Always Drawn Back

My son Steven remarked to me that I had “just scratched the surface” of our vacation in San Francisco in my recent compilation on the subject.  He was right, of course.  Like all major cities, San Francisco and its environs are a large subject.  One week is nowhere near enough time to take in everything the region has to offer.  This realization makes it easy to understand why some people return to the same places repeatedly.  They simply want to experience everything in their favorite vacation spots.

San Francisco, with its surrounding waterways and with the happy memories it that holds for me, remains one of my favorite locations for both vacation and nostalgia.  It’s difficult to mentally separate even the present-day city from the memories of the happy golden years that I spent aboard ship.  With these thoughts in mind, let us once again take a stroll through the town and along the waterfront and perhaps even another voyage across the bay.

Starting in the historically Italian North Beach neighborhood on Sunday morning, June 8, 1980, we come upon the Church of Saints Peter and Paul:

Operated by the Salesian Fathers, who provided the photograph, this church offers Masses in English, Italian, and Chinese, and its façade displays the famous opening line of Dante’s Paradiso:

La Gloria di colui che tutto muove per l’universo penetra e risplende.[i]

This verse rendered into English becomes:

The glory of him who moves all things through the universe penetrates and shines.

Returning to this church with Steven on Saturday, August 2, 2025, I photographed this inscription for both old times’ sake and posterity:

In concurrence with Dante, I’ve long regarded the Deity in seafaring terms, as the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe, and I’ve seen his glory countless times both on the world’s oceans and in the celestial sphere above them.  Saving this thought for another day, however, we next climb Telegraph Hill and proceed to the Coit Tower to take in the view of the harbor front.  With Steven on that same Saturday, I recorded this northward view which shows the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien resting quietly alongside her pier:

Next, this eastward view shows several of the old freighter piers as well as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island:

For comparison, here is the same view on that June Sunday in 1980:

Looking northward that same afternoon, we see a scattering or recreational craft on the bay:

Since the development of containerization, most of the cargo is now handled at more modern facilities in Oakland.  These old piers have been repurposed and now host an assortment of offices, restaurants, retail shops, museums, and some light industry.  Their facades have been cleaned up and now present a pleasing aesthetic at street level as we see here on the last day of July of this year:

At the approach end, however, some of the old piers seem less well preserved but sport vestiges of their glory days.  Here is Pier 33, seen from the ferry Alcatraz Flyer on Tuesday, July 29, 2025.  Note the very faded but still legible inscriptions of the structure’s former tenants: the Union Line, the Pacific Far East Lines and the Furness Lines:

Also on that same overcast morning we see the Coit Tower by looking upward from street level at the waterfront:

Forty and more years ago, two ferry lines connected San Francisco with the communities of Sausalito and Larkspur to the north of the city.  Now, a vastly expanded fleet also links the city with Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, and Richmond.  The voyage to Oakland took Steven and me under the Bay Bridge on Thursday afternoon, July 31.  This was my first time sailing across the bay and passing beneath the Bay Bridge since the Comet returned from Japan early on the morning of Easter Sunday, April 22, 1984.  It felt great to be back and crossing the bay again, especially on such a bright and sunny afternoon:

Most of the ferries that serve San Francisco begin and end their voyages at the iconic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street.  In the 1980s the front of this building was obscured by an ugly, unfinished, and never-used elevated expressway.  Irreparably damaged in the earthquake of 1989, it was subsequently demolished, and the classical façade of the Ferry Building was once again exposed to the light of day.  Since then, the Ferry Building has been completely refurbished and restored to its former grandeur.  Now, besides hosting ferries, its cavernous interior contains retail shops, restaurants, and other travelers’ services.  Its clock tower, seen here on Saturday, August 2, is visible from all around and stands out as one of the gems of the city skyline:

The rejuvenation of the iconic Ferry Building leads me to recall that in my teenage years I had developed an interest in architecture and even looked into studying it formally at the university level.  To my great adolescent dismay, however, I discovered that it was a five-year full-time program that led to the degree of Bachelor of Architecture, and that was followed by a two-year full-time program that led to the degree of Master of Architecture.  Seven years in college!  I was horrified, and so I never pursued the matter further.  But my interest in the subject has remained with me through all these years, and I found San Francisco to be an architecture lover’s dream.  I suppose entire books have been written on the subject, but I’ll content myself with a few amateur photographs.

