Cascade Creek, Thomas Bay and Petersburg
We awoke this morning – a Middle Earth morning – embraced by a land made of water. All around us the steep, forested slopes of Scenery Cove climbed into clouds like a Hobbit painting. Not just any painting but a watercolor. We don’t need sunshine to be charmed in Alaska. The clouds and rain give this place infinite character. Green is more than a color here; it’s a texture. We often find ourselves whispering on deck, as if in church, a sacred place, the last wilderness in America, far from the interference of cell phones and Twitters. Hermit thrushes sang from the forest; marbled murrelets called from the water’s surface. Arctic terns and a variety of gulls performed an aerial dance around us.
At Cascade Creek, we hiked a short distance (on yellow cedar boardwalk trail covered in fish netting to improve traction) to a thundering waterfall, the mist blowing through our hair and wetting our faces. Onward and upward, the trail became more challenging as it climbed above the falls and crossed a bridge and a narrow gorge that funneled the creek into a torrent. Everywhere plants bowed heavy with water, anointed with rain and mist: the leaves of salmonberries and blueberries, the delicate fronds of ferns, plus grasses, mosses and many kinds of lichens. From amongst skunk cabbage was plucked a rough-skinned newt, a type of salamander, one of only six native amphibian species in Alaska. Small yet charismatic, it became an instant photo sensation.
Afternoon found us in the roll-up-your-sleeves, hard-working fishing town of Petersburg, an authentic place where the handshakes are stronger and the smiles linger long. While some of us went flightseeing over the Patterson and LeConte glaciers (fed by the Stikine Icefield – wow!), others went bike riding and shopping in town, where the air smells of fish and every patio and porch is decorated with flowers. The town (founded by a Norwegian-American in 1897) has a distinct Norwegian flavor with hand-painted shutters and bright red flags. To finish the afternoon we traveled by Zodiacs across Wrangell Narrows (5 minutes) and hiked a boardwalk up to a muskeg (a type of bog) characterized by stunted shore pines and sundews—ornate, insectivorous plants.
Dinner was a Dungeness crab free-for-all followed by dessert in the lounge and animated chatter among the many of us already making new friends.
