There is no way to exaggerate when describing this state. Mountain ranges stretch for hundreds of miles, national parks cover millions of acres, winter temperatures are lower almost anywhere else. Even farm produce and flowers belong in the Land of the Giants, where dahlias and roses are the size of cabbages and cabbages as huge as bushes. One farmer told me her grandchildren use her rhubarb leaves as umbrellas! The growing season is short but days are long, and rain so plentiful it is measured in feet instead of inches.

Our destination is the six million acres, Denali National Park, America's largest natural preserve with the country's highest mountain, Mt McKinley, as its centrepiece.

Hikers and horseback riders have a grand time in this park, returning to the lodge with tales of wildlife sightings that include black and grizzly bears. Travelling its 90 miles of road by school bus, with stops along the way, we see nothing larger than a brown hare, but I really don't need to. It's the peace I find so compelling. Walking ahead of our group, I am struck by the absolute silence. Hundreds of bird species, animals big and small live in Denali, and yet there isn't a sound. No squawks or twitters, no singing of wires overhead, no snorts from hidden animals. White blobs in the trees turn out to be bald eagles, staring stonily down from their spruce tree perches. On this morning pink fireweeds are sprinkled with snow, and the grass spiked with frost. In mid summer I am wearing a woollen hat and gloves, and must brush snowflakes off a sign in order to read it. And yet it is so utterly beautiful I want to stay.

A few hardy souls spend their winters in the park. We visit a single-room cabin, one of 14 used by rangers who patrol by dog sled on the look-out for poachers. Scientists too spend a few nights at a time here while studying area wolves. Nails on the cabin's shutters are a deterrant to bears; claw marks below show their determination to gain entry. An Athabaskan arrives to tell us about his nomad tribe. His melodious voice is sad, as he explains how his ancestors crossed the ice bridge from Asia some 12,000 years ago, and now the younger generation is being counselled on drugs and alcohol abuse. Pop and Doritos, he says, are making some of the kids obese. Others play baseball in hopes that athletic skills will allow them to travel far away.

On board the Coral Princess we have a real dilemma, for this is a floating resort with all the expected bells and whistles, and we could be entertained royally without ever going ashore. But then those once-in-a-lifetime excursions and historic ports beckon, and we have to figure out how to fit it all in.

To minimize environmental impact, only two cruise ships are allowed into Glacier National Park & Preserve at any time. On the second day at sea it's our turn, causing passengers to glue themselves to the rails or in chaises pulled up to picture windows, as park rangers explain the heart-stopping scenes unfolding before us. It is as if we have sailed into a fantasy world of ice, cocooned in soft grey mist and clouds. Great walls of ice, in places marbled with blue, rise from ice-clogged water. I half expect the Snow Queen to glide by on a golden sleigh. Instead there's an otter, its hands folded neatly on its belly. (I can almost hear him humming contentedly). Seabirds dip and dive before settling onto little ice rafts. More otters. Snowcapped mountains. Coastal beaches. A thunderous clap rents the air when a slab of ice - like Humpty Dumpty - falls from the wall in a procedure known as 'calving'.

On another day some of our passengers kayak through this wonderland, returning home to tell of eye-balling grizzly bears on the shore. But we are no less thrilled to skim over the park in a float plane, for a view more spectacular than anything I've seen before.

The next three mornings see everyone on the move. Tour busses are lined up on dock to take passengers to their excursions. Other passengers wander into towns and easy walk from the ship. Skagway is our favourite port. Touristy though it is, we love the frontier town character, reminding us of times when this was base camp for prospectors heading for the Klondike. Now, the main street's restored buildings from that era house perfectly respectable shops.

We talk with an actor playing the role of the notorious confidence trickster Soapy Smith, and pose with costumed girls from the Red Onion. Then, after walking back to the ship for lunch, (I can't get used to eating a first class meal in an elegant dining room, and leaving with a smile instead of a bill from the waiter) we ride the famous White Pass and Yukon Railway on the miners' route through snow-covered mountains, past glaciers and waterfalls and fast-running streams. We climbed close to 1,000 metres in 20 minutes recalling that until the railroad was finished in l899, prospectors travelled on foot bringing a year's supply with them..

Juneau, the state capital, covers 3,108 square miles but has only 30,000 year round residents. I linger on a bench by the harbour, watching fishing charters come and go from the harbour and float planes set off for nearby glaciers. And spent far too much time in a wonderful little shop where a local carver demonstrated use of his traditional curved ulus with handles made from moose or caribou antlers. An ulu is also known as "the woman's knife." on the theory that men do the hunting and fishing, women prepare the food with their ulus. A practical tool originally used by natives to cut up meat and tough hides, mine is great for slicing anything for which I would normally use a serrated knife.

