We had 10 days between getting off the ship in Seattle and beginning the overland Canadian component of our holiday. Travel agent Ruthie convinced me that it would be more economical and the fact we may never get back here to do another cruise into Alaska. When she showed me all the perks and the extras we were getting on this cruise and for the price we paid, I was thinking the name of this ship has got to be either The Black Pearl or the Titanic! When we arrived at the port in Vancouver I was a little worried when I saw the Holland Amerika Lijn Schip (see what I did there) was painted black and on boarding the decor did resemble the Titanic but as soon as we sat down to dinner with the Delft crockery from The Netherlands I felt right at home. Even if it did take us half an hour to find the dining room! The Volendam only takes 1460 passengers but its layout was very confusing after we were so used to the bigger Quantum ship. Where were all our favourite hang outs?

This smaller ship allowed us to do some scenic Alaskan cruising to areas the bigger ships couldn’t get. Tracy Arm Inlet was one such area. There were more glaciers as well as the distant spout of whales to be seen. The binoculars were getting a good workout.

We had visited Juneau on our previous cruise. This time there were 5 cruise ships in port. Luckily we had booked a whale and wildlife watching trip which quickly got us out of town. Not long after our catamaran set off, it quickly pulled up and there it was. A close up look at a huge humpback whale! It’s incredible how large they are. We motored on and saw various other humpbacks. At this time of the season they have just returned from calving in Hawaii and are not that energetic. So, much to our surprise we saw a smaller humpback breaching right in front of us. Wow! This was something we’ve always wanted to see. Then the same whale breached again. Amazing. We were told that this was an energetic young calf and it was playing and showing off like a child does. It’s been fed by its mother all the way from Hawaii and has put on 7 pounds per hour. The equivalent energy expended to breach in human terms is running a marathon.

Next we went to a rocky outcrop and the only difference I noticed to sea lions I’ve seen in the past was that they looked like brown sausages. They were still noisy, playful and smelly. Plenty of majestic bald eagles were sighted. We were told that Alaskan Airlines are the only airline that have ever had to make an emergency landing due to being hit by a fish. The story goes that as the plane was taking off it encountered a bald eagle that had caught a big juicy salmon. The force of the airflow caused the eagle to let go of the salmon which full on hit and damaged the cockpit.

Back in Juneau, Ruthie was having trouble disposing of some rubbish into the public bin. A local came along and explained the garbage bin is bear proof. It seems it’s Ruthie proof as well.

I had always heard talk about the Yukon and Klondike mainly from the movies. Here we were in amongst it. We had docked at Skagway and went straight onto a train trip that took us from sea level to 3,000 feet high. Not just any train – The White Pass Yukon train. The narrow gauge track was built in the late 1890’s and was inspired by the gold rush that was gaining momentum way up in the mountains. My first thoughts were how did they build this track on the side of granite mountains and over plunging gorges. My next thoughts were why! Many men and animals (horses and mules) died during the construction and only a handful of men were made rich by finding gold. The railway line went from Alaska(USA) and crossed the border into Canada. In the middle of nowhere was a small Canadian Mounted Police log cabin that would check prospective workers had enough supplies for one year. So they even had customs and immigration back in those days!

I had to visualise how it was described to me: 3 men hanging by ropes from the granite mountain: 1 would drill a hole, the 2nd man would insert the dynamite and the 3rd would light it. They would then swing out of the way as the resulting explosion sprayed the granite rubble into the deep valley below. Unbelievable as it is, we’re very fortunate that it exists as it’s certainly one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world.

It had been foggy when we first boarded the train in Skagway so did not get a sense of what the town looked like. Upon returning, the fog had lifted. It was so quaint. The town had retained that small previous century mining town look caused by the Klondike gold rush. Ruthie thought it had more of a western cowboy town look. It has wooden board walk footpaths and many of the old unique building structures from the late 1800’s have been retained. All set up for the tourist and I’m not sure this town would survive now if it wasn’t for the cruise ships stopping here. We saw a lot of folks eating this delicious looking fried bread and a Navajo women back on the ship shared some with us. She said it was a traditional dish known as a doughboy that is too much for her to make now. It was delicious.

The next morning was an early start as we were scenic cruising through Glacier Bay. The park rangers had come on board to give an overview of what we were going to see. I had stupidly decided to sleep while Ruthie made the early start. I knew I was in trouble when she rang me and told me to get my arse up to the crows nest! Ruthie had disrupted the rangers talk with an excited scream because she had seen a whale lift it’s head high out of the water. It was feeding and is considered unusual behaviour. Two humpbacks frolicked for a while and totally disrupted the talk but the Ranger said “that’s not something you see every day” and better than anything he had to say. Just call her ranger Ruthie.

The scenery had changed again. This was the advantage of being on a smaller ship as we sailed the narrow Glacier Bay. We came across Marjerie Glacier and it seemed so close that you felt you could nearly touch it. Imagine our surprise when we saw it calve! The huge slices of ice imploding into the ocean causing a monstrous splash and then the resulting thunderous clap was astounding. The calving ice crest waves which came back and rocked the boat made us grateful we weren’t in a smaller boat. It was something beautiful and incredible to see. Besides other glaciers, we saw whales, seals, sea otters, lots of birdlife and even a pacific coastal brown bear on a low tide pebble beach. The tide here varies by 21 feet and on low tide the bears come in to feed on their seafood basket. It also often means the gangplank between the ship changes between disembarking and embarking.

The next morning we awoke to Ketchikan. This was our second visit here and we decided to take a hike on the Rainbow Trail in the Tongass National Forest. The hike was over an uneven unmaintained bush track with many exposed tree roots. The ascending and descending path was a great workout and we both enjoyed getting our land legs. We hiked through lush undergrowth with occasional clear breaks that provided beautiful views back over the harbour. We also added squirrels to our wildlife viewing tally.

Our cruise is coming to an end as we sailed the inside passage back to Vancouver. Our last evening walk on the outside deck and bingo! We were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights.

Alaska ✔️ We celebrated with an Alaska Blue Ice cocktail served on genuine glacier ice at one of the ships fine dining restaurants followed by a Dutch orange party celebration. There was no whale, bear or eagle on the menu but we had a whale of a time, some couldn’t see the porpoise but what otter nonsense! Alaska certainly is the last frontier.