A Bitter Sea Dog’s Guide to Surviving Alaska – A Celebrity Millennium PHOTO REVIEW

As with most Alaskan cruises, the Millennium had a resident naturalist onboard who hosted a series educational programs throughout the ship’s voyage along the Inner Passage. Ours was technically a “destination speaker”, rather than a full-fledged certified naturalist, but you would never guess it given the incredible depth of mind-numbing detail he went into during his talk. His name was Mickey Richardson, but, like a cruise-line A-star, and not unlike a Cardi B, he preferred to go by his rock-star stage name, MickeyLive.

As a presenter, Mr. Richardson used PowerPoint slides, pictures, drone footage and mostly his outdoor-voice to detail for us the wondrous sites we’d probably, in our wretched patheticness, overlook were it not for his experienced, but uncertified, guidance. During our Hubbard Glacier visit, he narrated from the ship’s bridge, droning on endlessly about various densities and colors of ice and what they meant geologically, all the while ignoring the listing of the ship as passengers ran from one side of Deck 4 to the other for a view.

But what irked me most about MickeyLive, besides the insidious and unnecessary level of detail of his shows, was his reliance on a signature catch phrase: “This is the REAL Alaska” - which he used to punctuate virtually every segment of his talk. To me, by maintaining his myopic-focus exclusively on Alaska’s menu of natural offerings, he was essentially disparaging the other day-to-day, albeit more pedestrian, but no less-dramatic, stark “realities” of the state.

So what follows underneath this photo of MickeyLive doing his Hubbard Glacier pre-game on the stage of the Celebrity Theater, is our very own WinksyDead™ syllabus on The real REAL Alaska.

Alaska is a lot of things. For one, it’s all the things we know it would be from what we’ve read: massive, wild, rugged, natural and truly the last frontier. But it’s more than that. Let’s try expensive for one – everything from that sundry item you forgot to pack to a tank of gas to the cost of a breakfast special at the fast-food place are super-inflated far beyond our lower-48 standards. If you’re budgeting for an Alaskan trip, don’t forget to basically double your out-of-pocket estimate. ‘Cause that’s the Real Alaska.

It’s remote, so expect everything to take longer. They literally shut-down roads linking major cities for half-an-hour at a time to do repairs. Our land tour guides liked to joke, there are two seasons in Alaska, winter and road construction. So don’t believe your GPS’s arrival estimate when you’re planning to travel by highway.

At one point our motor coach got flat tire. No one in the area, not even Mama Bear’s family, carried a replacement tire with them and it would take a couple of days to get one trucked-in. Fortunately, our coach had a full-size working spare, not a doughnut, that our driver had to change, with great effort, herself. That’s the Real Alaska.

And for a state that suffers intolerably frigid temperatures 8-months out of the year, they sure have a robust and visible homeless population. You’ll find nomads camping on the sidewalks and in the parks of all the cities. And there’s definitely an endemic methamphetamine problem. One piece of graffiti I read in a veteran’s park read, “EVERYONE does meth here” under which was scrawled “Please leave me your dealer’s contact info.”

And let’s not even talk about the availability of bathroom facilities…

Other realities you should be aware of in Alaska: The wildlife. The cruise brochures paint a bucolic landscape that’s teeming with moose, bear and majestic bald eagles. And it’s not like you won’t see these creatures. But after you get past the initial thrill of seeing your first, the experience is all pretty much downhill from there.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier tale, by day-four, spotting fauna from the motor coach window becomes more of a chore than anything else. What you see is often from quite a distance and usually only fleetingly. After a while, the signs warning us about various local animal threats became more interesting to view than actually spotting the wildlife itself.

Finding usable wi-fi hotspots was also a HUGE challenge. Most times, the signal is not strong enough to handle phone calls. Other connections won’t allow you to upload pictures to social media. One of the most humorous scenes was the lobby of one of our overnight lodges during the land tour which was virtually wall-to-wall with guests all glued to their screens, catching up on emails, because it was the only viable hotspot on the property!

