North to Alaska! (more photos)

Some more shots from our trip, this time from Alaska. Unfortunately, Blogger won't let me upload more - getting rather annoyed with this site!
Alaska was great, as always. The weather wasn't the best, cool and rainy most days, but the low cloud added a little mystery to some of the photos. This is my third time up here, and I love the wilderness, the wildlife, and landscapes.  As soon as I got home, I had a look at some more trips to Alaska, I'd really like to go to Denali and Kodiak.
We still encountered snow and ice on the White Rail Pass, and layers of winter woollies were a must. In Glacier Bay, we saw a few bergs, but they were small. The most thrilling part was seeing a grizzly walk along the beach! Other wildlife included seals, eagles, dolphins, and whales. A  mother and baby whale surfaced right next to our window on the ship, and the baby breached a couple of times!
Our ship, the HAL 'Volendam' was a medium-sized one, but with most of the features of the bigger ships. We enjoyed out Lanai, which opened onto Promenade Deck, so we could duck in and out easily for sightseeing. It was hard to leave the ship and fend for ourselves again...

Cruising up and down the Inside Passage, we saw stunning landscapes, with numerous waterfalls, sheer cliffs and endless forests. Modern civilisation up here has only a small foothold, thankfully. The First Nations peoples' culture has a strong presence, in stories and art.
We were lucky to hear a tribal woman tell us stories of her people.
There is also a living history of the gold rush here in Alaska, none more so than in Skagway, a frontier town at the foot of the Chilkoot Pass. Gold miners had to bring approx. 1 ton of equipment and supplies with them to survive on the goldfields, and lift them on the steep pass.

Stories abound, such as the one about "Soapy" Smith, a notorious conman during the gold rush. He was eventually shot by Frank Reid, and lies just outside the Goldrush Cemetery, while Reid, who also died, has a large grave marker.  And not far behind the graves is a beautiful waterfall!