#4 - Seward/Kenai Fjords

I checked into the hostel and immediately booked myself on a six-hour wildlife and glacier tour in Kenai Fjords National Park on the Kenai Peninsula. It didn't occur to me to question my sanity until I was onboard. Was I nuts? I'd just gotten off a five-day ferry trip and there I was back on a boat! It was a lovely trip, though I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn't just spent so many days on the water. 

First stop was the Aialik Glacier, a tidewater glacier, which is a mile wide and several hundred feet thick. It isn't obvious in this photo, but glaciers are blue. That is because glacial ice has a unique crystalline structure that absorbs and reflects light. As snow accumulates, its weight compacts layers of snow from previous years into a dense ice pack. This glacial ice absorbs all colors of the spectrum except blue, which continues to pass through, giving the ice its blue appearance. The most intense blue colors occur in crevasses and when ice breaks off, called calving, from a glacier's face. The blue color fades as the ice is exposed to air and the crystalline structure begins to break down. In doing so, it becomes more porous and allows all wavelengths of the spectrum to pass through, creating the white "color" we normally see. 

Our boat was able to get within 1/4 mile of the glacier and we actually witnessed some good-size chunks calve off into the water. These chunks float about in the bay and, of course, are called icebergs. This photo is of an unusually large iceberg. It was an incredibly thrilling site. 

On the way back to Resurrection Bay where Seward is located, we viewed many of Alaska's sea life: humpback whales, harbor seals, sea otters, Steller sea lions, horned puffins, cormorants, kittiwakes and murres and bald eagles. The common murre is an interesting bird. It can dive to depths of over 350 feet to prey on small fish and crustaceans. Along with puffins, murres "fly" underwater, using their wings for propulsion and their feet as rudders. These sea birds build their nests on rock cliffs such as these and only return to land during the summer breeding season. 

It was a good thing that I had booked my glacier tour the first day, as the next morning I woke up to rain. I spent several hours at the Sea Life Center, which is a large aquarium and research facility recently completed largely from funds received from the settlement of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill law suit. These many years later, effects can still be seen of the damage wreaked by that disaster. 

That afternoon I visited the Seward Library and watched two videos concerning the 8.4 earthquake of 1964. The damage was extensive. Valdez had to be totally rebuilt on a different site on the bay. Much of Seward was destroyed by very large tidal waves. Some of the surrounding land sunk and other parts rose up. Tree roots were exposed to sea water more than 200 miles inland. The dead trees still stand as witnesses to the devastation of the earthquake. 

That evening I hopped onboard the Alaska Railroad for what turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip. The 114 mile trip to Anchorage winds through gorgeous mountain ranges and we passed at least four incredibly beautiful glaciers. We saw moose, beavers and Dall sheep. 

Just outside Anchorage there is a strip of houses whose inhabitants use their collective backyard grass as a landing strip. There are about 350,000 people living in Alaska and more than half that many airplanes!