Also, password-free wi-fi is pretty difficult to find, even in the metro areas. So don’t expect to glom signal by standing outside a local Starbucks. You’ll need to know the password almost everywhere wi-fi’s available. This includes cafes and restaurants.

Sadly, conditions once aboard the Millennium didn’t get much better. Though we had unlimited wi-fi packages, connection speeds were noticeably slugglish, with uploading pictures taking an excruciating amount of time and often requiring multiple attempts.

One other reality that you need to get used to is the fact that although you’re in this remote, mostly unpopulated region, once you get a few cruise ships in town, things can get more congested than Times Square! For the most part, our ship kept to a timetable that had us leaving and arriving at different times than other visiting tours. And we ended up being the only ship in Icy Strait Point, probably the most remote of the ports, so that was enjoyable.

That said, the Millennium itself was in reasonably good shape, despite seeing the occasional maintenance issue like the one pictured below. And the crew was very good, though we’ve noticed a recent trend where they’re not empowered to do anything other than supply a pat answer. Once you want them to go beyond that, they get flustered and your inquiry goes unanswered.

One place we really felt the Millennium really dropped the ball this time was in food quality. Everyone in our party of four noticed it. Typically, we’ll be on a cruise where the buffet is sketchy, but the main dining room is good. Or vice-versa. But on this cruise, meals in both venues were mediocre.

A usual standby, pizza, also failed to deliver on this voyage. Flat and flavorless. The cheese melted into a solid thick-mass under the heat lamps. Despite the fact the pies were being made fresh right there. Princess continues to be the only cruise line producing a decent pizza at sea.

We enjoyed dinner at the Tuscan Grille one night, and while the food quality was okay, the service level was surprisingly irregular. Throughout the cruise, we kept getting the feeling we were dealing with a new wait staff, that hadn’t quite gotten their routines down yet.

While we don’t do much in the way of food porn, here are two shots that typify our culinary experience aboard the ship. And sadly, they are quite non-porn in nature.

The first shot is of a cup of hot chocolate Mrs. Winks ordered from the café one chilly morning. Upon drinking it, she found a glob of thick chocolate congealing at the bottom of her saucer, rather than mixed sufficiently into the drink itself. To the right, you can see the comfort food classic, chicken pot pie, which was served in a thin pastry and was very soupy. Not very comforting at all. Now, that’s the REAL Alaska.

Coming up next: Dog Sledding with Mrs. Winks

Love the Wink's reviews and photos, belly laughs over your non-porn food photos!

Great review and photos!

Again great reading, thanks for keeping me amused on a Sunday morning

Love your writing style & looking forward to more

Icy Strait Point only allows one ship in at a time. Very smart of them.

Thanks for giving the "reality" point of view. I have always thought of Alaska as sort of America's fridge out in the garage, you know where you keep the extra beer and the pizza rolls (a good thing; ok, actually it's

a Dennis Miller joke). There are plenty of places in the world that look different once your there; Hawaii has the same issue as Alaska with huge homeless numbers. Go to the pyramids in Egypt; they look different when you turn your head a bit and see the KFC and garbage everywhere. Even the Alamo in San Antonio is 35 yards from a JC Penny.

Keep up with the great review....

I did not realize that there was a large homeless issue. What do they do in the COLD months?

Keep it coming; great review!

Aw, Mickey was one of our favorite parts of our Alaska cruise. If you get on his ship, you are lucky indeed. We are nature fans though, and prefer somewhat active vacations though, so our styles fit well.

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We are waiting for the dog sledding

First of all, please accept our apologies for the lengthy interruption between posts. PTSD is nothing to take lightly, and while we haven’t gone to the doctor for a proper diagnosis yet, everyone who knows Mrs. Winks reports she’s not been her chipper self ever since returning from that wretched dog-sled shore excursion up in Skagway.

