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DATE: July 10, 2002 DESTINATION: Stay
GET THE BIKES OUT TO EXPLORE BUT STILL HAVE TO WALK THE DOCK Firecrackers again last night. Poor Ziggy, 4th of July was bad enough but it's still going on. It’s raining as usual, very steady. We finally decide to go out for breakfast. We get our foul weather jackets on and decide to leave Ziggy so we can size up the town and eat in piece. We get the bikes ready and walk down the long dock. Bike riding is not allowed on the docks unfortunately because it sure would be good to be able to cut this long walk down. It’s always funny when you’ve been holed up in the boat just staring out the window at the bad weather and when you finally decide to go out, you see many other people out and you feel better lots better. We get to the ramp and to the large gravel parking lot. There are lots eagles and ravens hanging out here. It's near the fish cutting stand and they like the scraps the fishermen throw them.
We head down Katlian Street. The right side of the street is lined with waterfront warehouses one after another and a few old wooden structures. On the left side are old wooden houses, some looking like they've been abandoned but upon closer look they are inhabited. One says “?” and you do wonder if someone lives there and who, and what. Up on the next dirt road we see an old wood house decorated with Indian paintings all over it like tattoos. We pass the Pioneer Bar on the left and it looks like a what I'd imagine a real Alaskan waterfront bar would be. The walls inside are covered with old marine photos. LOOKING FOR A BREAKFAST JOINT We reach the Pioneer Home and the beginning of Lincoln Avenue that leads up through center of town and eventually where all the tourist shops are. We stop in at a little gift shop and get a recommendation from the sales lady for a breakfast joint. She says the Victoria Inn café has the best breakfast in town. So we head over to the old Hotel with its old western false store front. It looks pretty original. Nothing elegant. We have a good breakfast and get warm and dry. We are soaked from the rain. We have a good view of all the people that walk by and there are many. The cruise ships have emptied and they look like zombies walking by. Some would come to a complete stop at our window and gawk at us and what we were eating like we were monkeys in a zoo.
Larry decides he’ll go back and rescue Ziggy and meet me back here. He said I should see what I could while the sun was out because it could rain the next few days. RUSSIAN BISHOP'S HOUSE So I went in to see Russian Bishops House which is an interesting historical building over looking the small harbor. The forest service gave me a small informal tour. It was fascinating to see the place after reading about the bishop and his life. They still have the actual furniture and it has been used by the church until very recently. They have a large scale model of what the town used to look like during the Russian occupation that is fascinating. There's a nice small garden out front. The architecture in itself is worth the visit. The entrance fee was $3 and they have a cash machine that will give you change for any denomination. It spits the change out in large shinny silver dollars. At first I thought I was in Canada and got some funny money but no they were real honest to goodness silver dollars. I learned about the Russian tea pots that I’ve seen everywhere. ST. MICHAEL'S CATHEDRAL While I was waiting for Larry to come back I went into St. Michaels Cathedral. The entry fee was only a few dollars. There was a priest there talking to the tourists on a mike and then he puts on a recorded tape telling about its history and what’s in the church. They have some pretty significant icons that were rescued from a fire. They are beautiful and very valuable. The church though kind of left me cold. It has been rebuilt after it was completely burned down. Though built to the actual plans it looks too much like new construction with modern day clapboard and really doesn’t have the feel of what I imagined the old church should've been. It is built at the top of Lincoln and the road forks around it like a rock in a stream. The charm of what the church could be is overtaken by the town filled with tourist souvenir shops and drones walking around.
