Sheroes: Seward to Vancouver

Our last day in Alaska, the ship docked early in the morning in the port of Seward. I was in the glass-sided elevator, going down for disembarkation, when one of the other passengers pointed out the window to a harbor seal. Just swimming around, enjoying itself. It was a nice end to the cruise!

It had rained overnight, but the weather in Seward was quite mild. Just as well, as we weren’t sure how we were going to spend the day before our bus to Anchorage in the evening. Seward looked quite small; the downtown is visible from the cruise terminal, around a bend in the waterfront. Right away T. spotted a sign in the terminal for “Alaskan Bag Lady.” We figured we could use her services.

The Bag Lady’s deal is that for $8 per large bag ($6 for ours) she would lock the bags in her van and deliver them to the small boat harbor later (where all the buses leave from). So we were free to wander around town, unencumbered by our large backpacks. They are really quite comfortable when we’re wearing them, and don’t feel heavy, but for $6 we were more than happy to check them for the day. A free shuttle bus also runs from the terminal so there’s really no excuse not to spend the day in town.

I really liked Seward. It’s the starting point of the historic Iditarod Trail, which predates the modern dogsled race. Alaskan Native villages were connected by the trail for centuries; historically, it ran through the (now abandoned) town of Iditarod. Today, Seward is quite proud of the Iditarod Historic Trail. You can watch a film about it, back to back with a film about the 1964 earthquake and tsunami, for a small donation at the library.

Seward public library and community center

If you are ever in Seward, I cannot recommend the library highly enough. It’s a delightful building, with big windows to look out of—if you can tear yourself away from a good book, that is. The facilities are good, there’s free WiFi, a sunny garden, and a museum downstairs that charges $4. Otherwise, it’s free. Had the weather been worse, we probably would have stayed there all day.

We also got a delicious lunch of crab chowder, salmon L.T. (a variation on the B.L.T. sandwich), and Alaskan beer. The only difficulty was adjusting to having to pay for meals individually, as we’d been spoiled on the ship! When we got back to the harbor the Alaskan Bag Lady was waiting for us, and turned out to be quite a character. She showed us where everyone brought their catch to clean fish, and where the leftovers went, much to the delight of mammals in the harbor. We even saw an otter thanks to her.

Sadly, we had to leave Alaska, which meant a flight out of Anchorage International Airport. To get there, we’d booked a bus that took us on the Seward Highway, classed as a scenic byway. It was, and there are probably times when you can see a lot of wildlife out the bus windows. The mountains are glaciated (i.e., non-volcanic) and reminded me of mountains in Wales or Scotland. They were reflected, crystal clear, in the lakes of Chugach National Forest. And closer to Anchorage, sunset on the Turnagain Arm just seemed to go on forever. The only problem was we couldn’t stop and take pictures.

Out the bus window--not great

Our bus driver did her best to enlighten us with commentary. Did you know, for instance, that Alaska has three million lakes, and most of them don’t even have names? That gives you some idea of the scale of the state.

The bus would have taken us directly to the airport, but we had to stop in downtown Anchorage so T. could get a pin at the Hard Rock Cafe. If she hasn’t told you about her habit I don’t want to spoil it for you, but suffice it to say there are three cities we’ve been to that have Hard Rock Cafes but, for one reason or another, we did not get a pin from them. They are Athens, Cape Town, and Chiang Mai. Guess I know where we’ll be going back to if we ever circle the globe again.

So we ended up in a taxi driven by Rocky Chongkuk, whose son is over in Europe with the  Air Force. I thought, I am really going to miss these characters. Like Hawaii, Alaska is far enough from the other states that it kind of has its own thing going—a really casual thing. I mean when we got to the check-in desk for Alaska Airlines, the woman asked for our names. Our names! She might never have asked for our I.D. at all, except that we were flying back to Canada so she needed to check our passports. Eventually.

Anchorage is not like other airports. For one thing, there is a lot of taxidermy. Everywhere you go in the airport there are stuffed birds or animals, and I have to admit, I don’t see the appeal. I’m not against hunting, and I certainly don’t have a problem with eating what you kill (like the Alaska Bag Lady who told us her boss had a bear-hunting license, so they split a bear). If you’re going to eat meat, there are worse ways to produce it. But a trophy on the wall? Don’t get it, myself.

But there are also kind of charming things, like a vending machine that sold wool socks, hats, and other warm things. All made out of buffalo wool, if you want to call it that. And then there’s this picture of the late Susan Butcher.

I mentioned the modern Iditarod. It is one of the only athletic events in the world in which men and women compete together in the same race—as do male and female sled dogs, sometimes on the same team. And so it was that in a period of six years, the Iditarod was won by a woman five times. Four of those victories went to Susan Butcher's team, which also held the Iditarod speed record from 1986-92.

Now since we’d sailed up from Vancouver, you’d think we could fly directly back there from Anchorage, but it was not to be. The airline flew us all the way back to Portland, for a connection that took all night. I liked Portland, as you know, but falling asleep on a row of airport seats is not the ideal way to experience a city. Still, I don’t doubt the signs at PDX that claim it’s “America’s nicest airport.” There was the no sales tax, for one thing. And when a latecomer hurried up to the gate (where we were hanging out) to catch his flight, the gate agent said to him, “Don’t worry.” Don’t worry? Is this an airport, and are we still in the United States?

