Captain James Cook at Alaska's Resurrection Bay

REGENERATION PLACES by Wayne Dixon Predawn darkness was broken only by the red glow of a lone neon HOTEL sign as we awoke on our cruise ship gliding into Seward's wharf. Its 2,700 residents were still sleeping, making the most of what was left of Alaska's short summer night. It was Saturday, the original Jewish Sabbath, observed by most Christians on Sunday and Moslems on Friday. We were in Resurrection Bay, named for that ultimate Sabbath hoped for by these believers. Captain James Cook was one of those seekers, if we take seriously names he gave places he touched upon in his journeys. On his first journey he found Providential Channel escaping the mazes of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Later, caught between two rocks in an Alaskan fog, he journaled, "Providence had conducted us through between these rocks where I should not have ventured in a clear day, and to such an anchoring place that I could not have chosen a better." He was always conscious of the fragility of his quests, especially so on his last venture looking for the mythical Northwest Passage. Past his prime in the eyes of some, he volunteered to find the way through Arctic waters connecting Europe with Asia. "My fate drives me from one extream (sic) to a nother," he wrote. It was not to be found along the Oregon and Washington coast where he met storms in 1778. He missed the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Vancouver Island. Prince William Sound offered the first real opportunity to explore. There he met native Alaskans, spending a little time without finding his elusive waterway. Cook's hope sprang eternal. Near Resurrection Bay he found resources to continue his journey, including warming sea otter pelts. It was calm here, protected from the ups and downs of open sea. Scoured by ancient glaciers to the depth of a thousand feet, today it still shelters an abundance of sea life as well as a host of small craft. Thirteen years later, the Russian explorer, Alexander Baranof found refuge here on the Russian Orthodox Easter Sunday in 1791. He gratefully named it Resurrection Bay. Recovering from storms, he again found his way. We, too, hopefully followed our itinerary, leaving our ship, boarding our bus for Anchorage, one hundred-twenty miles away. We were on land now, adjusting our sea-legs to taken-for- granted security of terra firma. Not so, our driver informed us. Dead trees along the highway stood as silent reminders of thirty-foot high tidal waves inundating seaside forests on Good Friday, 1964, during Alaska's great earthquake. The Kenai Peninsula's mountains shrank 6-8 feet as a result of this cataclysm. Seward itself was shredded and took ten years to recover. It rains over a hundred days a year here, and nearby Chugash State Park as well as Kenai Fjords National Park offer evidence of renewal. Oh, yes, the driver told us, there was a problem with spruce bark beetles eating away at the phloem, but we hardly noticed those trees given the resilient forests. Life went on, and so did we.