On a Boat - The Inner Passage
We gave it another try – after the Alaska Marine Highway System failed us at the beginning of the trip,
we tried it again for our return to Seattle. This time for a much shorter route: from Haines to Alaska’s
capital Juneau and from there to the Canadian Prince Rupert, which is midway up British Columbia.
The passage from Haines to Juneau was one of the most scenic parts of our trip. Like around Haines
itself, the whole trip was within a huge fjord surrounded by steep mountains that were covered by
glaciers. In the water, we could also spot two whales for a brief moment, before they started diving
again. This passage is definitely a must for an Alaska traveler.
The capital Juneau is tucked into a mountain range which separates the coast from the main continent and
can only be reached by air or sea – there isn’t any road connection. This place looked super beautiful;
however, we didn’t have time to visit the city due to our short transfer window from one boat to the
other.
The first boat trip to Juneau took us about 5 hours, but the second one was much longer: starting in
Juneau in the afternoon, it would take us the whole night and the full next day on the boat to reach
Prince Rupert. As there was basically nothing important to do on this long journey, we spent the next 30
hours on the boat super relaxed. We had several beverages on deck while enjoying the landscape passing
by, took a shower in our cozy cabin, ate a lot of food in the surprisingly cheap and good boat cantina,
and enjoyed the ride.
We had beautiful weather almost all the way; however, at our final destination Prince Rupert, it was
pouring rain on us. We arrived there delayed at around 11:30 at night, had to wait another hour to get
across the Canadian border. Super tired, we drove out of the city through the rain to the first parking
spot and slept right away in the car. That was actually a surprisingly relaxing sleep.