We’re talking night terrors where she whimpers in her sleep and appears to run in place, panic attacks while watching Puppy Chow commercials and light incontinence - which has required us to lay out housebreaking wee-wee pads and occasionally whacking her on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper.

As you can imagine, it’s been terribly difficult for her to gather her thoughts about that day and put them down on paper, and even now, despite her best efforts, I’m not sure we’ve patched together the full story for you. So again, apologies for the delay.

I have thicker skin, some would say more jaded, and would have no trouble intrepidly recounting the lurid details of this excursion. But I didn’t end up going on the sled ride. I actually stayed back on the ship, feigning a sudden onset of the Norovirus and taking the opportunity to journal and catch-up with Momma Bear. I was the lucky one. I was spared the horror that these three others - Mrs. Winks and the Brads – were subjected to.

The Millennium pulled gracefully into the rustic city of Skagway that misty morning and despite the dampness, everyone was excited “to go see the puppies.” Everyone except me. Most of you think I’m a bitter old sea dog, but I actually have a hugely empathetic heart… for exploited fellow cruisers, yes, but also for captive and abused animals (although the two populations really aren’t all that different when you come down to it).

In the Caribbean, I don’t attend that cruel spectacle known as “swimming with the dolphins” and north of the 49th parallel, I saw no reason to coerce a team of tightly-leashed canines into pulling someone of my girth around on a sled, on dirt trails no less, and justifying it as part of their summer training.

Dog sledding is the official state sport of Alaska. It’s taken very seriously, and like horseracing in the lower 48, it’s controlled by a cabal of wealthy, and very competitive, powerful interests. It’s an industry. And just as the stable hands in Kentucky do, the trainers here at these dog camps assure you that the animals have been bred for the sport, are well taken care of, and love doing it. Much in the same way a jihadist has been bred to hate Americans and loves being a suicide bomber. The truth is, they simply don’t know any other way.

Interestingly enough, under current Alaska law, sled dogs are exempt from state animal cruelty protection. That’s because they’re legally classified as livestock, not pets. Wow, purposely exempted from the state’s animal cruelty laws? Isn’t that convenient, I mean, curious?

Some Googling will lead you to a number of horror stories that explain what measures must be taken to keep this expensive sport economically viable, even if those methods include brutal euthanasia and aren’t exactly cruise-brochure friendly. PETA’s number one “make a difference” action point when it comes to Alaskan dog sledding is to boycott these tourist sled rides and kennel visits. They're simply marketing opportunities for the industry to white-wash your impressions of the sport. But hey, what do those killjoy, snowflake, tree-huggers at PETA know, anyway?

I could see that detailing my ethical stance and canine-centric conspiracies to my insouciant traveling companions wasn’t going to work in the middle of their ethics-free vacation. Unlike me, they had left their moral-compasses sitting at home. So, to extract myself from the mushing excursion, I spent longer-than-usual amounts of time in the stateroom bathroom, grunting and groaning, and then sheepishly confessed at breakfast that I believed I’d come down with a case of the dreaded Norovirus. And no, I didn’t think running off on a morning-long excursion was prudent, given the sad state of available relief-stations in Alaska and, now day 5 of the cruise, also being dangerously low on a fresh change of underwear.

So Mrs. Winks and the Brads donned their light rain gear and day packs, said their farewells, and headed out, leaving me to do the one thing those of you familiar with these reviews know I love doing the most while at port: staying on the ship.

The wannabee mushers head out (while I do my Noro Happy Dance from the Promenade Deck!)

As happens with these shore excursions more times than not, the time getting to and from the dog training camp takes longer than the time you’re actually there. An open-air bus ride delivered the group to one way-station, where they were organized yet again and assigned a Unimog, an oversized all-terrain vehicle, that continued the trip up a long, steep, if picturesque, incline to the facility. The ride is slow and bumpy.

Once at the camp, you’re indoctrinated by the staff of young mushers with a program strategically designed to make you love everything about the sport. You’re given a history of dogsledding and how it’s morphed from a utilitarian form of transportation to the blood sport it is today.

