Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Juneau, Alaska, USA
Four cruise ships in town. Noordam, Westerdam, Star Princess and the Celebrity Eclipse. Cruise ship tourists all over Juneau.
The main shopping street is directly across from the cruise ship pier. Indian (as in curry) jewellery shops line the entire street. Each offering a free gift. As you will see from the photo below, have quite a haul of free trinkets and charms. Lucky nieces.
Learn about salmon at the local salmon hatchery. A non profit organisation, growing salmon for release into the wild to maintain salmon stocks.
In a nutshell, here is the lifecycle of a salmon.
Salmon eggs, of which there are hundreds of millions, harvested from returning salmon by slitting open the female’s belly.
Fertilised with the male salmon’s sperm, or ‘milt’, by squeezing their abdomen. The eggs and sperm are mixed in a bucket of water to activate the sperm.
Once fertilised, the eggs are put in incubation trays and allowed to incubate through Autumn and Winter.
The salmon die after spawning and the carcasses are processed into various products or put back into the sea to act as a nutrient.
After a month the embryos develop eyes and after the second month the salmon start to hatch and are in the ‘alevin’ stage. These tiny alevin subsist off the yolk sac attached to their belly.
As the alevin start to grow, they learn to swim, rise to the surface of the incubation trays and start to resemble small fish. Or what is known as ‘fry’.
Smoltification process then takes place and allows the salmon to adapt from freshwater to saltwater. It’s at this point that there are different timescales for smoltification. King, coho and sockeye salmon require at least a year in freshwater before adapting to saltwater. Pink and chum salmon can go straight into saltwater.
Before the salmon leave their freshwater birthplace, the all important ‘imprinting’ takes place, where the salmon memorise the unique chemical make up of the stream they were born in and also the signature of the Earth’s magnetic field.
After being reared at the hatchery, the salmon are released into the wild. After a few years they will return to the same spot they were born, to spawn.
And the cycle repeats.
You see. You don’t half learn stuff on this blog.
There’s a salmon bake later on to taste the goods but first a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier. Seems a bit rushed as only have just over an hour to visit it. Brisk walk along the Nuggett Falls trail to see the waterfall and the glacier from afar. Sadly, though, I’ve been spoilt on this trip with glaciers. Having seen the Perito Merino glacier in El Calafate, Argentina, all those months ago, this is a disappointment. Underwhelmed.
Enjoying my stride along the trail, can hear a heavy breathing, short legged, Asian girl keeping up with me, a few yards behind. Quite impressed that she can keep up as I’m going at a fairly full on pace myself. She explains that she’s very late for her transfer back to the ship. Hence the rush.
Having built up an appetite from my two mile stride along the trail, ready to eat at the ‘salmon bake’. BBQ salmon, in other words. Rather good and set up for cruise ship tourists with outdoor seating, cold buffet and bar. The sort of thing you might find at your local pub for a summer BBQ. Weather’s about the same as an English summer too. Cold and grey.
Dropped off at the former brothel in Juneau, the Red Dog Saloon. Full of cruise ship tourists. These towns solely exist on cruise ship tourists. Like Ketchikan, Juneau is nothing to write home about. There’s quite a few local odd bods about, which is becoming a theme for Alaska, I find. Drunk and drugged up. You know the sort.
Keep seeing signs in shop windows saying, ‘This shop is owned by an Alaskan family’. Can guess why but decide to ask one shop owner the reason.
Oh dear.
What I have done.
Having lit the blue touch paper, listen to a diatribe of anti-Indian sentiment.
All the prime locations are jewellery stores run by Indians (as in curry). They only come in for the cruise ship season of May to September, then clear off. Not only that but they rent apartments and houses for the shop workers. There’s seemingly a lot of animosity towards the Indians from the locals.
Now that there are no queues to go up the cable car to Mount Roberts (unlike this morning’s long cruise ship tourist queues as it’s the first thing you pass when exiting the cruise terminal), nip up for a quick half hour. Not much to do at the top apart from hiking trails (too late in the day for hiking) but stunning views up and down the Gastineau Channel. The four cruise ships below look tiny from up here.
A short film is on offer in the theatre explaining the local Tlingit (pronounced ‘klingit’) indigenous tribe’s way of life. Sit and wait on a bench between the two exit doors. So. In effect. Am sitting in the fallow area that no one will need to walk into on their way out. Officious woman, mid 60s, short cropped grey hair, highly strung looking, you know the sort, tells me to move. I’m in the way of the exiting people. And her. Then why put a bench here then? Move to another seat.
Once in the theatre, expecting the lights to dim and film to start.
But then. This.
She explains that she’s a retired teacher. It explains everything. She’s going to give us a little lesson. She has notes in her hand. She keeps turning over the pages. She starts by telling us to put our phones away. She doesn’t like talking to people who are looking at phones. She says, “I get kranky. Very kranky. So put your phones down and look at me. Then I won’t get kranky.” A tedious history lesson ensues. She’s back in the classroom. She will never retire from being a teacher. Her lesson finishes, the lights dim, film starts.
And then. A latecomer. A morbidly obese latecomer. The sort that can’t move and sit down quietly. The sort that plonks themselves down diagonally behind me on my left shoulder. The sort that is hot and sweaty and a heavy breather as she’s exerted herself by walking a few steps. The sort that can’t fit in the seats. The sort that has to lean forward to fit in the seat so the armrests don’t bite into her. The sort that leans forward and rests her big flabby arms and other bodily parts on the seat adjacent me. Still heavy breathing. Right in my left ear.
Well, dear reader, if you could hear me muttering to myself. You would be laughing. Can’t put up with this. Actually have to leave the film.
There’s a reason why there was no queue to go up in the cable car. It’s because they’re already at the top. Queuing to come down. Half an hour wait to go down. So much for a quick trip. There’s a smallish bloke in front who is from my ship. He looks like a Harry Potter Gringott’s Bank goblin. There are five benches to sit on. Four are completely free. One is occupied by an elderly woman. Sitting minding her own business. Normal people would sit on a vacant bench. Nope. Not him. He plonks himself on her bench. Not at one end to give her a few inches space. Nope. Plonks himself right next to her such that he’s encroaching on her space and his body is leaning on her bag and her. Some people. Unbelievable. His wife soon tells him to move when she sees where he’s sat. He’s completely oblivious.
Nowt* so queer as folk.
And there’s a lot of queer folk on this ship.
* for non-English speakers…and Americans…’nowt’ means ‘nothing’.
