Tag: alaska

the amazing life of humpback whales
Prior to my Alaskan cruise, the only whales I’d seen on whale-watching excursions had been orca, which I’d seen on two separate excursions in the Salish Sea, courtesy the highly recommended Puget Sound Express. In Alaska, I desperately wanted to see some other varieties of whales.

As I mentioned in my first Alaska post, I caught a glimpse of a humpback on the morning of my first day at sea, and I feared this first sighting would be my last. I needn’t have feared. Later that same day, my mom and I were passing through Cellar Masters wine bar. People seated by the windows began gasping and pointing, and we looked out the porthole to see a humpback whale breaching—again, and again, and again.

There are multiple theories on why whales breach. They may be communicating to other whales across long distances, showing off their physical prowess, or just playing. As best I can tell, the scientific consensus has swung behind the former theory, but I swear this particular whale seemed to be performing for us.

icy strait point

In Icy Strait Point, we took a dedicated whale watching excursion that we booked through the cruise line. (Whale watching was basically the only game in town at this port call, aside from eating crab and some shops.)

The guide on our double-deck boat told us that the waters around Hoonah are particularly attractive to humpbacks because it is situated at the confluence of multiple bodies of water, including the outlet of Glacier Bay, making the waters nutrient-rich and full of fish.

It was about a 30 min trip out to the feeding grounds. As we breezed through jade green waters bordered by evergreen-cloaked islands, we passed by a few orca and humpbacks languidly swimming along, sleek backs arching above the water in a curve before a final flick of their tail. I wished the captain would stop for photo opportunities, but he wisely blazed onward to where the real action was.

Once we got to the feeding grounds, the whales multiplied. We lingered for a long time among a herd of about 10 humpbacks, arching and flipping their tails at us.

We also got to witness a phenomenon known as bubble-net feeding, which is a coordinated hunting activity where the whales swim around in a circular motion deep underwater, blowing bubbles. As the bubbles create a “net” that the fish can’t escape from, the whales spiral up until they reach the surface. By now, their nets have created a dense concentration of fish, then suddenly—gulp.

The thing I find most intriguing about this behavior is that it’s not an instinctive behavior. It’s a learned behavior that’s culturally transmitted.

We’re so used to the anthropocentric worldview that describes animals as having “instinct” and humans as having “culture”. If I may adapt my own definition of culture as being “the social behaviors, norms, knowledge, customs, and habits of a group,” then whales totally have culture.

This concept has appeared in some podcasts and documentaries I’ve watched since then—not just about humpbacks, but other marine mammals too—and I’m now officially fascinated by the concept of animals having culture.

After the bubble-net feeding herd dispersed or dove, we lingered for a bit longer, watching a few loner whales, one of whom breached for us. (Sadly, my camera didn’t focus quickly enough, so I ended up with blurry photos of the breach, and a clear shot of the plume of water that erupted as he crashed back into the water.)

kenai fjords national park

Our second opportunity to witness the whales came after we had disembarked in Seward. We squeezed in one last boat excursion to Kenai Fjords National Park (courtesy Kenai Fjords Tours) where we saw more glaciers and lots of wildlife, including sea lions, harbor seals, puffins, murres, seagulls, one bald eagle… and lots more humpbacks and orcas.

If the whale-watching in Icy Strait Point was spectacular, in Kenai Fjords it was something even beyond that. It was a mostly sunny, placid day, and the waters were smooth. It was almost as if the whales relished the opportunity to soak up some sun rays, because they just kept appearing, and we witnessed bubble net after bubble net.

After a while we got a sense of the rhythm. When the whales begin making their bubble nets deep underwater, they make an intense sound. Unfortunately, those sound waves don’t seem to transmit above water in a way that is audible to the human ear (at least, I couldn’t hear anything). But the seagulls apparently can see or hear something, because in the minute or two before the whales emerged above the surface, the seagulls started going nuts, squawking and swooping, waiting to capitalize on the rush of fish that was about to emerge to the surface. Link to a video here.

Then the whales would appear, skins gleaming pewter grey in the sun, baleen throats stretching out as they engulfed their prey.

Oh yes, and more breaches, enough that I even caught them on camera this time, although still not that perfect shot at the apex of their arc through the air.

Even the captain remarked that he could have watched this all day, but we had other things to get on to.

Like a herd of sea lions, squabbling angrily on the rocks.

Like a pod of harbor seals, lounging on a bed of seaweed.

Like puffins bobbing on the waves.

