JUNE 11, 2022 - JUNEAU

One fun thing that’s happening here in Juneau is that it is the weekend of CELEBRATION, which is a biennial festival of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribal members. There are presentations, a parade, pageants, dancing competitions, native art shows. So the town is also full of folks attending this event. We walked uptown to watch the parade today and it was so fun to experience! The various tribes put on their finest traditional costumery and performed as they walked down the street. There was also a Native Art Fair full of booths where you could buy anything from earrings to ermine pelts. Afterwards John and I were searching for a lunch spot but everywhere we turned the wait was 45 minutes, every place just packed. We were on our way back to the boat for leftovers when we passed the tram entrance and decided to take the tram to the lookout at the top and have lunch up there! It’s like a giant ski gondola and it allows you to see forever down and up Gastineau Channel. Our boats nestled among the “yachts” down below looked so small in comparison, I’m sure you can pick them out in these pictures. Late afternoon was spent provisioning which meant a trip to Safeway, then Fred Meyer for everything I couldn’t find or didn’t want at Safeway (such as Safeway’s crappy produce). Even doing two stores, I still couldn’t find cilantro at either! Some cruise ship, resort, or one of our neighboring private yachts (or a combination thereof) had scooped it all up. Ever resourceful Shannon, however, found a third grocery store and brought me two bunches late afternoon, now the world is right again.

This totem is carved all the way around, we were told this was something unusual and super cool

View of our moorage from the tram ride, we are the two itty bitty boats on the inside between two mega yachts! The one to our left is 157' and the one to the right of us nearly the same.