The drive out of downtown Anchorage the next morning offered views of even more mountains, including the Alaska Range extending north to the home of Mount Denali, North America's highest peak. The motorcoach followed Seward Highway southeast, in parallel with the Alaska Railroad along Turnagain Arm, far below the previous evening's flight path from Phoenix.
The Chugach mountains stretched to the east and north while those Kenai peaks created a panorama across Turnagain Arm. The extreme range of the tides was evident as hundreds of yards of silty mudflats separated us from the water. On one side of the highway, moose grazed in the fresh water ponds created from the railroad grade construction while on the other side, bald eagles scavenged in the mud. Only a grizzly bear could have wowed the bus passengers more. At the eastern end of Turnagain, from the rocky coastline like they've done for centuries, fishermen cast nets for hooligans, a local fish that spawns in the spring.
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| View from the highway along Turnagain Arm between Anchorage and Portage. |
A stop at Portage Lake offered our closest approach to a glacier so far, although the river of ice remained hidden behind a rocky outcrop along the shoreline. The sunny skies had suddenly turned white with cloud cover, blending seamlessly with the snow-covered mountaintops. We passed through the over two-mile-long Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel at our scheduled time, when the one lane tunnel would temporarily be dedicated to our single flow of car traffic instead of rail service. We had arrived in Whitter where the Sapphire Princess awaited us. It was our home and transport for a seven-day cruise along the southeast Alaska coast to Vancouver.
Whittier has the only harbor in the north of Alaska that stays freeze-free year-round. And as it was for us, the immediate area is usually cloud-covered. As a result, the town became popular with the U.S. military during World War II and the Cold War. Now, it's mostly a port used for fishing and sightseeing excursions across Prince William Sound, and for a single mega-liner at a time like the Sapphire to offload and board its passengers.
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| Whittier's harbor and cruise port with the Sapphire Princess. |
A blustery walk along Whittier's waterfront introduced me to my first taste of "Weird Alaska" when I encountered a suit-wearing gentleman on the shoreline singing opera toward the water. I also met a few of the local birds like Steller's jays, magpies, and ravens, which all happen to live in Arizona. In sharp contrast, a new species of gull for me, black-legged kittiwakes, breed in the area. Disappointedly however, the excited flock of gulls off the bow of the ship were glaucus-winged gulls.
Puffins were actually the number one bird on my shortlist of new birds to find. Alas, I discovered that it was closer to Seward, sixty miles away on the Kenai Peninsula and where my ship was not heading, where a birder was more likely to encounter this adorable-looking seabird.
Rough seas greeted us as we left the sound overnight and entered the Gulf of Alaska. On one of the remotest stretch's of Alaska's coast the next morning, low skies prevented us from getting a view of Mount Saint Elias rising more than 18,000 feet. It trails Denali as the second highest peak in the United States - but not in North America where mountains in Canada and Mexico are taller. By mid-afternoon we were finally entering the protection of Yakutat Bay, delayed an hour by the heavy seas. Thanks to our onboard naturalist, Sandra, the visit was also a crash coarse in glaciers.
It took several hours to approach Hubbard Glacier, the most famous ice flow in the area. Hubbard is a tidal glacier, in fact the largest in Alaska, and is six-miles wide where it reaches the waters of Disenchantment Bay, an arm at the end of Yakutat. Since icebergs were calving, the captain kept the Sapphire more than a mile from the dense, dangerous mix of ice. A few passengers boarded a small tour boat that pulled up next to our ship and transported them closer to the glacier. Princess sold this two-hour tour for almost $400 per person. The boat looked filthy, apparently covered in the same glacial powder that creates the silt in the surrounding water.
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| Tour boat at Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay. |
A second glacier, Turner, lay to the west. Many more hanging glaciers occupied the mountains surrounding Yakutat but were mostly obscured by low clouds and rain. These rivers of ice stopped long before reaching seawater. I could, however, see lots of wildlife throughout Yakutat Bay: Steller sea lions, harbor seals, gulls, arctic terns, sea otters, and a single bald eagle perching atop an iceberg.
