Travel to Southeast Alaska for Adventure and Fun
- When it’s a nice day in Alaska, there’s not a nicer day anywhere!
Travel to Alaska was easy enough, and less expensive than we’d thought. We drove to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada and caught the early morning ferry to Southeast Alaska. Cruising through the narrows between the islands, we passed what we thought were the beginnings of villages. Run down, dilapidated buildings dotted the coastline as we went by, and we soon learned that these were the homes of peo
ple who lived away from the villages. Some had docks with skiffs tied up and some had milk goats on their land.
After six hours of looking in awe at the bald eagles, porpoise and orca whales that seemed to be escorting us in, we came to a real city. It had a large post office, a McDonald’s sign and a grocery store that we could see from the ship.
We docked, and the first thing to do was find a place for our two dogs to relieve themselves, which they did in the parking lot as soon as they got out of the car. We’d talked to some locals and found where the nearest campground was, and we went on our way.
We found a campsite and unloaded everything we had. Realizing we needed more ice, my husband went to the store while I tried to organize our things.
Our First Adventure in Alaska
Slam! Slam! I heard the two car doors shut and I turned to see our kids, Katie who was six and Jess who was four, in the car looking at me. I walked over to see what they were doing and tried to open the door, but it was locked.
“Why did you lock the doors?” I asked through the closed window. They pointed behind me so I turned to look and saw a big black bear sauntering down the road toward our camp. I turned back to the car in a panic. “Open the door! Let me in!”
“No! There’s a bear!” they retorted simultaneously.
“But let me in!” I yelled as I tried the handle repeatedly while pulling on the door handle. Again, they refused. I turned to see if the bear was getting closer when a white SUV pulled up behind the bear. A husky sort of woman got out and began yelling and waving her arms, and as she’d expected, the bear took off into the woods. She got back into her car and drove closer to us.
“I don’t think he’ll be back for a while!” she called from her car, waving and smiling as she passed us. I didn’t know much about bears, but I didn’t believe that bear wouldn’t be back. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I tried to pretend I wasn’t scared (for the kids’ sake) and went back to organizing our belongings while keeping an eye out for more bears. The kids seemed happy to stay in the car and watch until their dad came back with the ice for our coolers.
The Adventures Have Just Begun
We had a habit of putting our kids to bed when it got dark. That had to change immediately, as it didn’t get dark until almost 10:30pm! The kids were exhausted, as we were, so it wasn’t hard getting anyone to sleep that night.
I woke up because of the bright light in my eyes, coming through the vent at the top of the tent. I sat up and looked at my watch.
“What? Everyone wake up! It’s nearly three o’clock, we almost slept away our first day in Alaska!” Everyone seemed groggy, but I wasn’t surprised after the trip we’d just taken. We got everyone dressed and got into the car to go to town and find a restaurant for breakfast. The town was dead, not one car passed us on the five mile drive there. Everything was closed and the entire town seemed asleep, still. We passed the grocer that had a digital clock on it, and we found out it was three AM! We forgot that Alaska is the land of the midnight sun! In summer dawn comes in right around 2:30am, we learned. We were in Southeast Alaska so it didn’t stay sunny around the clock, there were three to four hours of night each day.
We did some sight seeing and learning about our new home and finished setting up our camp. With small kids like ours and long daylight hours, we tried to tire the kids as much as possible so they’d sleep through the sunlight of the night.
Again, I was awoke in the night, though, this time it was still dark. Our dogs began barking and whining, and we heard things being tipped over outside. Some big breathing sounds and a few grunts told us what was going on; there was a bear going through our things!
My husband got up immediately to take care of the situation like a man – he unzipped the tent door and let the dogs outside!
“No!” I screamed, waking the kids. “He might eat the dogs!” My husband just chuckled at me.
“Bears don’t eat dogs, silly!”
“How do you know?” The question was quickly forgotten when it became clear the dogs had run off into the woods after the bear. “What if they get lost? What if the bear turns to fight them?” I was very frightened and my husband seemed far too calm for my comfort.
“They’ll come back, don’t worry.” But, worry I did, and I did it for the whole twenty minutes they were gone. I was so relieved when they came back and I checked them over for any wounds, finding none. My husband chained up the dogs outside the tent to ward off anymore curious camp robbers. I had to get the kids back to sleep before the sun came up.
We had many, many more adventures living in that tent in Alaska. I’m going to write about all of it here, so bookmark my hub and don’t miss my next entry!
