The last day ashore & aboard the Good ship Columbia

The last day ashore & aboard the Good ship Columbia

The last day before boarding the ferry was spent getting some warmer clothes at REI and a trip to the campus of Western Washington University to see their outdoor sculpture collection. Its a nice campus with about twice the enrolment of my home base, Lamar University, Beaumont. They have spent their percent-for-art money on “blue-chip” works. We didn’t see them all because we didn’t think we had time, as it turned out we could have spent hours there but our parking permit ran out after an hour. They have an efficient, but overly officious, for my taste, parking regime. I had to see the sculpture facilities; well equipped, but small for their enrolment, pretty much like home. Many thanks to Pat Eley, the “responsible adult” in the Art Department who gave us the tour.

We went to check in for the ferry loading and were put in line with the other vehicles that were bound for Haines, the last stop of the voyage. Because we were going to the end of the line, we were among the last to load, but only after the home-land security dog decided we were OK.

It has occurred to me that many folks who would be likely to read this, think of a ferry in the same size, scale, & configuration as the ones at Boliver peninsula; the Columbia is substantially different. Its almost the size of a cruise ship, not quite so tall or long, but a massive, huge ship in its own right. It has seven decks from the cavernous auto-deck to the crew-only navigation deck. Run by the state of Alaska, its part of the “marine highway system”. There are somewhere around 60-80 vehicles on board, ranging from motorcycles to semi-trailers. Some passengers have cabins, some are in tents duct-taped down to the outside deck, others just have a sleeping bag and a lounge chair. There’s an age gap between the younger, college-age crowd going to Alaska for adventure and summer jobs and the older group who are taking that vacation that they’ve always promised themselves. Some, of course, are on their way home or to a job. One largish flatbed truck is on its way to Juno to be the basis of a motor-home. Donnie had to “adjust” his truck to fit the 23 foot limit.

As for the passage itself, the scenery is very green & grey. The sea reflects the grey of the overcast sky and the mountains on both sides of the channels are vertical slabs of evergreen trees. The mountains aren’t that tall compared to the Rockies, they stick straight up out of the water for as much as 3000 feet, but there is snow on the wind scoured tops and the grey of the sky blends with the snow, so the only way to judge the height is to follow the trajectory of the trees going up the edges. The cloud ceiling is low enough that some of the mountain tops are obscured. We have traversed some open water; there were whales and dolphins in those areas; I have to admit I didn’t see them, but there are crowds of people at the front viewing areas who did. We get to Ketchikan tomorrow morning early, then roughly 24 hours later we get into Haines and the trek begins again.

And, there are some who don't know Forrest Goodhue of Beaumont, TX. He is the "Photographer of all things iron" & has been for the past ten years and it is our good fortune to have him along on this journey of iron.