Three stops on the subway from the Ferry Building is the Civic Center.  Presiding over this campus is the San Francisco City Hall, a building that looks more like the capitol of a state or country than of a city.  Here we see it in less-than-ideal photographic conditions in the early evening of Tuesday, July 29:

Sharing the Civic Center acreage with City Hall are the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Opera House, the Supreme Court of California, the Asian Art Museum, the Federal Office Building, the Herbst Theater, and the Graham Civic Auditorium. While they are all architecturally significant structures on their own, together they form an even grander masterpiece that can rival any European capital.  On the lighter side, the Civic Center, and particularly City Hall, were portrayed in the James Bond film A View to a Kill in 1985.

More sublimely, in the nearby Mission Dolores neighborhood, the original Mission Dolores chapel, dating to 1780 and erected by the Spaniards when they first brought Christianity to the region, still stands and remains in use.  Miraculously, this building survived the earthquake and fire of 1906 while the entire surrounding neighborhood was destroyed.  Here we see the interior of the colonial Mission Dolores on Friday, August 1:

Adjacent to this venerable structure stands a newer basilica that features non-identical twin spires.  This is the taller of the two on the same day:

Surmounting the main altar of the basilica is a dome complete with pastel-colored stucco-like walls supporting a red tile roof, all key elements of Spanish Mediterranean architecture:

For many years, San Francisco had a large Spanish Mission style railroad station at the corner of Third and Townsend Streets.  Unfortunately, this magnificent building was demolished in the postwar era.  Happily, however, as part of California’s more recent investment in public transportation, classic railroad stations in nearby cities have been restored and rejuvenated and are now heavily used.  On Thursday morning, July 31, Steven and I visited the lovely Southern Pacific station in San Jose which still proudly bears the name Southern Pacific Lines over its center arched window:

The interior, also renewed and refurbished, has a bright and airy atmosphere enabled by the oversize arched windows, another architectural feature that the Spaniards brought with them from the Mediterranean:

While these and many other cultural aspects of San Francisco and its environs combine to make it a fascinating seaport and a world class city, my favorite part remains the ocean.  Accordingly, then, I will indulge myself for a moment and revisit the city’s oceanfront.   On Friday morning, August 1, Steven and I rode the Judah Street trolley to the end of the line at the western edge of the city:

We disembarked from the trolley, hiked the short distance through the dunes and across the brown sandy beach to the sea:

Standing at the water’s edge, we gazed upon the great Pacific Ocean.  A low overcast, a gray veil of fog, and a cold onshore breeze laden with salt spray combined with the mild surf to form a magnificently beautiful and inspirational sight.  Only a few other people were there, mostly joggers and dog walkers who did not linger.  Thus undisturbed and undistracted, we stood there and stared at the sea and sky and watched and felt the unceasing motion of the wind and waves.  Time itself seemed to stand still.  In the back of my mind, however, I realized that the time we had at this spot would be much too short and would pass much too quickly.  I would have been perfectly content to remain there in front of the Pacific Ocean all morning and then return after lunch.

Eventually, Steven said to me, “Well, I know you could stay here all day, but I’m getting cold.”  He was not dressed as warmly as I was, and my paternal concern for my young son overrode my desire to stare at the ocean all day.  Reluctantly, then, and with many backward glances toward the sea, I walked with him back across the beach and through the dunes to the trolley stop.

It felt very difficult to leave this beautiful location, but it had indeed been a great privilege, especially after so many years, to have stood again before the great Pacific Ocean.  The scriptures enjoin us to “stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).   Surely the oceanfront is a holy place, one where we can at least temporarily escape the world of human concerns and be inspired and edified by communing with the Deity through the sublime magnificence of his Creation.  While standing in this holy place, Steven and I truly saw “The glory of him who moves all things.”

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[i] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I. v. i.  

After All These Years

One of my favorite seaports, and arguably one of this country’s most distinctive cities, is San Francisco.  I first went there aboard the Mercury in 1980 and later aboard the Comet in 1984.  I have long wanted to return, but until recently had no occasion to do so.     This changed when my son Steven had the unexpected opportunity to spend several days there as part of a larger itinerary, and he invited me to join him.  Naturally, I jumped at the chance.

