Sketching an Alaska Cruise VI

Icy Strait Point from the Skyglider Gondola

crayon, ink and watercolour

©2024 Charlene Brown

In 2001 the Huna Totem Corporation began development of America’s only private cruise ship destination and in 2004, it welcomed its first ship. Icy Strait Point grew steadily each year except for the pandemic years 2020 and 2021, thriving as a cruise port that preserves the character of the local village and Tlingit culture as much as possible.

The Skyglider Gondola took us from Wilderness Landing to the top of the mountain and offers stunning views north over the water toward Glacier Bay National Park. At the top of the mountain there are nature trails through unique wildlife habitat with spectacular views in all directions.

The painting above includes the two huge cruise ships in port at the time we were there, and our smaller ship, Regatta. from which we needed to tender ashore.  Tendering, in the ship’s lifeboats – which were nowhere near as luxurious as the ship itself ─ was required quite frequently on this cruise because the number of cruise ships plying South-east Alaska often exceeds the docking facilities available. I’ll write more about that in my blog post about Klawock in two weeks.

Map showing the northernmost portion of our cruise

Sketching an Alaska Cruise V

Hubbard Glacier

crayon and watercolour

©2024 Charlene Brown

This was the first of four places I had not seen on previous Alaska cruises in 2001 and 2005.

The Hubbard Glacier is North America's largest tidewater glacier. It flows 120 kilometres from Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory of Canada through Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska.  It is 11 kilometres wide and over 100 metres above the waterline at its terminal face.

Allegedly, you can see Mt. Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, from our ship’s position in Disenchantment Bay.  However, most of the time we were there it was raining so hard you could barely see the face of the glacier, and the mountains above it were even less visible. 

Sketching an Alaska Cruise IV

A picturesque glimpse into Skagway’s colourful past

crayon, ink and watercolour

©2024 Charlene Brown

When we returned from our drive up the Klondike Highway to Fraser BC, we stopped at the north end of Skagway.  There, a short hike up through the Gold Rush Cemetery brought us to a lovely little waterfall, Lower Reid Falls.

The waterfall is named after Frank H. Reid, the ‘good guy’ (by most accounts), in an historic gunfight in 1898. He shot the other participant, or ‘bad guy,’ a con man named Jefferson Randolf (Soapy) Smith, in “self-defence,” in the back (see what I’m doing here?)  Reid’s grave has an elaborate headstone, but Smith’s (just outside of the perimeter of the cemetery) tersely states his name, date of death and age, not even hinting at his side of the gunfight story.

Many of the graves are surrounded by intricately-carved fencing and sport colourful stories about the occupants’ advertised and actual occupations and circumstances of death.

Sketching an Alaska Cruise III

Captain William Moore Bridge

crayon, ink and watercolour

©2024 Charlene Brown

This asymmetric single-pylon cable-stayed bridge is an impressive example of earthquake engineering. It spans the Moore Creek Gorge which flows along an active seismic fault line on the Klondike Highway about 27 km north of Skagway. To minimize potential bridge damage from earthquake movements along the fault line, the bridge was cantilevered, with anchors only at the south end.

Before the bridge was built in 1976, Whitehorse YT was only accessible from Skagway by the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad. Over the decades, heavy ore truck traffic weakened the bridge, and in 2019 it was replaced. The 1976 cable-stayed bridge was repurposed as a pedestrian viewpoint and historic site.

The view of the bridge shown in the painting above was based on photos taken when we stopped about a kilometre past it to look back at the highway.                                   

2024 Mid-Year Review

Skagway AK

crayon, watercolour and ink

©2019 Charlene Brown

I have been to Skagway twice before and have painted State St. several times, most recently in 2019. It looked much the same, with two cruise ships docked at the end of the main street on this year’s cruise.

I’ll continue ‘Sketching an Alaska Cruise’ this Sunday.  For today, here’s a quick mid-year review (yes, the year is in fact half over!) of how I’m coming along with my plans for 1150 Words, as set out at the beginning of this year. 

Paint Every Mountain: I finished and published this book about hiking and painting in mountains all over the world.

Creative Archaeology:  I have continued to build the series ‘Time Travel with a Bag of Crayons’ equipped with the same plein air painting kit I used for ‘Paint Every Mountain.’  The series, now in chronological order, will include some of the photos and sketches I accumulated in past archaeology-related travel with the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the travel study program at the University of Victoria.

Predictive Analytics This has evolved into a series of essays and illustrations of the increasingly drastic climate effects of the Anthropocene.