Alaska: Dutch Harbor

After Fairbanks we headed to Dutch Harbor. Holy end of the earth!! The flight was 3 hours on a little puddle jumper that only had 30 seats. Fun. When we got there we went to a SMELLY fish plant. yuck. I could have really skipped this part of the trip. I mean the entire part, as in even seeing Dutch Harbor. I really didn't need to go. There was no map data there that I needed. anyway.

This is one of the mountains that could be seen from across the bay. It is really pretty scenery. Too bad half the time it's covered in fog. And raining. One of the many boats in the harborCrab pots. We missed the crew of The Deadliest Catch by 2 weeks. Not that I really wanted to see them, but ya know :)There are 2 museums on the island that we got to go to. The first was the Museum of the Aleutians. Pretty cool. This bald eagle was sitting outside of the building on a pole. He yelled at me, but let me get close enough to take this picture. We learned while were there that the island is really called Unalaska. Yeah, UN, as in not. Kinda dumb, but said that way cause dumb white people can't pronounce it right :) The real name of the island is Ounalashka, after the natives that live there. And it's pronounced A-un-a-lash-ka. (the un in like in Uno) yeah, anyway. enough on the name. The hats above are native design, out of wood. Pretty cool. They also had examples of gut coats. Yep, you guessed right, if you guessed that the coats are out of the intestines of seals.

The other cool place in town was the Russian Orthodox Church. It's the oldest Russian church in the US. Built in ...... 1800 something. I think. Outside there were bushes that had salmon berries on them. Kinda like raspberries. Not as sweet and not as tart. You can find them all over Alaska, but most places you have to compete with the bears :) Not on the island though, there are no bears. Besides the Aleutian museum, there is also a World War II visitor Center. Pretty cool, not sure why I didn't take a single picture. Anyway. The story of the bombing of Dutch Harbor and how the US took back the islands after the Japanese took the last 2 islands.

This would be the airport. Uh, yeah, the airport. There is a restaurant, and only one boarding gate. Small place. Where we got stuck. We were supposed to leave on Saturday night. The flight that we were on was returning to Anchorage. However, it didn't leave Anchorage until late, and the pilots wouldn't have had enough rest if they were to return right away. Sooooo, we had to leave on Sunday. bummer. But at least the plane was able to land in Dutch, sometimes they can't even land because of the fog or the low cloud cover. We were really worried that we were going to be stuck there more than just 1 extra day. We lucked out, I guess :)