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My Alaska Photos - Celebrity Mercury 6/7/09

BluesCruise

By BluesCruise,
in Alaska

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BluesCruise

BluesCruise

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Yes, the mushers live in tents on the glacier, with 70 dogs, for the summer. Then they go back home (I think he said Whitehorse) for race training the rest of the year. I guess the summer tourist season is quite lucrative for them. The musher also said that they don't have puppies on the glacier because it's too much work for the few of them, and they like to acclimate the puppies to dealing with people at a slower pace.

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Disneyworld

Disneyworld

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Thanks for the pics. I played the video of your dog sledding and it drove my dog crazy!!!:p

The dog sledding is one thing I really would've loved to do, but just can't come out with the money. Oh well, I never thought I would go to Alaska,so at least I am getting to do something a lot of people only dream about doing.:)

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BluesCruise

BluesCruise

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Great photos! Did you get to see how the sea lions got up on the bouy? It seems like a high jump.

 

You can see in the one photo that the buoy is tipped to the side as a huge sea lion is flopping himself up there. We were watching as he did that, and several of the sea lions who were already on the buoy fell off while the big guy got on. It was comical to watch. It must be prime sunbathing real estate, and the big guy won.

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BluesCruise

BluesCruise

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Wow! Great job!

Thanks for sharing.

Looks like it wasn't too cold on the glacier ---- one man was wearing just a t-shirt!

 

I wish it had been colder, because the snow wasn't hard packed, and that meant we had to go slower than they would have gone on hard packed snow. It also meant harder work for the dogs, so we had to stop and rest them a couple of times. Those mushers are tough, and they can take a lot more cold than us tourists.

 

As an aside, I asked the musher if he had ever seen the movie "Eight Below", about sled dogs. He said he's rarely seen a movie, living so far out, but he reads alot. He's actually from Massachusetts, became enamored of dog sledding from watching it on TV, moved up north and started living his dream.

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BluesCruise

BluesCruise

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Thanks for the pics. I played the video of your dog sledding and it drove my dog crazy!!!:p

The dog sledding is one thing I really would've loved to do, but just can't come out with the money. Oh well, I never thought I would go to Alaska,so at least I am getting to do something a lot of people only dream about doing.:)

 

I wasn't convinced I wanted to visit Alaska until I found out I could go dogsledding. That's what made me book this cruise. I'm so glad the weather worked out so I could do it. I did so many things on this one trip that I can now tick off on my "bucket list"; flew in a helicopter, went up on a glacier, went dogsledding, ziplined, saw a bear in the wild, etc. Life is good.

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lilmiss

lilmiss

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Good job....Did you enjoy the whale watching trip with Harv and Marv ??? Did you sell lots of whales ???

Wow...just played your whale video...amazing and you really filmed this from your cabin window ???

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BluesCruise

BluesCruise

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Actually, we didn't see a lot of whales. We'd see a spout, race over to it, then see a tail (a deep dive), and wait for it to resurface (but you never know when or where it might come up again). We didn't see a whale breaching at all. But I had a great time on the boat, in good weather, with great scenery, so I wasn't terribly disappointed. I had done whale watching in Dominica on another cruise a few years ago, so this wasn't my first time.

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