Ketchican was originally settled by the Tlingit people whose work you'll see in totems scattered about town, and attractive little galleries. Our excursion this morning is to Saxman Village, an authentic Tlingit community founded in l886 and now home to 450 members of the tribe.

Fishermen, sailors, explorers, traders and gold miners settled here in the early l900s. Now, for us, it is the last Alaskan town on our route south towards British Columbia. One dockside sign tells us we are entering the World's Salmon Capital, another that this is the state's Rain Capital - 12' so far this year. Three more feet to go to meet the average, and the heavens are trying hard to reach their target today.

We head for Creek Street where former brothels are now picturesque one-of-a-kind shops lining wiggly lanes and alleys above the creek. And on the way back stop on a bridge to watch hundreds of black salmon leaping from the water. Fishermen, perhaps a dozen or more, crowd the bridge and wade into the water to scoop them up. One enterprising lad wants to rent me a rod and bait: $12 for twenty minutes, money refunded if I don't hook a fish. Alongside me, small children no more than seven or eight are netting their own salmon, to add to their parents' haul watched over by the family dog. I imagine them at home later this afternoon, Ulus in hand, beheading and gutting their catch, doing whatever they must to preserve their salmon for use in the long dark winter ahead.

It is Saturday afternoon. On our walk to the ship I think of a typical Saturday afternoon in Toronto, and how different this world is from my own. On Deck 5, classical music emanates from the Bordeaux Dining Room, as tea gets under way. White cloths and silver service. Warm scones smothered in preserves and cream, petit fours. Bite-sized salmon sandwiches that would do any five star London hotel proud.

ALASKA'S MODERN PIONEERS

Magnificent scenery aside, one of the most interesting aspects of an Alaskan vacation is the people you meet and stories they tell. Many came here in the '60s in search of a better life, others came to do a job and when it was finished realized they were hooked on the north country.

Men like Doyle, who was posted here with the U.S. Airforce, and when his time was up became a fireman. Now semi-retired, he is a trapper who faces temperatures of 60 - 80 below to check his traplines every 48 hours and sells his furs to big stores in New York.

Then there's Bill, a computer geek in the '60s when he arrived to work on the pipeline, fell in love with local sled dogs. These days you'll find him racing some of the thirty he owns, in hopes of having a winning team in the Iditarod, the gruelling race he has finished seven times to date.

Most memorable though is Joanne Porterfield of Trappers Creek. I met Joanne through her daughter Janel who drove us to one of our excursions. Along the way she told me how she had come here as an infant in the '60s, with her parents, three siblings and a dog, and she grew up thinking everyone lived as they did. No baby sitters. No malls. No television. "It's all about family up here" she said, "where Mum and Dad went, we went too." Stopping off at her family's home (Two Bit, Two Cow Ranch) to pick up lemonade and a snack for our trip she asked if we'd like to meet her mother. A real live homesteader ? You bet.

Now 74 and widowed, Joanne still lives in the family log cabin added to over the years. There's still no community closer than Talkeetna, 80 km away in summer and less in winter when she can travel on the frozen river. Any regrets ? "Yes" she smiles wryly. "I brought a lot of my favourite coffee, butternut, and had to throw it out. The water here made it taste bitter." Other than that, not a one. No regret that she, husband Frank and the kids (did I mention they were aged l8 months to 6 yrs ?) lived in a trailer for two years while building the house. "Sometimes the ice inside froze the girls' hair to the windows overnight. I had to heat water to get them unstuck." What did she miss most ? Running water. "I had to do the running. To the creek in summer, and for snow to melt in winter."

Joanne was 27, a school teacher living in South Dakota where Frank ran the family farm, when they decided they wanted adventure in their lives. Alaska was offering free land: five acres of wilderness a mile from the road. So they came, with their Volkswagen 'beetle' and a trailer. Supplies were brought in every six months by boat from Seattle. Their crops failed, except for potatoes. They ate a lot of potatoes back then. And moose meat. And berries. Joanne home-schooled her children, and any others who turned up.

Janel came in to say a moose and her calf were in the back field, so we trooped out to look. No surprise there. The duo are regular visitors. I ogled Joanne's enormous cabbages and roses, and noticed a battered VW up on blocks. It is the car they had when they first arrived in Alaska. It's been bought and sold a few times over the past forty years. Now Janel is hoping to find time to restore it to its original state. Throughout our visit I tried to remember where I had seen this mother and daughter a few days earlier. "Oh yes, "Janel replied when I asked her if they were in a promotion film on Alaska. "They came and asked if we'd talk about our life here. Mom was also featured in National Geographic once, but neither of us can figure why. We're just like any other Alaska family. We love the outdoors and the wildlife, and wouldn't live any place else."