Juneau is a town of 30,000 people which is built between towering mountains and the water. It is not a very pretty place. We headed out to visit the Mendenhall Glacier which is about 10 miles from Juneau. On can almost walk up to this glacier. I took a walk up to the Mendenhall Falls which took me across an expanse of sandy beach on which there were bear footprints everywhere. Luckily none were out when I was there as bears are really not a friendly animal, despite our culture of Teddy bears and Whinney the pooh... Bear kill. Bears have bad dispositions. Even playing dead will not ensure that you will not end up being dead. The story is told that if you see a bear chasing you and you climb a tree with the bear coming up with you, it is a black or American bear. If the bear grabs the tree you are in and uproots it, you are dealing with a grizzlie bear. If you start to run and find that there are no trees, you have got a polar bear on your tail. Either way, you are probably toast. While in Juneau we saw a mother and 4 cubs on a hill right in front of our ship and just behind a T-Shirt shop. They were grazing hapily and hundreds of tourists were staring at them.
On our day in Juneau, our travel companion Nancy Fiske could not join us. The day before she had reported to sick bay with an upset stomach. Ship doctors do not like stomach problems on ships as they are very contagious. He told Nancy to stay in her cabin for 24 hours. Less than 12 hours later, in Juneau, Madame tried to come ashore with us to go to the glacier. When she swiped her ID card, lights went on and she was told she could not go ashore and was ordered back to her cabin. Harry and Nancy were not happy but the system worked.
That evening we left for Skagway. To get to Skagway, we need to go back down south on the Gastineau Channel before heading north to Skagway as the channel ends in Juneau.
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