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| Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay. |
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| Iceberg in Hubbard Glacier. |
As the ship turned away from Hubbard, sunlight poked through the sky cover, illuminating the glacier in all its icy blue glory. We headed toward Alaska's Inside Passage, a series of inter-connected waterways of fjords, canals, straights, channels, sounds, bays, passages, and inlets. I soon learned that the canals weren't manmade and the bays didn't always open onto an ocean. More Weird Alaska!
The next day might have included the highlight for most passengers when they planned their cruise months if not years before: Glacier Bay National Park. Only two cruise ships entering every day contributes to its appeal as a remote, pristine environment protected from almost every manmade destruction and development except, alas, for climate change. Of course, glaciers are not fixed or static by definition, and seasons of heavy snow contribute to their size and movement. But warming local temperatures, less rain, and less cloud cover have certainly factored in an acceleration in their melting and in significant reductions in their sizes. In 1750 the area was covered by mostly one massive glacier. Over the course of one hundred years, the glacier receded, having carved the surrounding mountain peaks, the bay and its inlets, and leaving us today with over 1,000 individual glaciers.
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| View of Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. |
Sea otters began floating by our ship not long after we had entered the bay from Icy Strait on a cold, gray morning. Many of the otters carried babies on their bellies. They were soon joined by lone Steller sea lions. Gulls and cormorants traversed the waterway along with tight flocks of surf scoters. I still haven't identified two bird species I photographed, and countless others I failed to document. However I finally encountered those black-legged kittiwakes that had eluded me in Whittier. Unfortunately while warming up inside the ship, I missed a herd of Dall sheep that grazed on a rocky cliffside, an area safe from predators like wolves and bears.
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| Steller sea lion in Glacier Bay National Park. |
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| Sea otter in Glacier Bay National Park. |
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| Black-legged kittiwake in Glacier Bay National Park. |
At one point, a blurry mass, larger than a sea lion, broke the water's surface and quickly descended. Was it the fluke or the back of a humpback whale? Several passengers would indeed report seeing whales in the bay that day.
By early afternoon we were almost sixty miles into the bay and closer to where several tidewater glaciers are relatively safe to approach. At the same time the weather started clearing and we could see the towering peaks, several over 10,000 feet high, surrounding us.
At the end of Tarr Inlet, Margerie Glacier calved three times while we were near her, cracks of thunder accompanying the births delayed several seconds like real thunder due to the distance we kept. When we entered the next inlet, we couldn't approach nearly as close to Johns Hopkins Glacier, an equally impressive glacier, because of seals birthing atop the ice flow in the shadow of the icy wall. But our ship sailed quite close to smaller Lamplugh Glacier nearby.
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| Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. |
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| Lamplugh Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. |
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| View of Johns Hopkins Inlet from the aft of the Sapphire Princess in Glacier Bay National Park. |
More sea otters and birds escorted us out of the tight inlet under spectacularly clear skies, including the first pigeon guillemots and Bonaparte's gulls I'd photograph on the trip. A spectacular sunset starting at around 9:30 was a portent of continued good weather ahead. Shortly thereafter, we passed a pair of orcas close to our portside. Alaska was proving to be as sublimely beautiful as anyone could have dreamed of. Not weird at all.
Our first stop early the next morning was Skagway. There were three other cruise ships in port, but the vessel that drew most of my interest was the MV Kennicott, a ferry in the Alaska Marine Highway, another means of traversing the 49th state's extensive coast. Of course the towering mountains surrounding us on the crisp, slowly-clearing morning drew my breath away. I was almost the first passenger to disembark when I decided to go for a morning run.
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| Skagway looking north. |
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| Skagway looking south. |
Skagway, and the nearby ghost town of Dyea, were the two ports where miners competing in the Klondike Gold Rush began their arduous land race to reach the goldfields in the Yukon. In fact my morning run brought me as far as the Gold Rush Cemetery at the end of Alaska Street. I also crossed the Skagway River and ran through a forested Frisbee golf course - more Weird Alaska - before returning to a slowly awakening town and my cruise ship with its two thousand disembarking passengers. I had noted that the dark-eyed juncos, ravens, Steller's jays, swallows, and American robins I encountered on my run were more familiar birds that would be right at home in northern Arizona.