San Francisco has a certain mystique that defies description.  Largely surrounded by water, it has long been a very important seaport, although it is much more than that.  One of the cultural, educational, and medical capitals of the West Coast, it abounds in diverse neighborhoods, eclectic architecture, an intriguing street plan, excellent public transportation, and tremendous natural beauty.  In my distant younger days, I reveled in exploring this great metropolis in my off-duty hours.  In my recent older days with Steven, I resumed this exploration, but at a more sedate pace.  We had a list of specific things we wanted to see and do, and my favorites of these involved the ocean, the bay, and the ships that plied them.

After 41 years, my first view of the bay came on Monday afternoon, July 28, 2025.  Standing on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, I felt awed by the sight.  Beneath a sunny blue sky, blue water stretched out before me.  Alcatraz and Angel Islands stood out in the distance.  Ferries, sailboats, and other assorted watercraft scurried to and fro.  It felt wonderful to be back after so much time!

Early the next morning, on Tuesday the 29^th, we boarded the ferry Alcatraz Flyer for the short but pleasant voyage to the island.  A strong breeze came into the bay through the Golden Gate.  It was a cool and cloudy morning that soon changed to warm and sunny.  The self-guided tour of the historic prison was interesting enough, but more so for me was learning that the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, established in 1854, was the first such aid to navigation on the American West Coast:

Also more interesting were the views of the surrounding bay, prominent islands and peninsulas, and commercial shipping.  The highlight of our visit to Alcatraz came when we emerged from the prison and saw the tanker Harrisburg sailing into the bay from the Golden Gate.  She was bound for Richmond[i], and we watched as she passed between Alcatraz and the mainland:

Close on the Harrisburg’s heels came the container ship Ever Mild.  Appearing faintly at first through the mist, she sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and soon afterwards passed between Alcatraz and the city on her way to Oakland.  Ferries and sightseeing craft shared the bay with her:

Returning to the city about midday aboard the Alcatraz Flyer, we walked to Pier 35 where we came upon the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien.  This was especially interesting.  Named after a naval hero of the American Revolution, the O’Brien is a floating museum.  A painstakingly preserved liberty ship from World War II, she serves as an educational vessel representing the approximately 2,700 such ships constructed in assembly line fashion during the war.  She also serves as a memorial to the more than 6,000 American merchant seamen who perished at sea during the hostilities, a very sobering but often overlooked statistic of the war.  The self-guided tour included the bridge and chart room, the engine room, one of the cargo holds, the crew’s quarters, the galley and chow halls, and the open decks.  I found the 1940s state-of-the-art navigational equipment with its near-total absence of modern electronics particularly interesting.  Steven found the machinery space with its twin boilers and single reciprocating steam engine fascinating.  Steam propulsion and celestial navigation ruled the waves in the O’Brien’s day!

Before we realized it, we had spent over two hours aboard the O’Brien.  Hunger pangs finally jolted us out of the distant past and brought us back to the present.  Before leaving the waterfront, however, we paused to take photographs.  The first shows the vessel’s starboard side accommodation ladder:

Next, we have a starboard quarter view of the O’Brien.  Her stern faced the street, and her bow pointed toward the open bay:

Finally, we have a profile view of her port side, taken from an adjacent small boat basin:

The next day, Wednesday the 30^th, we left San Francisco early in the morning and traveled by train to Sacramento.  Our purpose there was to visit the California State Railroad Museum.  Along the way, the train skirted much of the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, to the northeast of the city:

Beyond San Pablo Bay, the train passed by Suisun Bay, the home of the anchored Ready Reserve Fleet.  This has long been a collection of unused cargo ships held in reserve against a time of future national emergency in which they would again be needed.  After I left the Comet in 1984, she went into storage in this anchorage and remained there for many years, with brief recalls to service in the Iraqi wars, before finally being slated for the scrap yard.[ii]  Few cargo ships now remain of the dozens that had been mothballed in Suisun Bay, as this picture of the entire present fleet makes clear:

In Sacramento, the railroad museum was the main attraction; nonetheless, railroad history includes shipping history.  In the old days, passengers and freight bound from points east to San Francisco disembarked from their trains at the end of the line in Sacramento, and then they sailed aboard river and bay steamers for the remainder of the journey.  One of these vessels, the Delta King, now serves a different clientele as a floating hotel, restaurant, and theater:

