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Alaska, Day 2, part 1
Jun. 30th, 2005 06:59 pmYesterday was tacky tourist stuff. We stayed at a hotel run by the Princess cruise line -- the cruise portion of the trip will be on the Coral Princess, and they also have a sideline in land-based Alaska expeditions.
In the morning, we traveled on the riverboat Discovery III along the Chena river. This is a 900-person-capacity tourist paddleboat run on diesel. They pointed out that it was a real paddleboat, not just a decorative one with the actual motive force provided by propellors underneath. The Binkley family has been running the paddleboats for four generations, since the 1950s.
There was a running commentary by the commentator, and video displays with very good camera work, so if you happened to be on the wrong side of the boat, you could always look at the monitor instead. There were several stops along the way.
First was a bush airstrip. We saw a propellor plane with pontoons take off, circle around, and land again. Then it took off again for the owner to go to work, we were told. One out of ever 60 Alaskans is a licensed pilot.
Next was at Susan Butcher's place. She's a local legend, having won the Iditarod four times (1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990), and she still races shorter races, as well as raising huskies. She was wearing a microphone, and put a team of young dogs through their paces on a wheeled cart.
After that we stopped at a fish camp, where we saw a traditional salmon trap (water operated, quite impressive, though the salmon aren't running right now) and watched a local artist, Dixie Alexander, demonstrate how to cut up salmon for drying. Apparently dried salmon is one of the best foods for working huskies in terms of weight to nutrition ratio. They can work on one dried salmon per day. They use sweet woods for drying salmon for human consumption, but the fish intended for dogs get whatever's available.
Then we turned around, and started back. On the way, we stopped at a mockup of a Chena Indian village. This was the only place where we got off the riverboat. We were there for about an hour, looking at the four exhibits.
1. A display of animal hides and traditional clothing decorations. Here we saw Dixie Alexander again and several examples of her clothing handiwork.
2. Traditional Athabascan shelters used by nomadic tribes.
3. A dog run with several huskies and a handler to demonstrate what they could do and answer questions.
4. A display of trappers' shelters -- a log cabin, a trapper's line cabin, and a storage cache.
Considering that the tour was essentially an assembly-line production designed to shuttle hundreds of people through at a time, they did a very good job of making you feel welcome and not that this was rote routine. There was a huge gift shop where in addition to the usual items (T-shirts, craft items, and so on) there was an exhibit of Susan Butcher memorabilia. Her sled from one of the Iditarods was on display, as well as her trophies and other material.
After leaving the village mockup, we headed back to the boat and thence to the hotel for lunch.
(to be continued)
In the morning, we traveled on the riverboat Discovery III along the Chena river. This is a 900-person-capacity tourist paddleboat run on diesel. They pointed out that it was a real paddleboat, not just a decorative one with the actual motive force provided by propellors underneath. The Binkley family has been running the paddleboats for four generations, since the 1950s.
There was a running commentary by the commentator, and video displays with very good camera work, so if you happened to be on the wrong side of the boat, you could always look at the monitor instead. There were several stops along the way.
First was a bush airstrip. We saw a propellor plane with pontoons take off, circle around, and land again. Then it took off again for the owner to go to work, we were told. One out of ever 60 Alaskans is a licensed pilot.
Next was at Susan Butcher's place. She's a local legend, having won the Iditarod four times (1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990), and she still races shorter races, as well as raising huskies. She was wearing a microphone, and put a team of young dogs through their paces on a wheeled cart.
After that we stopped at a fish camp, where we saw a traditional salmon trap (water operated, quite impressive, though the salmon aren't running right now) and watched a local artist, Dixie Alexander, demonstrate how to cut up salmon for drying. Apparently dried salmon is one of the best foods for working huskies in terms of weight to nutrition ratio. They can work on one dried salmon per day. They use sweet woods for drying salmon for human consumption, but the fish intended for dogs get whatever's available.
Then we turned around, and started back. On the way, we stopped at a mockup of a Chena Indian village. This was the only place where we got off the riverboat. We were there for about an hour, looking at the four exhibits.
1. A display of animal hides and traditional clothing decorations. Here we saw Dixie Alexander again and several examples of her clothing handiwork.
2. Traditional Athabascan shelters used by nomadic tribes.
3. A dog run with several huskies and a handler to demonstrate what they could do and answer questions.
4. A display of trappers' shelters -- a log cabin, a trapper's line cabin, and a storage cache.
Considering that the tour was essentially an assembly-line production designed to shuttle hundreds of people through at a time, they did a very good job of making you feel welcome and not that this was rote routine. There was a huge gift shop where in addition to the usual items (T-shirts, craft items, and so on) there was an exhibit of Susan Butcher memorabilia. Her sled from one of the Iditarods was on display, as well as her trophies and other material.
After leaving the village mockup, we headed back to the boat and thence to the hotel for lunch.
(to be continued)
