All things Valdez

Yesterday while we were in rapture on the boat, Genevieve the 17 year old native made us fall in love with her town. She told how the fireworks would be down at the pond near the convention center (which by the way has a world famous playwright convention every year), and how there were three wonderful museums, biking trails, hiking trails that she loves, and a fish hatchery where you might see bears.

At 11 pm last night I stepped out to see the twilight fireworks. Competing locals were setting off their own rockets in several locations, and it was as American as you can get. So, with one of her predictions come true, we had to see a museum or two today, especially since we woke to a light rain.

We are now Valdez experts. Population, 4,454. No natives. There was never a native village here. Valdez was established in 1897 as a port of entry for goldseekers, who were told by promoters there was a port here to outfit them for the journey to the Klondike over the Valdez glacier. They arrived to nothing. Eventually a tent city was erected at the foot of the Valdez glacier for the sole purpose of making money outfitting gold seekers. It became a permanent town, and outfitters got rich while miners never did. A proposed railroad from Valdez to the copper discoveries in the Wrangells never materialized due to feuds between rival villages. The railroad eventually went to Cordova. Valez was maintained as a military outpost until the first road in the 1920's.

Then came Good Friday 1964, when the epicenter of the famous earthquake was near here in Prince William Sound. The town's dock was destroyed, a tsunami followed and 32 lives were lost. The townsite sank so low that high tides continued to flood the town, which was built on the terminus of a glacier and would never be stable in future earthquakes. In 1967, the town was relocated to the bedrock location it currently occupies and the remaining site was razed. The town became the southern terminus of the Alaskan pipeline, completed in 1977.

We love their town. After two museums and a halibut basket lunch, the sun came out, and I'll be darned if we didn't have to ride our bikes out their bike trail. We were thinking of going to the salmon hatchery to see the bears, but when I found out that was 25 miles round trip, I decided just a nice bike ride was fine. The sun was shining on the peaks again, Switzerland in Alaska, the breeze warm, the path smooth. I followed the path toward the now much retreated Valdez glacier, took a picture, and thought about all the men shuffling their supplies over the glacier chasing a dream that would never be.

Tonight Carl just took a photo of the scenery out the RV window. Looks pretty good to me.