Sitka

July 9-13

Looking south in Crescent Harbor

There are so many things to see and do in Sitka, so many that we can’t begin to do them all in one visit. We always find time to walk the several harbors and check out the boats, large and small. 

Two colorful vessels in Crescent Harbor

We manage at least one long walk to town for an historic tour and photo shoot.

St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Cathedral

2011 was also our year to revisit the Totem Park, a 113-acre National Historic Park at the southeast end of town. It holds an amazing collection of Haida and Tlingit totem poles, displayed in a natural setting. You just happen upon them while hiking the park's loop trail. Most of the totems are replicas of 100-year old originals, though several old poles are on display inside the park's visitor center. The old poles are well-preserved in a museum-like setting, but we chose to visit the standing totems scattered throughout the woods. Weathering shows in fading paint and softening of the carved figures, and the poles seem to belong in  amongst the towering Sitka spruce and hemlocks. 

The shrimp/prawn at the bottom of this pole seems unusual.

    

 In the midst of this quiet forest...

... it was startling to turn toward the water and see a cruise ship at anchor and an Alaska Airlines jet ready for takeoff across the channel. 

Boca De Quadra

August 28
We had set a 2010 cruise goal to explore new territory, to slow down and change the standard routes from one favorite spot to the next. Boca de Quadra fit the bill as new territory. It is along a typical course, but we have ignored it each year as we rushed past, on the way to some other destination. This inlet suffers from inconvenient geography. It is located along the route to nearby Ketchikan where northbound boaters must check in with U.S. Customs upon entering Alaskan waters. It’s also close to Foggy Bay, a convenient anchorage for southbound boaters waiting for weather before crossing Dixon Entrance enroute to Prince Rupert, B.C. and checking-in with Canadian Customs. 

We were intrigued by an interesting chapter on Wilderness Sea Coasts in friend Pat Roppel’s book, Misty Fiords, and altered course to explore the inlet. Most of Boca De Quadra, with its several long fiords, felt like pure wilderness, rugged and isolated. Mountains towered above while dense evergreen forests crowded the steep and rocky shoreline. We felt peacefully isolated, until we headed into Mink Bay and found a large tourist lodge located at the site of an old cannery (cannery built in 1896 by Quadra Packing Co.) 

Misty Fjords Lodge was quite an impressive establishment, apparently open but empty when we cruised by.

The several totems were dramatic, but seemed oddly detailed in places, or at least not completely traditional. Impressive, nonetheless.