Guest speaker Dennis Gill spoke at the Sept. 6 Kiwanis meeting about his recent trip to Alaska. Courtesy/Kiwanis

By BROOKE DAVIS
KIWANIS Club of Los Alamos 

Dennis Gill was the speaker at the Sept. 6 Kiwanis meeting.

He shared photos and highlights from an extensive trip through the inside passage of Alaska that he and his wife, Opal Lee took last summer.

They started their journey in Juneau and looped through the Alaska portion of the inside passage, visiting many towns and points of interest along the way. They traveled on a small American Cruise Lines ship which carried only 120 people and had a 12-foot draft that allowed visits to small ports and included on board talks and interpretation.

While in the Juneau area, they visited the retreating Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Waterfall.

Next on their itinerary was the Native American village of Hoonah, a community busy building facilities to accommodate large ships. They took a very nice hike while there and were initially concerned about their armed escorts until they remembered – Bears!

From there, they went to Haines and Skagway, two cities that historically provided access to the gold fields. They also stopped at the Valley of the Eagles Nature Preserve and Fort Seward – active from 1903 to 1948. Of course, there was wildlife. In addition to witnessing romping young bears, they saw otters playing, thousands of birds, mountain goats and lots of humpback whales.

Other highlights for the Gills were Glacier Bay National Park, Wrangell Narrows and Ketchikan.

On the last day of their trip, typical of travel stories from the last two years – “and then there was COVID”. Thirteen of the passengers, including Opal Lee, tested positive and were quarantined in their staterooms. The Gills spent the next 5 days resting and recovering in a hotel, but Gill admitted that if you must quarantine, Juneau is a pretty nice place for it. They both concur that Alaska is vast and beautiful and the trip was grand.