Full 1,500-word article. Many more pictures available

ALASKA; A TRUE LEARNING VACATION

By Pam Hobbs

I spent a part of Thursday morning happily painting leaves. Literally. Using primary colours I mixed the paints to muted shades of golds and greens, daubed them on a birch leaf, then pressed it onto my paper - and so began my happy hour with table-mates Polly, Norma and Phil. No, I am not in kindergarten, or therapy. I am attending art classes given by renowned Vancouver artist Frank Townsend aboard the s.s. Universe Explorer weaving through Alaska's icy waters.

Most of the yearExplorer is a floating university with Semester at Sea programmes taking students on three month trips around the world while earning them credits at Pittsburgh University. During school holidays it carries regular passengers to Alaska through summer and around Central America at Christmastime. Still it is an educational ship, providing us with lectures on environmental issues, local wildlife, folklore and cultures and the history of areas travelled. Our teachers are largely from the University of British Columbia and native communities. And with four groups of Elderhostel members on board this trip, seminars are very well attended.

Even those of us travelling independently have a great deal in common. We care little for glitz and glamour offered by today's mega-ships. Dress is casual at all times, which means 'come as you are' or change into fresh slacks and shirt for dinner. The former casino has been replaced by the largest library afloat, and what a treat it is to curl up on its plush velvet chairs with coffee-table books on Alaska wildlife such as we see flopping about beyond the windows. Pre and post dinner concerts (depending what sitting you've chosen for the dining room) are presented by a fiddler, harpist and classical singer as well as a former Broadway entertainer who has us singing all the old favourites that I often heard in the corridors long after the auditorium had emptied. A five-piece dance band plays through to the wee hours, with professional dancers on hand for singles. Movies shown in the theatre, and again in cabins next day, are always the latest releases.

Several things have struck me on this particular cruise. I can't recall ever passing a passenger in hallways, lounges or on deck who didn't pause to say "hi, isn't this great" or something similar. I am more than impressed by the number of men and women writing notes at the seminars, asking questions, photographing everything in sight. And I am quite shame-faced at the energy and sense of adventure, of elderly passengers whose zest for discovery, learning and adventure had them signing up for kayaking tours through the fjords, glacier walks, and cycling safaris.

While most of the two dozen cruise-ships plying the Inside Passage each summer offer 7-10 day cruises between Vancouver and Alaska, Universe Explorer does this trip in a leisurely two weeks often calling at out-of-the-way ports inaccessible to larger ships. Built in 1958 for exclusive tours of South America out of New York, she has a capacity for 737 passengers plus 250 crew members. Since then she has had several owners, and even more names, but through it all has retained spacious cabins originating in the luxury liner she used to be. Our standard double cabin has three closets and six bureau drawers, which is far more than we need for our casual dress. Cabin crews are almost all from the Philippines; officers from Europe and North America. Upgraded many times, both public lounges and cabins are immaculately maintained.

As on any cruise-ship, food is of huge importance. Here it could be classed as good to excellent, with lots of variety and creative presentations. For breakfast and lunch we have the option of buffets to be eaten in the cafeteria or on deck, or the quiet of the dining room. Dinner is served at assigned tables in two sittings in the elegant dining room. After a four course lunch, I have to confess to showing up for tea every day, whether this involved cakes and cookies or a themed buffet such as oriental, Mexican or chocolate. (No wonder we're all smiling. Try scoffing chocolate eclairs and profiteroles on a sunny day surrounded by snow-covered mountains, and you too will look like the cat's meeow.! We also have our share of singing waiters, themed dinners and the traditional Baked Alaska parade on our last night.

Fellow passengers can make or mar any cruise, and we had the best. No dinnertime boredom with strangers here. Every night we met, eager to tell of our day's activities. That's Polly , Norma, two Mikes, and a surgeon from Washington who is here with his nephew and father-in-law. By day three we are practically family, or at the least good friends. There are 39 passengers from Britain on board, having what they term as a brilliant time, and several escaping from the heat of Las Vegas and Forida. It is said that 90% of Explorer passengers have university degrees, many of them doctorates. All I can add is that they are the most interesting and entertaining people I have ever met in one group.

In this vast and varied land our excursion options were as many as the small towns where we docked. We particularly enjoyed our day in SKAGWAY, where it was warm and sunny. Touristy though it is, we loved the reconstructed wooden buildings such as those that sprang up in the Gold Rush era when this was en route to the gold fields near Dawson. We learn about the notorious Soapy Smith, pose with costumed girls from the Red Onion, and after walking back to the ship for lunch boarded a train for the White Pass and Yukon route to Fraser in British Columbia. Climbing 3,000' in 20 minutes, through the steepest of mountains, running rivers, gorges and ice-covered terrain, we marvelled at the prospectors who came this way on foot while relaying 50 lb backpacks because they couldn't cross the border with less than one year's supplies. Bringing bicycles and guides from the ship, a group of our passengers chose to ride the rails uphill and to cycle back down.

WRANGELL is a busy port filled with fishing boats, and small enough we could have covered it on foot on our own. But instead we joined a bus group, with a leader called Dottie whose humour was well worth the tariff we paid. (People are slow here it takes some of 'em an hour

and a half to watch 60 minutes...she tells us. ) On the docks little girls sell local garnets, some of them embedded in rock. One woman has cakes for sale but no takers since we are fed five times a day on the ship. SITKA, is the Russian community founded in 1799 when that nation's traders discovered the value of sea otter furs, shows its past in a Russian Orthodox church containing remarkable icons, and jewellery made from precious stones found only in Siberia.

Fearing fog or rain, I didn't invest in a helicopter or seaplane tour. More's the pity, because those who did came back raving about their hikes on glaciers and salmonbake lunches at a remote lodge. On the two boat tours I took, we saw grizzly bears, sealions, bald eagles, dozens of whales and one lone sea otter floating idly with his hands on his belly. (I could almost hear him humming contentedly.) VALDEZ, known to the world since l989 as the site of the Exxon oil spill, offers pipeline tours and an up-close look at a glacier. On Good Friday that year the Exxon ran aground on a reef and spilled 11.2 million barrels of crude oil into the water. Some ten thousand people came to clean it up, but still you can lift a rock and find a black tar puddle beneath. The pipeline's southern terminus is in this town. Started in 1974 it produces 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, and if you don't take the tour do visit the museum in town for its excellent display of pipeline memorabilia and information. Seward and Juneau were additional Alaskan stops on this particular cruise.

Much as I enjoyed waking to new towns, the three days at sea were as full as I wanted them to be.. On these we were busy with computer lessons and art classes, lectures and shore excursion talks. I even found time for a massage between meals. On one such day we leisurely sailed through ice clogged waters of Glacier Bay National Park. Two rangers braved the ice to come aboard, and gave a running commentary of wildlife and history of the glacier's thick wall of ice before us. En route to Hubbard Glacier, on another such day, sealions played chicken with the ship - staying on their patch of ice to the last minute, then slipping into the frigid water. This glacier has been described as Nature's work of art in process, and so it is, with a weak sunning on the marble streaked ice worn smooth over millions of years. A giant clap rents the air, followed by the crash as a huge chunk thunders into the water. The canvas has changed as we watch. We clap and cheer and stamp our feet, and return to our hot chocolate and eclairs on deck or indoors, waiting for the next scene Nature has ready for us in this 49^th state, Alaska.