Petersburg, Alaska

Back in San Francisco, sometime around March, we had posted a plea on an Internet newsgroup, searching for information on where to cheaply rent a canoe in Alaska. Rentals are expensive here. The one place we had found charged $75 for the first day and $45 each day after that. So we posted this thing on usenet. We got a response back from a guy named Tom who said he could lend us his canoe.

Tom's messages were always terse so we never got an idea who he was, and he never asked about us either. As our Alaska arrival date got closer, he sent more notes, saying he might be on vacation when we arrived, but if he was, we could just grab the canoe. Then he sent another note saying we could also borrow his car, and stay in his house if he wanted. He gave us secret information we won't divulge on how to get access to all these goodies. I was amazed since Tom had no idea who we were, and vice versa.

So when we got into town at 4 a.m. on a Monday (Aug. 10) , we decided to head for Tom's house. He never said exactly how long he'd be on vacation so we didn't know if he'd be home or not. We decided in any case, we should take our time, so as not to get there in the middle of the night. This turned out to be no problem. The ferry dock was 13 miles from town! Luckily there was a bike path the whole way.

We rode slowly, stopping for 20 minutes at a place called Salmon Creek, where we heard all these birds just screaming. It turns out scores of salmon were spawning, many lying dead or half dead in two inches of water just below this bridge. If you've never seen spawning it is a really violent thing. The salmon make their way upstream, and then pitch themselves against the stream bed. They lay their on their side, and gulls and eagles (we only saw gulls in that one spot) peck out their eyes, which are the most easy part to eat. The water makes a lot of noise because it's so shallow, and the fish are thrashing around, and the gulls are just screaming about what a great party it is. They say in some creeks so many salmon come that you can walk across the river on salmon. It was true in that creek, though if the creek were deeper, it wouldn't have been true. We watched for about 20 minutes.

Eventually we rolled on to a 24-hour grocery store, right across the street from a diner that a passing bicyclist had recommended to us as the best breakfast in town: The Channel Bowl. At 7 a.m., seconds after it opened, we crossed the street and sat down to breakfast. Later this guy named Chuck came in. We got to talking and mentioned our Internet host Tom, and his outrageous offer. Since Juneau is a small town we asked if he knew Tom. "The attorney?" he asked. He did know him. He told us Tom is a criminal prosecutor in the state attorney general's office; Chuck knew Tom through his girlfriend, who had been a defense attorney. We told him we had no idea if Tom was still on vacation and he didn't know either.

After breakfast we rode up to Tom's house. And I do mean UP. The guidebooks say Juneau's streets are reminiscent of SF's because they are so steep. I just about died. It was only about 8 blocks uphill, but it killed me. We leaned our bikes up against the garage and went up to the front door.

Tom had given us a note telling us what to do to get in, but we couldn't find the note. So we were lingering there on his porch. Finally we figured it out and walked in the house. I felt like a burgular. We didn't even know what Tom looked like. We were hesitant to do anything, even use the bathroom. But we finally did. Then, acting on Chuck's tip, we decided to call the State AG's office and ask for Tom before someone else called the police on us. (What could we tell the police if they did show up? That we were Tom's guests but we didn't know who he was? We didn't even have a copy of the email that Tom sent offering us the use of his house).

Tom answered, put Eric on hold, and proceeded to yell at someone else. Eric cowered. But then Tom got back on the line, heard who it was and warmed right up. He was real glad we were in town. He had just gotten back from vacation but his family was still on vacation for a few more days. He offered to let us stay with him. We made plans to meet for lunch. Then Eric called his second cousin Kathy (HENDERSON gang: this is Eric's mother's cousin Bob Henderson's youngest daughter). Turns out she works in the AG's office and knows Tom. In fact, she works in the same building as Tom, 2 floors up. All four of us went to lunch.

