked to Alaska and the Yukon (Canada). The White Pass route and Chilkoot Trail were trampled upon by many a would-be miner, each of whom had to carry 2000 pounds of food on his back (200 pounds at a time), enough to last him a year. Many died and only those who could walk without stopping, back to nose against each other, made it. Today the main street, Broadway, retains the falsefronts of the buildings of the gold rush hotels, saloons, dance halls and gambling houses while shops and banks function within. There are only 801 residents in this formerly prosperous town. The old railroad functioned between 1900 and 1982 and reopened in 1988 as a summer service for tourists. The tall totems are a reminder of another people and another era.

At Skagway, we took a helicopter ride to the Meade glacier. Wearing spiked shoes, carrying mountaineering sticks and wearing ice-proof clothes was a unique and unusual experience. The ice on the glacier was about 300 feet deep, with occasional cracks about 30 feet deep. One false step, and its a deep plunge with no hope of rescue. The ice was melting into streams at several places. Since it was summer, the glacier was flanked by pine and grass-covered mountains, capped by ice. In winter, the whole is under ice. If the temperature was minus 200C, the sun still blazed overhead for 23 hours a day on the glacier. But global warming is causing a faster withdrawal of the glaciers.

THIS part of Alaska is called the inner passage and survives on summer tourism. The other local industries are fishing, especially for salmon that swim all the way here to lay eggs and then die, and logging. It was sad to see entire mountainsides laid bare of trees, which are all sold to Japan. While there are rules protecting wild animals, there are none to protect green cover. Even wild animals have only partial protection. If you can get a game license, available for a few dollars, you can go out and shoot a bear or two.

Alaskan cities are dotted with shops Sindhi businessmen selling jewellery, Italians selling their wares, Canadians and Americans. The local Innuit are scarce, and nearly every tourist memento from T-shirts to totem poles had a Made in China tag. It is a pity that nobody has tried to set up local industries to mass produce totem poles and carved animals it may make local people less dependant on logging and big-game hunting, and save Alaskas wildlife.

A cruise to Alaska is a contrast between shipboard luxury and wild unknown places where survival is a matter of luck and physical endurance. It is nice to know that some places are still preserved as nature intended them, although with climate change and melting snow caps one wonders how long they can last.

Our final port of call was Victoria, capital of British Columbia, Canada. It made me nostalgic for Mumbai. The Parliament Building was a near-replica of Victoria Terminus, while the Empress Hotel reminded me of any building on Ballard Estate. But the most impressive display was to be seen at the Butchart Gardens, built over a limestone quarry that had been exhausted in 1900. Jenny Butchart took over the 50 acres of quarried land and landscaped it to create a sunken garden, rose garden, Italian and Japanese gardens, displaying over a million plants throughout the year. It proves that one womans vision, determination and hard work can literally move mountains.