I walked on up Lincoln avenue past Crescent Harbor to the Sheldon Jackson College which is wonderful in that it still maintains it old historical buildings. The sight of those buildings set back on their beautiful manicured green lawns set against the back drop of the snow covered mountains is a sight to see. You can just feel the history here and imagine the students walking the campus. The Sheldon Jackson Museum is inside an original concrete octagon building (for fire protection). I'd been reading about their collection of artifacts and wanted to see it. They have a superb collection of Indian artifacts and they are beautifully displayed in this old museum. It's very quaint and carefully thought out. Everything was laid out in relation to the octagon shape and I love the old white painted glass and wood display cabinets. Some of the cabinets have drawers with glass tops and you can pull them out view the items more items below. It is the best collection I’ve seen since we have been in Alaska or Canada. It’s truly a treasure and the staff gives you lots of personal attention if they feel you have the least bit interest. They had an old animal skin canoe on display. It was about 115 years old that a restoration specialist was at work carefully restoring it. The canoe area was roped off but you are allowed to watch the restoration process. The gift shop is nice too with all Indian made items. That place is a treasure.
I road on down the road to the Sitka National Historic Park Visitor’s Center, another interesting place. I sat in on a 12 minute video that gives you an overview of Sitka's’ history. They have a small room with some Indian displays that are interesting but it's the typical thing you see in most of these towns. There was also a nice little gift shop where I picked up a couple information booklets and a couple good restaurant recommendations from the middle aged man behind the counter with spiked hair and multiple earrings. Further down the hall of the building are some artist studios with authentic Indian artists working on their native trades like jewelry, weaving and carving. You can talk to them and observe their handiwork "DON'T DRIP ON THE BOOKS" I was getting pretty tired by now and decided to head back to the boat. Larry wanted me to stop at the Old Harbor Bookstore to get a couple of charts. It’s a cute old building and they have a good collection of Alaska related books plus many others. Also there is a little local coffee shop in the back. They were out of both charts and said that White’s Pharmacy by the Thomsen Harbor has charts. They have a famous handwritten note on brown graph paper taped to the front table of display books that says “Don’t Drip on Our Books”. I can see why because it never stops raining around here.
The harbor is a busy place, just huge and full of fishing boats waiting to go out, boats getting repairs, people hanging out waiting to go on their next leg of cruising, and just all different kinds of boats. It's an interesting place. The eagles are the harbor's mascots as they hang around to scavenge fish carcasses thrown out for them. ENOUGH OF THIS "HEALTHY" WALKING We rest in the boat for awhile. Larry was catching up on things to do in the boat. We decided to get a cab to the Bay View Restaurant. Enough of this "healthy" walking. I think the promotion for walking around here is to purely driven to keep the rest of their life styles preserved from the cruise ships. In other words, I think they think it keeps these tourists in one spot and keeps the traffic down because. In my opinion there is just too much walking. I’m exhausted! Glad we have the bikes but it’s wet, wet, wet. CHINA MAN CAB DRIVER After a short rest, we call the cab and say we’ll be at the ramp to meet it in 10 minutes. It takes us about ten minutes to get there and we see the cab. It’s some Chinese taxi guy and he's got his wife or relative with him for the ride I guess. He’s griping to us about how late we are and how he’s going to have to make the next people wait now, etc. etc. Larry told him the name of the restaurant and he didn’t know where it was. How could he not know where everything was in the small town? So we just said to take us to the Westmark Hotel which we now the restaurant is nearby. What a grouchy old jerk he was. The restaurant was across the street from the hotel which is called the Shee Atika Lodge. The Bay View restaurant was upstairs from the Russian American Trading Company which sells upper scale tourist items. The restaurant was a bit of a disappointment as it looked like a lunch place which plastic laminate tables and simple chairs. You sit wherever you want. The food was good though. The meals were around $20 a piece. We both had borsht soup and fresh halibut with vegetables and baked potato. We forgoed calling the cab again and did the long walk back after that. None of the stores were open, not even the bookstore as the town closes up after the cruise ship passengers go back on their ships which is pretty typical in all these Alaskan towns. The Pioneer Bar was hopping though and the eagles were busy chewing on a carcass by the harbor. DATE: July 11, 2002
We eat some cereal and Larry says he's going to change the oil in boat. Larry took the dinghy and motored down to the marine shop to buy the oil and empty drums to put the old oil into. He also bought the suction tubes to be able to dump it in the oil barrels on the dock. Surprisingly it the whole oil changing process went pretty smoothly. I helped by handing things to him and then taking things out and putting it on the dock cart. In the meantime when I wasn't doing that, I cleaned out any old food or just stuff I was tired of in the refrigerator, cleaned up the boat and checked the food inventory making a list of things to get for the grocery run.