The next day, Thursday the 31^st, we sailed from the Ferry Building in San Francisco aboard the Carina to Jack London Square in Oakland.  After passing beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the southern part of San Francisco Bay, complete with more anchored cargo ships:

Also along the way, we passed two noteworthy vessels docked in Oakland.  First was the freighter Maunalei of the Matson Line.  This ship sails on the California-Hawaii-Alaska domestic route, and Steven has seen her in Anchorage several times:

The second was the lightship Relief.  Formerly a floating aid to navigation, she now rests quietly alongside a wharf in an industrial neighborhood.  No information about her was available, but I hope that she is docked here awaiting preservation and not destruction:

After disembarking from the Carina, we walked around Jack London Square.  Steven wanted to inspect the new Amtrak station; I indulged myself in a few moments of sentiment.  When the Mercury was being taken out of layup and put back into service in 1980, her crew was housed temporarily at the Jack London Inn in Jack London Square[iii].  This arrangement lasted three weeks in May and June.  Then the Mercury sailed on Father’s Day.  At the time, I felt no particular attachment to this generally nondescript modern hotel.  After 45 years, however, my outlook changed.  As I stood in front of this building once again after so much time, it almost seemed unreal that I had actually come back to this spot.  I had never expected to return, nor did I have any reason to do so until now.  But it felt good to be back, and I was glad to see, with scaffolding in place, that Jack’s hotel was being well cared for:

Returning to San Francisco aboard the Carina in the late afternoon, we passed the container ship HMM Pearl as she headed for the port facilities on the west side of Oakland:

On Friday, the 1^st of August, we set out early and rode a trolley through the western part of San Francisco to the oceanfront.  A beach and a high ridge of sand dunes separated the ocean from the city.  So effective was this dividing line that, when we stood at the water’s edge, the city seemed so far distant as to not be there at all.  Nothing of human habitation could be seen or heard, despite its close proximity.  Instead, the sight of the open Pacific and the sounds of the surf and the cold onshore breeze prevailed.  Fine particles of salt spray blew at us; a dense and gray overcast covered the sea; and distant fog obscured the horizon.  And yet the sight was truly beautiful, even glorious and grandiose:

On Saturday the 2^nd, our last day in town, we scaled Telegraph Hill and took in the panoramic views of the city and its harbor front from the Coit Tower.  Despite a low overcast and thin fog, all of the port’s salient features were easily discernable.  Afterwards, as we reposed again on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, two more noteworthy cargo ships came by.  The first was the Torm Brigitta, shifting berths from Richmond to South San Francisco and seen here passing Yerba Buena Island:

The second ship came along soon after the first and was the Peregrine Pacific, bound from South San Francisco seaward and to Chile:

That Saturday evening, Steven and I departed San Francisco the same way we had arrived—on Alaska Airlines.  While everything we had seen and done on this little vacation was an excellent experience, my favorite was simply standing at the edge of the open Pacific and staring at the ocean.  It was cold, windy, foggy, overcast, and fourteen days’ voyage from Japan.  None of these features would appeal to a tourist, but all of them invite the Spirit to abide with those “that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters” (Ps. 107:23):

The sight of the great Pacific Ocean called to mind the opening verse of Dante’s Paradiso, as it stood inscribed over the front doors of the nearby Saints Pater and Paul Church:

La gloria colui che tutu                       The glory of the One who moves

                        muove per l’universo                          everything through the universe

penetra e risplende.                             Penetrates and shines.[iv]

This glory, doubtless a major factor in the mystique of San Francisco, most certainly penetrated and shone over the city, the harbor, the bays, and the magnificent Pacific Ocean during my recent visit.  May it forever remain. 

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[i] Information concerning ports of departure and arrival from www.marinetraffic.com.

[ii] Information from www.maritime.dot.gov.  This website includes the Comet’s design features, construction and configuration, deck plans, photographs, and historical narrative.

[iii] Jack London (1876-1916), an iconic figure on the San Francisco and Oakland waterfronts, was a merchant seaman and the author of The Sea Wolf, one of my favorite books and a classic of the seafaring life.  A statue of him now stands near the water’s edge in the square that bears his name.

[iv] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I, v. i.

