Page 8 of 15
Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Standing by the grey ice water, out in the wind above the ground out in the weather
I have been thinking about going to Alaska seriously for years. Normally I'd start to plan, get temporarily distracted or discouraged and decide to regroup the next year. Such passed time had allowed me to concentrate and distill what I really wanted to see from a state so large as to be completely without scale. Eventually I came to believe that there were three things I truly wanted to see for myself. One above all was the grizzly bears at Katmai National Park, a second was Denali National Park and the third was Kenai Fjords National Park off of Seward. Consisting of a series of deep fjords, immense glaciers and lonely islands, Kenai Fjords always seemed like one of those places so far away that it might not even be real, one of those places so far away that it had to be seen to be believed. So when it finally came to planning this trip I took special care to make sure I'd see as much as I reasonably could. Regular day cruises depart Seward every day complete with one National Park guide and a lot of tourists, pretty much the only way to see the park without an sea tested kayak and a hell of a lot of more time. When deciding on which company was the best choice I looked for the longest day cruise I could find, which explains why I thought it was a good idea (both before and after the trip) to spend eight and a half hours on the open sea looking for all imaginable types of wildlife hiding among all the deep fjords, immense glaciers and lonely islands you could ever possibly imagine.
Throughout Alaska there are glaciers to be seen in all their blue ice glory, if you know where to look. This is a close up of the face of Aialik Glacier as it calves, a seasonal process where it starts to drop good sized chunks of ice into the bay as it naturally recedes every summer. Unlike virtually every other glaciers, Aialik doesn't seem too affected by global warming, it's just about where it was when it was first discovered a few hundred years ago.
What this action shot does not show is the constant breathing and creaking and grinding and cracking and crunching sounds that the glacier is making as it slowly pushes itself downhill and into the sea. It feels somehow alive, as if its every move takes all its energy, all its pain, all its life as it takes one last gasp toward eternal glory. Or maybe its just all that ice melting and settling. It's hard to tell actually.
A close up of the sea and its grey ice water as chunks of what was once Aialik Glacier slowly become what will always be Aialik Bay.
From Seward five major fjords stretch along the coast halfway to Homer, although eight and a half hours on a tour boat will only buy you enough time to see two and still swing through the Chiswell Islands on the way back home. The walls of the fjords are lined with snow capped coastal mountains, although they were dramatically obscured by some pesky low clouds for the balance of the journey. On the shores of these fjords grizzly bears and bald eagles can be seen from a distance, while everyone else hangs out on the islands. If you can wait until the next page of pictures, you'll see a good sample of everything I've seen, part of a checklist I did my very best not to compile.
Even though the real Kenai Fjords wildlife slides do not begin until the next page, it's hard not to get at least a glimpse of some animal or another no matter how hard you try not to (for extra bonus points try and spot the sea lions in the first picture above).
The journey itself was more about the destination than the vessel, something which turned out in my favor since I loved the journey but grew to despise the vessel. The tour boat company offered an all you can eat dinner aboard as you cruised, something which was optional and something I skipped thinking it was more important to enjoy the fjords than to wait in a buffet line. The thing however which really bothered me was that there was a limited number of tables and assigned seating, something which just slowly, painfully gnawed at everything I hold dear. Rather than accept a bad seat in an overheated cabin I chose to spend the entire cruise on the outside deck where I could actually enjoy the fjords, make friends with the balance of the crew and watch large groups of people (with their cameras in hand) tear themselves away from their dinner to get a quick picture, complain about the cold and head back inside their stuffy little cabin completely unaware of how much they were missing.
A quick note about the picture. While my SLR was busy with my 75-300mm lens, my backup brand new Pentax Optio W30 filled in for the occasional long(er) view. I always like to travel not only with my main SLR but also with a second waterproof, digital, pocket sized point and shoot camera in the event of bad weather, damage to my main camera or a situation where a quick shot beats carrying around an expensive, heavy SLR. Nowhere did the Pentax do more good than Kenai Fjords, allowing me to not switch SLR lenses but still get that occasional picture (like this one) that a telephoto lens just isn't made for.
Resurrection Bay (where Seward is located) was named by the Russians after an especially lucky Easter about two hundred years ago. The next fjord west (and the only other one I visited) was Aialik Bay, which was named by the Native Americans and literally translates from Athabascan into "the scary place." And while Aialik Bay certainly felt isolated, distant and alone it truthfully didn't feel all that scary or all that different from neighboring Resurrection Bay, with the possible exception of a stray tidewater glacier or two.
I'll finish off the Kenai Fjords scenery slides with a few last shots of Aialik Glacier, in a place so far away that it might not even be real, a place so far away it has to be seen to be believed.
