I’ve spent the majority of my life in the unrelentingly hot country of Thailand. This helps put in perspective how cold Alaska seems to me. In Thailand, the coldest night in winter it can get down to the low sixties (Fahrenheit), but in Alaska, it got down to the point where there were glaciers in the water, and this was in the summer! My little body was basically turning to ice as well. This was by far the coldest weather I had ever encountered, and the wind didn’t help at all.



It was the summer of 2010 and it was my grandparent’s fiftieth anniversary. They had decided to take our whole family on a cruise… to Alaska. I was uncontrollably excited to get on an enormous cruise liner. The trip started in Seattle where, though it was not warm, it wasn’t freezing. I knew it was the summer so I didn’t expect temperatures near freezing. We all got onto the enormous boat and we set off, along with hundreds of other passengers, the bulk of which had efficiently prepared, unlike me.



It wasn’t too cold until we were a few days in. We had passed Ketchikan and Juneau and we were going up to a fjord, a small inlet, kind of like a small bay, except it was formed by glaciers. I didn’t know what a fjord was until our boat had already embarked on our journey into one. If it were up to me I would’ve gladly stayed inside our nice, warm, windowless room, but my whole extended family was outside oohing at something. I went against my better judgment and stepped outside onto the ice cold deck of our cruise liner. It was worth it. Out on the right side of our boat were a couple of blubbery seals. They were sitting on a small iceberg about 50 meters from our ship. To us they looked like ants but they were probably twice my size or more. On the other side of our vessel was, at least in comparison, a tiny boat. It was a small ship from National Geographic. They seemed to be going around the fjord taking pictures and video of the seals. Their little boat had a much easier time navigating the maze of ice in the water, but our monster of a ship had no trouble breaking through the small icebergs.



As I stood on the edge of our liner looking out to the icy waters, my cousin came up to me showing off how one could see cold air coming out of his nostrils. I took in a deep breath to try this for myself. As I did this I took in the aroma of the ocean, salty and strong, as well as a freezing sensation all the way down to my lungs. I decided that I would never do this foolish act again.



My final wish before we traversed our way out of the fjord was to stand at the front of the ship and look out. My mom and I went up to see what was up there. What I didn’t think about is that if you’re at the front of the ship, there’s nothing in the way to break the wind. I was freezing. As I sat huddled up next to my mom surrounded in several layers of clothing, I just listened. What everyone could hear was the blaring engine of the boat. This almost made everything inaudible but I still listened. I heard the rush of air by my face. Below that I heard a few birds in the sky making a small squawking. Overall, there wasn’t much to be heard, and even if there was, I probably couldn’t have heard it. The insides of my ears were frozen.



After about 2 hours in the fjord we started to back out. This was the first time I had ever seen a boat, especially of the magnitude, move backwards, however, even after seeing an enormous liner move backwards, this was not the part of the cruise I remembered. It was the one day I spent in the midst of seals, icebergs, and a freezing fjord.