A Seaman Transplanted From the Sea

No visit to Anchorage would be complete without stopping by the large railroad station at the northern edge of the downtown area.  This station, along with the adjacent shops, offices, and freight yard, constitute the headquarters of the Alaska Railroad.  My son James worked on this railroad for several years before transferring to his present employment on the White Pass and Yukon Route.   Despite this change, however, he retains fond memories of the Alaska Railroad, and these include meeting one of my former shipmates.

Captain James Edward James, Jr., originally of Manteo, North Carolina, sailed as second mate aboard the freighter Rigel in the summer of 1979.[i]  I was then a brand new third mate, and I had the interesting and entertaining experience of sailing with him.  To call him a character would be the height of understatement.  This was a middle-aged man who sported long and tangled gray hair with a matching tangled beard, wore a winter coat and hat in the summer heat, smoked horribly stinky cigars that dripped ashes on his clothes, threw money in the water to appease the gods for good weather, and had a ready pithy witticism to suit every occasion.  More importantly, he was a highly competent seafarer and recognizably an expert in celestial navigation and nautical astronomy.  Also, as he told me, he was a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and a graduate of Harvard University.  He read Greek and Latin to a considerable degree and was conversant in several modern European languages.  Aboard the Rigel with him, I sailed across the Atlantic, spent the summer crisscrossing the Mediterranean, and then returned to Norfolk.  After that, he went his way and I went mine.  We never met again, but I heard news about him through the fleet grapevine, including that he had successfully passed all the examinations and had received the unlimited Master’s license.

Thirty-five years later, in the winter of 2014, my son James met James James aboard the Alaska Railroad.  He was then living with a female companion “off grid” in the forest north of Anchorage, a region without roads, airfields, electricity, or plumbing, and accessible only by trains that stopped when hailed by people along the track.  James James would catch a southbound train at a trailhead in the woods near his home and ride it fourteen miles to Talkeetna, the nearest town where he could purchase food and supplies.  When his business there was finished, he would return home on a northbound train.

Having heard sea stories during his childhood and adolescence, my son James came to wonder if this passenger James James was the same man that I had sailed with many years previously.  His good-humored but eccentric behavior aboard the trains seemed consistent with my descriptions of him aboard ship.  Always traveling with a gun, he willingly rode in the baggage car because firearms were prohibited in the coaches.  Always tight-fisted with cash, he laughingly engaged the conductors in endless debates over the fare structure.  Boarding the train and later disembarking from it always involved a clown show of off-beat antics and charades.  Much of this nonsense, better appreciated by watching it than by reading about it, was filmed and featured in the television series Railroad Alaska.[ii]  James James thus became a star of the Alaskan interior as well as a star of the sea.  And my son was privileged to be a part of this!

One day, after consulting with me about this unique passenger, my son James identified himself to James James as the son of a former shipmate and told him specifically that I had sailed with him aboard the Rigel to the Mediterranean and back in 1979.  On receiving this information, James James became awestruck and thoughtful.  He stared off into the distance for a moment, and then quietly remarked, “Wow.  That was a lifetime ago.”

Thirty-five years later and thousands of miles away, the past had caught up to the present.  It was one of those sobering moments that provided much food for thought but left little to say.  Both James and James James continued on their railroad journeys, but not for very much longer.  Sadly, James James became ill and eventually died of lung cancer in August of 2016.  Known long and well by many of the railroad employees, his passing seemed to mark the end of an era, and he was both fondly remembered and sorely missed.  As my son James wrote to me:

His reputation lives on at the Alaska Railroad.  Current and former employees who knew him continue to talk about him.  Among newer employees, he lives on as a character of legends.  His debates on the fare structure and antics on boarding and disembarking are still talked (and laughed) about.  He even comes up at union meetings!

 

The only time I spoke to him and he did not have a ready response or witticism of some kind was that time I mentioned the Rigel.  I don’t think he ever expected his past to catch up with him on the train! That response came only after several seconds of thoughtful silence.  He must have liked and remembered you, though, because he and I got along great after that.  He always asked how “everyone in New Hampshire” was doing and was happy to hear good reports.  He was always friendly with all the train crews, but he never asked anyone else about their families.[iii]

I’m very thankful that my son had this unique experience of meeting and traveling with one of my former shipmates.  It gave us a common ground that transcended the ordinary father-son relationship.  On further reflection, though, what were the chances of such a meeting ever taking place?  How could anyone possibly have predicted this?  I’ve never placed any stock in such long-shot coincidences; they always seemed the stuff of pulp fiction, mere contrivances that never happened in real life.  But this one proved that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

