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I'm not watching the Olympics in Rio this summer. And yes, I know that these athletes have trained and competed since childhood to be able to represent their country and gain lasting glory. I understand this because as a child I wanted to be the next Sonja Henie. That is, until I understood what her sympathies with Hitler and Nazi ideology meant. I still have routines and costume designs playing in my head. Recent Olympics have caused massive inequities in host countries that have affected...
In railroad parlay, "foamers" are those who literally foam at the mouth at the sight of a steam engine. If you are one, take the 18-hour road trip to Skagway in Southeast and take a ride on one of White Pass & Yukon Route Railroads' steam engines. The 3,000-foot climb over the historic White Pass and into a sliver of Canada's British Columbia is filled with great vistas from mountaintops to deep valleys with rushing rapids and places where a ledge for the narrow-gauge tracks has been blasted so...
We've all had them, those that hit the road for long stretches. And naturally in Alaska, where drives can stretch for days, scary road trip experiences are something we all share. Like that night at 2 a.m. in a blizzard traveling the windswept road across Kluane Lake in the Yukon, and through frighteningly named Destruction Bay in British Columbia, where my night was spent at a motel with no proprietor, just an envelope and keys to the rooms (chair up and under the door knob for security, thank...
When you travel to Anchorage, yes, you can stay downtown at the Sheraton, Hilton or Captain Cook, but why not try something with more of an Alaskan flavor? This year the Historic Anchorage Hotel turns 100 - that's a big deal in a state that's only 57 years old, although Anchorage did celebrate its centennial last year. Like the state and the city, the hotel has a colorful past. The original hotel building was built in 1916 but torn down some years later. The current hotel, an annex to the older...
Go south-way south, to Alaska's little visited Dutch Harbor on the Aleutian Chain. The Aleutian Chain, including Unalaska and Amaknak Islands, began about 40 million years ago when the volcanic action and movement of tectonic plates thrust up the jagged mountains to form part of the "Ring of Fire" of volcanic activity that spans the Pacific. As recently as this March, Pavlof Volcano, 166 miles north of Dutch Harbor, erupted and sent ash 20,000 feet into the air. Dutch Harbor refers to the...
Native corporations, cruise lines and state ferry bargains bring Alaska to you on the cheap this season. First off, get a Puffin Pass through Cook Inlet Region, Inc.'s travel subsidiary CIRI Alaska Tourism by applying for it online at www.ciritourism.com/puffin-pass. I know, many of you may not have access to a computer, and although they used to mail a Puffin Pass card out, it's paperless now, with newsletters sent to your email. The good thing about the pass is you can use it for visitors and...
I remember the morning of 9/11 when I woke out of a deep dream that my truck was in the emergency room for repair but it was so full of people I had to abandon it, then there was a long stairway that dropped to nothingness so I popped into a bar on one of the floors and the bartender said, "Last call," as the ceiling began to lower. Really, no fooling. That day changed America, but it was in Alaska and the small town of Skagway where it seemed most apparent. Pre-9/11, you could cross the border...
The currency exchange with Canada has gotten even better – now it's 72 cents on the U.S. dollar. Oops, that was a couple of weeks ago when I first started on this column, but as of Jan. 20 it was 69 cents on the US dollar. Reminds me of the time in 1999 I bought a 24 x 28-foot timber frame package, complete with structural insulated panes and windows for $18,000. At that time in 1999, the Canadian dollar was 75 cents. With the exchange rate this low, there are bargains to be had! When I lived in...
When I was about 10 years old, my dad took my sister and me on a camping trip up the New England coast from Massachusetts to Quebec. It was memorable to me for what we ate all along the way: Chef Boyardee ravioli and corn on the cob. I cannot look at a can of Chef Boyardee to this day. However, the memory of the crepe breakfast on the wide stone plaza across the street from the Hotel Frontenac delights me still. "Quebec City, So Europe. So close" is the apropos motto of this city with Old World...
One of the favored spots of Alaskans looking to avoid winter and live on $30 a day, Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand, offers great food, warm, welcoming people and cultural sites. It's Asia without the huge crowds - and Alaskans are not used to large groups of people except at the state fair in Palmer. My cousin Tom, who's in Chiang Mai, now advises Americans to keep a cool head. Thai people are relaxed, polite and non-confrontational. Remain calm and never resort to the pushy,...
I like to find places that have an Alaska connection, and Portland, Oregon is one. A favorite old dead guy of mine, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, spent some of his early years in Alaska, but left behind a mighty legacy in Portland. In early 1877, when an infantry officer, he joined an expedition that had requested a military escort to climb Mount St. Elias, but after the group left Sitka, and without approval from superiors, Wood set off for Alaska. Ranging along the Southeast coast, he stayed in...
I have traveled with my mother when she was sighted and then not, and I wish this book, "Planes, Canes and Automobiles," had been available to me after she was hit with temporal arteritis, a rare autoimmune disease where the temporal arteries are destroyed, often causing blindness. The author, Valerie M. Grubb, first started traveling with her mother when she was 64 and continued for the next 20 years. It's true that as we age we become more set in our ways, so making travel plans with someone...
Yes, the termination dust is telling us that it's time to think winter and how to avoid it. You could go to Hawaii and blend in with all the other Alaskans wearing the same swim suit from Eddie Bauer. Or you can put on your winter gear and head off to London. You will be treated like a celebrity there because you're from such a romantic place, as the Brits think – who forget their oh so many ill-fated forays into the arctic, complete with cannibalism, useless overland treks, and the peculiar B...
