Anchorage, Alaska

My father knew the pastor of this Anchorage church so we were allowed to spend two nights in their parking lot. We could have also stayed at the local Walmart however it was a very busy place. It was nice to be able to leave the 5th wheel parked in this quiet lot instead.

After getting situated, Dad and I headed off to pick up a pizza while Mom, Darla, and Lewis headed over to a nearby laundromat. The place was supposed to close at 10:00 but the owner very graciously kept it open late for us. Darla gave him a nice tip when we finally finished the last load. Alaskans have a reputation for being a friendly lot and, at least in our experience, deservedly so.

We began our first full day in Anchorage by driving to the downtown visitor center. Like most downtowns, there was plenty of art, including a series of colorful salmon, each one decorated by a different artist. Mom took this shot of one of her favorites.

The visitor center was easy to spot, both because of its colorful flowers and also because of its unconventional design – at least compared the rest of Anchorage’s city center.

After receiving some advice about various Anchorage attractions, we set off to grab some lunch. We ended up at a local restaurant where I enjoyed a very good salmon sandwich. I wish I could eat another one right now…

The owners of this tourist attraction tried to lure visitors with a toy plane that made noise and emitted smoke whenever six year old boys pressed the big red button on the side of it.

After lunch, we headed down to the Anchorage train station. There wasn’t much to it, although in all fairness I should point out that this image only shows half of the lobby.

Not far from the train station is a bridge from which one can watch salmon swimming upstream – at least when there are salmon swimming upstream. We had yet to see any of Alaska’s famous salmon except on a dinner plate so we were excited by the prospect. Unfortunately, all we found were a few salmon carcasses getting picked at by some gulls. Darla struck up a conversation with another visitor who informed us that there were plenty of King salmon at the Ship Creek Fish Hatchery just a few miles away. That is where this image was taken.

I would later learn that salmon this red are not good to eat. As salmon return from the ocean and head upstream, their bodies begin to rot. By the time they are this red, they are pretty far gone.

As one might expect, the hatchery had bunches of salmon in various stages of development. This enclosure was full of salmon fry and, to the delight of The Boy, there was a large bucket of food pellets that visitors could feed to them.

The salmon fry leapt out of the water in a frenzy whenever food hit its surface.

The Boy approached his task with a sense of urgency. No fish would go hungry this evening.

Lewis made sure that the smaller fish inside the white netting were not left out.

We eventually made our way back to the creek to observe a pair of hatchery workers transferring several King salmon from the creek to a large enclosure. They explained that in the time since these fish had gone out to sea a power plant upstream had been shut down. The shut down had changed the water chemistry in the creek, leaving these salmon confused as to how to get home to spawn. The hatchery was giving them an assist.

Now this is what we’d come to see. Wow! These Kings were huge! We’d all seen salmon leap out of the water on TV shows before but seeing it happen in front of us was truly spectacular.

It was quite a challenge to photograph these fish in flight. They shot up out of the water so fast that they were often in one side of the viewfinder and out the other before I could press the shutter button. I ended up using a technique where I left both eyes open – one looking through the viewfinder and one not – and just clicked away whenever I saw anything move out of either eye. I ended up using my 70-200mm zoom for most shots; I tried my 100-400 but if I zoomed in too far I found myself unable to react quickly enough to capture the fish in the frame. I fixed my shutter speed at 1/2000 of a second to freeze the action.

After spending over an hour at the hatchery, we decided to return to “base camp” where Mom and Dad elected to call it a day.

Darla, Lewis, and I decided to check out one more sight. Potter Marsh, on the south end of Anchorage, was supposed to have an elaborate boardwalk from which one could see all manner of birds at the right time of day and of year. It wasn’t the best time of year but it was the right time of day so we decided to make the effort. We were glad we did.

I’ve never had much luck getting good images of moose. Back in 1989, I almost got myself stomped by getting too close to a female moose and her calf in Yellowstone. Since then, God has kept them at a safe distance from me – likely for my own good. That’s what made this encounter so fun. We were up on an elevated boardwalk: we felt safe; the moose felt safe.

The moose seemed very intrigued by the sound of my camera’s shutter, eventually walking over to us to get a closer look.

Our second morning in Anchorage took us to Earthquake Park, a park commemorating one of the biggest earthquakes to ever hit an American city. We went there thinking we would see some of the damage that had been preserved for posterity. It turned out that it was just an exhibit consisting of a series of signs telling the story of what happened.

The most memorable part of the exhibit were the mosquitoes. They were plentiful and out for blood. We donned our head nets for the walk and received many envious glances from other visitors who were losing the battle to the little bloodsuckers.

There is quite a bit to do in Anchorage – far more than we had time for in a day and a half. After seeing the park, we were a little disappointed to have chosen this activity over some of our other options.

The Boy was happy to get in some dandelion blowing along the way.

Dad, sans a head net, had already headed back to the camper when Lewis, Darla, and Mom stopped for a group shot.

Turnagain Arm

After returning to base camp one last time, we loaded up and headed south along the Turnagain Arm. It was once again cold and blustery but the views were spectacular.

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