Now, whenever I go to Anchorage, I stop by the Alaska Railroad Station downtown and smile inwardly as I think of my son James and my former colleague James James riding the rails together.  I don’t have any photographs of James James, but perhaps these two can serve as substitutes.  In the first, a train such as the ones he rode reposes at the downtown station before departing for points north on Friday, April 25, 2025:

Here, a street sign near my son’s house honors James James’ favorite star on Thursday, April 17.  In the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere in the spring and summer, Arcturus was always the first navigational star to become visible in the twilight following sunset.  As the Rigel sailed transatlantic, James James was always waiting with his sextant and stopwatch on the bridge wing at star time, ready for Arcturus to make its appearance.  He always started his round of stars with Arcturus, followed it up with three or four others, and then finished with Polaris.

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[i] I wrote about James James previously in “Money for the Gods,” published in February, 2011.

[ii] My son James and his passenger James James were featured in several episodes of Railroad Alaska, which was broadcast between 2013 and 2016.

[iii] Extract from an email sent by my son James to me on May 27, 2025.

Along the Coastal Trail

It was high tide on Knik Arm at 8:30am on Wednesday, April 30, 2025.  The patches of snow and ice on the ground at sea level had all melted away in the recent rain, but a cold wind still blew from the west and drove trains of wavelets onto the rocky shoreline.  As the water splashed among the rocks it produced a soft and soothing sound that could have easily induced me to sleep despite the cold breeze.  But then I would have missed the full grandeur of the scene.

An extensive layer of stratocumulus clouds overhung the water, but blue sky and sunlight were emerging in the north and east.  In the distance to the west, Mount Susitna was visible, its snow-covered upper reaches merging into the white-gray cloud cover.  In the north, the Talkeetna Range with its extensive snow collection stood out more clearly beneath a brighter portion of the sky.  In the northeast and much closer to me, the boxy buildings of downtown contrasted against the backdrop of the Chugach Range.  In the center of all this, a tug and barge reposed at anchor.  The pull of the line connecting the barge with the mooring buoy indicated that the current was setting into port and thus the tide was still rising.  There was beauty all around me, and I felt like I was present at the very center of Creation, following the scriptural injunction to “stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).   Still immersed in the Latin I had learned decades ago, I thought, Hic est gloria Dei.  This is the glory of God, and only twenty minutes’ walk from my son’s house!

I had come to Anchorage a week previously, on Wednesday the 16^th, for the purpose of visiting my son Steven and my granddaughters Miss Katie and Miss Abby.  It was my sixth time in Alaska in ten years, and it felt good to be back, both with the family and in such a beautiful and interesting place.  We had a wonderful three weeks together that included both Easter Sunday and Miss Abby’s birthday.  As an extra benefit, I had the leisure to explore Anchorage while they were busy at work and in school, and I strove to make the most of this golden opportunity.

In order to understand Anchorage, one must first understand its waterways.  The Cook Inlet, named for Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy, leads from the open Pacific in the southwest to a headland that splits the inlet into two branches.  The headland is the sight of the Anchorage International Airport.  Knik Arm, the larger and deeper branch, leads northeast to downtown and the commercial seaport.  Turnagain Arm leads southeast into the woods.  Its name comes from Captain Cook’s crewmen.  Taking soundings and finding the water too shallow, they told the helmsman repeatedly to “turn again.”

These names from the European discovery of Alaska have lingered.  Besides the inlet, Captain Cook now has two streets, a hotel, and a housing development named after him.  Turnagain Arm has two streets, a school, a church, an office building, a dental practice, and a neighborhood named after it.  Knik Arm, despite being the more significant of the two branches, as far as I could tell only has one street named after it.

