Day 16 Seward 5^th September

It was fine today – hooray – so I could contemplate trying to gain another tick on my wish list: to see a glacier calve into the sea. I made an early morning phonecall to Kenai Fjords Tours, and fortunately they had room on their 6hr cruise to Aialik Glacier, so the shuttle picked us up and as we were the only passengers, the driver gave us a guided tour of Seward with commentary. One of our options yesterday was to stay on the "promenade" site, a Parks Service site with fantastic views but no electrics etc, which we presumed would be full - we saw that we could have easily stayed on the waterfront, for half the cost of our site – grrrr – but we liked where we were, and at least I got some washing done.

We checked in for the glacier trip, and as it was a nice day, so did 198 other people, and the trip was full. Our boat was a fast cat, but it only went at speed to get through the open water section with very little to see, and the captain & crew were great and very informative. It was pretty windy, but we'd gone prepared for all eventualities and spent the entire time on the rear deck so as not to miss anything – we were glad we did, as inside was very crowded and the windows were constantly steamed up. Our first sightings were bald eagles in the trees of Resurrection Bay, followed by a lone harbour seal on the rocks in the narrows. There were many gulls & cormorants, and on turning into Aialik Bay, lots of puffins.



 We headed down the fjord into increasingly calm water, enjoying the view of the rocks & mountains, & came to a stop close to a raft of sea otters – the third thing I really wanted to see. To my delight we spent many minutes watching them; they look like such cute creatures, lying about on their backs in the sea like sunbathers then lazily turning over and swimming a few feet before lounging about again but apparently they are, to quote a crew member, "really mean"! I am still fascinated by them though, & love the expressions on their little faces.  
 
The air got colder & colder as we approached the glacier & there were lots of ice pieces floating past the boat, some with gulls perched on. Even though we were about 300 yards away, the immensity of the towering ice was obvious – it was a truly marvellous spectacle, almost glowing due to the cloudy/wet conditions in a way that the Mendenhall Glacier didn't. Another boat was there before us, so we could really grasp the scale of the glacier against it, but then it steamed away & left us alone in the stillness, all of us gazing in awe & listening to the creaks & groans. Although we didn’t see any large chunks calving, we did witness many small ones, with shaved ice tumbling down after the pieces and the spray as it hit the sea.

On the return journey we were lucky enough to see just one humpback whale as it set off for warmer climes, then marvelled at several rocks full to bursting with Steller sea lions at Aialik Cape. We sped most of the way back, all talking about the experience of sitting close to a glacier & the wildlife we had seen (especially sea otters in my case!) – I would recommend this trip to anyone & everyone.

Back in Seward, we had to wait for our shuttle back to the site (it was delivering cruise ship passengers to their train and back to the ship, which of course would not wait for them), so we decided to have takeaway fish & chips. We enjoyed an Alaskan Amber Ale in Terry’s Fish & Chip Shop while it was cooked – an option not often available in England.



  Our experience of portion size up to now led us to order halibut & chips to share, & we returned to the RV to enjoy our tea; when we unwrapped however, we found the smallest portion of chips I have ever encountered anywhere, hardly enough even for me, along with what the waitress had described as “silverware” – plastic knife & fork! And all this cost more than twice what we would pay here.....the fish was tasty though.


 




  Day 17 Seward/Stirling Highway 6^th September

What a good choice it was to do the cruise yesterday – we awoke to rain yet again. It didn’t really put us off though, as we’d been led to expect variable weather and had packed accordingly. We drove down to Seward to have a look at the town and spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the Sea Life Centre, which had excellent tank viewing, including underwater.

I’m sure Seward is a nice town, but we’d had enough of looking at shops in the rain so we drove the 7 miles to Exit Glacier, one of the few in Alaska which are accessible by road, and were puzzled by little wooden boards on the verge of the access road, with numbers like 1888, 1954 and so on. When we got to the visitor centre, we realised that they were dates showing the extent of the glacier in those years, and were amazed (and horrified) by how much it has receded: nearly 1.5 miles since 1815. The park looked so pretty even in the rain, so we hiked the trail up towards the glacier, only to be turned back by a very swiftly flowing stream with icy bits in. We continued on the Glacier Loop where there was a ranger talk under a shelter, so we went in to dry off a bit, and found it most interesting: we were the only attendees, so we got a personal talk all about mountain goats with their hollow hair and sort of Velcro hooves, and about life in Alaska.  



After lunch in our van, it finally stopped raining so we continued on up the Seward Highway, stopping at the Estes Brothers grocery to admire the historic knife-grinding waterwheel with the sign, “Moose Pass is a peaceful little town. If you have an axe to grind, do it here”. We had been told by other guests at Stony Creek that the Russian River campground was beautiful and that there was a chance of seeing bears in the river, so we decided to give it a try. The campground is part of the National Parks Service, similar to our Forestry Commission, which provides excellent campgrounds with limited facilities ie. no electric hook-up but sometimes “long drop” toilets. They were right, it WAS lovely and only $18 to stay, so we parked up and went for a walk along Russian River.




 Here was another example of Alaska making everywhere as accessible as possible – the elevated boardwalk was completely wheelchair-friendly – but as we walked along I was very aware of keeping a good lookout for any bears. We saw flattened grass where they had accessed the river but no actual bears (I didn’t know whether to feel glad or sorry) and chatted with the fishermen who were there. It was a silver salmon run, and just like at Ketchikan, the river was FULL of them, so the fishermen had a relatively easy job. We returned to the RV for a meal, intending to go back again towards dusk to try & see bears, but when the time came we didn’t go – it was raining yet again, we were dry and I was apprehensive about being exposed in a known bear area. OK, I was a wimp, but an uneaten one.