Holland America MS Amsterdam Travelogue #11 Sitka, Alaska June 7, 2011

Holland America MS Amsterdam Travelogue #11

Sitka, Alaska

June 7, 2011

Last year when we were in Sitka it was rainy and foggy. Today, when I opened the curtains to our balcony, I was greeted with bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky! This weather has just been a Godsend!

Cruising in to Sitka, you pass hundreds of tiny islands. When we were here last year, the islands were covered in fog and we could not see much of anything. Today we could see the houses that are on those islands; along with the lighthouse across the harbor and the totem poles from the Totem Village that we visited last time with Mark and Debbie. Seeing everything clearly put an entirely different perspective on where we were and where things were located.

Sitka is a tender port; and because we had booked the Rain Forest Hike as our shore excursion today, we were among the first to get off the boat and onto a tender to go into port. One of the reasons we chose the Rain Forest Hike was to add this to our list of places to do our JDRF Walk for the Cure for our grandson Landon’s Rockin’ Walkers. We wore our JDRF denim shirts today. It was very cool.

It was a short ride; and the ocean waters were as calm as could be. Our tour guide, Catherine met us at the top of the ramp. There were only four of us on this hike today – a very small group. After passing out a Sitka chocolate bar and bottled water, we boarded a small tour bus that took us out to Mosquito Loop Trail at the north end of Sitka and the end of the road.

Neither of us had any idea that this hike was going to be as strenuous as it came to be. We had been told it was a mile and a half through the rain forest. Almost as soon as we started down the path, we began our climb up and up and up. The path had some wooden plank bridges over marshy areas and small streams; and steps were put in as the trail inclined. Doing this while having bronchitis was tough – but I did it! Granted, I brought up the end of the group; but they were all patient and waited for me when I had difficulty.

Our guide, Catherine, has lived in Sitka for a number of years and was full of all sorts of information not only about the history of Sitka, but also about the rain forest flora and fauna. She told us which plants were edible and which were not. We even got to taste a spruce tip – which is very high in Vitamin C. Boy is it bitter! The Alaska Beer Co. actually makes a spruce tip beer that is supposed to be quite good. We saw a lot of Devils Club; which is a plant with spiky leaves. The natives make this into a cream which is good for arthritis. Catherine also told us that they make a tea out of the leaves that is known to reduce symptoms at the onset of diabetes.

The forest we hiked through was thick with moss – several inches thick in many places. There are nurse logs that are trees that have fallen and have been the basis for new trees to grow from them. The path, though up and down and up and down, was gorgeous. It is maintained by volunteer caretakers who live in a log home at the entrance of the trail.

Eventually, the trail led us out to the rocky coastline, where Catherine showed us hermit crabs and other sea life living under the rocks along the shore. The small inlet of water was calm and still and you could see the waterline around the edge. We continued our hike on the other side of the little bay; again climbing up and down through the forest. The views of the Sitka harbor were beautiful through the trees. There were Sitka spruce and Western hemlock trees, alders and yellow cedar trees. Each has a different bark and different needles adding to the multitude of shades of green before us.

Through the woods you could hear birds chirping. The only bird we saw was a red breasted sap sucker (woodpecker). I tried to get a picture of him as he flew past us.

The hike took almost two and a half hours. When we reached the trail head, Catherine continued our trek across a small bridge over the river where the salmon will be running in a few weeks. There is a bird sanctuary there; and a sturdy wooden walkway through the muskeg. The grass is tall in this meadow area with the winding river flowing out to the ocean.

As we ended our hike, Catherine took us down to the beach which was the location of the Clash of the Cultures hundreds of years ago. Here the Russians fought the native Tlingits and were eventually driven back to Russia.

After our hike, we walked back into Sitka downtown and enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Victoria’s Restaurant which is just down the street from St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church. The food was delicious and we enjoyed the quaintness of the restaurant and sitting at our window table as the ship passengers passed by.

We walked down past the church and went into a few stores and a bookstore where I found a book on “Amazing Alaska Women” that included a chapter on Alaska Nellie – the pioneer woman we had heard about on our Alaska Railroad trip in Anchorage a few days ago.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Sitka and hated to leave. As we sailed out through the channel and turned south, it was sad, as we were leaving Alaska and our trip is almost over. Only two more days and then we’ll be heading home.

Tomorrow we have a day at sea and Thursday we will be in Victoria. Till then…