Starting downtown and running along the south side of Knik Arm is the Coastal Trail, a paved recreational pathway for walking, jogging, and bicycling.  Appropriately close to the trail’s beginning stands Resolution Park, a large wooden balcony set on the hill at the corner of 4^th Avenue and L Street that bears the name of Captain Cook’s ship and commands a panoramic view of Knik Arm, the distant mountains, and the nearby commercial seaport.  A statue of the Captain gazes seaward; a bronze plaque on its bases describes his voyages of exploration.  I present both here as I saw them on Tuesday morning, April 22: 

When reading this account of Captain Cook, I marveled that he had not been knighted for his accomplishments, but then I recalled that King George had more pressing matters on his mind in the 1770s.  Perhaps the view of the waterfront, including this container ship as it was discharging cargo on the same day, serves as a more fitting memorial to him:

Descending from Resolution Park, I regained the Coastal Trail at Elderberry Park and then ducked through a pedestrian tunnel that passed underneath the main line of the Alaska Railroad.  This brought me to a viewing spot at the water’s edge, although at low tide, it was actually at the edge of the extensive mud flats.  Whatever the state of the tide, however, the view was pleasant and punctuated by an anchored tug and barge on the same overcast Tuesday:

From a little farther along the trail, the extent of the mud flats became even more apparent, and with the anchored tug and barge still there:

In brighter weather on Monday the 21^st, I found a different cargo barge at anchor just beyond the mud flats:

On a still brighter day, Wednesday the 23^rd, I took in this westward view of Mount Susitna beyond the mud flats and deep water of Knik Arm at low tide.  The headland on the left is the northern end of the Anchorage International Airport:

The commercial shipping of any seaport always interests me.  In the overcast afternoon of Tuesday the 29^th, I was able to capture several vessels in one photograph.  On the far left the tug Glacier Wind was towing a barge seaward with Kodiak as her destination.  Next, the tug Gladys M rested at anchor with her barge.  At the docks north of downtown were the vehicle cargo ship North Star (with the dark hull and white superstructure), and the smaller container ship Matson Anchorage[i] on the far right:

About a mile and a half from downtown, the Coastal Trail again ducks under the railroad and briefly enters the neighborhood of Westchester Lagoon.  Here the Chester Creek drains into Knik Arm, and the surrounding marsh and lake area form a haven for nesting birds.  Seagulls accustomed to human company unreservedly posed for me on the same sunny Monday the 21st:

Later, on Thursday, May 1, the lagoon reposed quietly with the Chugach Range behind it to the east:

As lovely as Westchester Lagoon was, however, my favorite part of the trail remained alongside the salt water of Knik Arm.  Soon after emerging from the third and final pedestrian passage under the railroad, these three scenes greeted me on Friday the 2^nd, a day that truly looked less like winter and more like spring.  In the first, looking northward, the Talkeetna Range loomed over the water in the background:

In the second, Mount Susitna blended into the low cloud cover in the distant west:

Finally, my favorite that day was this one with the largest expanse of water at the widest part of the arm with the mud flats completely covered at high tide:

Monday, May 5, was my last day in Anchorage.  Carpe diem, I thought, and seizing this final opportunity, I walked up to the waterfront early for a last look at Knik Arm before getting ready to leave.  It was a beautiful day with a beautiful view, and knowing that it would be many months before I would return to Alaska, I had great difficulty pulling myself away from the shoreline and heading back to the house.  Fortunately, with my cell phone camera, I could in a sense take some of the waterfront home with me.  My favorite photograph from that morning was this peaceful scene of the anchored tug and barge in the rising tide:  

At four o’clock that afternoon, I left Anchorage aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 bound for Seattle.  The aircraft took off into a west wind and then turned to port as it ascended.  From my window seat on the starboard side I enjoyed a fleeting but magnificent view of Knik Arm, the Cook Inlet, and the surrounding mountain ranges.  Then cloud cover intervened.  After the airplane had settled onto a southeasterly course at cruising altitude, it left the clouds behind.  Beneath me then for the next two hours lay the great blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretching to the far horizon.  I had not seen the open Pacific in a very long time, not since the 1980s from the Comet, and it felt great to be back, even at such a height!

While the purpose of my three weeks’ sojourn in Anchorage was to visit family, my leisure time at the waterfront came as a wonderful side benefit.  The Coastal Trail was a place of peace and quiet and solitude that soothed my soul, a spiritual haven where the sound of silence spoke volumes and enabled me to achieve communion with the Divine through Nature.  The confluence of seawater, tidal mud flats, snow-covered mountains, and the overarching sky provided an opportunity for quiet contemplation that yielded insight and inspiration.  In this magnificent location the scriptural promise manifested itself:

Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you;

seek me diligently and ye shall find me (D&C 88:63).

     

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