Looking through some old CDs I came across some travel tales that I’d written as a boy. They were previously on my other website but since that got zapped the reading public has been unable to obtain these literary gems. You’ll probably be glad to hear that I’m going to spare you “How Long to Ha Long?”, the tale of my little Vietnamese hospital visit. So, here is the first in a series of tales of my travails to strange places. First up then, we have … Alaska in winter from 1996. I can’t claim that they’re classics of the genre but they are moderately interesting historical artefacts.
If you haven’t managed to escape Nagano’s winter chills and are becoming increasingly intolerant of JETsetter articles about holidays to warm places then this travelogue is for you. Furthermore, you don’t need to be a member of a clique to be able to understand it – all names used throughout have been unchanged to implicate the guilty.
For those of you lucky enough to be acquainted with my previous travel tales, you’ll be pleased (surprised?) to hear that I managed to return with all my limbs intact this time (there are certain limits to my intrepidness, and they tend to exclude hospitals).
The author of Lonely Planet Alaska informs us that he can think of a lot better places to be going in winter and then proceeds to say no more about Alaska in winter. What do Lonely Planet know about anything anyway? Being an old hand at travel in frigid climes (Iceland, winter in Moscow, Siberia, …), I packed my thermals, brushed up on polar bears and headed for Alaska.
Well, I got off to a flying start when I changed planes in Seattle to go to Vancouver. I was sitting on the plane, watching them put the luggage on. Watching them not put my luggage on (I could see it on the cart). The next thing I knew, we were taking off. Visions of Alaska sans winter woolies didn’t appeal too much. However, after waiting for a while at Vancouver airport, it finally turned up several planes later.
After this I phoned the youth hostel to see if they had a bed (who else would be travelling at this time of year??) They indeed had many to choose from. I asked them what the best way to get there was and they said that I can either take a taxi for $25 (20 mins) or 3 buses for $1.25 (1.5 hours). Ever keen to reinforce stereotypical views of Scots I of course chose the latter option. It was only then that I discovered that there was a bus strike at Vancouver airport…. After standing in the swealtering heat (only joking) for many hours I eventually got into town.
After a quick look around Vancouver I decided to fit in a quick trip to Banff, “capital of the Rockies”. Having somewhat tired of airports by this point, I booked the 16 hour overnight bus trip. This trip brought home to me the terrible afflictions that the tobacco addict has to endure in order to get his/her fix. Canada is fairly strict on public smoking, which means that the Banff-bound smoker has to stand outside at night in sub-zero temperatures and marvel at the horizontalness of the snow. Needless to say, that wasn’t for me and it was straight into the “Husky” service station for some nourishment.
The overnight bus was chosen specifically because it travels through the “majestic” Rockies by day and affords the traveller “unmatched scenes of natural beauty and other bits of majesticness”. This may well be true in summer. However, I can reliably inform the reader that en hiver it resembles something very white, unmatched anywhere outside of the Dulux world. Disembarking into the -25C of Banff was certainly a shock to the system. Apparantly I’d chanced upon an unseasonal cold snap and the temperatures were expected to go back to normal the following week. It reached -35 at night.
Banff was the site of my first frozen snot experience. Having experienced various temperatures over the period, I can inform you that the freezing point of snot is around -20. This then leads to some problems. Basically your nose is frozen and you are unable to breath through it. Resorting to oral breathing then steams up your glasses. Said steam then freezes onto the glass, producing a nice white haze effect (cf. previous dulux experience) and effective blindness. Scraping the ice off gives you a few minutes’ vision before the search for an indoor oasis becomes imperative.
After Banff, it was back to Vancouver and Seattle for a white Christmas and the worst weather they had had for the past 10 years. I should point out at this point that before I left sundry Vancouverians (hello Garner) had told me that it never snows in Vancouver and it’s always very mild.
Then it was off to Juneau, capital of Alaska, home to a couple of totem poles and a Russian church. I was one of 2 customers at the hostel – the other was a Japanese guy. Ah, there’s nothing like a bit of travel to introduce you to new people and cultures. The Juneau hostel is one of the few remaining “old-style” hostels left in the known world i.e. the 11 o’clock curfew, 9am to 5pm lockout, chore-doing type. Quite what you’re supposed to do in Juneau between 9 and 5 in the middle of winter on a Sunday is anyone’s guess.
After touring the “closed” signs and the nearby Mendenhall glacier (open all year) it was time for the Inland Passage ferry ride. This journey is allegedly one of the best ferry journeys in the world with fjords, glaciers, whales and icebergs a go-go. I took it on the “most scenic part” of the “world’s greatest ferry journey” only to be supremely underawed (I seem to remember being much more awed somewhere in Norway). One noteworthy point was the guy who left his jacket on the boat. Quite how anyone could step off that ice-encrusted vessel and fail to notice that they weren’t wearing their coat is quite beyond me.
Then I took a plane to Skagway (population 700) which, to misquote Mr. Morrissey, is the seaside town that didn’t forget to shut down. I flew Skagway Air with 2 other passengers in a propeller-driven shoebox with wings. At check-in they carefully weighed my bag and then asked how much I weighed! They then placed the bags and the passengers in a particular order to ensure that the plane wouldn’t be lopsided.
The day before I went the weather forecast was predicting -50 (including windchill). I knew that they were right when my hand almost froze to my camera less than 30 seconds after taking my glove off. You will of course be interested to learn that Skagway means “windy place”. However, it does have very low precipitation. Usually. Needless to say, the day after I arrived, they had a massive snowfall and I couldn’t get back to Seattle for the next 3 days.
Ah yes, Seattle. Bill Gates, so much to answer for. On my plane into Seattle (which was supposed to be going south, but was in fact rerouted north via Anchorage), the 2 guys sitting next to me got their laptops out and proceeded to engage in some high-brow business or other. Meanwhile, the rest of the passengers were engaged in nerdy discussions of the myriad wonders that they’d downloaded recently.
Seattle’s third most famous asset (after Bill and some scruffy git with a goatee) is its microbreweries of which there are several. It is interesting to note that the “Scottish ale” style is very popular in these places. I even had one (“auld acquaintance” or somesuch) with a slice of orange in it!!! I don’t recall seeing such things in my Scottish days but then things are moving on in my absence.
To finish with I took in a side trip to Portland to see Aaron and Mary Claire (ex-Nagano JETs) and also to marvel at the world’s smallest park (fact). If I remember correctly the thing is 23 inches in diameter and sits in the middle of a traffic island and contains some extremely withered leaves and a load of mud.
So, there you have it. Rough guide to some more cold places.
