Our trip to the Great White North ends up going south

IF ever a journey to a different place is defined by a single moment, it was defined for me aboard the domed McKinley Explorer in the wondrous region of central Alaska.

Embraced in the comfort of a train that lacked none of the amenities of travel, and passing through some of the most glorious country on the planet, I was already in a state of bliss when the public address system began playing an aria by Luciano Pavarotti.

We were at once linked to both art and nature, transcended to a state approaching ecstasy by the combined elements of music and scenery. It was like being in a foreign film. Pavarotti’s voice became a part of the misty, snowy peak of Mt. McKinley, the tumbling glacial rivers and the expansive fields of tundra that lined our route.

One is never far from the world in the age of CNN, but there was no CNN aboard the McKinley Explorer, only a quietness that was rare on this Holland America land/sea cruise through Alaska. This is my third trip to our 49th state, and the experience, whether it’s in Barrow or Beaver Creek, is never without wonder.

That is not to say, however, that every moment of this tour was a bowl of cherries. The train trips were idyllic and oddly peaceful, but the long journeys on a 50-passenger bus were like being trapped inside a football stadium during a game between Alabama and Mississippi that never ended. The bellowing, shrieking and the general din of Dixie hubris were almost more than a quiet, reasonably articulate man could take.

For some reason we were grouped together with 47 Southerners, which left my wife, my grandson Jeffrey and I in cultural isolation, wedged between a man who wore a hat that said “Hooked on Jesus” and a fat little teenage girl in a T-shirt that said “Worship!” On one particular morning, our tour guide, a young, desperately amiable man named Chris, led us in a version of “Amazing Grace.”

I have no quarrel with those who seek comfort in what a fellow coach passenger referred to as “the man upstairs,” but I do take issue with their feeling that in order to have fun, a man must bellow and the women, in presumably a response of appreciation, must shriek. This went on for nine hours of a bus ride from Beaver Creek to Fairbanks.

My wife, who is a friend to all, tried hard to be friendly with these people, most of whom were from North Carolina, but I could tell by her puzzled expression that it never went well. They were clannish to begin with and highly suspicious of someone from California, L.A. at that, married to a man who wrote.

As an example of the difficulty in communicating with those who saw the correct pronunciation of words as a damned nuisance, my wife and grandson left the coach at a rest stop to use the facilities. I stayed. The man across the aisle looked at me and said, “Yaint?” I said, “What?” He said, “Yaint?” I said, “I don’t know what a yaint is.” He said, in a tone of annoyance, “Yaint getting off?” “Oh,” I said, “no, yaint?” He said, “Nope,” and then something else that was beyond my ability to interpret.

The best times were among smaller groups when the men showed no indication of hollering down the aisle of the bus, bumping bellies or displaying any of the other traits Southerners seem to manifest when they’re having fun. I don’t know if they were passing around a jug of moonshine or were just high on life, but their behavior seemed more appropriate in that aforementioned eternal football game in a Dixie hell than on a tour with other human beings.

One had to concentrate hard on the scenery and the animal life to remove himself from the bluster on the bus. Aboard a smaller vehicle utilized for a tour through Denali State Park, the good ol’ boys and their aging belles became singularly quiet in the company of a passing grizzly, awed by both its magnificence and the sense of danger its size and wildness conveyed. I couldn’t help but think of Timothy Treadwell, the ex-Malibu bartender who tried cozying up to the bears in Alaska some years ago, thinking he was their friend and playmate and possibly their uncle, and ending up as their entree.

All things considered, I would probably take the Holland America tour again, although I would request that my coach passengers pass some kind of psychological examination that would weed out those who were excessively loud, and a verbal test to determine their ability to communicate. I will admit, however, that occasionally I found their language, well, fun.

For instance, in the men’s room of a bus stop I was with a fellow passenger who, after washing his hands, discovered that all he need do to acquire a paper towel was wave a hand before an electronic eye. Watching the towel emerge, he shook his head, looked over at me and said with a certain weariness, “Evrathin’ is automatic anymore.”

Yee-haw.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.