I imagine those who once sailed these waters off the coast of southeast Alaska, as I watch and photograph a cruise ship sailing ahead of our own into the distance and space of an evening horizon.
These were the lands and waters of the Tlingit (pronounced Klin-git) people long before they were home to Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean, or Holland America lines. Other indigenous groups that called these waters, fjords, islands and sounds home included the Haida, Tsimshian and Eyak. Equally skilled with paddle and bow, they hunted and fished these places where now tourists by the thousands pull out cell phones and cameras to capture something native.
Could the native peoples, first nations as known in Canada, have imagined such huge floating vessels equipped with galleys, staterooms, casinos, bars and fine dining spaces? Could they conceive of the extravagance docking on shores of their homelands, passengers spilling forth to explore, shop, and go on excursions into the wild? Could they have fathomed the pallets of groceries even one such floating buffet might consume? The expanse in time and culture from these extremely different eras seems vast. Yet, here in common space these very different times and people collide. Alaska – the great land – has a history of human diversity that just keeps on diversifying.
In preparation for our cruise and my own exposure to Alaska I did some reading. James Michener’s Alaska was one volume, along with John McPhee’s “Coming into the Country”. Robert Service’s collected poems was a late edition recommended by a friend. I also revisited Jack London’s “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild” for good measure. The cumulative appreciation of such reading was the many cultures and peoples who had once called the land home. From the historic travelers of Asia’s land bridge, to the Aleutians, Athabaskans and Eskimos, this great land has known settlers of many stripes. The Russians, British and Americans would all lay some claim to this frontier. Evidence is seen in the settlements yet today. Names like Sitka, Ketchikan, and Juneau bespeak the influence of people from outside.
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