Slept fair last night with Visine for my nose and three shots of Bourbon. Didn’t sleep too late. Ate at the buffet, then went back to the cabin to prepare for the day. We docked at Sitka, Alaska around 10:00.
Sitka is interesting. It was the seat of Russian America since the late 18th century. One of the most historically important buildings is a Russian Orthodox church. It’s across the street from a Lutheran church that was established in 1840. The Russians sold Alaska to the US in 1867 for seven million dollars, two cents per acre. Russia had lost the Crimean War and feared that England would conquer Alaska via Canada. Rather than spend money and still lose, they made money by selling Alaska to the US. Sitka was the territorial capital until around 1906. Juneau became the new capital owing to its growth during the Klondike gold rush. Sitka has a population of less than 9,000, making it the 6th largest city in the state, and it is the largest city in the US based on area. Like Juneau, it is not accessible to anywhere (including the rest of Alaska and the mainland US except by air or sea. The major employers are health care and fishing. There are way more people younger than 18 than might be expected in a town that size. Not sure what that means, but I suspect it means that there is a continuous loss of young people as they age out of childhood. (bus driver and Wikipedia contributors. Sitka, Alaska. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. June 8, 2025, 04:06 UTC. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sitka,_Alaska&oldid=1294508585. Accessed June 8, 2025.)
We got off the boat, Emily, Jane’s mother, and I riding our scooters. It’s not easy managing elevators in a pair of scooters when thousands of people are vying for the limited space in the elevators. But again, apart from the elevators, being on a scooter moved things along for us. From the dock, there was a 15-minute bus ride to the town center. Downtown Sitka is as small as you might imagine for a town of 9000. We looked around for a while, then Jane decided she was hungry. She wanted to eat at the hamburger and crab joint that the bus driver had recommended. I used Google Maps to find the walking directions, and we took off. I was able to use Google Maps because full cell service through Verizon was available in town. Didn’t notice if it was 5G. We were one of the first tourists to arrive, but the place was already crowded, but we got a seat. Disappointingly, there were no crab cakes or crab legs, so I got chicken fingers (the size of Kardashian thighs).
Outside the restaurant and right next to it’s very small parking lot, there were couple of tall trees. Perched at the top of these tall trees were a couple of bald eagles. We had gotten to the restaurant on our scooters relatively early, so we parked them outside the restaurant. When we came out, there were at least six scooters lined up behind us. Looked like a geriatric convention center.
After we finished lunch, we went to the Sitka National Historic Park. That was likely to be my only chance to have my National Park passport with stamps from Alaska. The museum there recounted some of the history and prehistory of the locale. There was an exhibition of totem poles. We spent a little time there and then headed back to the terminal to pick up the bus to get back on the boat. I was on my scooter and Jane had to walk. I think she was exhausted trying to keep up with me. Getting back on the boat with a scooter was the same ordeal in reverse as getting off. We were back in our cabins for a nap. After dinner, we went back to the state room and watched Momma Mia on television. I picked up a couple of shots of bourbon on the way back to the room which I got at one of the ship’s bars. Since my package included drinks, it was free. Was asleep by ten thirty or so.