Not stuffed, then

If I thought that was a nice note to leave the country on, imagine what it felt like to land back in Vancouver. T. came with me through the citizens’ line, indicating that she planned to stay in Canada about four months. “What’s the purpose of your visit?” an immigration agent asked.

“Traveling around,” I said.

“Thank you.” And we’re in. No stamp, nothing but a beeline for the airport Tim Hortons, where I stood in the doughnut line and started talking to a woman whose son lives in Brisbane. (She noticed my Gold Coast shirt.) She’s from Toronto. I already felt like I was home.

Baby snowsuit

It was rainy in Vancouver. I’d thought that was normal, but our Airbnb hostess said that it had been dry all summer (the parched grass was evidence of that). It rained most of the time we were there, though. We spent one rainy day shopping, first for the inevitable Hard Rock pin, which in Vancouver means a slog to a casino in the suburbs, and then at Mountain Equipment Co-op, a cross-Canada delight.

We don’t shop much because we just don’t. Also the budget, plus the one-in, one-out rule of items in our backpacks. But we’re in Canada now and don’t expect to be wearing shorts and T-shirts all the time.

The rain didn’t stop us from traveling around town. Buses in Vancouver must be the friendliest on earth. Nearly everyone says “Hi” and “Thank you” to the bus drivers, and nearly all the drivers are friendly in turn. It is just as well, because some of the places we went, like Lynn Canyon, took quite a long time to reach by public transportation.

Lynn Canyon is kind of hidden away in North Vancouver, which is part of the appeal. You would never know you were in a city there, hiking through the woods. Unlike a slightly longer suspension bridge that charges tourists more than C$40, the bridge at Lynn Canyon is free.

Then we went the other way, south of downtown, to Granville Island. There’s a public market there, with an international food court. Naturally, we ended up with fish and chips.

We went to Chinatown and back to Gastown, where we’d stayed at the Cambie Hostel for one night on our way up to Alaska. We even stopped at the hostel bar for a beer. Moosehead, union made in New Brunswick.

Very polite plea for recognition, historic Chinatown

At Canada Place, where we’d boarded the ship, it started to rain again. But you could still see the mountains, and we got a rainbow.

The day the weather finally broke, we went back to Waterfront and walked along the Coal Harbor seawall and all the way around Stanley Park. Stanley Park is the rainforest heart of Vancouver, and probably interesting in the middle. We did see the famous totem poles, but otherwise stuck to the seawall.

I have to say that I was not that impressed with Vancouver. Considering I’ve always heard what a wonderful city it is to live in, I expected a Portland of the north, and for biking that may be true. I get that it has both the ocean and the mountains and, for a Canadian city, a moderate climate. If you like rain, that is.

Maybe, T. suggested, we were just jaded after coming from Alaska. Maybe after seeing stunning views every day, the like of which we’d never seen before, a city was just going to look like a city. I can see myself going back to Vancouver, but only as a base for something we didn’t get to explore, such as the Sea to Sky highway to Whistler, or the coast around Prince Rupert. Or Vancouver Island, which I had really intended to get to one day.

Why didn’t we? Well, partly because the ferry to Victoria turned out to be a more ambitious day trip, in terms of time, than I had realized, but also because of the budget. Which I had blown on a day at Vancouver’s first annual Skookum Festival, in Stanley Park in the rain. And why had we stood in the mud at the front of a festival stage, at our age? Because, on the day we arrived in Vancouver, I saw that Buffy Sainte-Marie was playing there.

Buffy, or Dr. Sainte-Marie as we perhaps should call her, is a Cree from Saskatchewan who grew up and launched her career in the U.S.A. She has probably done more than any other artist to raise awareness about Native issues in North America, but my lifelong admiration for her goes far beyond that. When I can't find words (it has happened), Buffy Sainte-Marie’s music is what I turn to. It goes deep in the soul, and I would venture to say that hers is a prophetic voice. At 77, she is still winning Junos (Canada’s highest music awards) and rocking the house.

Buffy never wanted, in her words, to be "that Indian girl who makes us cry” about the wrongs of history. Even her most hard-hitting songs, some of which she’s re-recorded on her latest album, are primarily about the state of communities today, and what practical action we can take to improve them. "No matter where you came from," as she said to us.

I didn’t know the newer material but I was foot-stomping and singing along with the rest of the crowd, to uplifting anthems like “You Got To Run” and “Carry It On.” And then there was “Up Where We Belong,” which won Buffy a songwriting Oscar, or “Until It’s Time For You To Go” which was recorded by Elvis Presley (she successfully kept her rights to the song from Elvis’s “people”). I got a kick out of her biographer’s introduction which also included Buffy’s years on Sesame Street, during my childhood. She broke ground there by breastfeeding her baby son on TV, but what I will always remember is that she was the only character who believed Big Bird when he told her of the existence of his friend whom no one else could see. In this as in so many ways, Buffy was a pioneer. We could see Mr. Snuffleupagus, and eventually, the show stopped sending the message that adults would not believe when a child told them the truth.

If you’ve felt bummed since 2017, I highly recommend Medicine Songs, the new Juno-winning album. It is good for the soul. Only Buffy could write the theme for Soldier Blue, a movie about Americans’ brutal history with indigenous people (in theatres for a few days under Richard Nixon), and make it an inspiring song about love of country. 

“When the news stories get me down

I take a drink

Of freedom to think

Of my [North] America from toe to crown”

—“Soldier Blue”

Here's the antiwar song that got her blacklisted from radio during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.