Six days of bear viewing at Alaska’s McNeil River State Game Sanctuary

Posted on November 15, 2018 by Bryan Keith

Generally you have to be pretty lucky to get a bear viewing permit for McNeil River.  We considered ourselves especially lucky last year since we had never even applied before.  However, the late season permits, blocks S and T, are the easiest to get (because bear counts are the lowest), and the tides were such that last year’s T-Block permits looked to be three-day permits instead of the usual four-day permit.  Even though we “won” the lottery, we gave serious thought about whether it’d really be worth it to visit McNeil River during T-Block last year.  We’re glad we did it.  Bear viewing at McNeil River was a fantastic experience, the most amazing wildlife viewing I’ve ever done (seeing the gorillas in Mgahinga NP in 1998 is now second…).

P8220037 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Taking care of kids in Juneau and Anchorage

Posted on November 5, 2018 by Bryan Keith

After the cruise, Kevin and Elise returned straight away to Anchorage to get back to work, leaving Jasper and Zoë in our care for a few days.

I figured there are some great education opportunities for kids in Juneau.  You could learn about Native American Tlingit culture at the Sealaska Heritage Institute.  The highlight is a beautiful, hand-carved full-size clan house completely inside the museum building.  Here’s the front of the clan house — you’d typically expect to find this outside:

IMG_20180813_160903 by bryandkeith on flickr

and check out this amber pillar in front of a stunning backlit glass and metal screen:
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Ketchikan to Juneau: a cruise

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Bryan Keith

Five years ago my family got together to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in San Miguel de Allende.  For 55 we met this year in Ketchikan for a cruise to Juneau.  We spent a week on a 100-person ship, well-stocked with toys for outdoor activities.  We went sea kayaking most days, and there were also options for forest walks, shore walks, zodiac tours, and stand up paddle boarding.  I went to yoga every morning, and some of us even went snorkeling one day — in Alaska, yes!

20170102_230714A_snap by bryandkeith on flickr
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Ketchikan’s totem poles

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Bryan Keith

Four weeks after Ferda and I were learning about cemeteries in Tana Toraja, we found ourselves in Ketchikan learning about totem poles.  Totem poles are not for religion, and they’re not worshiped.  They’re built to tell stories.  Just as stories can be divided into different themes, there are a number of different kinds of totem poles.  There are totem poles to honor people and totem poles to shame people.  There are mortuary totem poles to hold someone’s ashes and heraldic totem poles that have village or family crests or shields.

We saw a number of totem poles scattered around the town of Ketchikan, like these three:

Raven Stealing the Sun Totem Pole by bryandkeith on flickr
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A short layover in İstanbul

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Bryan Keith

İstanbul — what a fun city to visit!  This time it was only for a few hours during a (rather long) layover on our flight from Makassar to Antalya.  A friend recently had a six-hour layover in İstanbul (from the same airport we did, Atatürk) and asked if that was enough time to actually get into the city and see something.  We decided it probably wasn’t.  Well, for the record, our layover this day was 11 hours, and we ended up with about six hours of tourist time in the center of the city.

We started by taking the first train of the morning (leaving the airport at 6am) to Eminönü (change trains at Zeytinburnu). We enjoyed views of the early morning light on Yeni Camii and on the larger Süleymaniye Camii on the hill behind it before stopping nearby for a börek breakfast at a small outdoor café.  Nice to be back in Turkey!

IMG_20180712_070155 by bryandkeith on flickr
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