On the afternoon of 24 May 2015 “our” floatplane took off from the Gastineau Channel – the fiord adjacent to Alaska’s capital city.
Juneau is a surprising place, as is true of all of the low-lying, coast-adjacent terrain on southeastern Alaska’s “panhandle”.
This “strip” is not a cold place, by northern North American standards, at least.
Snow falls are infrequent, usually modest. Much of the natural vegetation is temperate rainforest.
In “the season”, cruise ships disgorge huge numbers of tourists onto Juneau’s tourist-tacky foreshore.
In terms of permanent residents, however, Alaska’s capital city is a small town; if it were in China, it would be a “village”.
Australia calls the likes of Mount Gambier, Albany, and Bathurst “cities”; Juneau is a little more populous than “The Mount”, but a deal less so than Albany or Bathurst.
Juneau is unique among capital cities in one crucial respect: no roads connect it to anywhere more than a few kilometres distant.
The mountains and glaciers just inland of “the strip” are so formidable that all visitors – and all supplies – reach Juneau via sea or air.
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