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Alaska Mrs King came to talk about her cruise to Alaska. This is the largest of the states in the USA, has five time zones and was bought for a mere 2 cents per acre. This vast state is mountainous with beautiful forests and rivers and has more fjords than Norway. Glaciers make their way slowly down to the sea and make loud crashing noises as the ice disintegrates into the water. Cruise liners can only go to Alaska for about three months of the year as the rest of the year is very cold with temperatures dropping to minus 50° and the ice flows form. Their first call was at Ketchigan where the mountains come right down to the sea and houses are built over the water on stilts. Skagway was where the gold prospectors arrived in the 19th century and shops and saloons have been restored to show how they would have looked at that time. Having arrived there the prospectors still had an arduous trek of 500 miles over mountains to undertake to get to the Klondyke to pan for gold. There is a replica of the kind of shack in which men would have lived in cold, hard and forbidding conditions. Although there were thousands searching for gold, a mere handful actually became millionaires, and those who found gold often gambled or drank their money away or were robbed. Due to the mountains making travelling difficult many people own a light aircraft as this is the quickest way to get around and in Anchorage Mrs King saw a huge plane park, marked out like our car parks. There are more dog sled tracks in Alaska than roads and there is an annual dog sled race which takes 10 days and covers over 1,000 miles. The Alaskans take great care of their dogs and have sets of little boots to put on their feet to protect them, a set for travelling on ice and another set for stony terrain. This vast state has a population about twice the size of Portsmouth and many people are involved in the oil industry, where wages are high to attract workers to this state. We saw slides of breathtaking scenery unspoilt by man and it is not surprising that these cruises are becoming increasingly popular with holidaymakers. Margaret Deal |
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page last updated 5 MAY 2000 |
