The Inside Passage

I’d heard of Juneau before. It’s the capital of Alaska. What I did not know until a couple of months ago is that Juneau – and the entire southeastern portion of the state of Alaska – is completely isolated from the rest of the world. The only way in and out is via boat or air. The Alaskan state government runs the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) of ferries to service the towns of Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Wragnell, Sitka and a handful of other outposts dotting the islands of Southeast Alaska. We’d originally planned to head to Europe when the kids finished the school year in early June, but COVID reopening progressed a little more slowly than we’d anticipated and we were left scratching our heads: north to Alaska or south to Central America. A friend of mine told me about his journey through the islands of Southeast Alaska on the ferries (thanks Tony!) and we were sold: fishing, mountains, great camping, hiking… And given the Canadian government banned cruises from transiting Canadian waters west of British Columbia during the summer of 2021, we wouldn’t have to dodge the throngs of cruise passengers that typically flow through the area during summer.

We loaded the truck and trailer onto MV Matanuska in Bellingham on June 9, our ultimate destination of Sitka (the seventh stop on the route) dictating that we were the first passenger vehicle to load the ferry (first: just how I like it). Lots of excitement as we drove down the steel runway into the bowels of the ship, an immense mass of steel and diesel engines humming around us. MV Matanuska is one of the largest of the AMHS fleet: 408 feet long and able to carry 499 passengers and 50 crew. Powered by 7200 horsepower of diesel power, she lugs along at 16.5 knots. A behemoth of a boat.

After a bit of a dicey parking exercise – the trailer is only a few inches below the allowable width for a vehicle so we had to sandwich it right up against the inner hull – we unpacked our food and clothes for the three days and 15 hours we’d be aboard. Our quarters was a quaint room in the bow of four bunks, shower and toilet, the two windows looking over the edge of the boat to port. Simple – as is the case with everything on the AMHS system – but it served us well. MV Matanuska has been in service for over 40 years, bells and whistles are few and far between but these old blue and white ferries get the job done for the population of Southeast Alaska and anyone (like us) wanting to take a vehicle with them on the voyage.

It was a beautiful evening sail through the islands east of Bellingham as we made our way north, porpoises and sea lions chasing the boat as we set our course between Lummi and Orcas Islands and crossed into Canadian territorial waters. We floated past Victoria to the west and Vancouver to the east, a Canadian coast guard chopper buzzing within a few feet of the boat around dinner time just to let us know we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The lights of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island were visible to the west as we were winding down for the night. There were some magic cloud formations, mountains and a sunset that one only sees in the northern latitudes to cap off day one on the boat. We were still in the island chains as darkness fell, but even with the calm seas Lisa wasn’t feeling so hot after a few hours of sailing, so she popped some dramamine and hit the sack early while the kids watched a classic: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Mealtimes aboard MV Matanuska were…interesting. Food was simple and unexciting, although some of the dishes at breakfast were marginally appetizing. We were excited to see halibut and salmon burgers at our first dinner, only to realize that they were frozen Costco patties thrown into the deep fryer rather than something local. But they were calories and they sufficed. The process of purchasing hot food was incredibly and exceedingly inefficient in a manner that can only be conjured by a governmental operation: there was a single hot line cook charged with sequentially cooking the orders of the 158 passengers aboard. This meant long lines and lots of kids (fortunately not ours) losing their shit whilst standing in line waiting for food. We quickly learned that hot food should only be ordered if you really, really want to wait for it, and that pre-made sandwiches and other fare could be grabbed and taken directly to the cashier. Fortunately we had the foresight to take a cooler full of snacks, sandwich material and beer onboard with us so weren’t 100% reliant on the food service system of the boat. That said, the views of the mountains and sea life from our window-side seats in the cafeteria could not have been better!