Like orcas, gliding through the waters on their own hunting expeditions.

Like murres, the “penguins of the north”, huddling in a rocky crevasse.

But seriously, the whales. I couldn’t get enough.

previous posts on alaska
2023-11-30
all about alaska’s glaciers
When people ask me how my trip to Alaska was, my quick, flippant response is, “a lot of glaciers and whales.” Which may sound as if I’m being dismissive of the experience, but the truth is, the glaciers and whales were both amazing. More to follow on the whales in my next post. Today, we’re talking about glaciers.

Over the course of my seven-day journey, I saw a total of five glaciers (probably more if you count some fleeting glimpses): Mendenhall, Herbert, Hubbard, Holgate, and Bear. Honestly, I could not get enough of them. We got to see them from a few different vantage points: from the air (Mendenhall), standing on top (Herbert), and from the sea (Hubbard, Holgate, and Bear).

I got some amazing photos, but pictures cannot do justice to the experience of being up close to these massive walls of snow and ice—the radiating cold, the aqua gleam in the sun, the groaning and cracking when they calve.

According to the National Park Service, glaciers cover 23,000 square miles of Alaska. Only some of these are tidewater glaciers, which terminate at the sea, and from a boat, you’re only seeing a small part of the total mass the glacier. Behind the sea terminus and out of view from the water, the glacier may stretch for miles—in the case of the Hubbard Glacier, 76 miles, all the way to Mt Logan in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

Prior to this trip, I had thought of glaciers as massive but stationary hunks of ice, because I’d previously seen only tiny remains of glaciers in places like the Alps and Montana’s Glacier National Park. I learned on this trip how much glaciers move. Snow falls in the mountains, compacts and compacts under its own weight, and begins a sometimes centuries-long journey from mountaintop to sea.

Mendenhall and Herbert Glaciers

Mendenhall Glacier is easily accessible from Juneau, and is 13 miles long, terminating at Mendenhall Lake. We didn’t actually visit this one, but we saw it from the helicopter en route to a lesser-known glacier in the Juneau Ice Field, Herbert Glacier.

Mendenhall Glacier, seen from the air

Glaciers are formed when the amount of annual snowfall exceeds the amount of annual snowmelt. Due to climate change, many glaciers are in retreat, which happens when the melting exceeds the snowfall. This is the case for most of Alaska’s glaciers.

Both glaciers are retreating and melting quickly. In the case of Mendenhall, the melt has proven so rapid that Juneau has seen devastating floods in recent years known as glacial outburst floods (or, more colorfully jokulhlaup, in Icelandic). These happen when icemelt pools under the glacier until the pressure suddenly becomes too much and actually lifts the glacier up, providing a release for the water.

In July 2011, an estimated 10 billion gallons of water burst from the glacier over the course of three days. The phenomenon has repeated 30 times since then. In July 2023, shortly after we were there, it released its most devastating flood yet.

Herbert Glacier is retreating with far less drama, and I have to say it was still an impressive hunk of ice to fly over and land on in a helicopter.

Herbert Glacier, on approach

Up close the glacier’s surface is rough and riddled with pockmarks and electric blue crevasses.

a boulder balances atop a crevasse on Herbert Glacier

In places, it is even dirty, laden with hunks of rock ranging from gravel to boulders picked up from the mountains it carved on its journey.

my mom at Herbert Glacier, surrounded by boulders

flying to the top of the mountain at Herbert Glacier

Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier was another experience altogether. Hubbard was a stop on our cruise—not a port call, because there was nowhere to make port. But overnight on our last full day at sea, our ship made a turn north into Yakutat Bay, then proceeded further down the ominously named Disenchantment Bay. I awoke that morning to the sight of chunks of ice drifting by. By the time we had gotten our morning coffee, the ship was pulling in viewing range of the mighty glacier.

Hubbard Glacier is nearly 7 miles wide and 350 feet tall at its terminus in Disenchantment Bay. It extends 76 miles inland to Mt Logan in Canada’s Yukon Territory—an icefield larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Hubbard Glacier from afar

You know all those glacier videos you see online or in National Geographic documentaries from Greenland or Antarctica? The ones where large icebergs break off of glaciers, demonstrating the unrelenting damage wrought by climate change? Perfectly true in those cases—glacier mass is shrinking worldwide, including in Alaska. But Hubbard is defying climate change and advancing rather than retreating.