NO DUDS IN THE VAN Larry had gone up to the parking lot to check the Suds and Duds Van for our laundry but it wasn’t there. He called them and they said they weren’t done with it yet. MORE BORSCHT We took a cab to the Bay View restaurant again. Wanted to have that delicious borsht soup again. We lucked out with a different cab driver this time. The soup was good and we split a chicken quesadilla. The place was filled with cruise ship people. We stopped in the Russian American Trading Company and couldn't resist buying some of those stacking Russian dolls. These were painted with sled dogs and their trainers. SUDS AND DUDS, WASHING MORE THAN CLOTHES We called another cab and had him take us to Suds and Duds. The place was filled with fishermen all hanging out by the washing machines waiting to take showers. Yes, that right, showers. Apparently the showers at the dock are not that great they said, "They're luke warm." Here they told us, they can get a shower with hot water, fresh clean towels, shampoo and soap. One guy was sitting on the chairs and putting his socks on another sitting with his clean clothes and towels waiting for his turn. It was funny. The girls that worker there were characters too. One of them was giving me these really complicated instructions on how to get the laundry from the van. She was very short, with dirty long brown hair parted smack dab in the middle and pulled back in a pony tail. She had a tank top on with kind of flabby skin hanging out and some hippy type jewelry, stringy with small beads and when she turned her back she had a large tattoo on the whole of her upper back. The owner was another unusual looking woman, medium height, body built like a rectangle box, face very square and somewhat masculine looking but with caked on makeup, lipstick and eyeliner. Her hair was neat and cut shoulder length. She had a woman's t-shirt on and cotton tie around skirt and some kind of crunchy granola sandals. Very nice lady though. She said she would just drive us to the van to pick up our laundry so we wouldn't have to walk. So we got into the company van and it was full of laundry in the back. The three of us sat in the front. I sat on top of an old plastic orange crate with a terry cloth towel over it in the center between the two passenger seats. She said she lives in the harbor on a fishing boat and “Yachette” was docked right next to her.
We got our laundry from the parked van and loaded it into a Lucky Market shopping cart that was nearby. She said she would offer to drive us down the ramp and onto the dock but there was a truck stuck down there because of the tide. Not only do they have a person ramp but a truck ramp right along side of each other. If people don't time it right when they drive their trucks down the ramp they get stuck when the tide changes. We headed back to the boat and unloaded the laundry. Larry wants to go back into town. We get Ziggy and walk back out. At the entrance, there are a couple boats that are being worked on by workers that have driven their trucks down right down the dock. That's a busy place as there's always something going on at that part of the dock. Lots of activity. We walked around a bit and decided to go to the Channel Restaurant for dinner that night. They are 5 miles north of town.
