Today, we arrived in port at Icy Strait Point in Hoonah, AK. Our tour guide described Icy Strait Point as a “Wal-Mart”, just a shopping area and cruise port with no residents. Hoonah on the other hand boasts a population of 850 people and five times that many bears. The people of Hoonah shop in Juneau, a 15 minute plane or 3 hour boat ride. The boat runs twice a week. So you would arrive to shop on Monday and leave on the next boat on Thursday. They buy their groceries there to last about a month. Our tour guide, who was also the Hoonah volunteer fire chief, EMT, and lay pastor at the local church, said he has pallets of food shipped to him from Costco. Mail does not necessarily arrive every day, depending on wind speed and weather. They hunt for all their protein, whether it is deer from the woods or fish and crab from the ocean. It is a necessity for their way of life. They have multiple deep freezes to store all their food and can their own smoked salmon. There is no local dentist and only a clinic for mild illness. Hoonah depends on tourism for their way of life. Approximately 700,000 tourists visit Hoonah each year.

 In Hoonah, we booked a whale watching tour by Hoonah Travel Adventures. We were immediately rewarded with a nice sighting of a humpback whale. Out a little further we fell into a pod of around 15 Orca, or killer, whales. We were extremely lucky to see these. They travel fast and aren’t seen, especially in that number. Our luck continued as we got to see a full breech of an Orca whale and watched them play around the boat. A few even swam directly under our boat. On our cruise, we also saw jelly fish (which I didn’t know were in Alaska), sea lions soaking up the sun, sea otters, and a brown bear cub. It was a great Whale/Wildlife watch. After we got off the boat, we had a bit of time to spend in Hoonah, so we grabbed lunch at the local restaurant, The Fisherman’s Daughter. Jack and I got salmon tacos, Kate got fried salmon bites, and Dan got Halibut tacos. All very tasty!

After lunch, we headed back to Icy Strait Point for our second excursion. It boasts to be the “World’s Largest Ziprider” at  1530 Foot Long with a 1350 Vertical drop at 60 MPH. Dan and I were pretty hesitant, but the kids were so excited to do this. On the tram up the mountain, we were able to see the cables for the Ziprider going down the mountain. If we hadn’t bought our tickets, we would have all backed out, except Jack. We decided to stay the course…how bad could 1.5 minute ride be?

When we got up to the landing, we found out there would be a VIP riding in our group. The VIP turned out to be the Captain of our ship, Captain Thord. I figure if he was up here doing this, I could do it too. Coincidentally, Captain Thord was the captain of our very first Cruise on the Disney Fantasy back in 2015. We had to pick his brain on his favorite Disney cruise routes, so we could start planning the next one! Captain Thord has been with Disney Cruise Lines since it’s inception 25 years ago!

Back to the ride… It was amazing! We had a great time and enjoyed the scenery. After the ride, we did a bit of shopping, and went to the Crab House for Jack to get some crab legs. The crab we ate was Dungeness crab that caught this morning, cleaned, and served to us this afternoon. Dungeness crab is known for it’s sweet, succulent taste and melt in your mouth texture. I am not a big crab fan, but it was excellent. The kids devoured it and made sure to clean the shell of any crab meat.

I wish we would have spent more time in Hoonah. We had to get back for our ZipRider excursion, but Hoonah was more our style. It also feels good to support these local shop owners, restaurant owners, and excursion operators. They depend on us for their income. If we do this route again, we will go straight to Hoonah for the day.