Turning back the clock barely three generations, just 70 years ago, there was not even a single road connecting the great land of Alaska to the rest of the world. The ALCAN (Alaska-Canadian Highway) was not yet complete and the traveler who didn’t want to climb or ride a dogsled over the impending, snow-swept mountain passes had two choices - air or sea. By sea, the Inside Passage was, and still is, the preeminent coastal route for oceangoing vessels providing the greatest sense of adventure and the most scenic route of travel to Alaska. Sailing through literally hundreds of mountainous, coniferous-covered, snow-capped, and mist-blanketed islands, based on the relative absence of any sign of human inhabitance, you feel as if you were sailing into an unexplored new world.
As a young child, when you put a canoe into a crystal clear Ozark stream for your first overnight canoe trip, the sense of excitement and adventure seemed overwhelming. All the sights, sounds, and smells became more intense and the sense of adventure was electrifying. Since those days, with each passing season you appreciate the beauty of the Ozark wilderness even more, however that pang of excitement subsides somewhat with subsequent trips afield as the Ozark wilderness becomes more familiar. You learn that, while sitting around the campfire at night, there is little to fear from the sounds coming from beyond the fire’s light. As an adult however, onboard the Alaskan Marine Highway System ship M/V Columbia, while turning west into the setting sun as you prepare to leave the Puget Sound, that pang of excitement rushes back as vivid as it was many years ago in your childhood. While standing on the upper deck the excitement and mystery of the unknown is as constant as the wind in your face. The great low-frequency blast of the ferry’s bull horn echoes for miles around, notifying all vessels that this lumbering giant is leaving port headed for the Great North country. You are now past the point of no return.
Far different from the canoes, johnboats, and jet boats of the Ozarks, the M/V Columbia is a giant. At over 400 feet long and with a beam of 85 feet, this behemoth is almost half the length and breadth of the RMS Titanic. Fully loaded the M/V Columbia can carry 134 automobiles (based on 20’ lengths) and displaces almost 8,000 tons. With 3 passenger decks, over 100 passenger cabins, a cafeteria, a restaurant, a theater, a gift shop, an outdoor solarium, and a covered forward observation auditorium, this vessel is more like what an Ozarkian would consider a cruise ship than any ferry we are used to (such as the one at Akers Ferry on the Current River). The M/V Columbia is also a campground. For the truly adventurous there are two decks that provide areas
for tent camping or an open-air solarium with overhead heat lamps where experienced ferry travelers can claim their covered spot for the multiday trip to the north. Being over 2,000 miles from home on the adventure of a lifetime it seems criminal not to embrace the full potential exhilaration of the experience by camping on the ferry. Camping on a ferryboat is an experience to which few can lay claim and all who do experience it will forever remember.
Turning from west to north the ferry makes for Chatham Sound just past Vancouver Island. Through the narrow straights along Vancouver Island orca whales are visible from the ferry’s decks. These huge black and white eating machines with color schemes similar to Holstein cattle (only a Hillbilly can make this comparison!) break the surface and splash back into the surf in a great performance of acrobatics. It is as if they are performing a grand choreographed performance welcoming you to the entrance to Southeast Alaska. After Chatham Sound while steaming through the Inside Passage you will pass through maritime geographic locations such as Frederick Sound, Stephens Passage, and Lynn Canal, each resembling some fabled rocky, timber-lined Norse coastline of ancient legend and all contained within the Tongass National Forest .Like the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Tongass National Forest is a place of unsurpassed tranquil beauty. Encompassing 17 million acres, it is the largest temperate rainforest in the world. This enchanted land is a land defined by water in one form or another. There are huge glaciers, snow capped mountains, ice fields, over 11,000 miles of ocean shore-line, wetlands, and rain…and more rain. The Tongass averages 146 inches of rain annually compared to approximately 34 inches per year in Missouri. With that rain comes unparalleled forest growth with seemingly impenetrable canopies of spruce, hemlock, fir and cedar variants as far as the eye can see. From the ferry’s decks it reminds the voyager of what the Missouri landscape must have looked like in the Ozarks during the 1880’s when the giant timber mill owned by the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company at Granby, Missouri was just beginning.
With no roads to the outside world, everything on which the few inhabitants of this beautiful and remote wilderness survive is either shipped in or provided for by the land. Subsistence living is a way of life here. Nature’s Economy is not a novel way of living but rather a required means of survival. It is a perfect system today just as it was a millennium ago, everything is used, and nothing is wasted. The food and resources are available for surviving for those hardy enough to make a life here - a free living designed by Mother Nature. All of this bounty and beauty, and you are just on the front porch of the great land of Alaska. I hope you get to see it one day. It’s a game changer. Good luck, be safe, and get a big one.
No comments:
Post a Comment