Everyone except me slept quite well on night one, we spent the entire span of darkness motoring alongside expansive Vancouver Island in relatively calm seas. Lilia woke me up yelling, “Oh my God!” at the top of her voice during a dream at around 1:15AM and I tossed and turned until morning. The kids sleeping is more important than shuteye for me…

I vowed to not sit on my ass for almost four days straight, so went for a morning walk around the boat listening to an episode of The Daily podcast (thanks Jarren). 16 laps around deck six equates to two miles/3.2 kilometers, an exercise I repeated at least once a day for the time we were on the boat. Couldn’t ask for better views for a walk!

We crossed into the open ocean for the voyage north of Port Hardy on Vancouver Island for a couple of hours on day two, the captain providing warning that there’d be two to three foot rollers and that we might want to secure a stable spot onboard while we made the crossing. It was reasonably mild, but even so, Lisa and Lilia took some Dramamine and secured a spot outside with the horizon clearly visible to avoid any gurgling tummies. Day two was our only full day on the boat without a stop, we passed the time with card games, laps around the boat, a movie or two and catching up on writing our respective diaries of the trip. The vistas from the boat through the islands of British Columbia were majestic, as were the occasional sea lion and pod of porpoise alongside the Matanuska along the way. Post-dinner beers for Lisa and I on the deck as we were entering the narrows between Pitt Island and the mainland was a great way to cap off day two.

During the night on day two we passed through our second of two open ocean strectches, this one just east of Prince Rupert in British Columbia. Max and I slept through it until Lilia woke in a fluster and had to go out on deck with Lisa to prevent the rollers from making her sick. Given the temperatures at night, 3AM is not an opportune time to be outside, but Lisa did note that the pre-dawn lighting at such a high latitude made for some beautiful views while she and Lilia were calming their stomachs.

We rolled into Ketchikan at around 5:45AM on June 11, amazing just how light it was at such a high latitude so early in the morning! Ketchikan was our longest port stop on the voyage – four hours – and given it coincided with breakfast we decided to get off early with the bikes and ride into town to seek out a proper coffee for Lisa and a non-cafeteria meal for breakfast. It was 2.4 miles/3.9 kilometers into town, some magic weather we had for the morning in a town where it has been known to rain more than 50 days without stopping during the summer. The fare at 55 North was exceptional: Lisa wanted to marry her latte, and the food was a welcome break from the ferry fare. It was very evident that Ketchikan is one of the regular cruise stops: gem stores, jewelers, endless bars, souvenir peddlers and more stores selling salmon that one can poke a stick at were all evidence of thousands of cashed-up cruise passengers descending on the town each summer during non-COVID times. Everything was closed when we were in town, it was actually nice to get to visit when only locals were in residence.

After breakfast, we cruised around downtown to take in the sights and then rode another couple of miles south to the enclave of Saxman, where the claim to fame is the largest collection of totem poles in the world. Some of them were enormous, the trees from which they were carved must have been gigantic. Four miles on the bikes back to the ferry via a stop at the grocery store to get some sandwiches for lunch and we were off towards our next port: Wrangell.

Wrangell was a quick stop, only about 30 minutes of port time. The town center is a little over a mile from the ferry dock, so we again took advantage of the bikes and rode into town for a looksee. A sleepy fishing outpost that had seen better times, Wrangell was decidedly lower key than the cruise port of Ketchikan. Lisa eyed an ice cream store, perfect for a sunny afternoon treat, and the kids scoffed a scoop while I was watching the timer for the ferry departure (I’ve never seen Max eat ice cream so fast!). The purser on the ferry told us they call Wrangell the “Wrangell Triangle” because it’s the port where ferry passengers most frequently get left behind. Not us!

Petersburg – the next stop after Wrangell – isn’t that far from Wrangell as the crow flies, but the 30 nautical mile trip took over three hours due to a stretch dubbed the Wrangell Narrows. It took the boat over an hour to crawl between the islands of the Narrows, with an astonishing 48 course changes through the countless channel markers, the shore only meters from the hull of the ship in some spots. The ferries time their entire schedule through the thousand miles of the Inside Passage based on tides in the Narrows. When we went through there was only three feet of water between the ocean floor and the hull of the ferry in some spots. Eek!