Which means that there was no reason to feel sorrow as the sun came up and the glacier began to grunt and groan, a sign that she was about to calve!

Hubbard Glacier calving

“Calving” is the name of the process by which masses of glacier detach themselves and float away as icebergs, or smaller chunks, known as “bergy bits” or “growlers.” The ceaseless movement of marine-terminating glaciers from mountain to sea means that even an advancing glacier drops calves.

We were fortunate in the weather conditions, which allowed our ship to approach within half a mile of the glacier—the closest larger ships can get—before the captain set the ship on a slow turn to the starboard, allowing the ship to spin so that all side of the ship could get a good view. Or you could do what we did, and run back and forth between port and starboard sides so that for the couple of hours we were there, Hubbard was never out of our view.

ice litters the water beside Hubbard Glacier

We saw dozens of calvings that day, mostly little ones. I’ve had a lot of amazing days in my two decades of traveling the world, and the only day that topped this one was my safari in Maasi Mara in 2013. The overwhelming scale of Hubbard was phenomenal enough up close, and it became even more so when your realized that the ice you were seeing break off into the ocean was completing a journey that began in the Yukon about 500 years before.

Holgate and Bear Glaciers

After we disembarked in Seward, we squeezed in one last excursion to Kenai Fjords National Park through Kenai Fjord Tours. I’ll have a lot more to say about this excursion in my wildlife post, but today I’ll focus on the two glaciers.

I hesitate to say that Holgate and Bear were a bit of a let-down after Hubbard. We were in a much smaller boat after all, which let us get a lot closer to Holgate. (Bear we just passed by without stopping.)

Bear Glacier

They were smaller and not actively calving like Hubbard had been. But if Holgate had been the only glacier I’d seen on the trip, it would still have been a spectacular experience.

a small boat is dwarfed by Holgate Glacier, a “small glacier”

spears of ice crown Holgate Glacier

Holgate too is advancing glacier that does calve; unlike Hubbard, it’s only 5 miles long. Not far to the east, Bear Glacier is retreating. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

Such was my glacier experience in Alaska, and to be honest, it has left me craving more travel to frigid climes! I loved my trip north of the Arctic Circle in Norway in 2019, and now with a second spectacular northern adventure under my belt, I’m contemplating Greenland and Antarctica. And Svalbard, Norway. And Tierra del Fuego. These trips would probably not be very bougie, unless taken from the safety of a cruise ship (which Antarctica have to be), but there is something so spectacular in the unspoiled ruggedness of these places.

me and mom at Holgate Glacier

previous posts on alaska
- alaska: a tale of whales and glaciers
- the towns of southeast alaska
still to come
- all about the wildlife (especially whales!)
2023-11-12
the towns of southeast alaska
Our seven-day northbound Alaska cruise on the Celebrity Millennium made four port calls: in Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, and Skagway. Each one boasted its own culture and history, although sometimes we had to work to find it amid all the kitchy cruise ship shopping. Personally I avoided all the duty-free jewelry shops that seem to be a fixture in every cruise ship port around the world, and opted instead for the art and the food.

Traditional native art, mostly from the Tlingit and Haida peoples, was also on offer at every port. The art included masks, weapons, paintings, carvings, and scrimshaw. Much of the more authentic work was rather pricey, but also quite breathtaking for those with the budget. Personally, I came home with two paintings, a circular woodcarving of an eagle with a dreamcatcher at its heart, and a pair of earrings and matching necklace made of abalone.

Salmon and other local seafoods were also on offer in most ports. Ever wondered what the real difference is between sockeye, coho, and chinook salmon? Salmon shops will let you sample all the varieties to see for yourself which one you like best.

Aside from those commonalities, each of our port calls had different vibes.

ketchikan

Ketchikan was my favorite of the towns we stopped in. The town hosted an interesting blend of the native Tlingit culture and frontier culture. It hosts Alaska’s largest collection of totem poles, some of which are recarvings of older poles.

one of ketchikan’s many totem poles

The town’s most enjoyable portion was the historic Creek Street, which is a mélange of colorful frontier-style shops built on stilts over a stream that conveys spawning salmon upstream.

