Rosie and The Operator have booked a three hour excursion to Historic Taku Lodge. We are travelling on a float plane which will fly us across the mighty Juneau Icefield on a scenic flight that will land on the river, in front of Taku Lodge, which sits facing the magnificent Taku Glacier. This lodge is only accessible by plane or, on the river by boat. Upon arriving we will be cooked a lunch of wild salmon on an outdoor grill and get a guided tour of the lodge and grounds before flying home. We cant’t wait!
This is a first for us and we are so excited! We have been watching these noisy planes navigate the waterways of Ketchikan and now Juneau where they come and go with such regularity. We have also been watching the weather and have booked this trip on the first day we arrived in Juneau anticipating the long term weather forecast as being the best day of our stay. This morning however, we awoke to a world wrapped in white fog! We couldn’t even see the cruise ship parked fifty meters away from our window. No, no, no….Rosie has been counting down to this day.
Its OK said The Operator, the fog will burn off before we leave, its going to be a beautiful day! Sure enough, by the time we wandered down to the dock in the middle of town where we were to depart from, the sky was bright blue and there wasn’t a trace of fog in sight, it was going to be a stunning day!
The Wings Airways fleet were going to transport us on our flight today, they have five De Havilland Otters that have been in commission since they were built in the 50s and 60’s. All five have varied and quite incredible histories on how they came to be in Ketchikan and for those that like to know, the original 600 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engines have all been replaced overtime with 900 horsepower turbo prop engines.
What a sight they are on the channel and as Rosie keeps saying, what a noise they make! It’s surprising how short a run they need on the water before their powerful engines pull them into the sky. Watching then land has been as equally fascinating, especially watching these planes taxi into their parking spots, expertly slewing sideways and pulling up so perfectly close to the next plane without running into its butt!
Three planes of ten passengers are travelling out to the lodge today, we have been assigned the Eagle plane which is the blue one and are the second to head out. Al is our pilot today and he assures us, ironically, he has done this flight one or two times and we are in good hands….thank goodness.
Rosie sneakily asks where the best seats are in the plane? Al assures us that no seats are bad and he will make sure we all see everything there is to be seen. Inside the plane there is actually plenty of room, the windows have been spotlessly cleaned (we saw them doing it) plus we all get a window each in the cabin We excitedly settle in and wait for the door to close donning a pair of headphones that make us look like we are going to fly the plane…well, The Operator looks impressive anyway.
Just like watching from the outside, the inside is just as hellishly noisy even with the headphones on as the plane starts to move along the liquid runway. The acceleration pulls us back in our chairs and as smooth as and within seconds we are airborne! Just like that!
Straight away the views are impressive and Rosie’s jaw is on the floor as the plane stays low in the Gastineau Channel. The water is green and the sky is blue and the feeling of exhilaration in this wee plane is intense as the beauty of what is below unfolds as we seem to just hang in the air above it.
Now, looking at the impenetrable landscape from up high that surrounds this town Rosie can understand how landlocked this town really is to all but air and sea. The rugged beauty is incredible and quite amazing, and remember this tiny, landlocked town is the State Capitol of Alaska.
We turn away from the Gastineau Channel, as it stretches away behind us, a gigantic cruise ship sailing toward Juneau dominates the middle line of this long finger of water.
The landscape changes and we see more and more tall scrubby peaks with a dusting of snow on the back ranges. Rivers run through the valleys below and are incredible to see from the air. Rosie is in her element snapping away, the view is incredible and the scenery is indescribably beautiful.
Then we see our first glacier of the Juneau Icefield. Rosie thought it was spectacular boating up to the ice face of the glacier yesterday….well, flying over them was a different perspective and totally incredible seeing how far they stretched snugly lying in their valley beds and winding in their white icy glory with the natural flow of the land.
But wait on…there wasn’t just one glacier, we had achieved a higher altitude and valley after valley had white glaciers winding there way to the sea….it was an incredible sight and one Rosie was not able to capture in her tiny limited window frame. How can nature be so so beautiful and so very few would get to see this majesty.
The Juneau Icefield sits within the Tongass National Park and extends for 3,900 square kilometres, making it the fifth largest icefield in North America and believed to be 3,000 years old!
This ice field is home to 40 large valley glaciers including the Mendenhall and South Sawyer glaciers which Rosie and the Operator have already visited. Plus, just to be greedy and over the top in a land that is so big and huge there are an additional 100 smaller glaciers in the ice field as well.
You can only imagine what I am seeing out my window as we fly over them. The top of the glaciers look like they have been whipped up in the wind or to the consistency of a stiff meringue as Rosie would call it, full of deep deep crevasses glinting a luminous blue within its craggy core.
NASA actually take their astronauts to the Juneau ice field on a pre lunar training experience as they believe this ice field is one of the only places on earth that ‘capture the emotional sensations that one may encounter while walking on the moon’. The expansive views, the stark beauty and the harshness of the ice and rock…Rosie is claiming an orbit after this plane trip!
All of the glaciers in this field have been starting to retreat as of the mid 1700s when they reached their maximum glaciation, except the Taku Glacier the biggest and the mightiest which is the only one still inching forward today.
And they just keep coming…flowing down the valleys and then just ending in the river.
This particular one almost looks like steps have been carved into the surface like a giant, surging wave heading down the valley was just snap frozen in time.
We head back to the tidal river valley where Taku Lodge sits, our final destination. The river is low and braided with shale sand bars and bush criss crossing it. This huge expanse is only full of water for a couple of weeks a year in the middle of summer when the melt from the ice and snow is at its greatest. Washed up on the gravely beaches are giant beached logs that are evidence of what gets washed down the river in the big water.
