Alaska Travels
By: Leo Fan
Translated By: David Ji
On June 25, 2019, my friends and I traveled to Alaska. There were a total of 5 families. We came from New Jersey, Boston, and Chicago, and we flew to Fairbanks to rendezvous. We visited Denali National Park, where I saw the tallest mountain in North America, Mount Mckinley (also known as Mt. Denali). Then we boarded a long cruise at Whittier, and went to Glacier Bay to see last year’s glaciers. The cruise stopped at Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, and finally, Vancouver.
On the way, I learned a lot of interesting things. For example, Alaska was owned by the Russians until 1867, when the United States bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars. Alaska has gold, oil, and a couple thousand kinds of fish, among which are 20 or so endangered species. Also, when people speak of the U.S, they almost always seem to forget about Alaska.
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The Boat of the Royal Princess
Today we went on a big boat, the number of people on the boat was a lot.
The food on the boat was really good, so I asked for a big pot.
The amount of floors the boat had was sixteen, they were built horizontally.
The boat will float for seventeen days, we’ll stay in a room in one of the wings.
All of us saw a glacier, the Royal Princess has a king!
On July 3rd, we arrived at Juneau. I woke up at around 7:30 and then waited with my friends, who would take me to the airport. On the car, I saw two eagles outside of the window. The airport wasn’t that far away. There were a lot of yellow helicopters there. After we listened to the safety announcement, we boarded a helicopter, and in about 20 minutes, we arrived at a snowy valley. Inside this valley were sled dog camps, and small dog houses were displayed in neat rows. Every sled could seat four people, with eight sled dogs pulling the sled. There are many species of sled dogs, including the Alaskan Malamute, Siberian Husky, Chinook, and Samoyed, and all of them are beautiful and strong. In Alaska, using sled dogs to transport freight has already been a common practice for over 9000 years, until the 20th century, when cars, planes, and snowmobiles appeared. Then dog sleds became a form of racing and a vacationing vehicle. When sled dogs pulled the sled, we sat on the sled and looked at the snow and snow-capped mountains. The sleds stopped at four times at four different places, and we got off to stroke the dogs and take pictures. I cuddled with a small husky and took a picture. It even licked me. Hahaha, it tickled!
Glaciers and Dogsleds
We woke up early to get on the helicopter, the dogs pulling the dogsleds never gave up.
from the helicopter, we saw glaciers, with no sight of chickens, but lots of dog pups.
They look like wolves but they are dogs, beautiful, smart, and they're strong.
I really like these dogs, because their legs are really long.