The facility's training methods and the "organic" competitive nature that develops among the dog teams are adulated and romanticized (I guess they’re banking on no one having actually read Jack London's "Call of the Wild" in high school) and then there’s the tear-jerky homage to the senior dogs who eventually must retire from the sport, because they’ve lost their youthful edge. You’re lead to believe they retire down south and enjoy their final days fishing and golfing. You don’t want to know what really happens. Allegedly.

Once sufficiently proselytized, you then get a quick tour of the kennel (which surprisingly does not stink of feces) and gather together to meet your sledding team. The real Alaska!

The sled dog ride itself is hardly authentic. You’re not on snow. You’re not in a sled. And you don’t even get to yell mush. Instead, six of you are piled into a wide, low-to-the-ground, wheeled cart which is then harnessed to a team of sixteen dogs. These guys are more jacked-up than a Kansas City meth addict on a Saturday night.

One of the staff mushers commands the dogs to run and pull the cart through a muddy, rutted, forested track. The ride is bouncy and pretty unexciting, eliciting more laughter than bona fide thrills. All the while, there’s a growing sense that you’re just chattel on the ride, and the musher’s chief focus is on team performance and which mutt might not be giving 100%.

It being only a mile-long circuit, the ride is mercifully short. You get a moment to thank your pull team and then it’s off to the breeding factory to meet the new recruits.

After holding and cuddling the newborn Husky pups, there’s really no way to walk away from the experience without feeling anything but warm and fuzzy towards the dog-sledding industry. High five! Their mission is complete.

Mrs. Winks and the Brads returned to the ship just after 1 pm, reporting how much they loved their time with the dogs. Mrs. Winks later told me privately that it was probably a good thing that I hadn’t participated, given my hang-ups about the topic. But I urge anyone who’s concerned about animal welfare to conduct a little online research - before booking one of these excursions. The controversial 2017 documentary “Sled Dogs” is one place to start, but there are plenty of articles on the subject as well.

Ethics aside, at about $130 a person, it wasn’t the cheapest shore excursion available. And as a city, Skagway is very picturesque, fun to walk, and with plenty of other worthwhile things to do.

But then again, who can resist this?

Coming up Next:

Exploring "The Faux Alaska" at Icy Strait Point

I’ve been enjoying your review, but we sure don’t see eye to eye about animals. I’ll have to politely ignore the part about using PETA as a source of information.

PETA believes that all pet or working animals are exploited and prevented from doing what comes naturally. They’d like to see the end of all domesticated animals. In their world, there would only be wild animals. No pets, no animals raised or used for food, and no working animals. Everything they say after that is filtered through that world view.

I know that working animals are not always treated as well as they should be, but I’d rather learn about that from a less biased source that PETA. If PETA told me that the sun rises in the East, I’d go out and check.

Thanks for the review.

Its ages since we were in Alaska ( on Infinity without Wi-Fi in 2003)

Loving this review and writing style.:)

Loving this review and writing style.:)

Me too, looking forward to next instalment

“You’re up early,” I greet Mama Bear, sidling up behind her at the buffet’s only open coffee-station. Except for staff wiping down tables, the venue is otherwise empty. It’s well before 6 am and even the morning running-track junkies are still asleep.

“Rough night,” she manages to muster. “I just had to spring my son Conrad from the ship’s brig.”

“The ship’s brig?” I stammer, as she pours herself a cup of coffee. “How’d he end up there?”

“You’d think they’d show him a little respect,” she mused, struggling to unwrap the plastic from the carafe of cream. It was unnerving seeing her so physically shaken.

“You know, he saved the ship last night. He actually stopped us from getting into a deadly collision, and prevented thousands of passenger casualties, so you’d think the Captain would cut him just a little slack.”

“Iceberg?” I conjectured.

