A Moose Takes a Swim and Hoonah

"There's a deer, no a moose! On the beach over there!" Julie spotted Mom and Baby at the edge of the water just ahead of us. Without a crossing guard to stop traffic, they walked into the water without hesitation and began to swim across the inlet to Swanson Harbor across our bow. We pulled back to idle and watched them swim swiftly to the other side of the quarter mile wide gap and emerge onto the opposite shore. We just keep seeing amazing in the natural world of Alaska.

We said goodbye to the leggy creatures and continued out and around Sharp Ledge, into Icy Strait and across to Hoonah, a Tlingit town with artists and wood carvers, totems and friendly people.

Our first stop was lunch...

but the power had just gone out, so the restaurant was on hold. We decided to take a walk.

Public art abounded.

Walking along the road, a man in a van pulled up, introduced himself as Howard and offered to show us around the town while we were waiting for lunch. We all piled in and were off toward the south end of town and the cruise ship terminal. Howard was a retired school superintendent and the unofficial town greeter. We learned about their embrace of tourism (building a second cruise ship dock), as well as more traditional employment in fishing.

Along the way, we picked up the head of the public works and took him up to the station so he could get the power back on. The tour finished and Howard dropped us off for lunch at last (seafood of course!). We continued our walking tour of the town and harbor.

Russian Orthodox Church.

The original Gunts totem pole (this is a replacement pole, the first to be carved in Hoonah in 200 years) embodied a shamanic spirit carried from Glacier Bay, the ancestral homeland of the Huna Tlingit, to the village of Xunaa when the Huna clans fled advancing ice associated with the Little Ice Age. The Gunts spirit served the Huna clans by warning of advancing foes, dangerous weather, or other potential calamities.

This Bald Eagle nest is in the center of town (with a youngster peeping out).

Tidal grid. With 15-18 foot tide swings, one can time bottom work without a haulout.

Dog Star snuggled in across from Airship.