Alaska diary: The Kenai (Seward & Fox Island)

There is no electricity in Seward when we arrive in the early afternoon.  Transformer troubles, according to a girl at the desk of the Seward Hotel.

We have decided to spend a night indoors to let our camping gear have time to dry.  Plus it is raining again.  The women at the desk are apologetic about the outage, but don't seem overly concerned.  "Happens all the time.," says one.  I imagine the panic that would overtake any large city in the lower 48.  No working computers, credit card readers, televisions, traffic lights, refrigerators, hair dryers.  But Seward seems cool with inconvenience.

The city itself is small (pop. 2076), nestled into a natural deep water harbor at the end of Resurrection Bay.  Surrounded by snow-capped mountains dotted with glaciers, the narrow town contains a half dozen streets.  First through Sixth avenues run north and south.  Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe streets plus A, B, and C streets cross them east to west.  The small boat harbor is tacked onto the north end of town.  That's about it.

The hotel lobby looks like an upscale taxidermy shop decorated by one of your mother's maiden aunts, the aunt with very good taste in tasseled lamps and quarter-sawn oak furniture.  Big games heads hang here and there; a stuffed fox in its white winter coat poses alert on a chunk of driftwood.  We take a single room in the historic wing with a hide-a-bed and settle in enough to shower and change clothes.  By the time we are finished, the electricity is restored and life goes on in Alaska.

I have booked a dinner cruise to Fox Island at the suggestion of our Wilderness Lodge hosts.  So we head for the harbor.  Along with about forty other hungry sightseers, we board the Nanatuk at 4:30 and stream out of the Bay towards a prime rib and salmon feast/nature adventure -- at least that is what has been advertised.

The crew consists of young kids on a summer job lark.  That pretty much describes 75% of the help in Alaska during the tourist season.  One young woman I speak with is from Montrose, Colorado.  Lots of people from my home state seem drawn to Alaska, a place even wilder than the Colorado outdoors.  This young expat is a student at Fairbanks University.   I ask her how she likes Alaska.

"I miss the skiing," she says.  "And the sun."

The trip to Fox Island is uneventful except for a group of young German travelers who laugh at high volume at each other's clever remarks and the crew member who narrates over the loudspeaker as we chug towards dinner.  His patter is informative.  We learn that Seward was an oil port in the mid-20th century, but that the famous 9.2 Anchorage earthquake caused 3 tsunamis which devastated the refinery and storage facilities in Seward, as well as wiping out most of the town.   Why didn't that make the news?  My brother, Dale,  remembers hearing news of the Anchorage quake when we came out of a Good Friday church service back in 1964, but he can't recall hearing anything of Seward, nor can I.

The narrator's style is a cross between Jacque Cousteau and Jonathan Edwards, as stentorious as it is possible for a 25-year-old seagoing college student to be.  Example, when talking of the grey whales and their appetite for krill in the bay:  "After supping on their briny repast they plunge into the everlasting dark of the deep until hunger pulls them once again to the light-dappled surface."  Or something along that line.

After a 30-minute cruise -- with no sealife sightings, a bit of a disappointment -- we disembark at Fox Island.  The island houses cabins for visitors who want to stay and explore, and a large lodge where a buffet of salad, bread, prime rib, salmon, and dessert is waiting.  As we are sitting down we find that dinner comes with a powerpoint slideshow by Ranger Earl.  He is a pear-shaped ringer for Droopy minus the nasal whine.  His show is informative, an overview of Alaskan wildlife, delivered in the same overwrought style as our cruise narrator.  Maybe all Alaskans and temporary workers are required to attend the same public speaking class.

When the ship's horn sounds two blasts we reboard and head out further into the bay.  Sailing close to the eastern cliffs the crew points out Dall sheep on impossible outcroppings, puffins flying like wind-up toys just above the ocean surface, thousands of circling seabirds, and dozens of sea lions barking from the rocky shore.  We even sight a grey whale, which shows its back three times in an arcing lunge.  Our cameras capture what they can, but they can't grasp the thrill of seeing wild things in these wild places.

The sun is low in the western sky as we return to Seward, long rays poking through the space between clouds and mountains, a spectacular show.  Who needs television in Alaska (at least during the summer?)