The first parts are available here, part 1, part 2 & part 3. go read them now if you havent!

Day 8 – Seward
The morning of the 8th day, a friday, found us at port, in seward. our disembarking time was 8:40, and we got off the ship, collected our luggage, and waited for a shuttle from the mornings excursion we had planned to pick us up. we had organized for the whole family to go on a 7 hour kenai peninsula boat tour, including a salmon feast on a local island. so, as soon as we got picked up, got to the docks, we boarded our smaller boat for the day. the idea here was we were going to be able to get much closer to some of the wildlife that lives on the kenai peninsula, which is quite a bit. as soon as we left the harbour, we ran across some more humpback whales. so, we hung out and got to know them a little . got some more great shots of them. then onwards we went. we met a lot of birds, by far my favorites are the puffin. they apparently eat so much fish that they have trouble taking off. then we saw some seals sun bathing too. we went way up this fjord, in order to go see some more glaciers. on the way, we ran into a mother otter, with a baby on her stomach! i wish i had had a longer lens, but i did manage to get a few pictures of her. by far my favorite animals.

then we got up to another glacier. this time noa was our supreme spotter. she would tell us where the ice is calving, and amos and i would be taking the photos. very handy to have her around for such things. it was crazy, as it was a semi warm day out, but the wind blowing down over the glacier would super cool the air, and it would alternate between warm and cold. then they pulled some ice out for us to see, and apparently its the densest ice in the world. that was pretty fun to see. then we saw more humbacks, seals, and an eagle soaring overhead heading back to get some food. lots of fun islands with some pretty massive trees on them too. as for our marine excursions, i think this was one of my most enjoyable. we were out at sea, in the sun the whole day, and around every corner we found some new marine life that was pretty exciting to see. heading back into port, i had set my camera down to relax, and i saw what has turned into probably one of my favorite photos play out. this small sail boat was chasing a pack of seagulls around. just phenomenal.

When we anchored for lunch earlier in the day, I built an inukshuk out of the local rocks, which were all perfect skipping rocks. noa also probably took one of my favorite pictures of me. Anyways, later that night, we finally got into a lodge in seward, pretty much passed out, and had a low key evening.

Lets get this picture party started with more humpbacks!

WOW!~

the scenery is just massive. see the kayakers?

must of been a good catch

the local sea lions

again, just massive rock formations

Puffins

theres a fort on there

really hard to see, or take a picture of, but dall porpises

Mommy sea otter!

more glacier action

loons, i think

i like these pictures

and the ice they took out for us

sweet rock formations

yay, puffins!

more sweet rock formations

an eagle overhead

my favorite picture of me

who built that!

and finally, a boat bugging seagulls

Day 9 – Anchorage

Ahhh, bound for the capital of alaska. Since seward is such a small place, all the rental cars are booked years in advance. so we had to take a bus to get to anchorage in order to rent a car. so the next morning we woke up, piled into a car, and headed for the capital. it was about a 2 hour bus ride, where i started collecting my thoughts and wrote the first post of our trip on my ipad. the bus driver updated us on all the local information we had to be aware of as she drove us to town. Once we arrived in Anchorage, i find it looks pretty much like any other american city. it did feel like a real city, and that your surrounded by people, compared to all the other places we visited up until now. amos and i got the rental car, and we ended up walking around downtown for a few hours. I found the local brewery, of course, and tried their IPA while everyone else did some shopping. Lots of beautiful flowers around, and got a few interesting shots in town. I always find its really hard to define a city by a few pictures, as they usually aren’t very interesting. its something i would be interested in getting to know how to do better, for sure. We did end up having a great dinner at a local sea food place, that sources everything locally, i had some halibut cheek. not sure it was cooke properly, or its subtlety was totally lost on me, i dont know, but i didn’t think it was as amazing as everyone raves about it. but it was fried in something weird, so perhaps i need to try it again.

either way, that evening, we left for the roughly two hour drive back into the kenai peninsula, where we were staying at a lodge along a river. we got there fairly late, around 11:30, and again, promptly passed out.

Well, this is not really anchorage, this is still in seward…

we found a chocolate bar, must try

old structure, loved the roof

wow, never seen these flowers

i think the old theatre

my IPA at glacier brewing

Adi made some friends

so did noa and yael

and thats it! This concludes todays installment of andrews alaska adventure. tomorrow is the last, and probably the most exciting, to me at least. stay tuned!

