Alaska Adventure: The Inside Passage

We had planned the trip to conclude with the Alaska Marine Highway System auto ferry to get home. If you want to do the Inside Passage but hate the thought of going to sea in a floating hotel with 6000 other people, this may be for you. If you love continuous food, shore excursions with large groups of old people, nightly shows, and swimming pools, you may prefer one of the cruise ships. But we thought the M.V. Columbia was great. A couple of hundred passengers, brief stops in Scagway, Haines, Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan, and your entertainment is what you provide yourself. Food you either bring aboard or can buy at a snack bar or a very nice restaurant.

We boarded the Columbia at Skagway on Monday evening. We had to be there 2 hours in advance, and were among the first cars loaded since we were going all the way to Bellingham, WA. The loaders motioned me out of line as one of the first cars to load, and I drove in through a big door about midway down the side of the ship. They motioned me to the far side of the car deck to where there was what looked like a metal plate of some sort in the deck. I thought they might be going to weigh each car, but with a rumble a metal cage descended from the upper deck and I was motioned to drive into it - the metal plate was a little ramp up into the elevator. We were raised to the upper car deck, then motioned to drive forward and park behind another vehicle. We got our bags, dodged other cars as they exitted the elevator, and made our way to the purser's desk where we got the key to our cabin. There were two decks of cabins - ours was 201 on the upper deck and just behind the lower viewing lounge. Very convenient. The cabin had bunk beds, a bathroom and shower, sink, and small closet. Basic and cramped, but clean and comfortable, with a nice-sized window. Plenty of room under the lower berth for luggage.

We went out to explore the ship. On our deck (Deck 5) were the viewing lounge and a theater with reclining seats and two big-screen televisions. Aft was an open deck, partially covered, where people later pitched tents. Since the ship only had a hundred or so cabins, many of the passengers either slept in their tents, in the reclining seats in the theater, or on the floor in the lounges. There was a wait-list for cabins in case somebody didn't show up who had reserved a cabin. The ship had restrooms and showers on each deck for the "homeless."

The Boat Deck (Deck 6) had another viewing lounge as well as the snack bar and restaurant. Both lounges had windows the entire width of the deck and down the sides, with comfortable seats and booths with tables and bench seats. The National Forest Service (Dept. of Interior?) had a young woman on board who gave daily talks on the area we were going through, with catchy titles like "Our Flippered Friends." Other than that, we passed the three days watching spectacular scenery, reading, working puzzles, and doing counted cross stitch. Linda caught a couple of movies, but with limited choices (e.g., Baby Mama) I chose to read.

We didn't see a lot of wildlife, although there were some sightings of whales, porpoises and eagles. The stops in Juneau, Petersburg, and Wrangell were in the middle of the night, but we stopped for three hours one afternoon in Sitka, and six hours the next afternoon in Ketchikan. In general, except for Scagway the ferry dock was miles from the towns we stopped at, so the time available ashore was very limited.

When we got to Bellingham we were resigned to being one of the last off the boat, and were prepared for it to take several hours. They moved fast, though, and it took less than an hour and a half. Then the drive home was all that was left. Sigh! Back to crowded roads, big cities, and urban development. But the Columbia River Gorge does not have to take a back seat to any scenery we saw while we were gone.