Juneau, Alaska 7/23/2008 Glacier is Only 17 MIles From City

(JUNEAU, ALASKA, Wednesday, July 23, 1997)

by Bob Van Leer

Our cruise ship, MS Ryndam, docked this morning in Juneau, Alaska’s capital city. Three other cruise ships are in port, which appears to be one more than the port has dock space for.

The Veendam, also owned by Holland American Lines, is anchored offshore and transferring its passengers to shore by boat.

At only 30,000 population, Juneau is still the third largest city in Alaska and is the only U.S. capital that can’t be reached by road. The Juneau area has 40 miles of roads, none of which lead to the outside. It’s location in the southeast panhandle is also a long distance from most of the state’s population which lead to continuing agitation to move the capital further north to the Anchorage area.

Juneau was started as a gold mining town and there is still some activity, but is well below its peak. But we were told there is renewed interest in opening some of the old mines.

The weather was overcast with light rain this morning which we were told is about average here. The rainfall is 70 inches per year, less than Gold Beach, but our guides say it doesn’t usually rain hard, but just drips continually, much like Portland and Seattle.

A chamber of commerce handout says Juneau averages 44 clear days and 40 partly cloudy days per year. The rest are cloudy. According to the National Weather Service, there is only a 19% chance of seeing the sun in October.

GLACIER TOUR
In early morning we took a sightseeing flight in a small plane to local area glaciers. We looked over five, including Taku, which is the only one still advancing. The rest are in retreat. However, our pilot-guide said it would take only a small change in temperature for the glaciers to start advancing again. The whole landscape around here was shaped by glaciers in the last ice age.

Glaciers are rivers of snow created when more snow falls in the headwaters then melts or evaporates over the course of a year. Eventually, the tremendous weight of the snow pack forces it to run downhill. At lower elevations the glaciers finally melt leaving a dirty residue carried down from the mountains.

The lower levels of the glaciers, which were all we could see because of the overcast, are cracked and irregular and expose the blue ice core. The blue color results from the pressure on the snow.

After the flight, we hired a cab and took a tour around town. One of the places we looked at was Mendenhall glacier. It is only about 17 miles from downtown and on Forest Service land. Observation points have been constructed for easy viewing. Signs said the glacier is 12 miles long and is fed by snows of more than 100 feet per year in its headwaters. We had not expected to see a glacier right behind town.

Driving around town we could see the area is much like home. The road with the appearance of its forested side slopes could be any road in western Oregon. A closer inspection shows the evergreen trees are long on cedar and spruce rather than Douglas fir.

We stopped at a salmon hatchery and chum salmon were coming in to the hatchery in droves. The tide was low (and they have high tidal changes, 12-13 feet) and the entrance to the hatchery fish ladder was shallow. The fish had their backs out of the water to get into the hatchery ladder. Only a handful of the fish coming in were anything but chums, which are easy to distinguish because they had tiger-like stripes on their sides. A few Chinook could be seen.

120 DAY SESSIONS
Juneau’s big industry now is government and the legislature meets for 120 days annually. Tourism comes in second followed by fishing, logging and mining.

Like Ketchikan, Juneau is built up the sides of hills as there is little flat land.

Prices are high. Gasoline costs $1.50 per gallon, and a small tract home on a tiny lot is in the $150,000 range, according to information we were given.

Juneau is 230 miles from Ketchikan and 600 miles from Anchorage.

Tonight we will set sail for Sitka, located 200 miles southwest of Juneau.