1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (100 page)

Alaska

At the far northern end of Alaska’s Inside Passage (see next page), Glacier Bay is like a time-lapse photo of our world being born. Its stones, which endured beneath as much as 4,000 feet of ice for thousands
of years, still bear the deep grooves left by glaciers that only started retreating in the 19th century. Its soil is now rising at more than an inch a year as it recovers from all that weight. Flora and fauna are also returning, with forests clustered at the bay’s entrance but becoming more and more sparse the farther you penetrate, following the slowly receding ice. Humpback whales arrive in great numbers each summer to feed on the bay’s bounty, while bears, moose, and mountain goats mine the shoreline.

The bay extends some 65 miles from Icy Strait to the northern tip of Tarr Inlet, with 11 tidewater glaciers pouring down from the mountains like the frozen rivers they really are. In the western arm of the bay, the Reid, Lamplugh, Margerie, Johns Hopkins, and Grand Pacific glaciers are all approached regularly by cruise ships, though the Park Service limits the number of vessels in the bay on any given day.

For those who want more than a quick day-visit on a cruise, Glacier Bay Lodge sits right at the entrance to the park, but visitors will do better to travel 10 miles down the road to the genteel and welcoming Gustavus Inn. Daylong boat tours are available from both the lodge and inn, though the most personal way to see the bay is by sea kayak, either on your own or on a guided expedition.

The 21-mile-long Margerie Glacier was named for the French geographer Emmanuel de Margerie, who visited the area in 1913.

W
HERE
: Park entrance is 95 miles northwest of Juneau. Tel 907-697-2230;
www.nps.gov/glba
.
When:
visitor center open May–Sept.
G
LACIER
B
AY
L
ODGE
: Tel 888-229-8687 or 907-264-4600;
www.visitglacierbay.com
.
Cost:
from $185.
When:
May–Sept.
G
USTAVUS
I
NN
: Gustavus. Tel 800-649-5220 or 907-697-2254;
www.gustavusinn.com
.
Cost:
$175 per person, double occupancy; day cruise $200.
When:
May–Sept.
K
AYAKING
: Alaska Discovery for guided trips (tel 800-586-1911 or 510-594-6000;
www.alaska
discovery.com; day trip $141). Glacier Bay Sea Kayaks for rentals (tel 907-697-2257;
www.glacierbayseakayaks.com
; from $30 for half-day).
B
EST TIMES
: Services in winter are extremely limited; May and June get the least rain; July and Aug are warmest.

Another Land Made of Water

Alaska

The Inside Passage is like a red carpet to the 49th state, stretching through some 500 miles of Southeast Alaska, from British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands in the south to the corner of Canada’s Yukon Territory
in the north. Forty-plus cruise ships sail here each summer, carrying a full third of all visitors to Alaska. And that’s not even counting the long-distance state ferries, known as the Alaska Marine Highway, which operate year-round.

The big draw is wilderness, with snowcapped mountains and deep rain forests stretching as far as the eye can see. Glacier Bay (see previous page) has the most name recognition of Southeast’s wild areas, but it’s hardly alone. In Tracy Arm Fjord, mile-high mountains rise right from the waterline, striped by falls of melt-water from the peaks. Near the fjord’s forked end, the waters can become almost impassably choked with ice, which calves off the twin South and North Sawyer glaciers by the ton. Some bergs are as big as your ship, while others are only large enough to accommodate a sunbathing harbor seal.

Farther to the south, Misty Fjords National Monument is a primordial place, its 2.3 million acres of wilderness accessible via a series of narrow fjords—so narrow that only small ships can enter. Hemlock and spruce forests crowd the waterline, backed by 3,000-foot cliffs, with an almost ever-present mist providing the area’s name and its otherworldly, Tolkienesque atmosphere.

And everywhere there’s wildlife, from the bald eagles soaring overhead to the brown and black bears feeding on salmon at the water’s edge. The stars of the show are undoubtedly the whales, especially the giant humpbacks that feed and play in the region’s cold waters each summer.

Cruising the Inside Passage affords the chance to see majestic humpback whales up close.

Tucked into all that nature are the towns. Sitka, midway up Southeast, is the region’s prettiest (see p. 923), while southernmost Ketchikan may be its most touristy. Farther north lies Juneau, Alaska’s easygoing capital city, with its hilly downtown, its mountaintop hiking trails, and nearby Mendenhall Glacier (see next page). Skagway, to the east of Glacier Bay, is a charming well-preserved gold rush town that now mines tourists’ wallets instead. Admire the 19th-century architecture, then grab a trail map and walk into
the hills, or ride the historic narrow-gauge White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad to the 2,865-foot summit of White Pass.

Ships operating in Alaska range from megacruisers carrying 2,000 or more passengers, down to 100-passenger expedition ships. The megaships offer cheaper rates, but the small ships offer the better experience of real Alaska, often concentrating on natural areas and smaller, less-visited towns. For a more bohemian experience, the Alaska Marine Highway ferries afford a kind of Eurail adventure along the coast, letting you stop for days at a time in different towns.

