It’s bad luck to be singing about Pirates what with us mired in this unnatural fog
And fog it is…lying over us like a blanket as we make our way to Juneau. It is pouring rain today; by the time I made my way to my destination I was doing a pretty imitation of a drowned puppy.
What people really don’t realize when they book this route is that this is normal weather for this area. Alaska is home to one of the largest – if not the largest – temperate rain forests in the world: The Tongass National Forest. They get only slightly less rain than the Amazon. The thing is that here? The rain isn’t warm. It’s icy and cold and drips down the back of your neck like tiny unpleasant icicles.
And this is the summer weather, people who live here consider this pleasant weather. To be honest it always confuses me somewhat when people come on an Alaska cruise and complain about the weather – it’s the north, what did you expect? Tropical sunshine? I mean really, how silly can you get.
And yet, those of us who do the Alaska season regularly learn to like ice cream in the cold, figure out where the best coffee and hot chocolate places are in every port, and learn that hiking in the rain isn’t necessarily a bad thing (though I declined to join the 6-hour hike that most of my friends were embarking on in Skagway this week – there are limits to being a groupie!)
But lord it’s messy out there…