Subject: Aloha from Seattle! (Message #2) Date: September 21, 1996 Greetings, friends! This weekend I find myself in Seattle, where playoff fever is running rampant. I regret to inform you that clouds and rain have followed me wherever I have gone since my last epistle. But it looks like the sun might come out a little today, although I don't expect to see any mountains while I'm here. Actually, it was snowing in Pink Mountain, B.C. on September 7. I know because I was there. Pink Mountain was only the first stop we made on the Alaska Highway. It took 46 hours to get from Edmonton to Fairbanks by bus, but I was able to take in a vast amount of scenery. The highway is completely paved now, but there was enough summer construction around to give motorists a feel for the old days. One quirk: the scenery on the highway is nearly entirely on the south side of the highway. The Alaska Highway through the Yukon Territory is a place where moose and caribou wander at will. Saw a few black bear cubs too. There are a number of sparkling emerald/jade colored lakes in the Yukon too. (Some mineral or somehing in the h2o does the trick.) Hope the color turned up on my pictures. I even had a role in smuggling an illegal alien into Alaska, I think. He was Russian but had an Israeli passport with an expired Canadian visa. He told me his Israeli passport could get him into Canada without a visa, and I knew that wasn't true. I suspected he'd be denied access to the U.S. and suggested he stay in Canada lest the Canadians refuse him reentry and jail him pending deportation. He asked some uncomfortable questions, such as how far from Beaver Creek, Y.T. to the Alaska border, and how many kilometers in a mile. He decided to risk it at the border. The driver was worried that he'd have to take him back to Canadian customs, 20 miles back. (The customs aren't next to each other as they usually are.) So the driver lied at the border and said we were all U.S. or Canadian. If the guard had had time to think, we could have been in big trouble. Our group consisted of me, the Canadian driver, the Russo-Israeli, a Brit, a German, a Japanese, and two New Zealanders. It was completely implausible that he'd driven us from Whitehorse and thought we were all U.S. citizens. The Russian decided to come clean anyway and was given a 90 day visa. I bet he's already down in the lower 48. Once in the interior of Alaska, the scenery dissipates. In fact, the area close to Fairbanks looks very much like Wisconsin. From the city, one can see the distant mountains. The town itself is nothing much. From Fairbanks, I rented a car and drove to the Arctic Circle. Along the way, I saw a pair of moose along the road and stopped to take pictures. Suddenly a shot rang out. The moose jumped. I was between them and the hunters. I got out before the conclusion of this act. Most of the drive to the circle was on the pipeline haul road. This is a non-maintained gravel road. There are 12 percent grades in some places. It rained most of the way up. I got to the circle just before sunset, and proceeded to drive back in the dark. I was concerned about moose and other animals on the narrow road in the pea soup fog, but saw no mammals on the way back. When I got back to Fairbanks, my blue car had been changed to a sandy yellow. I used the hose at a Texaco to no avail. I went to a self-serve car wash and removed the mud from the car with a high pressure hose. There was even mud on the roof! The next day I drove to Denali National Park (formerly Mt. McKinley). The fog obliterated the mountains, but I saw some of the lower lying beauty of the park with no trouble. I got to see some unmolested moose eating lunch. (If stripping down a tree is your idea of lunch, that is.) The fog lifted in places providing views of distant mountains. I next spent two days in Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory. Unlike the opul;ent new building in Yellowknife, this territory does business out of a rather undistinguished building on the main drag. There was a nice set of stained glass windows in there, however. A territorial election is coming up later this month, and I was able to discuss the situation with a number of local politicians. It looks to be a close election, as the dialogue had already turned nasty. I put in a call to Audrey McLaughlin, former national leader of Canada's NDP (socialist) party. She called back when I was out. When I returned, the man at the motel was eager to tell of this call. "_THE_ Audrey McLaughlin?" I asked coyly. Don't know what the innkeeper's politics were, but he called me Mr. Hill after that. Whitehorse is basically a supply town along the Alaska Highway. It is the largest place on the road. The national chains have decided to sell goods for the same price in Whitehorse as in southern Canada, which must make it impossible to be a small businessperson up there. The mountains are not too bad, but one gets the impression that Whitehorse is not much other than a wide spot on the road. From Whitehorse, I went to Skagway to catch the Alaska ferry. Skagway is pretty much a tourist trap, restored nicely to its days as the stepping off point to the Klondike gold fields. It is actually very well preserved. I took the full tour, and I usually dislike tourist traps. There was even a Minneapolis woman in town to present a slide show. (Her great-grandfather, Minneapolis Mayor George Brackett, was one of the people who profited from the gold seekers.) I sailed from Skagway last Friday evening. The Alaska Marine Highway ferries are rather spartan, yet comfortable. They are non-smoking, except for the cocktail lounge. (It is a modern sin parlor, where people can smoke, drink, and say "chairman.") The water was as smooth as your bathtub. I was disappointed that most of the ferry docks along the route are at a distance from the towns they serve. Prior to boarding, I stocked up on groceries in anticipation of cafeteria quality food served at ridiculous prices. The prices were actually quite reasonable, although I wasn't sufficiently impressed with the taste of what little I ordered. This meant I had to stuff the remainder of my groceries into my luggage when we docked. Hehe... Arriving in Prince Rupert, B.C., I wasted no time getting on the next ferry out to the Queen Charlotte Islands. This ferry was even more spartan than its Alaskan cousin. Queen Charlotte City is a fairly pleasant place on a narrow ocean strait. Totem poles are the key native attraction. I was dismayed that dogs are allowed to run loose in the otherwise-tranquil seaside community. The biggest oddity I found there? WCCO-TV from Minneapolis is available on cable. I got to catch up on the road construction back home. Returning to P.R. on a tempestuous ferry ride (the first mate told me the weather was nothing), I was able to videotape some powerful waves crashing onto deck. Since it was raining in P.R., and I surmised it would continue, I decided to catch the night bus out and head for Seattle. I took the long way through the Okanagan region of B.C. and took in a variety of that province's scenery. Near Kamloops there is an area that is almost a desert where most of the world's ginseng crop is grown. During a stopover in Kelowna, I decided to dine at a local eatery - Denny's. I ordered and was served Sprite in a can. I was expecting soda on tap. "Our water filter hasn't arrived yet." Water filter, I thought. Then I remembered what I'd heard about Kelowna: The city had recently had an outbreak of cryptosporidium, a waterborne parasite which sickened 200,000 in Milwaukee a few years ago. I looked at my salad: Had this been washed in bottled water? I decided to cancel dinner and eat something non-local. An ounce of prevention, you know. Looks like you can take me out of the state health department, but... On this trip, I'd rather be a guest than a "host." Which brings me to Seattle, where the Mariners are on a streak and the traffic and congestion are worse than I've ever seen here. I'm staying with my birth grandparents and getting together with some relatives tonight. Next week, I head back to Canada. Enjoy the equinox, and I'll see you on the 'net! Tony