Read part 5 here

Onwards, our adventure continues. if you missed part 1 and part 2, go read them now!

Day 6 – Skagway

Yay! skagway! Start of one of the routes for the Klondike gold rush. What everyone says you should do in skagway is ride the train. so thats what we had signed up to do. We started this morning off really early and got on a bus which was going to drive us up the hill all the way to the end of the train line, in Fraser, BC, where we would ride the train back to Skagway. The reason we did it in this order was first, we got a short movie on the Klondike gold rush, and then the bus driver took us on a scenic drive all the way to Fraser. We stopped and got lots of photo opportunities along the canyon we were driving up. the funny thing about all this is that you end up driving from the USA into Canada. So we had to bring our passports. and we probably spent all of 20 minutes in BC. pretty crazy. anyways, so we finally got on the train, and it was awesome! i actually ended up taking a time lapse of most of the trip too. ill have to get that posted at some point. anyways, we learned all about the gold rush, and it was a great train ride back to skagway. i really enjoyed it. this was a short stop we had in town, and we were able to walk around town some after, but had to get on the boat before too long. that evening i set up the flash and we took some nice family portraits on the boat.

Lots of waterfalls on the way

hello, mountains

having fun

cute flowers

then we got on the train

crossed lots of bridges

very scenic

and the whole family

Day 7 – Hubbard glacier

The next morning, the captain was sailing us up the straight to see the Hubbard glacier. its the longest, over 10km wide, tidewater glacier in alaska. and theres sweet calving action, when sections of the glacier break off and fall in the water, all along it! the boat crawls into the inlet, as there are icebergs all around. and the captain would use the horizontal bow thrusters in the front of the ship to blast icebergs out of the way, so that they could get us closer to the face of the glacier. this was the only overcast day we had on the cruise, and apparently it actually makes for more beautiful ice. there was a little rain, and it was pretty cold out. either way, i was determined to get pictures of ice calving, so i stuck it out and took pictures for as long as possible. its pretty amazing to hear the ice crack and thunder. i did manage to get some good shots in the end, but it took a lot of dedication and patience.

After the glacier, the whole day was at sea, and we would arrive at seward the next morning. we would finally be cruising over the open ocean too, and even though it did not look like there were much of swells out there, you could feel it. these modern boats even have these horizontal fins that they deploy that help dampen the waves movement, and im sure it helped, but i cant even imagine how bad it would be if you actually had to sail through some bad weather.

sailing to get to the glacier

theres some calving ice!

mountains around us

iceberg

our boat at sunset

more sunsets.. whoo…

the moon peeking out

are you sick of these yet?

and our last view before seward

Thats it for today! only 4 more days to go, but dont worry, those were action packed! ill probably have two more updates, and then alaska will be done with! till tomorrow

View Part 4

Continuing on our grand alaska adventure, you, the intrepid reader, find us sailing into Hoonah, Alaska. If you wish to read how we got here, please read part 1 of the alaska trip

Day 4 – Icy straight point / Hoonah

The day opened with us sailing into Honnah, or also called Icy straight point. The village used to be a salmon cannery, and now is another tourist destination with their claim to fame being the longest zip line in north america, i believe. This port did not have a dock for cruise ships, therefore we had to take what they call “Tenders”, which are small 100 person boats to reach shore. So we disembarked, and got into the little town. There we had organized a 4 hour whale watching tour, followed by a bear search tour.

We got onto a smaller boat and set out for probably 50 minutes or so, to get to where the whales where. well, we certainly got to see humpback whales. when we got to the site where they were supposed to be, there were many pods all around us. the boat would slow down, and try to drift in their direction, not getting to close, but letting them do their thing. I was properly prepared for such weather, as it was really cold, so i had my fleece and rain jacket on to keep the wind out. yet, still, lots of people braved the cold to cram around the sides of the boat to catch a glimpse of the whales around us. we saw lots of tail, dorsal fins, but no full breaches. even if we had, its so hard to predict where they are going to jump out, and to be able to have your lens pointed in the right direction is no easy feat. anyways, I got lots of good whale pictures. then we returned to town, to go on our bear watching tour.

