Adventure bound in state of Alaska

Instead of spending April in Paris this year, I spent May in Alaska. Our ship was one of the first to cruise the Inside Passage, once spring took over from winter. So, lots of ice still floated about, including icebergs with 90 percent of each one hidden beneath the icy waters around us.Once in a while there would be a horrific bang as the bow bumped a hidden piece of floating ice. Or, the naturalist aboard ship would yell over the loudspeaker, "Whale ... starboard side." It's a wonder the ship didn't list as most of the 1,400 passengers rushed to take pictures.Some of the glaciers were pristine white; others had accumulated dirt and debris through the ages as they moved toward the sea. Several times, as we floated in silence beside a glacier, we could hear pieces of ice break off, or calve, from the glacier's face and hit the water below with a tremendous splash and boom. Our cameras were always a second too late to capture the sight.One afternoon we took a "pilot's choice" helicopter flight, 30 minutes up and over Juneau to the northwest, and across towering, jagged mountain peaks on our way to two isolated glaciers in the 1,500 mile-square Juneau Icefield, formed 3,000 years ago.Our first landing was on a piece of ice that allowed just enough room for the helicopter to set down. We found ourselves between two mountain streams flowing from a huge ice cave several stories high. We wore glacier boots so we could explore, in safety, the "bright blue" ice swaths that surrounded us. I brought home several pieces of granite that lay snuggled at the bottom of one streambed.On our way to our second destination, we flew over sculpted waterfalls, gigantic ice fields and majestic white mountains, virtually untouched by humans. We wandered away from our helicopter for a half-hour, studying the awe-inspiring glacier we'd landed on. "Look at this. Look at this. Look at this," was all any of us could say.On the way back to the Juneau harbor, we flew over the famous Mendenhall Glacier where all the other helicopter tours landed. How fortunate we were to spend two and one-half hours on our "pilot's choice" flight over such utter wilderness so we could view age-old moraines, deep crevasses, crystal-clear pools, and ageless ice fields. Out of Skagway, we crossed into the Yukon by bus, then took the White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge railroad out of Fraser through tunnels, across trestles, and along a breathtaking panorama of mountains and gorges. Once in Ketchikan, where they measure the rain in feet not inches, I took a 65-foot catamaran cruise through the Misty Fjords that flow between 3,000-foot high cliffs. We saw bald eagles circling high over their nests, Guillemots and marbled murrelets, seals, a large pod of porpoise, and a whale. While in Alaska, I made sure I had a drink at the historic Gold Rush Days' "Red Dog Saloon," and a chance to walk across the continental divide. I petted dog-sled pups in training at Caribou Crossing in the Yukon desert and giggled at the following Ketchikan statistic: 70 percent of the police reports are bear related. And I learned a few nautical terms, to boot: "slush fund," "three sheets to the wind," and "to know the ropes." And for two hours on our way north out of Vancouver BC, I learned what the nautical term, "under the weather," meant.- Lincoln resident Sue Clark has taught writing for about 13 years, and is currently teaching poetry and fiction through Lincoln Arts. She also owned a travel agency in San Francisco for five years, among the seven businesses she has owned throughout her life, and travels as often as she can.