The sunny skies were an invitation to hike an easy trail to Lower Dewey Lake where an overlook on the way provide a panoramic view of Skagway, the four visiting cruise ships, and the surrounding mountains. The two-and-a-half mile hike was a bit steep until we looped around the lake which turns out to be damned at its south end, where abandoned railroad tracks crossed. The scenery was nonetheless spectacular, with birdsong accompanying us through dense spruce forest. One especially loud vocalist was a yellow warbler: again, another bird that would be at home in Arizona.
Sandra from our ship had recounted that at one time, a local brewery would trade you a free beer for baskets of freshly picked spruce tips that the brewery used in one of their concoctions. Happy hour at the Skagway Brewing Company later gave me an opportunity to taste the delicious beer.
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| View of Skagway's cruise port from the trail to Lower Dewey Lake. |
We ended the night under clear skies and snowcapped peaks, sailing through the narrow fjord called Taiya Inlet. Silver ribbons of ice melt streamed down the steep, green mountain slopes to the sea on both our port and starboard sides. We awoke in Juneau under clouds and cold temperatures.
I went on another six mile run, this time along the waterfront, much of it redeveloped for heavy cruise traffic and even more of it restored closer to its natural condition. At least three bald eagles greeted me along with a variety of gulls and numerous ravens. I heard calls that sounded like red-winged blackbirds and others like song sparrows. The latter might have been robins which I saw on a later walk.
Juneau is an actual city, with traffic lights and tall buildings, unlike most communities in the Alaskan panhandle. So I was later surprised to photograph a bald eagle soaring, weirdly, right over the crowded downtown. But even with its surfeit of cafes, bars, shops, museums, and architectural history, Juneau's waterfront still intrigued me the most. Mount Roberts and its hiking trails towering above me and Mendenhall Glacier a short drive away at the end of Lynn Canal couldn't even draw me away.
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| View of Juneau and its cruise port. |
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| Bald eagle soaring over Juneau. |
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| Totem pole along the cruise port waterfront in Juneau. |
Instead, I spent almost a half hour sitting aside an empty berth in the shadow of the Sapphire Princess photographing the sorties of pigeon guillemots flying from under the boardwalk. They seemed so determined in their circular flight paths, landing every so often to gather in twos or threes. A few Bonaparte's gulls also caught my attention, especially the adults with their inky heads.
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| Pigeon guillemot in Juneau. |
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| Adult Bonaparte's gull in Juneau. |
Ravens scavenged for French fries and pizza crusts on the open decks of the ship throughout the day and as we made our way out of port and back down Lynn Canal. It was cloudy, breezy, and cold, like it had been all day. Homes, camps, and wharves lined the shoreline below the steep, green slopes of the mountains. Bald eagles perched atop towers and piers, indifferent as I photographed them and additional flocks of surf scoters. A pair of floating birds quickly dived as I tried to get some shots. I wondered if they were loons.
I awoke early the next morning and paced our ship's outside, covered Promenade Deck as we sailed through the Tongass Narrows into Ketchikan. It was raining and chilly. The flocks of surf scoters were more numerous and much larger. Another flock of birds was impossible to identify. But most importantly, I photographed a humpback whale, my first confirmed sighting of the trip. In addition to its misty spout, I saw it displaying its namesake back as it breached and, soon after, the flukes of its tail as it dived.
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| Humpback whale near Ketchikan. |
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| Flock of surf scoters near Ketchikan. |
Our arrival in Ketchikan was rainy: not pouring, but not pleasant at all. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to focus my zoom lens on the five bald eagles soaring over the mountain rising over town while I held an open, protective umbrella in one hand. Walking near Creek Street District, the old Red Light District built atop pilings over a stream where salmon still spawn, I did manage to shoot a fledgling eagle atop a lamppost.
