Adventures in Alaska!

You're right, this doesn't have much to do with herbal medicine or skincare! It does, however, have everything to do with wellness from a different perspective..."soulcare"! I have always wanted to come here, Alaska, and when one of my daughter's found out, she blessed me with this adventure to join her family in Sitka for a week. It is such amazing beauty! Hanging out with my family amidst this tranquil beauty has been a much-needed respite for my soul.

According to a local museum, this area was originally home to the Tlingit people. The totem poles they created tell a story, a reminder of an event, or a marker for an event. The Tlingit people gifted a 60-foot totem to Alaska in the early 1900's, which, unfortunately only about 5 ft remains. In the 1600-1700's the Russian fur trappers discovered the sea otter, and hunted them to extinction in this area. About 130 sea otters were brought down from the Aleutian area in the late '50's and have now repopulated this area.

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We are now on day 5 of this journey, having left Tennessee Friday and traveling most of the day. The sun likes to hang around here a lot this time of year, so it's taken some time to get used to sleeping in daylight! Last night I was able to actually stay up until 11 p.m. and it was fairly dark, not totally, but the best I've seen yet!

This whole area is comprised of many tiny islands, some only inhabited by birds, which are the result of volcanic activity. Sunday my son-in-law got us a whale watching tour, and that was stupendous! We went about 20 or so miles out with no success at seeing whales. We did go by a volcanic island, St. Lazaria, which is home to about 500,000 seabirds. About then one of the captain's friends radioed him that the group of 8 whales he'd been searching for was spotted close to town, eating. So we high-tailed it back over there and what an exciting afternoon that was!

We followed them for about 2 hrs, and at one point they actually came toward us! These group of grey whales were doing what's called "bubble net feeding," which how I understood it, is they dive under the herrings and blow bubbles, creating a "bubble net" around the fish. This confuses the fish, thinking they are caught in a net, and they try to escape by rising. The whales can then open their mouths as they rise to the surface, easy dinner! We were able to get quite a few pictures of them. So amazing!! After this, the captain took us to another island where the second largest eagles' nest in America can be found. I did forget to mention, eagles and ravens are the common birds here. What a wonderful day!

Yesterday, my daughter and I had a very peaceful, relaxed day together. We were told there is 1 bear per every 1.5 miles here, so were a little wary of hiking, but we did some exploring and wound up at the Alaska

"Nevermore"!

Raptor Center, a home for injured and disabled raptors, There were several eagles injured either by power lines or gun shots that would not ever fly again, and that was quite sad as they obviously wanted to. There was also a 4-wk old eagle chick we watched on livestream. A few owls and a golden eagle resided there also. We shall see what today will bring!

Well, day 6 and day 7 have come and gone. We did some shopping in this quaint town, visited the bishop's house, built in the 1840's, which was a very interesting tour. We went to the Russian Orthodox Church on day 7, which was originally built in 1840 something, but was rebuilt in 1969 after a fire destroyed it. There are only 4 original Russian buildings left in SE Alaska, the bishop's house being one of them. We also went to the Russian Orthodox cemetery. Supposedly the Russian Princess Maksutoff was buried there, but many of the graves were so old the markings had faded. Some the markers had toppled over and some were wooden markers, unable to read any longer. It was a very interesting place. There seemed to be no apparent rhyme or reason as to where the graves were placed, and the oldest we saw was 1857.