We called to have the restaurants shuttle van pick us up at the top of the ramp. We showered and cleaned up and headed on up the dock. The broken down van comes to pick us up (all the cars in Sitka are pretty much broken down). A small dark haired guy with LA style small slick sunglasses (there's no sun here) picks us up. He's a whole blooded Tlingit he says. He's been in Anchorage studying to be a photographer. His goal is to live in Sitka but travel around doing photography. By the time we get to the restaurant he has told us everything on the whole menu and how good it is and that the best thing of all is the huge salad bar. "This is where you go to put on the feed bag" he says. When we got there it was the typical Alaska architecture that we've been seeing everywhere; plain wood siding and standard metal windows. Where are all these log lodges and buildings that I imagined? When we walked in the place was packed. They had big family style tables full of people and a big bar off to the left and there it was the big salad bar located at the back wall. They also had a big open grill where the cooks were busy barbequing steaks and fish. The walls are covered with mounted hunting trophies and big stuffed Alaskan King and Dungeness crabs. The place is loud and reminds me of what a sports fishing lodge would be like, rustic and boisterous. We are shuffled to the very back corner to a lonely table for two right in front of the bathrooms and by the bus boy station. I can smell the cleaning products used in the bathroom and I'm not liking it. I’m tired and we were driven here so we couldn’t leave very easily and there’s no other restaurant to go to eat at so I decided I’ll just get through it. Larry decided otherwise. He wasn’t going to sit there so he went back and told them to move us. So we were then shuffled to another small table over by the salad bar. Everyone is crammed in like cattle. At least we were sitting next to another couple probably the only other ones here as everyone seemed to be in a big group. The wait staff quickly comes by to take your drink order, and main entrée which the choices are listed on a board above the salad bar. So had to quickly order because they are moving crowds through here. You felt like you’re in a rush to get to the salad bar before they bring the food. Most of the salads were made from canned vegetables prepared in a million different ways, like pre made like bean salad, potato salad, coleslaw, etc. etc. The food tasted good though and the restaurant was right on the water so the diners were watching some seiners pull in a load with their nets.
We got to talking to the couple next to us. They were traveling through Alaska on the ferry system. In fact they were on the "Columbia" the other day when we came in and pulled over to get out of its way. They knew all about it and were watching. They said they get to go to all the little out of the way places that the cruise ships don’t get to go but sometimes they can only stop for an hour or they land in the wee hours of the morning . But they said they were enjoying themselves and said it didn’t cost much and the accommodations are fine and the food fine too. Sounded like an adventure. SAME QUESTIONS, SAME STORIES We got the van to take us back. The same kid drove us back and didn’t remember us. He asked us all the same questions again, like where we were from and how’d we get there. Weird. We dropped another couple off at a bed and breakfast that were also traveling through Alaska on the ferry. We saw a couple other boaters in the restaurant too. Not too many choices for places to go here in Sitka.
DATE: July 12, 2002 DESTINATION: Sitka We decided to ride our bikes over to the national forest today and plan to leave Sitka tomorrow. We took Ziggy and stopped at the park center for Larry to see the displays and Indians at work on their products. There lots of cruise ship people in the park. It was a nice walk but crowded with people and hard to get pictures of totem poles without a stranger in the picture. We walked so Zig could have some fun too.
Rode the bikes back to town and had hamburger and shake at Lane 7. This is the place that a girl we met in Juneau said has the best shakes in Alaska. They were good shakes but what was really interesting was the bowling alley. It was definitely antique with only about four lanes. There was an older Indian couple bowling. I loved it. CEMETERY UP ON THE HILL We then rode bikes up hill and saw the old historical building where they measured the earth’s magnetic variations. There were also some other interesting older buildings and a 4 apartment building that looked Russian and original. We rode up to the graveyard on top of the hill and it was beautiful with pathways cut through and overgrown landscape and with old antique headstones falling down. The birds seemed to resent our walking through and were squawking at us, I think telling us tourists are off limits here They were definitely bothered by us. The plants were huge and lush and shaded by these tall beautiful trees. It was an amazing place right in the city. We then went over to the other graveyard where the Russian princess is buried. It is a pitiful memorial to a princess who loved Alaska. The old barracks tower (replicated) is there. We rode back through the Indian neighborhood and several of the houses have Indian insignias and names painted on the fronts. Inside one open garage one guy was working on some mid sized totems.