The Taku Glacier
We land so smoothly and gently on the river and slew around to park at the jetty. Getting off the plane and walking up the wee rise the log cabin which Taku Lodge sits on, well, Rosie’s jaw has just dropped again.
Across the river from the lodge is a glacier, a huge glacier twinkling blindingly white and blue in the light, so close, and so beautiful it takes your breath away. Coupled with the panorama of the lodges lawns and wild garden full of autumn colours in the foreground, the warm sunshine on your face, the crisp fresh air and the intense silence….you get the feeling that you have discovered paradise and never want to leave this place!
Wandering up the driveway the smell of cooking salmon is in the air and our lunch is being grilled over an open flame on the huge barbeque on the side porch. Rosie and The Operator truly have died and gone to heaven.
Taku Lodge was built in 1923 by a doctor who worked at the Juneau Gold Mine. It was used as a summer hunting and fishing camp and supplies and people were transported up the 35km of river from Juneau by barge which had to be timed well between tides to avoid the sandbars.
In the fall of 1930 Mrs Erie Smith visited the lodge whilst touring South East Alaska on her yacht (yes yacht). Mrs Smith was the wealthy heiress of a lumber baron, who was travelling with an ailing son called Hack and his full time nurse Mary Joyce. That same day she visited…..Mrs Smith sailed away the new owner of the lodge.
Hack and Mary Joyce lived there all year round and Mrs Smith sailed her boat up every summer bringing them new supplies for the year which included hay and feed for the cow and its offspring they had there.
Mary and Hack began raising sled dogs during their years at the lodge, putting them to work hauling firewood or sledding up the frozen Taku River in winter. They sold a few dogs and were starting quite a name for themselves for the good quality training and breeding of them.
In 1934 Hack suffered a heart attack and died whilst out hunting. Mrs Smith couldn’t bare to keep the lodge anymore after that and gave it lock stock and barrel to the nurse, Mary Joyce.
Mary Joyce was an adventurous girl and in 1936 she received an invitation to participate in the Fairbanks Ice Carnival with her dogs. So, she decided to make the trip overland by dogsled. In the middle of winter. That’s cool you think…but think again….that is 1600kms by dogsled in the middle of an Alaskan winter, on her own, with 5 dogs and a sled full of supplies. No GPS…and only animal furs to keep warm. Wowza what a gal,!
Mary spent three months on the trail, of which she actually only traveled 52 days (the rest of the time was spent holed up waiting out storms) averaging 40 kms a day in spite of it being on average -10c with only a couple of hours of daylight each day. She got there in time for the fair and was the star of the show after that tale! Her huskies became renowned in these snowy parts for this epic journey and all of the future sires of those famous sled dogs became known as the Taku River Huskies.
Ding ding ding ding….the bell was being rung for lunch and we all filed inside the original log cabin lodge where Huck and Mary Joyce lived. The long room where we had lunch has a beautiful stone fireplace with a giant moose head suspended above it, memorabilia from the story above is piled in the corners. The sled that Mary Joyce used on her epic journey is suspended above the tables and believe me it is so small and fragile looking to have survived that amazing journey.
In the corners of the room were suspended wolf, fox and a pelt that Rosie couldn’t identify…they are so incredibly soft and warm when you feel them. A huge grizzly beer skin is pegged to the wall behind the couch and the picture window at the end of the wall looking out over the Taku Glacier was incredible.
After lunch we went for a walk around the immediate lodge grounds with Michael, one of the owners sons. He explains that the lodge owns 63 acres and its outbuildings are only lived in over the summer. At the end of summer, when the cruise season finishes they have no customers, so, in two weeks time at the end of September the lodge is winterised. Which means boarded up and left over winter with no one there until it is opened up again in the beginning of May.
The lodge also has two huge free standing solar panels that supply the lodge with power and heats the water. There is no cell coverage and internet is intermittent. It’s the first day of moose hunting season and his brothers have just walked back into the lodge grounds in full river valley camo carrying huge guns. They shoot the moose to cull the population and fill the freezer Michael said, but, by the looks they were unlucky today.
The grounds have a high rock face close to the back boundary and the walk under the mighty spruce through the dappled light of the afternoon was just beautiful.
Alas we didn’t see any of the animals listed on this marker…other than the two Labradors that live at the lodge, and before you knew it, the buzz of the seaplanes were in the air dropping off a new bunch of visitors to experience this beautiful place….which meant it was nearly our time to leave.
Rosie didn’t want to go, Rosie could have happily stayed out here in this amazing silent wilderness with the sun on her face forever…but off we trooped for another incredible air borne sight seeing experience even though we flew directly home this time.
This three hour excursion was actually one of the most amazing things Rosie and The Operator have ever done on holiday. It was also one of the most expensive and we ummed and ahhed about doing it and what value we would perceive from it. After weighing it up, we decided we have never been on a float plane before and will never be in this part of the world again to experience this huge ice field, which is so different and incredible from the air….it had to be done and we are sure glad we did it. It was an experience of a lifetime!
Tomorrow we are leaving Alaska and flying from Juneau, to Whitehorse in Canada. From there we are going to start our epic road trip around the Klondike, Top of The World and Alaska Highways. Come along, we cant’t wait to get started!
You might also like to check out the following diary blogs of Rosies in and around Juneau, Alaska
Juneau, Alaska – Meldenhall Glacier & The Bear
Juneau, Alaska – Tracy Arm & South Sawyer Glacier
Juneau,Alaska – Driving The One Road
Juneau – State Capitol of Alaska
