Seward: A Whale of a Good Time

Resurrection Bay at 10:30 pm

There is something very fishy about Seward, Alaska.

In fact, the whole Kenai Peninsula is mostly about fish. 

Seward is on the east side of the peninsula, approximately opposite Soldotna, which we drove back through to get over here from Homer.  Soldotna is still a madhouse, with fishermen and dip-netters everywhere.  The red salmon are still running there.  Seward is calm by contrast.  It is tiny town hemmed in between Resurrection Bay on one side and mountains close at hand on the other.

There seem to be a lot more boats here than people.  Boats of all sizes, ranging from a huge cruise ship, to tour boats, to skiffs.  Boats from all over.  We even saw one from Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.   And one minnow from Seward that was taking its first cruise (below right).  Way to go Brad!

Halibut is the big deal here. 

People come here just for the Halibut.  These odd-looking, but tasty fish used to come out of the waters here in huge sizes—200 pounds was not uncommon.  Now they are much smaller. But still heavy compared to other fish.

The middle of the Kenai Peninsula is mostly ice.  The Harding Ice Field is a huge pack of ice that sits atop the interior mountains.  Fingers of this ice snake down canyons on both sides.  They move at glacial pace.  But they do move, imperceptibly. As more ice gets deposited at the top, its incredible weight pushes down on its lower tenticles, causing them to inch toward the sea. 

We hike to Exit Glacier

The first day we were here, Jack Stayton suggested we take a stroll up to Exit Glacier, the only one you don’t need a boat to visit.  I asked if he knew the Exit entrance.  He did.  It is near our campground just north of town.  We found a paved walk heading up the hill past the National Park hut.  We figured it would be an easy walk.  I should have been suspicious when Gayle decided not to come along. It got harder when we had to scramble up a rocky path.  But sure enough, there was a glacier there. One of many in this area, as it turned out.

Didn't Gilligan Take a 7 1/2 Hour Cruise?

Against my better judgment, we decided to join Jack and Gayle on a 7 ½ hour cruise to view the bigger glaciers down south where they meet the Gulf of Alaska. I needn’t have worried about getting seasick, you could have waterskied the whole trip.  But if you had, you might have been eaten by a whale. Just kidding.  More on whales coming up.

We saw the Bear Glacier, the Holgate Glacier, and the Pedersen Glacier, but the kicker was the Aialik Glacier. Aialik is an Indian word meaning, “A very big, blue glacier.” The governor of the Territory of Alaska had earlier offered to name it for President Warren Harding, but Harding declined. They eventually named the whole ice field after him.  It is huge.  As was Harding.

That's our boat, at right.

The first thing we noticed about Aialik Glacier (above and below) is that glaciers this size are chilly. As we got close we found the breeze coming down off this huge ice flow was not unlike the air you find in your fridge at home. Or freezer. The second thing we noticed was that pieces of the wall of ice were falling off into the sea. 

Photo by Gayle Stayton

Big chunks of ice came crashing down.  Others floated past us, and close to the glacier the water was like an ice slush with big chunks in it. 

The seals reclining on the chunks and slush (left) didn’t seem to notice the cold.  They looked as warm and comfy as tourists sunning themselves along Waikiki Beach.  I didn’t notice until I was examining my photos on the computer later, but there were people in kayaks in among the seals in that frigid slush. Brrrr.

The enterprising tour company,  ever alert to finding new ways to separate you from your money, came up with one I thought was truly novel.  They were selling glacier margaritas.  They  fished a big chunk of glacier ice out of the water (right) and used it to make frozen margaritas, calling them “the most ancient drink you will ever have.”  I suppose they meant that this ice had formed hundreds or even thousands of years earlier.  It takes that long to get from the top of the ice field to the bottom of a glacier.  They were forgetting that the water we had brought with us in bottles was much older than that, and had probably passed through a dinosaur a million years ago.  It is all salesmanship.  On this ship, anyway.

As we motored out into the Gulf of Alaska we went past lots of islands, which seemed alive with birds, otters, seals and other wildlife. 

The otters were floating around on their backs (right).  

The seals were doing what seals do best: Eat and rest (below). 

Puffins and gulls raise their families out here.

And we had some Dall’s porpoises racing alongside us for a while, playing in our bow wake.  Then came the whales.  Lots of whales.

Humpback whales would surface for a second spouting big clouds of water vapor as the exhaled.  Then they’d take a breath and slip back beneath the surface.  Hundreds of cameras would then be pointed where they disappeared, and all would then miss the next spout which would come somewhere else. 

Occasionally, we photographers would be rewarded with a piece of tail.  The Park Service naturalist doing commentary told us that seeing the whale’s tail as they dived meant they were going deep and would stay down for up to an hour.  But there were plenty more where they came from.  You just had to get lucky and have your camera focused on exactly the right spot when one surfaced.

Then we got the leaper.  He would streak to the surface at high speed and go straight up until more than half his length was above water.  Then he’d fall sideways back into the sea.  It seemed a game.  I was glad I was not in the small boat floating  next to him when he did this.  His game may have been to splash them. He made a very large splash coming down.

We even had one whale wave to us (right).  One flipper emerged from the water and gave a languid wave before disappearing again into the deep.  

Like idiots, we all waved back.

Here are a few more photos from the cruise:

There is a town here, too

There is a shopping area built up around the boat harbor.  They charge $10 to park there.  We prefer to shop where parking is free, so we went into the old town at the south end. 

We ate in a Greek restaurant called Apollo.  Nina, a friend from Tucson, had recommended it.  I had the best dinner yet on the whole trip. It was so good we went back the next day for lunch.

There are lots of shops here.  And a barber who advertised special rates for military, seniors and zombies.  So Jack and I got haircuts.  And two of three discounts.

There is also the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward

We went there to see all the wildlife we had already seen two days before on our glacier cruise.  They had sea lions, puffins, and fish.  Lots of fish.

Ok, so I'm not big on science centers, having been intimately involved with two of them.  But this was very nice.  They had lots of things for kids to experience.  Like the tidewater animals you could touch.

Tomorrow we move on again, back to Portage to see if there are streams we can fish there.  Then we'll go on to Anchorage for a few days to see if Winnebago can figure out why our living room slide won't unlock and extend.

I'll do another edition from there.  We already have a bunch of photos taken at the Hood Seaplane Base, the world's busiest.  We will show you Anchorage soon.

After that we are headed to Valdez to find an Exxon station, then on to Skagway to see the Chilcoot Trail and Chilcoot Pass that my grandfather traveled in 1897 on his way to the Klondike.  

There is still lots of Alaska and Canada left to report to you.  So stay tuned.    This trip just gets better and better.

John and Marsha

(All photos copyright 2013 by John and Marsha Taylor)