Carol Fowler - Explorers Guide Alaska Panhandle: A Great Destination

A COMPLETE GUIDE

THE ALASKA PANHANDLE

A COMPLETE GUIDE

1ST EDITION

Carol Fowler

To Ken

We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact Great Destinations Guide Editor, The Countryman Press, P.O. Box 748, Woodstock, VT 05091, or e-mail .

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Copyright 2009 by Carol Fowler

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages.

ISBN 978-1-58157-095-3

Cover photo by the author

Interior photographs by the author unless otherwise specified
Maps by Mapping Specialists, The Countryman Press
Book design by Bodenweber Design
Composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Published by The Countryman Press, P.O. Box 748, Woodstock, VT 05091

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Printed in the United States of America

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The authors in this series are professional travel writers who have lived for many years in the regions they describe. Honest and painstakingly critical, full of information only a local can provide, Great Destinations guidebooks give you all the practical knowledge you need to enjoy the best of each region.

Many people eased my time in Alaska, and pointed to things I may not have discovered. My thanks go to Jennifer A. Thompson, who suggested initial contacts, and Tara Stevens, who refined itineraries and tracked down endless information. In Juneau, Sharon Gaiptmans enthusiasm and knowledge of Alaska and the Yukon set me on various enriching paths and adventures. Later on, Elizabeth Arnett helped me to tie up details. Lori Stepansky and Buckwheat Donahue served as tireless ambassadors and interpreters of Haines and Skagway, respectively.

In Ketchikan, my thanks go to Patti Mackey and Dragon London, for their time and patience with my endless queries long after I had left; and to Chuck Baird, for enlightening me about the past.

Alaska Natives provided endless kindness in their villages, particularly Lindarae Shearer, in Metlakatla, and Johan Dybdahl, in Hoonah. Many unnamed Alaskanswhose hearts are as big as their statesought me out to share information, insights, and sometimes meals, over many years of travel.

My thanks to editors Kim Grant for her direction and later to Bill Bowers for his careful reading of the manuscript.

My appreciation goes to my children, who respected the time I needed to finish this project. And to my husband, Kenwho traveled hundreds of miles in the Alaska Panhandle on bush planes, small fishing boats, or lumbering ferries, and later fact-checked and read the manuscript with caremy gratitude and love.

The great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness...

John Muir on Alaska

Haines, at the northern end of the Alaska Panhandle, lies 14 miles from Skagway along the Lynn Canal, a 90-minute ferry trip. By highway, its a 364-mile drive that takes the better part of a day. The route runs north to Haines Junction in the Yukon, crosses over to Whitehorse, and backtracks south to Skagway. Haines and Skagway are two of only three Alaska Panhandle towns to be connected to anywhere else in North America by road. This quirk of geography explains a lot about the Alaska Panhandle terrain, its scale, and the lifestyle of its people. They get around either by sea or by air. The waterways are their marine highway, and the little floatplanes that buzz everywhere incessantly are their taxis. Cruise ships and ferries of the Alaska Marine Highway System bus numbers of people from port to port. Roads may extend out of the towns boundaries, but they run a few miles and then dead-end in the forest.

The Alaska Panhandle stretches almost 500 miles, from the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island to Yakutat. At most, its 100 miles wide from the British Columbia border to the Pacific Ocean, including the islands of the Alexander Archipelago that run almost its entire length. Sandwiched into these relatively small borders are 15,000 miles of coastline, along bays, inlets, fjords, and approximately 1,100 islands. Glaciers sculpted this landmass into a vast lacy landscape, a paradise with glaciers, rainforests, abundant wildlife, and, always, the snow-covered mountains forming a backdrop, and the sea framing the foreground.