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| View of Ketchikan. |
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| Creek Street District in rainy Ketchikan. |
At noon I took Eagle One's Wildlife and Whale Watching Tour where I had a "98% chance of seeing whales," according to the salesgirl. I was also told there was a good chance of seeing orcas, my biggest wish of the day. The excursion also included a bald eagle show, which I later learned was when the crew attracted the birds by throwing them fresh herrings.
As we left port in the rain, I asked our guide if the weather would affect our chances of seeing wildlife. "This weather is nothing to worry about," Evan said as I shielded my camera from the rain. Meanwhile I thought about the conversation I had with a local man earlier in the day when I learned Ketchikan received fifteen feet of rain per year and held the highest suicide rate in the nation. Not weird, just so unfortunate.
We plied Tongass Narrows, entered Revilla Channel, and circled Pennock Island. Nothing to see in the soupy weather except a couple of lone eagles. I wasn't surprised we didn't see orcas, however I was disappointed we didn't see any humpback whales, especially as Eagle One's morning trip had reportedly encountered some.
And I wasn't ready at all for the bald eagle show held off the coast of Annette Island, interestingly the base of the only Indian Reservation in Alaska. (Other native land titles in the state are managed as regional and local village corporations.) I was using my telephoto lens for birds that flew within several feet of Evan's outstretched arm that had just tossed a fish in the air. Essentially I was too close to eagles I could almost touch.
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| Bald eagle in the Bald Eagle Show off of Annette Island near Ketchikan. |
The poor birds were not ready either, never catching a herring, which plopped one by one into the sea and sank. While I did get some captures, I realized my iPhone would have been a better camera for the wet, close-up action.
Meanwhile, all was not lost on the wildlife front. Little did we know that the tour was turning into a birdwatching adventure disguised as whale watching. In addition to gulls, eagles, and ravens, I spied a flock of surf scoters, a species that had quickly become my Bird of the Week. Some floating birds I thought were loons, like the night before outside Juneau, turned out to be thick-billed murres, more closely related to a puffin than a loon. (I hadn't given up on puffins!) Atop a cluster of kelp were a number of phalaropes, seemingly the red-necked variety. Then a flock of sandpipers or plovers or turnstones - I'm still not sure - swarmed by. One thing for sure, it was a good, albeit wet, birding day.
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| Thick-billed murres near Ketchikan. |
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| Flock of unidentified birds near Ketchikan. |
It was still raining when we left Ketchikan early that evening. The next morning was clear, the last day of the cruise on our way to our disembarkation port in Vancouver. We sailed in what looked like open ocean, having left the Inside Passage overnight. But by around 11am a local pilot boarded our ship to navigate us through the next passage, the one between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia.
Our narrow path, Johnstone Strait, offered signs of the area's number one industry: timber. A few swathes of mountainside were clearcut and treeless, traversed by logging roads. While the scenery was nonetheless beautiful, most eyes were peeled on the water in order to see marine life.
I had actually caught a glimpse of the long dorsal fin of an orca shortly after the pilot boarded back in the more open water. Otherwise we were witnessing mostly gulls. As we neared the narrowest point in the strait, I saw flocks of Bonaparte's gulls specifically. A few cormorants here and a lone bald eagle there seemed to sum up the additional birdlife.
The big excitement occurred shortly after 2pm while we nature lovers gathered with Sandra the naturalist at the bow of the ship, when a humpback whale breached at least three times! A little while later a trio of Dall's porpoises ripped by like parallel torpedoes barely breaking the water's surface. Then two more whales were spotted spouting and showing their backs.
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| Humpback whale breaching in Johnstone Strait in British Columbia. |
The coasts became more developed as we continued south with vacation communities and fishing harbors becoming more common. Nonetheless we spotted two orcas close to the shoreline early in the evening. While dining by a window close to sea level in the Savoy Restaurant on the Sapphire, we saw two more swim by, heading in the opposite direction. All the cetaceans, along with the stunning sunset that followed shortly after, not to mention the many flocks of migratory birds, seemed to all be telling us to turn around. Hey weirdos, you're leaving Alaska behind.
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