We took the bikes back and I headed to the grocery store for one last stock up before heading south. Larry had to go to the marine store to get one more chart and was going to meet me at the grocery store. I stopped at nearby fishing and sporting store and inquired about a kayak. The girl said I should get an inflatable kayak for the boat and told me where she thought I could find one. When Larry came to the grocery store I had them call the sporting goods store to see if they had a kayak. They did so we'll go by and see it when done with the shopping. The grocery store was fine. The produce as always is somewhat limiting and never really fresh but it was better than anything we’ve had since Petersburg. We loaded up and they boxed everything up for us but didn't do a very good job I must say. They are not as efficient and savvy as those Norwegians in Petersburg. We also had to hire a cab to take all the stuff back down to the ramp. They aren’t set up to help the boaters here at all. In Petersburg and most other big places they have a van to take you and your load back to the marina. We get the same Chinese cab driver. A girl is also waiting for a cab to so Larry tells her to get in and we can drop her off. The Chinese guy gets all flustered about that but Larry just orders him around and then he’s was OK with it as long as Larry was telling him what to do. LARRY IS BOSSING THE CHINESE CAB DRIVER AROUND Larry had the cab driver drop me off so I can get the kayak and Larry goes with the cab to drop the girl off and then they come back with the cab. I’m hurrying trying in this store trying to buy this one and only inflatable kayak they have but no one in the store seems to know much about it or what the price is. I'm trying to tell them I’m in a hurry because I have this mad Chinese cab driver coming back to pick me up. I finally went upstairs to the women’s section and stared at sales girl that apparently was the only one who knew the price and stared at her so she would end her personal phone and help me. I bought the kayak. It came in a box and I hope it works. We managed to stuff it in and me in the cab and headed off now to the Harbor Master’s office. The Chinese cab driver in the mean time has picked up his wife from work (same as the other day) and she comes along too. We're all crammed in. Larry tells the cab driver to wait while he tries to pay the bill at the Harbor Master's office. The Harbor Master is closed but Larry knocks on the window and they open up for him anyway so he can pay for our stay. The cab driver then drops us at the dock. This time he drives us right down the dock ramp and onto the dock. He's nice to us now since Larry has been bossing him around. I say good bye to his wife. IN SEARCH OF A DOCK CART I go look for a cart to carry all our stuff while Larry pays the China man. There are no carts anywhere but I see one at the end of the dock and it doesn't seem to be in use. I ask if I can have it and this grumpy grimy guy says he needs to do something with it and after that I can have it. He says it’ll only take him a minute. I follow him to his old crummy run down boat located on the worst area of the dock where the drunks and derelicts are and he starts to put all these crusty crummy scrapings in the cart and I can see the cart is getting it filthy. I ask him what he is going to do with that mess and he says he's going put it in the dumpster. I don’t want the thing now as it's going to be a filthy mess. I say I can’t wait for that and he says sarcastically, "Well welcome to Thomsen Harbor".
By the time I get back down to the mid dock area I see Larry with a cart stacked high with our stuff and ready to go down our dock to unload it on the boat. We unpack everything and put it away and we order a pizza. I'm too tired to go out and there's no I want to go here. Though tired we still have to go to end of dock and wait for the pizza delivery. Guess we weren't the only ones, other boaters were there waiting for their pizzas too. There's nothing easy or convenient here for the boaters.
On to REDBLUFF
More photos of Sitka
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KATLIAN STREET
We finished breakfast and walked down
the street stopping in many of the stores since we don’t have Zig to
contend with. Berender’s is the best store I’ve seen in a long while.
They have some cute clothes and nice kitchen accessories. The rest of the
stores seem pretty much the same as we've seen in all the other cruise
ship towns. We walk down Lincoln and pass St. Michaels Cathedral. We
head up by the Westmark and then back. 
SHELDON JACKSON MUSEUM
SITKA NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK
TIME TO CHANGE THE OIL
TRUCKS GET STUCK IF THEY DON'T
TIME THE TIDE RIGHT
CHANNEL RESTUARANT FOR DINNER
TONIGHT
TRAVELING THROUGH ALASKA ON THE
FERRY SYSTEM
HAMBURGER AND SHAKES AT LANE 7,
THE BOWLING ALLEY
IN SEARCH OF A KAYAK
PIZZA DELIVERY AT THE DOCKS