Creek Street, Ketchikan

The town is also the gateway to Misty Fjords National Monument, which we ventured into via seaplane, courtesy of Seawind Aviation. Misty Fjords is a vast wilderness, speckled with mountains, fjords, and lakes.

our landing spot in Misty Fjords

This excursion gave me one of my favorite photos of the trip, of two baby seagulls, whose mother was decidedly displeased with our presence.

two baby seagulls in misty fjords national monument

icy strait point

Icy Strait Point, adjacent to Hoonah, was really all about the whale watching (much more to follow about the whales in a subsequent post). There is a small town there with shops, all of which is 100 percent owned and operated by Native Alaskans. (The aforementioned abalone earrings and necklace that I bought were purchased here, made by the girl who checked us out!) Another of my favorite photos was of the fishing gear in town, a testament to the local economy.

fishing nets in icy strait point

juneau

Alaska’s capital was honestly the least interesting of the towns we visited. Here, more than anywhere else, the part of the town we visited was just a succession of kitchy cruise port shops, with many of the same offerings, but little of the charm of Ketchikan’s Creek Street. The main thing to do in Juneau seemed to be to get out of Juneau and enjoy the surrounding wilderness. Two major glaciers lay just outside of the city: Mendenhall, whose sudden melting caused a major flood that wiped out houses in Juneau shortly after our visit, and Herbert Glacier, which we landed directly on top of in a helicopter! I’ll have a whole post on Alaska’s glaciers to follow.

me and my mother on herbert glacier

While I have slightly pooh-poohed Juneau as a town, I do have to acknowledge the excellence of Tracy’s King Crab Shack. After days of disappointing meals aboard the Celebrity Millennium, we were really craving some real Alaskan seafood, in particular crab. We ordered a combo meal that came with a crab bisque, crab cakes (inferior to the Chesapeake variety, but I’m biased), and your choice of two varieties of king crab (red was better than golden). Best meal of the trip by far.

skagway

Our time in Skagway was disappointing, although this was not entirely Skagway’s fault. The most popular excursion out of Skagway is the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway, which we booked… and unfortunately, the weather was truly terrible, spoiling the views. Most disappointing of all, we did not actually get to go into the Yukon, but stopped right at the border between British Columbia and the Yukon.

a rare sunny moment on our journey through British Columbia

The town of Skagway really embraced the old-timey frontier vibe, befitting its role as the gateway of the Yukon Gold Rush starting in 1897. The town probably would have been enjoyable to walk around for longer and take in more of the well-maintained historical buildings, but by the time we returned from the disappointing train voyage, we didn’t have much time or energy to do so.

previous posts on alaska

alaska: a tale of whales and glaciers

still to come
- all about the glaciers
- all about the wildlife (especially whales!)
2023-11-11
alaska: a tale of whales and glaciers

I awoke on our first morning at sea and snuck out onto the chilly balcony. The sun rising behind spotty clouds gilded the sea in ribbons, while further in the distance, a mountainous landscape drifted by.

sunrise on our first morning at sea

Up on the tenth deck, I got distracted on my quest for coffee and joined other bundled passengers at the stern. Speaking in hushed morning tones, we watched the smooth water ripple in our wake and wash up against the islands that dot the narrow straits of the passage north from Vancouver.

smooth waters early the first morning

“Look!” I whispered loudly, pointing to a spot where I’d seen a puff of water and a sleek back arch. “I think that was a whale!” The other early birds clustered around me to see the tail of a humpback whale (I would later learn) flick up as it dove deeper down into the icy sea.

The glimpse came so quickly, I was disappointed. I hadn’t even had my camera with me. I needn’t have feared. Over the course of the next seven days, I would capture literally thousands of pictures of whales (or in many cases, water where whales had been just seconds before).

An Alaska cruise is a bucket list item for many people, and so it was for my mother. For years, she had been declaring Alaska her plan for her 70^th birthday. At times, it almost seemed impossible that it would happen, due to obligations at home. It took intensive planning, but through sheer force of will she made it happen. She landed in Vancouver on the day after her birthday, and we set sail the next day on the Celebrity Millennium.

Booking an Alaskan cruise can be bewildering. More than a half dozen cruise lines offer sailings throughout the summer, ranging from 7 to 14 days, each a subtle variation on the same itinerary. We selected a northbound only 7-day sailing because my mother could only spare 7 days from home, and we figured we would see more of the coastline if we sailed in only one direction.

I am an experienced traveler, but somewhat of a novice cruiser, so I had only the vaguest concept of the vibes of the different lines. This post from The Points Guy was helpful in narrowing down which lines had the right vibe for us, and from there we chose the Celebrity Millennium based mostly on a good sailing date and a good deal. We sailed out of Vancouver on 21 July, and made port calls in Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, and Skagway, before disembarking in Seward on 28 July.

