Virtual Alaska With Mr. Hollinger
Journal Entry for Saturday, May 5 2001
The "old" Alaska license plate.
The "new" Alaska license plate. It commemorates the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 and the ordeal the goldseekers faced climbing the Chilkoot Trail over the mountains.
Now that you know what they look like, be looking for these license plates on Ohio's roadways. I see one every once in a great while.
I’m going to backtrack just a little on today’s (Saturday’s) journal. I’m taking you back to yesterday’s ferry ride from Cordova to Valdez. I want you to see the view that we saw as we approached Port Valdez from the larger “Valdez Arm” of the Prince William Sound. The Valdez Arm narrows at the point you see dead ahead in the next photo. At that narrow point the ferry, and all the oil tankers that vist the Alaska pipeline terminal, enter Port Valdez.
After a good night’s sleep I boarded this deHaviland “Dash” in Valdez for the half hour flight to Anchorage. When I called Northwest Airlines last night to confirm my flights home I learned that I will be leaving Anchorage two hours later than originally scheduled and that I will fly home through Minneapolis instead of Detroit.
I arrived in Anchorage at 9:30 a.m. My flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul wasn’t scheduled to leave until 9:45 p.m.. That’s a 12 hour and 15 minute layover. So, I rented a car and headed south on the Seward Highway toward Seward, Alaska. The road parallels a railroad and the Turnagain Arm, a long narrow bay off of the Cook Inlet. I drove as far as the Portage Valley where I hoped to see the Portage Glacier up close. Unfortunately, as I drove farther up the arm the clouds got thicker and lower and it even started snowing again. Although the glacier’s terminus was only a few hundred yards in front of me I couldn’t see it. That’s the Portage Glacier straight ahead through the fog. You'll have to trust me on this.
There is lots of ice floating in front of the glacier as you can see above and in the next photo. This ice has broken, or calved, off of the glacier. The larger pieces of ice may qualify as icebergs.
Less than a mile more down the road is a short tunnel that leads to another tunnel which connects the Prince William Sound town of Whittier to Alaska's highway system. The tunnel to Whittier is the longest highway tunnel in North America at 2.5 miles in length and the only tunnel in North America which is used by both cars and railroad trains. I didn’t drive to Whittier because travel through the tunnel is limited to certain times of the day and delays were predicted. I didn’t want to risk being late back to the airport.
The drive from the glacier back to Anchorage along the Seward Highway was interesting. There were lots of points of interest along the way. There is a 30 foot tide along the south central coast of Alaska, which means that twice a day the level of the ocean rises and falls 30 vertical feet - the height of a 3-story building. When the tide is out the coast around Valdez and Anchorage and along the Turnagain Arm are reduced to mud flats, a very deep mud of glaciated silt. See the next two pictures.
The flats are dangerous to animals, including humans. Sometimes people who wander onto the flats get stuck. If they aren’t found and rescued before the tide comes in the tide rises and they drown. The tourist guides of the Anchorage area and signs along the Seward Highway caution visitors to be careful around the mud flats.
At another point along the Seward Highway I saw a beaver’s house. It’s the snow covered mound in the middle of the pond.
A bit later I found Dall sheep grazing on the mountainside high above the roadway. These are wild, not domesticated, sheep. They are very sure footed and confident on the steep mountainside.
After about eight hours of exploring I returned my rental car and checked in at the airport. As I type this journal entry I’m sitting at gate B-10 at the Anchorage airport looking out at my ride as far as Minneapolis-St. Paul.
My watch says 8:35 p.m. Alaska time. At this moment it’s 12:35 a.m. tomorrow in Delaware. I’ll fly all night and arrive at Port Columbus at 10:30 a.m. That’s about ten hours from now. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some restful sleep on the plane.
Thanks to all my students and others who accompanied me on my Alaska adventure through my web-based journal and photos. I hope that through these web pages you have learned a little something about “The Great Land” and that you are inspired to visit here yourself one day to learn a lot more first hand.
If the good Lord wills it I’ll see my students at Dempsey Middle School on Monday morning. Have your questions ready.
- Mr. Hollinger
P.S. A brief highlight of the flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis was viewing the Northern Lights out the airplane window. From between 35 and 40,000 feet altitude it was an awesome sight.
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