We woke up to another cloudy, rainy day but we were inside a bus for the morning. We were picked up by a school bus for a tour of the town of Valdez. Now I must tell you that we had a very nice bus driver and a fantastic guide. They both have lived her a long time and they were very funny and informative.
Valdez is not very large it seems but it has a population of 4,498. There is actually Old Town and New Valdez. The reason for that is that the original town was built on very unstable ground and on Good Friday of 1964 there was a 9.2 earthquake that lasted for 5 min. and the ground turned to mush. A series of local waves caused underwater landslides which swallowed the wharf and 33 people lost their lives. The town was very damaged but the waterfront was destroyed. Due to the instability of the ground the powers that be relocated the town 4 miles west. There is nothing left of the Old Town. It is all grown up in bushes and trees but the stories were interesting and we enjoyed a good look at an eagle sitting on a light post.
While going there we went past the ships they would use for any future spills that may occur in the area. They are anchored off shore and have 42 miles of oil booms to contain an oil spill. They have sent some of it to the gulf for the problem there.
They also took us out to the fish hatchery release point to see the salmon but we had all been there the night before waiting for "The Bears" which did not show. We continued on to the Aleyska Terminal at least as far as we could go. Up until 9/11 they gave tours of the area but no more. We had seen it from the cruise ship at a distance but we did get a little closer. We had a real good look at the #1 dock although it is not used and they did not build 2 or 3 but they did build and do use 4 and 5. We also had a view of some of the large holding tanks. The property that it was all built on was owned by a local family--don't you know they must have made out OK.
They also have their own glacier so they drove us out to where it is located and you could see hunks of ice which have broken off of it but it has receeded and is hiding in a valley--it is the Valdez Glacier. We did find it interesting that the two picnic tables had no carving of initials in them but people love to shoot holes into all the signs in the state.
They drove us around downtown to point out different business', museums and government buildings. Valdez thanks to the money they have received due to the oil spill and the state is one of the richest towns in Alaska. Their economy is built upon the oil industry, the fishing industry, government and tourism (mining the tourists). But they know that the oil industry is slowing because they used to have 25 oil tankers per week come into port but now it is down to about 6 per week. They are trying to get a gas pipeline built but it hasn't happened yet.
For a number of years they had extreme skiing going on in the area and people would fly in from around the world to ski straight down the mountains but it was extremely dependent upon volunteers and kind of petered out but they are trying to begin it again. They also have a Mother's Day fly in and they can get as many as 400 airplanes come in for the weekend.
After dropping us off at the end of the tour most of us went to find food at one of the local hot spots followed by trying to hit the local museums and seeing some footage of the earthquake caught on film. Unfortunately we also had to go back to the coach and cook something for the potluck supper which we were having that night. It was kind of tricky finding the location of the potluck but all the food was good and a good time was had by all. We also had our briefing for the coming days journey.
Some of us were dog tired and went home to clean up our kitchens and get our coach put together for the next morning and go to bed while some others went back out to find "The Bears" which of course they did. Needless to say I was disappointed but I was in bed by 8:30 and I never do that. That's it. See you tomorrow.
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