A weekend in Southeastern Alaska Day one.

On Friday morning, Stan and I got up early and caught a flight from Seattle to Juneau Alaska.  From there we immediately flew to Sitka. I apologize for some of these pictures.  Some were taken from about 30,000 feet in the air. Others were taken from the ground, but through dirty airplane windows and a few were taken through the mist.

As we approached Juneau, Stan spotted this volcano in the far distance. You can see the steam rising from it.

I had heard many stories about the Juneau airport being one of the most dangerous in the country.  It has a short landing /take off strip. When you take off, it looks like you are flying directly into this mountain.  You do make a right turn and follow a channel up and out of the valley.

This is one of the first sights that greets you when you land in Juneau.
The Mendenhal Glacier.

I really do like taking pictures from the air.  This is one of the sights between Juneau and Sitka.  You get a far different view of the world from the top :)

The harbor in Sitka with Mt. Edgecumbe in the background.

Fishing boats in Sitka Sound, with lighthouse in the background.

Russian Orthodox Church, built literally in the center of town. The street splits and goes around it.

A few steps short of 100 take you up to the site known as Castle Hill. It was at this spot that  Russia transferred ownership of Alaska to the US.

Sitka is the home of the amazing Sheldon Jackson Museum. Mr. Jackson was a Presbyterian missionary and the first General Agent of Education for Alaska.  In his travels, he collected an amazing collection of artifacts. The curator of the museum allowed and even encouraged taking pictures.
The above picture is of bags made from gut.

The museum artifacts cover all of the native cultures.  The Inupiats and the Yup'ik of the North west The interior Athabascans,  The Aleut and Alutiiq of the Aleutian Islands, the Peninsula, Kodiak Island and parts of the Peninsula. The Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian of the Northwest Coast. Sitka is included in the later group.
The bags shown here were used as common household items, holding food and tools, much as we use our Tupperware today.

An amazing beaded bag.  I would carry this today if I were so lucky to own one.

This basket was made of sea grass.

Waterproof hunting clothes.  The stitching in this was so amazing.  Even stitches and so close together. If one did not know better, one would think it was sewn on a Bernina.
Sorry for the glare.  Everything was, understandably, under glass. I felt lucky to be allowed to take pictures.

A birch bark canoe.

I just found this smoke stack interesting.  Do not have any history on it.  It was one one of the buildings in the Sheldon Jackson  school compound

The people on this boat must have just returned to the harbor. They were sorting fish.

Another view of the harbor with the lighthouse in the background.

The old High School.

I did not get the history of this building, but loved the architecture.

We did not have a car on this trip.  I would love to go back and rent a car so I could go further out. There is so much that we did not see. I would also like to get out of the downtown tourist area. There are not many roads here at all, but I think we could get a few miles out and take in even more of the breathtaking beauty.

I did not get a picture of the airport, but you landed on an island across a channel from Sitka and then drove across a bridge to reach the city.  We were lucky enough to catch a ride with a man whose son picked him up at the airport. They dropped us off on the main street with direction to the "best" breakfast spot in town.

We flew back to Juneau in the evening and spent the night there and walked Juneau on Saturday.  Those pictures next.