I’ve just returned from another Alaskan adventure. My husband, brother and I come to Anchorage every
summer to visit my mother who lives in an assisted living group home around the
corner from my sister’s place.
Usually our vacation is filled with a variety of scenic activities interspersed with family time. The highlights of this trip are our visit to Seward, a town in the Kenai Peninsula, and the discovery that Mom, who has Alzheimer’s, is winning at the computer
memory games!
Seward, with its subarctic climate, is a small coastal town with
a population of approx. 2,500 located 130 miles south of Anchorage. It is known for its beautiful Kenai Fjords National
Park which contains one of the largest ice fields in the United States. These
ice fields are the source of numerous glaciers, including Bear Glacier, it’s
largest.
This trip we decide to book a whale watching and
nature tour that leaves from Seward. The
weather is perfect with blue skies, sunshine, and a calm sea. On board ship, we roll up our pant legs and
quickly shed layers of warmth in
exchange for the sun’s penetrating rays.
Here in Alaska, strangely enough the sky seems closer, as if you could almost reach up and touch it.
A brilliant sun with 20 plus hours of daylight lessens the need
for sleep. Despite the fact that Alaska is one of the coldest ice and snow
covered states in the union, spring here brings a surprising explosion of life gushing
forth from land, water and air, as if it has never known the darkness of
winter. It is one of those magical places
where the spirit of the land has not been squelched by man.
As our tour boat pulls out of the harbor, we spot a humpback
whale playing in the waters of the fjords close to shore where the depth of the
waters suddenly plunge 1000 feet. The
curve of its black body rises gracefully out of the water to give us a brief
glimpse before submerging again.
A short distance off, sea otters spin and twirl on the surface
of the sparkling sea. But mostly, they
float on their back with tail tucked between their hind legs, letting the currents
carry them where they will. We watch as one
of the otters cracks open the hard shell of a clam with its long fang- like
teeth.
Out of the sea jut large walls of jagged rock that house bald
eagles, puffins, common murre, to name a few, as well as families of sea lions,
their floppy golden bodies basking on the sun drenched rock. We are close enough to hear their horn- like
calls as two of them appear to be sparring, over a female perhaps?
We see plenty of common murre. The common murre is a medium size water bird, penguin-like in
appearance only much smaller. It spends
most of its time at sea, but nests along the rocky cliffs when it is time to
breed. However, the
puffins are one of my favorites. We joke
that they look like flying potatoes with their short stubby bodies and short
wing span.
Then suddenly, without warning, a torrent of birds descend upon our boat. If
you’ve ever watched the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, you’ll have an inkling
of what I’m talking about. However,
instead of instilling horror and doom, there arises a cacophony of
sound and choreography unmatched by even Hollywood at its best.
Out of nowhere it seems the birds appear, swooping,
flapping, gliding, cawing, in swarms overhead and on the surface of the sea in circular patterns and from all directions, enveloping our boat in all their
bird glory. It is a spectacle like
nothing I have ever witnessed. One
of our nature guides tells us that in the sixteen years she has worked for the
tour company she has witnessed this magical event only twice. I guess it was our lucky day.
One of our last stops on the tour is Bear Glacier. Temperatures begin to drop as we near the
glacier and we bundle up in our gloves and hats. The glacier is 13 miles long with large chunks of ice berg floating in the lake at its base. At this point we are almost completely surrounded
by snow capped mountains. All is quiet on
deck, as we take in the breathtaking view of nature’s grandeur.
Four years ago when we brought Mom up to Alaska to live, her Alzheimer’s
was progressing rapidly. Each successive
year, we marvel at how much better Mom seems to be than the year before. She could barely sign her name and now this
time we notice a pad of paper in her room where she keeps a journal of sorts,
jotting down items of interest throughout her day. We are surprised at how much her handwriting
has improved. And she is steadier on
her feet too, not requiring a walker anymore.
This is almost unheard of with Alzheimer’s, a progressively debilitating
disease.
We continue to speculate why Mom’s health is improving and
wonder if it’s not the pure arctic air, or the intensity of chi (vital life
force energy) here, or the loving attention of my sister and Mom’s
caregivers. Maybe it’s a mixture of all
the above. How wonderful that we will
have her in our lives a little longer. I’d
like to think perhaps it is all part of the magic and majesty of life in Alaska.