Later that night, when Tom got home from work, he said a friend of his had asked him if it was true that he had really offered his home and canoe and car to some strangers he'd met over the Internet. Tom said, Well, something like that. How'd you know? And the guy said he had heard from his friend Chuck, the same guy we had run into in the Channel Bowl diner. Turns out Chuck lives in the same building as Tom's buddy. That's how small Juneau is.

Tom was a great host. He's around 50 years old, a father of three, and an old protester from the 60s and 70s. He was a schoolteacher in the Alaskan bush before he decided to follow his brother's path to law school. He let us sleep in his bedroom, while he camped out in one of his kids' rooms. He helped us figure out where to go canoeing, gave us suggestions for local hikes, and even drove us out, one night, in a somewhat serious rain to do a short canoe trip after work. We checked out several spots which seemed too dangerous because of the wet weather.

Luckily, this last place we tried, an area about 10 miles out of Juneau near Spuhn I., had milder weather. Tom, wearing a dry suit, climbed into his kayak and we got into Tom's handmade fiberglass, seatless canoe. We had a great short paddle, and saw some eagles.

Tom says he wears a dry suit to be safe. Once, when he first arrived in Alaska more than 25 years ago, he was camping with a friend when he was caught by a flash flood. The two of them ended up clinging to something in the water when they finally passed out. They were rescued and Tom came to under a huge pile of blankets. All he could see was the blankets and he started panicking, wondering where his buddy was. They told him his buddy was next to him but Tom couldn't see him so he kept yelling. In his panic he tried to rub some sand out of his eye and ended up scratching the cornea. Finally he turned his head and saw his buddy and calmed down. That made him leery of the freezing Alaskan waters. We're pretty leery of them too.

Kathy was a great guide too. (See Kathy's Eagle Glacier Cabin Story) She took a day off from work for us, and toured us all around Juneau, to her favorite outdoor spots. The best one was Sunshine Cove, about 15 miles (?) out of Juneau. It's this gorgeous little cove where sometimes whales come. We didn't see whales, but we did get to play on this awesome rope swing--a very thick rope, like the kind used for docking cruise ships, tied to a tree near the edge of a cliff. You start out higher up on the cliff and within seconds you are more than 30 feet over the water! Eric went first and said it's the best rope swing he's ever been on. I went next and screamed the whole way on the first time out. Then I couldn't stop the thing and had to get a hand from Eric. (For the record, the other best rope swing we've seen is in Forest Hill in San Francisco. We spotted it on a hike with our friends Perrin and Chase. It's on a very steep hill, and you start out with your butt practically on the ground. But then as you swing up the hill drops off more than 25 feet beneath you. It's fantastically scary).

We made separate dinners for Tom and Kathy. Eric made Peanut Chicken for both of them and another night we had shells and broccoli. Kathy said it was the first time anyone had cooked for her in her own kitchen.

Finally, Tom said that his family was coming home on Thursday (Aug. 13), so we got ready to clear out of town. Eric looked up the ferry schedule on the internet. According to the new, updated schedule, there was a ferry out of town at around 2 p.m. We hiked up a mountain that morning, and then Tom used his lunch hour to drive us to the ferry. But the schedule was wrong--by 9 hours. The next ferry out didn't leave until 11 p.m. We ended up going back into town and futzing around some more.

Actually, the bad ferry schedule was a stroke of luck. It gave us another evening in Juneau, so we got to meet Barbara and John Thurston. Barbara is the niece of my friend Margaret. Barbara and John are both bike fiends. They were about to skip town to go to Vermont with their two-year-old, and they both had Bike Fridays (those $1500 bikes that collapse into suitcases so they can be checked as regular luggage on airlines). We got to check out Barbara's bike and we had a great barbecue with them. Then we rode our bikes to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry to Haines. (at 1am instead of 11pm).

Later in August, we'll come back to Juneau and do a wilderness canoe trip among some glaciers at Tracy Arm.next: Cousin Bob's farm in Haines, AK.

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