She shook her head no, and then in one a single motion ripped open the three sugar packs she’d lined up in her hand.

“Conrad’s pen-pals with one of the first officers here,” she explained. “And the guy invited Conrad up to the bridge to sit with him on night watch. Only on the way up there, Adrianna pulls them into the naturalist’s Icy Strait Point presentation, and this officer friend… well, he sorta has a crush on Adrianna.”

“Who doesn’t?” I interject. It’s always best to make Momma Bear feel that her strikingly average looking daughter is God’s gift to men.

“But everyone knows you can’t sit through one of Mickey’s presentations sober,” she continued.

“Tell me about it. I’m actually writing a Cruise Critic post about it.”

“So Adrianna suggests they kick things up a notch with a little drinking game.”

“They did shots during Mickey’s presentation?’

“No, not shots… souvenir cups. Unlimited drink package, you know. They’d down a souvenir cup of tequila… every time Mickey said ‘This is the Real Alaska’.”

“Oh boy…and they're still alive?”

“Well, as you can imagine, things went south pretty quickly. Within 2-minutes, they’re all totally hammered”

“The Real Alaska,” I swear under my breath.

“But the officer still needs to get up to the bridge for night watch, ‘cause he’s filling in for the Master who’s preoccupied, of course, with hitting-on the ladies he’s invited to his Captain’s Table event in the main dining room.”

“The Captain’s Table” I grimace, shaking my head.

“They’re too drunk to stand, so Conrad calls over some Crossfit buddies he made at the fitness center and they literally get carried from the lounge up to the bridge. They arrive okay, but the officer is such a light-weight, he plops down in the Captain’s chair and immediately blacks out, hitting the little joystick when he does, which then re-plots the ship’s trajectory.”

“Towards the little Eskimo village…” I deduce, peforming the calculation out loud. (I’d been studying maps of the area for months as part of my pre-cruise research).

“Exactly,” said Momma Bear, marginally impressed that I actually knew the area’s topography.

She continued. “Well I just thank the Lord we sent Conrad to sailboat camp on Cape Cod that summer. My husband fought me on that, saying people who own yachts don’t need to know anything about knots and sails, but when Conrad saw the Millennium was headed directly towards that development of beachside igloos, he quickly activated the manual override, hoisted the emergency sails, and saved us from colliding into that sleeping little Inuit village.”

“Wow. And for this he ended up in the brig?” I ask incredulously, brushing away a tear.

Momma Bear stirred her coffee cup and looked up with a blank stare. “The kid’s an Inner Passage sailing hero and he’s being treated like a common privateer.”

Then, as she’s done several times before, Momma Bear simply walks away, leaving me awestruck and hanging.

“See you at Mickey’s show later, for shots??” I shout after her.

PS: I run into a very hungover Conrad later on the buffet line and learn that his mother completely depleted the family’s On Board Credits to make his bail and now he’s been officially grounded. This was upsetting to him because they’d all wanted to try Icy Strait Point Helmet Diving (without using wet suits this time, because they all agreed staying warm is too restrictive and untrue to the real Alaska experience).

I thanked him for his exceptional sailing skills, and innate ability to hold his tequila, and for thankfully averting the Igloos-By-The-Sea Condo Association. “No biggy,” he quipped.

Turns out, he had continued to sail the Millennium and then, waving the local pilot off, successfully docked the ship on his own, using only wind-power, before turning himself over to the captain and being escorted down to the brig. Say what you want; they really are one heck of a family.

In reality, Icy Strait Point is what’s known as a “faux port.” If you’ve cruised the Caribbean before, you’re probably familiar with these private stops… They’re not organic destinations; they’ve been built-up from scratch, developed solely for the purpose of separating you from your tourist dollar.

They have funky names, given to them by the cruise lines that own them. Names like Castaway Cay, Half Moon Cay, CocoCay, Great Stirrup Cay, Harvest Caye, and Princess Caye. Not sure why Icy Strait, like Haiti’s Labadee, failed to achieve “Cay” status. Maybe because it’s privately owned by a Native Alaskan corporation, rather than a cruise line?