Located in the northwestern corner of the state, Shreveport-Bossier is the third-largest community in Louisiana. Home to a thriving nightlife and entertainment scene, a year-round calendar of festivals and cultural events, a burgeoning culinary scene and opportunities to explore the great outdoors, Shreveport-Bossier is a destination where there's always something new to experience. Culturally, Shreveport-Bossier serves as a crossroads where the Cajun and Creole traditions of Louisiana blend...
On a 6-hour layover in Seattle, we took the train into downtown. I've wanted to see the historic Arctic Hotel for a long time. And in my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants traveling style, I didn't look up to see what stop that might be or the actual address. So I looked at the city map, remembered it was Cherry Street and maybe, Third, and took a stab at Pioneer Square. As the escalator rose to street level, I looked up and there were the extraordinary walrus heads, once terra cotta now fiberglass,...
Summertime means road trips, and no Alaskan can call themselves a true Alaskan if they haven't done the Haul Road. Yes, you may have done the Alaska Highway to the Lower 48, but it's not so gnarly now as it once was, no longer gravel and mostly paved. But the Haul Road, also known as the Dalton Highway, is a gravel road - another animal entirely. Gravel roadways have a decidedly different impact on your vehicle, most notably rocks and huge, thick clouds of dust. So if your windshield sports a...
San Francisco, where the city's port ships out hundreds of thousands of tourists north to Alaska on cruise ships, has another Alaska connection nearby, a literary one – Jack London Square in Oakland just across the bay. Jack London was the author of such Klondike Gold Rush-era literary sensations, "Call of the Wild," "White Fang" and "The Sea-Wolf." The site has London's relocated Klondike cabin, and it's open all the time for people to visit. It will remind you of the first dry cabin you ever r...
In winter, although I hanker for Hawaii and know it's the cure for cabin fever, I usually obsess with a location farther north and farther away. This winter it's Mont Saint-Michel on the Normandy Coast of France. I kind of feel like Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." In my quiet moment, I want to build a gingerbread house of that magnificent monastery on an island. Trip of fools I have been there twice, once with a boyfriend, who, by the time we got to Athens, I wanted to...
Many Alaskans I know say that Chicago is a great city and they love to visit. Traveling there in April for my son's wedding, I had a hard time adjusting to the fact that this is a city with a capital "C." It's really big. Think of it this way: Anchorage has a little over 300,000 people. Chicago? Close to 3 million – more than the entire state of Alaska. Unlike New York, with its landmarks of Central Park and the Empire State Building, I grasped for a sense of direction, some guide post, some f...
Alaskans will find the terrain of New Orleans definitely alien - flat with no mountains, with a whiff of sulfur in the muggy air off the Bayou. But in February, it's worth a visit when temperatures are lower than summertime and the city offers up its annual Dionysian fest, Mardi Gras. Unlike Alaska, you can consume liquor publicly in New Orleans, and during festivals or during Saints football games, you can pull off into a parking lot and have a tailgate party. But you might want to defer your...
Cruising to and around Alaska is nothing new. From the cruises of the Treasury Department's Revenue Cutters to today's floating cities, people have come to Alaska for furs, gold and the scenery. They still do. Just say to a stranger in the Lower 48 that you're from Alaska, and their eyes get misty and they breathe out a sigh of "I've always dreamed about going to Alaska." Ever heard anyone say, "I've always dreamed of going to Bermuda?" No. Steamers and cruisers Reading a copy of "Steaming to th...
Driving across Oregon's Columbia Valley on my way to see a friend in Pendleton, I kept looking at the green cuts in the hills indicating verdant vineyards. But approaching Pendleton, I was struck by the notion that I was no longer in the Pacific Northwest, but the Hill Country of Texas. I kept looking for tumbleweeds to roll across the road. Really, the terrain is just not what Alaskans would expect from a close neighbor. But Pendleton has many more surprises for visitors. Wool blankets and more...
Perhaps you've been avoiding Mexico because of drug cartels and kidnapping, but here's one destination far away from all that. Floating in the Caribbean Sea along the eastern shore of the Yucatan Peninsula is Cozumel. Small and easy to get around, it's only 30 miles long and close to 10 miles wide, yet oddly enough, is Mexico's largest Caribbean island. It has a population of 77,000, mostly living in the main city of San Miguel. The island is in the Mexican State of Quintana Roo - just say that...
Sex, drugs and great museums are what this city is all about. You can either be a traditional tourist and take in the Rijksmusem or the van Gogh museum, or go off the chart and cruise the Red Light District, where the women and men are displayed in windows of what we Alaskans would call "cribs." With its hash and marijuana coffee houses, Amsterdam has a racy reputation. This is an ultra-liberal city. As one Dutch friend once said to me, "We were glad to see the Pilgrims leave, they were...
Long before Dutch Harbor became America's No. 1 fishing port, there was Gloucester, Mass. Visit here and you'll be pulled up short at how old it is and how young Alaska is in comparison. Established as a settlement in 1623, a mere three years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, it incorporated 19 years later. Founded on cod A tumbling, cheek-to-jowl town of windy streets and homes from lowly one-bedroom fisherman colonials to grand mansions, Gloucester has a rich history in fishing for...
