Many years ago we visited Alaska (twice!) with our kids. These were improvised trips on a tight budget: we flew to Anchorage, rented a car, used a camp stove to prepare one-dish meals, and toured parts of Alaska that we could easily reach by road. Those were wonderful times, and we have always wanted to go back. It finally happened this year when we flew to Anchorage and took a Viking cruise down the Alaska coast and through the inside passage to Vancouver, British Columbia. After leaving the ship, we visited Victoria, B.C. and then took the Rocky Mountaineer over to Banff. The entire trip lasted about 17 days, and was superb! We will share some of our photos and highlights of the trip in a series of posts, starting here with Seward:
Our cruise ship, the Viking Orion, in port at Seward, Alaska. The Orion would be our home for the next several days as we made our way down the coast to Vancouver, British Columbia. If you are not familiar with Viking, their ocean cruises carry about 900+ passengers (there were 914 on this cruise). These ships are spacious enough to not feel crowded, yet small enough to get into places that are too tight for larger ships. And Viking cruises are quiet: no casinos, water slides, theme-park entertainment, or herds of people. However, they don’t sack and pillage villages along the way, so if it is loot you want, you need to look for a different cruise line.During our day in Seward we took a smaller boat, shown above, for a tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. We had taken this tour during our first visit to Alaska many years ago, and knew it to be a winner. The scenery and wildlife watching were both spectacular, and definitely worth the risk of getting seasick on this size of boat. This excursion was one of the top highlights of the entire trip.On our way out of the Seward harbor into Resurrection Bay. This view to the east shows the immense scenery that is so typical of Alaska. Notice the glacier flowing down between peaks of the Resurrection Peninsula; this was one of many glaciers we saw on this excursion and on most of the cruise.Small pinnacle islands (they probably have a name, but it escapes me) along the edge of Resurrection Bay. We are not yet out into the Gulf of Alaska, so we don’t see the ocean swell that prevails in the Gulf. Small fishing boats turned up from time to time in this part of the Bay, so I expect the fishing was good.Bear Glacier, the largest valley glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. We were thankful to have good weather, with clear views of the amazing scenery. Given the ruggedness of the terrain, a boat tour is the best way to see the Park. Other than helicopter or bush plane, it may be the only way. Whales! As we sailed from Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska, we were fortunate to come across a group of about 10 humpback whales bubble feeding. Basically, the whales circle under a school of fish and exhale to create a curtain of bubbles to herd the fish closer together. Once the fish are close enough, the humpbacks lunge up through the school of fish to scoop up as many as possible. The area under their chin expands as they scoop up water, fish, and (if they get in the way) birds, and then they squeeze out the water to filter and swallow the food. The birds know to look for the area of bubbles, and fly in to grab some of the fish. This photo shows at least two or three of the humpbacks shoving their heads up through the water as they scoop up fish.More humpback whales, with the flukes of one of them up in the air as he prepares to go deep. How many whales can you find in this photo? We see the arched back of one, the flukes (tail) of a second one, and the faint exhale (blow) of a third. And I think that might be a small area of exposed back of a fourth whale showing behind the flukes of the second whale. What do you think?Aialik Glacier where it enters the sea at the end of one of the fjords. The ice flows downslope several feet per day, and the glacier is probably at least 200 fee thick where it calves off into the water. Sizes are hard to estimate on this scale and at this distance, so the face if the glacier might be quite a bit more than 200 feet high.Tufted puffin cruising in the water near Resurrection Bay. Glaciers don’t move very fast, and mountains are even slower, so they are relatively easy to photograph. Birds are a different story, and I lost track of how many times I was lining up a shot only to have the bird suddenly take off or take a dive underwater. Anyone who successfully photographs wildlife, butterflies, or young children has my respect!
