In the summer of 2015 I was up in Alaska staying at a little hostel in a town called Skagway. I was the only one there- when I arrived the owner was cleaning his shotgun. Not that there was anything menacing about the place, it just sticks out in my mind. I didn't do much in Skagway. I took a short hike. It was beautiful, staggeringly so. Glaciers creeping over mountain peaks surround the port town. The bay is brilliant blue. Real postcard material.
I bought a ticket for a ferry ride on the wonderfully titled Alaskan Marine Highway. It's cheap if you are on foot. For a 48 hour ferry ride that crosses the Canada/US border I think I paid 100 bucks. It also follows the same route many of the popular Alaskan cruise ships take, down through what they call the Inside Passage between the islands of the archipelago. So, again, really nice to look at.
The ferry was full of American retirees on long road trips. I don't think I spoke a word to anyone except the cooks in the cafeteria for two days. I overheard conversations about the best places to stay in Graceland, autumn in Vermont, rotary clubs and veteran associations. They seemed to be having a hell of a good time. I read two of the books they had on a little shelf in the games room- one was "An American in the Gulag". I think this book has slipped out of public awareness, but its a real gem if you're interested in the history of the 20th century.
The cheapest tickets don't include a cabin berth on these ferries- I suppose they expect you to sleep in the seating galleries on the mid-decks. I slept on the top deck under the stars. Luckily there were no clouds. For two nights in a row I set up my sleeping bag on a reclining deck chair and watched the night sky. This was all to say that of everything I saw in my trip to the Yukon and Alaska, sleeping alone on the top deck of a ferry gliding through the archipelago in the darkness under a vivid night sky was the best.
