Juneau excursion

Juneau was our 2nd port to visit on our cruise. We arrived here on August 7th.  We took a bus excursion with 29 people. The tour included 3 stops.

The first was the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery. This was the time of the year when the salmon naturally return to the streams of their birth. In this case, these salmon were reared in the hatchery and they return here to their certain death, just as they would in the wild.It was interesting to watch the salmon make their way up the ladder.  The salmon were caught at the top of the ladder, where males were separated from the females.  The staff would slit the bellies of the females to collect the eggs in a 5-gallon bucket. The males were then "milked" of sperm to fertilize the eggs. The adult fish were sent to be processed, either as human food, animal feed, or fertilzer. Nothing went to waste.

Side note...the returning salmon numbers this year are about half of what was expected, consistent with other observations along the Pacific Coast.

Writhing pool of salmon.

Salmon competing for space on the ladder.

Hundreds in the holding tank.

After egg collection the Salmon are loaded in these bins, then on to a boat.

Thousands and thousands of fry in the rearing tank

Literally millions of fry are reared each year and released into the wild.

Starfish on display inside the viewing area.

Buckets of eggs on their way to the incubator tanks

The second stop was Mendenhall Glacier.  We were disappointed that we couldn't get up close to the glacier but the visitor centre did show a time-lapse film of how the glacier had receded over the years.  Global warming isn't something new. It has been happening for years and is evidenced by the hundreds of receding glaciers globally.

We hiked a few trails here and saw sockeye salmon in Steep Creek. We were hoping to see grizzly bears munching on the salmon but to no avail. Our bus driver said he saw a mother and two cubs heading up into the mountain, away from the woods after dropping us off. We just missed them. Bummer!

The last stop was to the Gold Creek Salmon Bake for lunch. The salmon was cooked over an  alderwood fire.  Then served with a special glaze that was based on brown sugar. Yummmmmy!  There was a buffet of various sides to complete the meal.  A great place to visit! The property originally was a gold mine and the entrance is still on display.

Old mine entrance

A nice little falls and stream run through the property.

On our way back to the ship the driver stopped at a lookout to appreciate the view of the fireweed in bloom.

Wouldn't this make a great jigsaw puzzle? Just beatiful.

The outskirts of Juneau are a swampy flood plain and the bald eagles are here by the dozens and more. We so rarely see them in the east but here they are no more common than crows.