Alaska Summer Solstice Cruise - Dutch Harbor, Alaska

Cruise Day 10

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Today we’ll be in Dutch Harbor, a name that has become well known because of the TV show, “The Deadliest Catch”.  We are far out in the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea and are as close to Japan as we are to our home.  The town isn’t actually called Dutch Harbor as that is, as the name suggests, a harbor.  We are docked in the town of Unalaska on the island of Unalaska.  Where we are docked actually on Amaknak Island that is connected to Unalaska by a bridge

Dutch Harbor is all the way down where the red marker is in the bottom left hand corner.

This is a more detailed look at the Aleutians.  They stretch 1200 miles from the mainland of Alaska down into the Bering Sea

The town of Unalaska.  The red marker is where we are docked and as you can see, quite a ways from the center of town.

We woke up to a foggy and overcast morning and found it pretty cold when we went out on our balcony.  We weren’t scheduled to arrive until noon, so we had a leisurely morning, but around eleven we began our sail into the harbor, and it was very scenic.  The fog started to lift, and the skies were a little brighter, so it made for some interesting layers of fog and rugged mountains as we made our way into Dutch Harbor.

Dutch Harbor’s main business is fishing and has the largest fishing fleet in the United States.  We docked among a couple of freighters and fishing boats and were quite a ways from the main part of the town.  The weather had improved and most of the fog had lifted, but we still saw only occasional sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Sailing into Dutch Harbor.

 

We docked right behind that freighter.

We had the freighter at one end of the ship and this fishing boat at the other.

Dutch Harbor was a pretty rough and tumble town with very little law enforcement as late as the 1980's.  There was a notorious bar in town that was known for fights and even killings as the crews of the fishing boats, flush with money and ready to cut loose after months at sea got pretty rowdy.  At some point the locals had enough and the bar was shut down and they lobbied for extra law enforcement.  Today the building that housed the bar is something else and the town has a robust police department.  This story was told to us by our guides today and I expect it might have been embellished a bit, but I have researched it a bit and it did happen.

There is not much tourist infrastructure here and there is only one shuttle (at a pretty high price) and several taxis available, so most people that wanted to go into town had to walk two and a half miles to get there.  Luckily for us, a member of our Cruise Critic Roll Call had contacted the Museum of the Aleutians and found that they did tours.  Normally they only do small tours of four or fewer people, but Thomas, the head of the museum, wanted to accommodate us and arranged for two vans that held fourteen passengers each for the ship's arrival and our tour, and the best news, they would pick us up at the dock. To accommodate as many people as possible, they scheduled two tours, one at 12:30 and the other at 2:45.  This allowed 56 of us to go on the tours which was great as the ship didn’t have any tours, so most everyone else was on their own.

Val and I were scheduled for the 2:45 tour so we were able to have lunch before it was time to leave.  While we were eating lunch, we saw an eagle perched on the top of a light pole, so after finishing our lunch, I grabbed my camera with the long lens and went down to an outside deck hoping it would still be there and surprisingly it was.  I was able to shoot quite a few pictures until it gave a screech and flew off.  I tried to track it in flight and take pictures, but I didn’t do a good job and most of them were pretty blurry.

By this time, it was time to leave and find our vans, so Val and I packed up our stuff and left the ship.  It was still pretty cool in the upper forties, but not much wind so it wasn’t bad at all.  We found a group milling around who turned out to be part of our group.  The vans weren’t allowed on the dock, so we made our way to the port gate and loaded up and were on our way.  Thomas himself drove one of the vans and our driver and guide was named Alex.

We visited several scenic spots and saw the remains of several World War II installations as Unalaska played a prominent role during the war defending Alaska from the Japanese.  Eagles are becoming more common, and we saw quite a few more as we drove around.  We drove back into town and visited a historic Russian Orthodox Church and then around some of the fish processing facilities they have here.  The crab industry was the prominent catch here at one time, but they have mostly disappeared and now the fishing is mostly for pollack, a member of the cod family.  

Some of the remnants of World War II.

An eagles nest with an eagle in it way at the top.  The photo was taken through the van window, but you get the idea.

Looking across the bay at our ship.

This area supplies much of the pollack for the world, and it is evident as there are huge stacks of refrigerated containers everywhere for shipping fish.  During the busy fishing time, the population of the area grows by several thousand as people come in for jobs on the fishing boats, but mostly in the processing plants.  Next to the plants there are barracks where the seasonal workers are housed.

Our final stop of the day was the Museum of the Aleutians where we were able to walk through the museum and then visit the gift shop. For such a small community the museum was very nice and well worth a visit.  Val bought some gifts to bring home, and I bought my first t-shirt of the trip.  From there, it was back to the ship where we arrived with time to spare before the all-aboard time.  I didn’t know what to expect from this tour, but it turned out to be really nice and Val and I both enjoyed it.  Thomas and Alex were both very knowledgeable about the history and of course everyday life on the island, so their commentary was very interesting. 

It was nearly 5:30 when we got back to our room and the ship left a little after 6:00 so we spent a little time out on the balcony, but it had gotten a lot cooler so we came in and relaxed until it was time for dinner.

We had another nice dinner and my bad luck continued in the casino while Val had some good luck tonight.  We came back to the room and read for a while and then called it a night.  The next two days are sea days so we will be able to relax and take it easy before arriving in Nome.