Petersburg was our last port on day three, another stop of only a few minutes as they unloaded and loaded passengers and vehicles. It was without a doubt the most picturesque of the towns along the Inside Passage, the late evening sun hitting the town at the perfect angle as we motored into port, towering glaciers in the distance rippling down the mountains. Petersburg is nicknamed “Little Norway,” it’s easy to see why.

We docked at Juneau’s Auke Bay terminal at 4AM on our third night on the boat, I went out and watched the action in the misty rain while everyone else slept. The kids and Lisa notched up a solid 12-hour stretch of shuteye between Petersburg and the channel towards Haines. Although the passage north of Juneau was some of the most dreary weather of the trip for my 16 laps around the boat, the ocean life was amazing as I circled the boat listening to The Daily: some huge porpoises, sea lions within a few feet of the boat, and even a small whale breaching as the ship lugged by in the mist.

Haines was a short stop, and with the ferry terminal 4.2 miles/6.8 kilometers from town we didn’t even get off the boat (we were actually deep in a team game of canasta). We cruised out of the Lutak Inlet and into the Taiya Inlet with a course set for Skagway, where we had a couple of hours to kill and explored downtown on foot. Skagway’s economy – unlike the other towns along the Inside Passage, which have large fishing, timber and often government-based economies – is 95% reliant on cruise ship passengers. COVID has been absolutely devastating on the town’s finances, with more than 10% of its population leaving in the last 12 months to look for work elsewhere. Skagway was a bit of a ghost town when we walked through, most storefronts boarded up awaiting the return of the cruise ships. The hardware store, brewery, a handful of outdoor stores and Red Onion Saloon were open for business, the kids bought some small keepsakes and I enjoyed a brew from local Klondike Brewing Company at the Red Onion. It would be a sight to behold when four massive cruise ships are in town at once and the town’s population grows from 800 to over 15000 (yes, three zeros!) for a few hours.

We finished our game of canasta on the milk run back down to Juneau that evening – the girls absolutely crushed the boys on the back of a very sneaky pile grab from Lisa – after which Lisa and I enjoyed a bottle of Hartford chardonnay on the deck watching the world go by. The Rainbow and Davidson Glaciers on the west side of the boat were absolutely amazing in the evening light, as were the countless humpback whales sounding between the ferry and shore. We stayed out on deck as long as we could stay warm, a very memorable way to finish up our last night on the boat!

When we woke on Sunday morning we were lugging through Hoonah Sound about to turn south into the narrow channel between Baranof and Chichagof Islands. It was another dicey stretch of ocean, with a crew-member positioned at the ferry’s bow as the captain navigated through small islands and outcroppings for a number of miles. More magic weather as we finally motored into Sitka, a coast guard chopper circling the boat and hovering above the foredeck to welcome one of the passengers to his new home. (I chatted to Wryan and his wife a few times onboard, he was transferring from the coast guard in Michigan to Sitka for a three year stint. He pilots the coast guard choppers and had some great stories of serving in hurricane rescues. He also had a sweet camera of which I was quite jealous!) The views of Sitka Sound and the dormant volcano of Mount Edgecumbe to the west of Sitka were breathtaking as we wound up our three days and 15 hours on the boat.

The AMHS really was a great way to see the picturesque islands of the Inside Passage. It was no frills for sure, but our little cabin had everything we needed and the views throughout the more than 1000 miles/1600 kilometers of ocean really were breathtaking. Everyone with whom we spoke kept saying we took the weather from California with us, as we only had rain for a few hours on a stretch between Haines and Juneau, so we can count our lucky stars on that front. Looking forward to getting our feet on some solid ground for a few days in Sitka!