That said, several features distinguish Icy Strait Point from most of the other faux stops; for one, it has a cemetery (which you’ll notice is spelled incorrectly on the directory sign below) prominently located along the main walkway, it’s also got a huge and active brown bear population, and it doesn’t have a Diamonds International.

As faux port’s go, this one is the classiest we’ve been to. Sure it has the overpriced excursions and America’s longest zip line. It also has your tacky gift shops and several restaurants enticing you not to return to the ship for free lunch. But it’s clean, well laid out and attempts to provide historical information, mostly in the form of its cannery museum. It has beautiful views, abundant bald eagles, and you can whale watch, gratis, from the shore.

We spent most of the morning exploring the complex, watching zip liners fly-in and strolling along a picturesque shoreline path towards the cannery. A solitary bald eagle perched in a tree above the walkway caused quite a sensation, as everyone whipped out their phones to get a shot. The sun was out and it was warm. And you could pirate free, open, Wi-Fi by hanging close to the restaurants.

Just before noon, we gathered at the shore excursion pavilion where we used iPads to sign away our lives through electronic liability-agreements and then typed-in our driver’s license credentials (no small task). Months ago, at our wonderful 5% discount, we’d reserved a back-country Jeep adventure that promised to take us across rough, mountainous terrain and scenic vistas that overlooked the inlet. Wildlife spottings, as per usual, were not guaranteed. Our tour guide, a young, local Alaskan native, greeted us and explained he’d be leading us from the front Jeep and communicating with us via radio. He couldn’t wait to show us the land of his people.

We and the Brads commandeered one Jeep, while the group as a whole spread out over 5 total vehicles. Forming a caravan, we exited the gated complex and made our way through the local fishing village of Hoonah (the real Alaska). Less than a mile out of town, the road became a dirt one and we suddenly became a giant rolling dust cloud headed up into the hills.

Along the way, our guide reminded us to keep an eye out for wildlife, but I think our approaching vehicles did a good job at scaring any nearby animals away - because we ended up seeing nothing.

Eventually, we got up into the mountains, occasionally stopping at a turn-out to take in a dramatic overlook. While it was a gorgeous day and the views were impressive, no single one of them stood out as a real jaw-dropper.

Our guide was knowledgeable, imparting information about the trees and bushes around us, but again, there was nothing truly noteworthy, not even the stinky flower he passed around that smelled like a men’s locker room laundry bin. On our way back down the mountains, he stopped at a lakeside and gabbed his canister of bear spray. He invited us to follow him down a trail to a marshy area where he knew a brown bear family frequented.

True to his word, when we emerged from the tree-line, we spotted a brown bear about a hundred yards away poking around in the reeds. We each got a few fuzzy phone photos off before the bear looked up and noticed us. He nonchalantly made his way back into the forest.

“Did you like that guys?” our guide goaded. “Isn’t that what you came to Alaska for? To see a bear in the wild?”

I hated to tell him I’d actually come for the reindeer dogs, but I think we all agreed over dinner that the bear sighting was a bit of a non-event and Mrs. Winks in particular wondered whether her snapshots of it were truly social media worthy. And she posts EVERYTHING!

On the several-mile drive back to the port, our guide spent the entire time giving us the legendary back story of his indigenous people over the radio. Something to do with a massive glacier, a sister who betrayed the tribe, people dying and a braver sister who convinced everyone to relocate to Icy Strait Point.

I pictured her drinking ayahuasca and having a prophetic vision that, one day, Icy Strait Point would become a lucrative native-owned, Alaskan cruise-line destination - and her people would finally prosper. But my theory got shot down before we even passed back onto the property.

While everyone agreed the Jeep adventure was engaging and fun, no one really thought it was worth the expensive price tag, and we walked away from the experienced a bit unfulfilled. It’s so dusty, the driving at times is dangerous. You never go off-road and the sights you eventually see fall short of our cruise-brochure expectations. The one bear we did see was too far off to rate as a thrill moment.

