Heard
the silver salmon were in at Seward, so took a run down there. The
drive down Turnagain Arm and then up over Turnagain Pass is beautiful,
worth the drive by itself.
Rev. 08/12/01
Alaska & beyond - continued 8/11
Seward and Whittier
Heard
the silver salmon were in at Seward, so took a run down there. The
drive down Turnagain Arm and then up over Turnagain Pass is beautiful,
worth the drive by itself.
In Seward, the only thing I could prove was -- the sun really does shine in Seward.
The silvers might be in the bay, with all the small boats out, but they're not along the shore. A lot of people casting for them, but I didn't see any hooked.
So finally gave it up and headed back north.
Suddenly I remembered reading that the road to Whittier was supposed to have been finished last year. That would mean I could drive there instead of having to take the train -- should be interesting.
Whittier was built during WW II as a secret deep water port.
It connected to Anchorage by rail. going through a two and a half mile
railroad tunnel, and then down Turnagain Arm to Anchorage.
So I turned off the road right at the end of Turnagain Arm.
The sign said 12 miles to Whittier. The drive up is through a
glacier carved valley, with glaciers hanging on the mountains on the sides.
Then the road opens up at Portage Lake, at the foot of Portage Glacier.
If you look close at the picture you can even see a small iceberg in
the lake. Then the road swings to the left to a toll gate.
What they did, to give road access to Whittier, was improve the rail tunnel so both trains and cars could drive over it. The $15 toll is to recover the cost.
The tunnel is open for cars for fifteen minutes in one direction, stopped for fifteen minutes, to clear all cars, then fifteen minutes in the opposite. At noon, everything stops while the train makes it's run through the tunnel, and another run at 7:00 pm.
And driving through the narrow tunnel, at 25 miles an hour, you can see light at the end -- its straight.
Whittier is a small town, on the south end of Passage Canal.
It has a large fleet of fishing boats, a ferry dock, several hotels,
school, and some stores. And a very big parking lot. You can
take the ferry from Whittier to Valdez or Cordova.
The town is also almost surrounded by glaciers. Shakespeare
Glacier is right in back of the town, held in place by a large ridge of rocks.
Boy, if it ever decides to advance, they've got a problem. Across
the canal you get a good view of Billings Glacier. And then there's
Seth, Leamard, Lowell and some others -- its a town in a pocket of glaciers.