The Way North: Five Routes up the Passage
Alaska beckons. Down at the Boat Haven, you hear its siren song, whispering through the shrouds of the schooners and seiners: It’s time to head North.
You wander the boatyard, absorbing the sights and smells of sawdust and fresh varnish and $200-a-gallon copper bottom paint. People are aching to get back on the water, stock up the galley, fire up that diesel and point the bow north by northwest.
So it has been for well over a century – that deep, maritime bond between Port Townsend and .jpg)
isolated fishing ports from Ketchikan to Dutch Harbor. As far back as John Muir and Jack London, adventure-hungry Americans have stepped aboard steamers or fishing boats or private yachts to explore the Inside Passage.
For some of our neighbors, it’s an annual migration. Each fall, they deliver the last of their salmon or halibut and limp south for the winter. They hunker down for a few months, wondering if they want to do it again, until that spring day when they hear that call of the North like the howl of a gray wolf. So they haul their boats for a coat of fresh paint, new zincs, a reconditioned prop… and the cycle is renewed.
I feel the same tug. I don’t own an Alaska boat, and it might be years between trips north, but I hear it all the same. My first trip was some 35 years ago, when a couple of pals and I took the Alaska ferry to Skagway, hiked the Chilkoot Pass and floated the Yukon River to D
awson City. Since then I’ve cruised the Inside Passage many times – via Alaska ferry, BC ferry, private yacht, commercial fishing boats and, yes, a big cruise ship.
It never gets old. From Admiralty Inlet to Glacier Bay, there’s enough grand geography and character and adventure to fill a lifetime. And I’m always amazed to learn how many people have lived here for decades, yet never cruised the Inside Passage, never laid eyes on those 5,000-foot mountain ranges partially submerged in 1,000-foot deep seas, never watched a humpback whale breach the surface of a deep, green fjord.
For all its remoteness, the Inside Passage is amazingly accessible. Most people, of course, see it from the deck of one of those gigantic cruise ships. For $1,000 and up, you can sit in a comfy, sip something pink, read some John Muir or Jack London, and watch the wilderness float by. I took a mini-cruise some years ago – along with some 2,000 other people, plus crew. When we steamed to the top of Desolation Sound, the clouds parted and treated us to one of the world’s most spectacular views. And I practically had it to myself, because most of my shipmates were down below, pumping quarters into slot machines.
There are better ways to cruise the passage – lots of them, in fact. Last year, I travelled with an old friend at the helm of his 46-foot Monk. We took two weeks to make the passage to Ketchikan, counting sidetrips up places like Kingcome Inlet, BC. Several times, we relaxed in wilderness hot springs that we had to ourselves, caught enough crab to gorge ourselves.
People make the trip in small craft, but most prefer a bigger boat – say, 30 to 40 feet or more. While most of the route is “protected,” it is also an uphill course, where most days are spent cruising into the teeth of the prevailing wind and seas. And there are three major crossings, where boats are exposed to the open ocean.
The most popular option is the Alaska ferry, the Columbia, which remains one of the great cruising bargains. It’s essentially a small cruise ship, which leaves Bellingham at 6pm each Friday, year round, steaming the Passage to Southeast Alaska. The one-way passenger fare is $240 to Ketchikan, which takes two full days; $325 to Juneau or Sitka, which is another full day. Kids 6-11 sail for half price, under six for free. (The vehicle fare is much stiffer -- $740 to Juneau. But what would you do with a car up there, anyway?)
The hitch, of course, is accommodations. There are a few cabins, but they’re pricey and they’re usually booked months in advance. So most travelers bring backpacking tents and inflatable mattresses, and set them up on the stern deck. I’ve always done it that way; the last time, I counted 80 tents, lashed to each other to keep them from blowing away in the slipstream.
There is a decent restaurant, a bar and a coffee shop on board. But no casino, no dancing girls. Entertainment is provided by the scenery, a good book, or the Alaskan in the next tent.
Then there is the BC ferry, another small cruise ship that runs between Port Hardy at the northern tip of Vancouver Island, and Prince Rupert, near the Alaska border. This route takes in some of the most spectacular stretches of the Inside Passage, with the added advantage of being able to transfer to other boats for travel into the BC fjords.
The boat leaves Port Hardy at 7:30 am every other day and arrives Prince Rupert at close to midnight, so travelers need to book accommodations at both ends in advance. The one-way fare is $125, and kids sail for half fare. The drive to Port Hardy takes a very long day, or there are fast buses that run from Victoria.
For Port Townsend folks, there may be yet another alternative. My most memorable cruise north was on an aging steel-hulled purse seiner run by a crusty Yugoslavian who agreed to let me tag along. Like most fishermen, he cruised straight through, day and night, without stopping, taking four days to reach Ketchikan. The skipper was short-handed; a couple of crew planned to catch up with him in Ketchikan. So, by the second day, the skipper had me standing a regular watch at the helm, steering this big, throaty seineboat through the night, guided by radar and the stars.
Each summer, a small fleet of commercial boats leaves Port Townsend and returns to the Alaska fishing grounds. Often they travel with few crew, or none at all. I’ve often wondered why they don’t sell berths to adventure-seeking passengers, who would rather see the Passage from the bridge of a purse seiner than from the windows of a floating casino.