W
HERE
: Most cruise ships sail from Vancouver, Anchorage, or Seattle.
H
OW
: Small-ship operators include Cruise West (tel 888-851-8133 or 206-441-8687;
www.cruisewest.com
) and Lindblad Expeditions (tel 800-EXPEDITION or 212-765-7740;
www.lindblad.com
). Regent Seven Seas Cruises offers a more luxurious experience on a 700-passenger vessel (tel 877-505-5370 or 954-776-6123;
www.rssc.com
).
Cost:
from $315 per person per day, double occupancy, for small ships.
When:
Cruises run May–Sept.
S
TATE
F
ERRIES
: Tel 800-642-0066 or 907-465-3941;
www.ferryalaska.com
.
R
AILROAD
: Tel 800-343-7373;
www.whitepassrailroad.com
Cost:
from $98 roundtrip.
B
EST TIMES
: May–June is driest; July–Aug is warmest; May and Sept has the lowest rates and smallest crowds.

A Bird’s-Eye View on the Passage of Time

Juneau, Alaska

Every year, thousands of people come to Alaska specifically to see glaciers, watching from sea level as they calve off huge icebergs. Yes, it’s impressive, but what is truly awesome is the other 99.9 percent of those
glaciers, the part that snakes up, up, up into the mountains, far out of sight.

Glaciers are born in the high altitudes, where temperatures never exceed freezing. When snow falls, it compacts the snow below it, eventually building up such pressure that the bottom layers turn to dense ice. All that ice spreads out into an ice field, and when its edge finds a valley heading downhill, it starts to flow like a very, very slow-moving river—.000005 miles per hour slow. In Juneau, for example, it takes 250 years for ice born in the Juneau Icefield to travel the length of the Mendenhall Glacier to Mendenhall Lake, 12 miles below. Visitors who stare at the ice face, waiting for bergs to crack off into the water, witness only the final moments of that long voyage.

Take to the air to experience Alaska’s inaccessible glacial treasures.

Located 13 miles north of downtown, the Mendenhall is a major tourist destination, but you’ll have it (or one of the other Juneau-area glaciers) almost to yourself if you sign up
for a helicopter trek. You’ll spend about half an hour following the great flow of ice into the mountains, witnessing its full immensity before landing on the surface for a walkabout. Sign up for a more strenuous trip and you may spend four or more hours climbing in rugged terrain, descending ice walls, and exploring glacial pools and ice caves. Get down on your knees to drink from one of the many streams flowing along the ice surface, or peer down into a bottomless blue crevasse, your hands resting on ice that may have formed when George Washington was president.

W
HERE
: 600 miles southeast of Anchorage.
H
OW
: North Star Trekking caters to small groups, spending 1 to 4 hours on the ice (tel 907-790-4530;
www.glaciertrekking.com
).
Cost:
from $259, includes equipment.
When:
May–Sept.
W
HERE TO STAY
: Pearson’s Pond Luxury Inn and Adventure Spa, tel 888-658-6328 or 907-789-3772;
www.pearsonspond.com
.
Cost:
from $189 (off-peak), from $299 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: May–June tends to be the driest and sunniest.

A Sportsmen’s Paradise in Anchorage’s Backyard

Alaska

Sitting right across a narrow channel from metropolitan Anchorage, the nature-packed Kenai Peninsula is like a movie trailer of Alaska highlights: incredible fishing, hiking, and kayaking opportunities; prolific wildlife
; and, on its eastern coast, stunning Prince William Sound with its dozens of glaciers.

From Anchorage, it’s only 100 miles by car to Cooper Landing on the Kenai River, where fishermen stand shoulder to shoulder during heavy runs, pulling in some of the world’s biggest salmon. Keep going another 120 miles and you’re in the artsy town of Homer, a little town (population 500) that fancies itself both a cultural and fishing hub. Drop into Homer’s landmark Salty Dawg Saloon, an old trapper’s hut where tourists hoist their beers with local fishermen and cannery workers. The best halibut grounds in Southcentral lie just an hour out to sea.

From Homer, a kayak trek or boat trip across gorgeous Kachemak Bay provides glimpses of terns, puffins, cormorants, and hundreds of resident sea otters. On the bay’s distant shore, the town of Halibut Cove sits on pilings above the water, its art galleries and houses connected by boardwalks. The charming Saltry Restaurant offers a wooded location and great seafood dinners, via a water taxi from Homer. Just to the south, the enchanting Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge (accessible by floatplane only) is the ultimate escape-cum-classroom, where six luxurious private cabins blend into the landscape. Some guests come to fish, others to explore the wilderness in the company of staff naturalists, others for the Dungeness crab, salmon, and halibut, all prepared to perfection. For more intimacy, book the lodge’s Loonsong Mountain Lake Chalet, a private retreat with two bedrooms, a network of hiking trails, a mountain lake, and a Finnish sauna.