Alaska Adventure Day 7 Icy Point Strait

More croissants with our morning coffee and breakfast in the main dining room. We dined with two couples from California who entertained us with stories of their dogs. The husband was a dog person, and his wife, definitely not a dog lover—especially their dog, who she called “Cujo”. The dog evidently bites people—her children and grandchildren hate the dog. Her grandson suggested that she “put something in the dog’s food”. When she said, “Oh, honey, I couldn’t do that”, his response was, “I could”.

We docked at Icy Strait Point at 7 AM, but we weren’t in any hurry to tender in to the little town of Hoonah.

A Bit of History:
Located adjacent to the largest Tlingit settlement in southeast Alaska, the city of Hoonah was supported by the Hoonah Packing Company Cannery, built in 1912. When the cannery closed, the town was dying until the cruise ships came in and they have allowed the town to survive with a few tourist shops, fishing expeditions, whale watching, and grizzly bear searches. Hoonah means “Protected from the north wind” and it was the first sunny, warm day we’ve had on the trip.

Icy Strait Point Today:
Celebrity touts this stop as your “private island” experience- giving you a chance to “catch the allure of real Alaska”.

Exploring Hoonah
The cannery today is a museum showing the processing of salmon and housing local gift shops. One of the shop keepers was an Australian woman who met her Tlingit husband on the Internet, moved to Hoonah, and is now their “token Australian”. She told us that life in Hoonah is very expensive – milk at $6.50/gallon. The locals all go to Juneau to shop.

Salmon Trivia
* They spend 1- 7 years in the open ocean (salt water) before returning to their birth stream (fresh water) to spawn- then die.
Types of Salmon:
* King Salmon (Chinook) – The biggest, averaging 30 pounds
* Sockeye Salmon (Red) – Rich red color flesh, average 6-10 pounds
* Coho Salmon (Silver) – Average 8-12 pounds
* Pink Salmon (Humpy) – mainstay of commercial fishing, averaging 3-4 pounds
* Chum Salmon (Dog) – Traditionally used to feed sled dogs, average 7-18 pounds

We took a walk along the waterfront- put our cedar chip into the fire (some kind of Tlingit tradition) and Mom found some rocks and driftwood.

It was a nice little stop but didn’t hold our attention too long. We tendered back to the boat and had lunch in the Cosmopolitan Restaurant—fish and curry. With a free afternoon, we decided to try the Thallasotherapy Pool. It was wonderfully relaxing….our first real relaxing day so far.
It was our second formal evening—and we were ready for our lobster tail! We decided to splurge on another bottle of wine and enjoy our dinner: shrimp cocktail (of course!), cream of asparagus soup, Caesar salad, and broiled lobster tail. Dessert was Baked Alaska.

We had a different act in the Celebrity Theater – the “Award winning duo of Jason and Nolan Livesay”--- twins who play the violin and tried to make playing the violin for an hour interesting with little “twins” banter. Hardly worth the investment of time—but, amazingly, the audience gave them a standing ovation.

The midnight buffet was still to come, but we were pooped! So, we set our alarm and took a short nap. At 11:45 PM, we got to do a viewing of the buffet before people started to dig in. It was spectacular—huge ice sculptures, amazing patterns created with food, fruits and vegetables carved into birds and flowers, bread with amazing braids and a massive dessert table.