At home and abroad

Thursday I saw a porcupine for the first time in the wild. This guy was outside the Mendenhall Glacier visitor’s center, nibbling like crazy on the greenery surrounding him. He looked like he was trying to ignore all the tourists taking pictures. But they were making him nervous.

That night we encountered another stellar denizen of this part of the world: the Alaskan king crab. We didn’t see one of the actual crustaceans (which can have a leg span five feet wide). But their parts are on multiple restaurant menus, priced at $75 to $85 a pound.

The two of us almost stumbled over another porcupine Saturday morning, when we hiked on what’s left of Alaska’s first road. Known today as the Perseverance Trail, it was built in the late 1880s to serve early miners.

Salmon berries were only just beginning to flower, which may partly explain why we didn’t see any black bears. God knows there were plenty of signs warning of their presence — and other dangers Sunday when we climbed up Mt. Roberts to the top of the cable car that carries cruise-ship passengers up the almost-vertical mountainside.

Wolves live in those woods, too. But I was told moose prefer other parts of Alaska. It struck me I’ve never seen a live moose anywhere, in neither zoo nor the wild, so I would be most excited to see one of them.

We did eat in downtown Juneau at Bullwinkle’s Pizza Saturday night. Juneauites have been devouring pizza there under images of the cartoon moose for more than 50 years.

The pizza was good, but the restaurant interior was pretty forlorn. We chose it only because Bullwinkle’s is just around the corner from the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, where the Lionel Hampton Big Band was performing that night. I’d heard that Juneau organizes a music festival every May, and the big band would be performing for the finale that Saturday night. I’d gotten tickets, and Steve and I had decided to take the free pre-concert dance lesson at 6 pm (hence the need for an easy, close dinner.)

We walked in to the hall to find at least a dozen folks already gathered around the teacher, a pretty blonde with a bear paw tattooed on her left shoulder blade. Gamely, she and her assistant demonstrated Lindy and jitterbug moves to the “class.” To me it seemed a wildly ambitious effort; the instructors were racing through a repertoire that Steve and I once learned (sort of) over the course of a couple of years. But soon enough it was time for the dance students to clear the floor so the performance could begin.

Lionel himself has been dead for more than 40 years, but the band is still playing his arrangements; indeed some of the 10 members were in the group when the great vibraphonist was still leading it. The ensemble proved energetic and accomplished, and more-confident dancers soon filled the dance floor.

Steve and I joined them for one number, but it reminded us how far out of practice we are, so mostly we watched. I found myself wondering if the scene would look very different were the band playing at some Kiwanis hall in San Diego. I spotted way more boots on the feet in the Juneau crowd. But mostly they just looked like ordinary American Homo sapiens, having fun.