More to follow on our adventures in Alaska in subsequent posts, for today, I will review our experience on the Celebrity Millennium.

Celebrity Millennium

The Millennium is the oldest ship in the Celebrity fleet, the first of the Millennium class ships launched in 2000. We liked Celebrity when we were booking in part because its ships were somewhat smaller than other lines, with a capacity of just over 2100. The environment was accordingly fairly cozy for a mid-priced cruise.

the celebrity millennium

lodgings

We stayed in a veranda room on the 7^th deck—crucially, on the starboard side of the ship, which was important to us when booking since we’d only be transiting northbound. I appreciated having the veranda, because it allowed me to pop out and take pictures when we were passing by something particularly scenic first thing in the morning. But truthfully, we spent little time in the room and could have saved ourselves some money by booking a room on a lower deck with a porthole, which we were told by other passengers were large. Our room was comfortable and well-equipped enough by cruise ship standards.

amenities

In true bougie style, the amenities I took most advantage of were the spa, the hot tubs, and the pool. The spa area also hosted a gym, of which I did not avail myself at all. I greatly admire the dedication of those who work out while on vacation, but I am not one of them.

As one would expect, the spa was expensive, so I only went for one treatment—a seaweed wrap massage, in which one is wrapped up like a burrito in a green, muddy, soothing goo. It’s messy, but a delight for sore muscles and a perfect way to warm up after a cold day whale watching in Alaska.

Speaking of great ways to warm up, we made a fair number of trips to the solarium, which is an enclosed area with four hot tubs and a pool of sorts. I say “of sorts” because this was not the type of pool you swim laps in. It was more like a massive hot tub, only a couple degrees cooler than the hot tubs. On either side were submerged lounging couches that bubbled, each large enough for 3-4 people. We spent a good many hours laying in the bubbles, staring up at the day or night sky.

There were also hot tubs and a pool in the open air, but we did not visit them. Alaska is chilly, even in July, y’all.

food and drinks

The food was the biggest disappointment on the ship. We dined in the Metropolitan dining room each night, and did not explore the specialty restaurants. Perhaps we would have been more satisfied if we had spent the extra money on dining, but I think we kept hoping that Metropolitan would improve, and that we’d just had bad luck the previous nights.

Every night we were offered three courses: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Every day half the menu changed, half stayed the same throughout the cruise. All of the entrées I had sounded fancy enough—prime rib, duck a l’orange, barramundi—but they were all really just so-so. Meat was often overcooked, and the vegetable sides were boring, potatoes and carrots and such. Even one of my favorites, french onion soup, was oversalted. I do recommend the escargot, which compared favorably to the real thing in France.

formal night on the celebrity millennium

Booking the dining room was also an issue. I had requested an early fixed dining time when I booked (traveling with a 70-year-old), and Celebrity had never bothered to inform me that the fixed dining times were all booked up. This led to a lot of confusion, and tense exchanges with the hostesses, who simply could not guarantee us a table. Eventually we agreed on a fixed reservation at 5:45 after a couple of frustrating days.

The bars were much better. We explored most of them, but the two I will make special note of are the Martini Bar, Cellar Masters, and the Sky Lounge. My mother discovered a love of martinis on this trip, after we shared a martini flight on the second day. We returned to this spot repeatedly over the trip.

martini flight

One deck up, Cellar Masters was a nice wine bar that offered a quiet spot for a day drink, quiet lounge music in the evenings, and a round-the-world wine tasting with our sommelier from the Metropolitan on our final afternoon.

The Sky Lounge I recommend for its views alone. Situated at the fore of the 11^th deck, it was the perfect spot to come relax and enjoy the view as the ship set sail in the evenings—as long as you didn’t too much mind the trivia games taking place on the stage (which I kind of did).

entertainment

We didn’t go to too many of the shows. There was a pair of acrobatic Ukrainians who were very good (Slava Ukraina!), and a Broadway hits show that gave my mother vertigo, so we didn’t make it through the whole thing. I will say that for daytime fare, I adored the ship’s naturalist, Celia Garland, who offered lectures on whales, otters, seals, and bears during the days. She also narrated our encounter with the Hubbard Glacier from the bridge. She was incredibly informative and engaging, and I’m officially obsessed with her Instagram account.

Speaking and whales and glaciers, they were truly the twin highlights of the trip, and I’m going to have whole posts on each of them in weeks to come. Next up though, the towns of southern Alaska. More to follow!

2023-11-04