Back on the ship, we took advantage of a Concierge stateroom perk of attending a helicopter pad sail away party. We made our way through the back of the main theater where we directed up steep steps to the ship’s fore. There, we were treated to a glass of champagne and a view of Icy Strait Point as the ship, commanded by the Captain this time, headed off to our next destination.

Next up

Oh Graeme; A Word Please

I'm wondering whether the abundance of bear and the 'cemetary' are somehow connected?!

I think you should publish your ‘stories.’

My DH certainly has a knack for story telling! However, lest you think “Mama Bear” is real I can assure you that she and her cubs do exist and are portrayed accurately. Winks had a knack for running into them during our voyage and always had a interesting story to tell after the encounter. :-)

Since Winks was not on the Mushing excursion I thought I would share my feelings. The Brads and I were super excited for this adventure and we were not disappointed. The sled ride was approximately 2 miles through the rain forest, on a “summer sled”. The dogs were very responsive to their musher and they ran super fast on command. Because of the extreme effort from the team of dogs the musher stopped the sled every quarter of a mile or so to rest the dogs. Even at a stop the panting dogs were anxious to get on with the “race”. They seemed the happiest while they were in motion. As my DH mentioned, they were born and bred for the racing life. After the ride we got to pet the team and take some pics. The dogs were very friendly and they really love their Musher. The best part was back at Musher Camp when we got to hold and play with the puppies.

I’m glad I had an opportunity to experience this Alaskan sport but I doubt I would do it again. I walked away with a better understanding of what my DH’s concerns regarding the entire sport as he outlined in his review.

Like everyone else I am excited to see what the next installment has to offer!

I love the Mama Bear stories. I’m sure Mama Bear has been on a few of my cruises. :D

You know, I had my doubts about the veracity of some of these stories, but this one put me over the edge....a faux-port with no Diamonds International??? Inconceivable!

I'm enjoying your review. Some of what you say about Alaska is true. It is expensive to live here, but I feel, worth every penny. I do take issue with you're view on dog mushing. There are bad apples in every sport but to quote a smart commentator:

"You can’t push a rope. These dogs are elite athletes, with an inborn love of running. The pet mortality rate in Anchorage is higher than the race. These dogs live good, rich lives with the best food, excellent care & exercise. They are attended to by dedicated handlers who give up real lives to shovel dog ****, train, massage & love on dogs all day long & well into the night, 7 days a week. The dogs have the world to see & engage with, not 4 walls of a house. So many pets are obese & treated like accessories or furniture. 15 minutes of attention a day. If you are against canine athletes, you are against pet ownership at the end of the day."

Also, these mushers are anything but rich corporations. Most mushers barely have money to fund the running of the race. I think the winner gets 25k an a truck. Lance Mackey the winner of 4 Iditarods in a row couldn't afford to fix his teeth when he had cancer and had to have a go fund me page. I know of only one family that has done well and the Seavey's are far from rich.

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You know, I had my doubts about the veracity of some of these stories, but this one put me over the edge....a faux-port with no Diamonds International??? Inconceivable!

Dunno about "faux port." Icy Strait Point is one of my favorite Alaska ports. Best whale watching in Alaska. LOVE no Diamonds International! Quiet and relatively peaceful as only one ship is allowed in at a time.

Dunno about "faux port." Icy Strait Point is one of my favorite Alaska ports. Best whale watching in Alaska. LOVE no Diamonds International! Quiet and relatively peaceful as only one ship is allowed in at a time.

I haven’t yet been to Alaska, but I was thinking the same thing. He had me at whale watching from the shore, bald eagles and beautiful views. Sign me up!

I love the Mama Bear stories. I’m sure Mama Bear has been on a few of my cruises. :D

I do too. I think Mama Bear lives in my neighborhood lol.