Prairie Home at Sea – Day 5

The fun with Garrison and company on a cruise to Alaska continues.

July 18 Sitka, Alaska

This morning we awake docked in the beautiful bay of Sitka, the site of the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States. We certainly got a deal for $7.2 million.

The natural beauty of this spot includes forested mountains coming down to the sea, a dormant volcano, and a chain of islands that protects the bay from ocean swells. The tiny town is the home of St. Michael’s, a Russian Orthodox church, established in 1848. As in all of Alaska there is a story. When the ship carrying the icons, chalices, and the doors for the altar encountered a storm, some of them were lost at sea. A month later the crate with the icon of St. Michael washed ashore unscathed! In 1966 the original structure burnt to the ground. The story is that it took one man to remove the chandelier from the ceiling during the fire and six men to carry it into the new building.