Here they took us 30 min outside of town, along a train that they have some prime bear watching spots set up. I really enjoyed this part, as i got to learn more about the local fauna. i love seeing all the little plants, and learning about the different trees they have around. we got to see some bog, forest, and lots of scenic views. alas, it was too sunny, and the bears did not make an appearance.

after this we returned onto our boat for more eating.

waking up to Hoonah

our cruise ship

its so small!

yours truly

Noa and I

As we left for whale watching

Alaskan fishing boat

there is what we came for!

and more tail

some feeding

we got lots of good family pictures

i really like this one

Sick of pictures yet?

Our Bear tour guide. the closest we got to a bear that trip.

some of the scenery

i love stunted trees that are naturally bonsaied

insert, theres supposed to be a bear here, here

devils club. huge, nasty plant apparently. new one for me to meet

Day 5 – Juneau

The Capital of Alaska! How exciting! but its an island. what, you have to take a boat or plane to get there? you cant just drive? wait, theres no place to live in town, as its all built on a side of a hill? the number one business in town is government? it rains all the time???!!

Im not sure why people would want their capital in such a place. but it was pretty. the cool thing is that the only reason the town exists is it was built on the tailings of the local mines. go mining. anyways, we rolled into juneau in the morning, and noa and i went on a gold mine exploration tour. it was reasonably good, probably better for someone who knows nothing about mining. but i still found it interesting. the real fun part though was lunch and afternoon.

So for lunch i was sort of sick of boat food, and wanted to have some fish and chips. after asking around, i found out about this place called the hanger. sounds good too me. well, i had the best halibut and chips ive ever had. also the first, granted, but so amazing. i could eat there every day. i also got to try my first alaskan IPA. not bad, but not as good as some of my favorite ipa’s. then, hold onto your seats, the real excitement began. i know, your asking, but andrew, how can anything be more exciting than an IPA and halibut and chips. i would look at you and say, i know, but check this.

So, in the afternoon, all six of us took a helicopter ride over glaciers! i know, right, how amazing is that. we flew past the end point of one, and then up the glacier to where its formed. well, i got tons of pictures out of the helicopter, with most of them turning out pretty well. but, our final destination was a small spec in the middle of the glacier as we fly further inland. what is that you ask? slowly, a dog musher camp comes into view!! there were over 200 sled dogs, along with their mushers living in the middle of a glacier, with no way on or off other than helicopter!

we landed and got to meet our musher, who was going to take us on a sled around the camp. He races in alaska, and has raced the iditarod 3 times. he owns 30 of the sled dogs, and lives 6 days on the glaciers, and then has 2 days off. this was his main way of making money in the summer, and he would then race most of the winter in alaska. anyways, we got a brief overview, and then onto the sleds, and off we raced! it was pretty exhilarating. the dogs were SOOO excited to be running. you can just tell from their behavior that they absolutely love their job also, and all they wanted to do was run and run. we all got turns standing up and sitting. This part of the trip was probably noa’s favorite out of everything. then after we got back to camp, we got to meet all 12 of the sled dogs. they were all alaskan huskies, which have been bred to have more stamina and endurance than the ones we are used to seeing. and they were all so well behaved. we met all the dogs, spent some time with them, got some good photo ops, and then, back onto the helicopter. We flew back out over the glacier, and took a nice scenic ride home. it was all so spectacular.

We ended the day back on the boat, all jittery from the amazing day we had. more eating occured, and we finished the day off knowing that tomorrow was going to be our last port of call.

the tram to the juneau overlook, which we did not do

Noa and I testing the ore carts

us infront of the portal

Its true….

I call this one, flowers before cruise ship

lets get SERIOUS! some local IPA action

YUM. all im gonna say. really.

RAWR!

looking proffesional

whee, lets go!

a glacier!

pretty amazing

the dog musher camp

we are excited!

Hai noa says

we are ready!

self explanatory

the dogs

and then it was time to head home

back in town we say our first bear, and halibut

and then.. we had more night time sunsets, and i got this wonderful picture

and that wraps it up for those two days. i think thats actually a bulk of the pictures, i went sort of crazy on uploading dog sledding pictures. but its by far not even close to the end of our adventure. check back tomorrow, for more excitement, as our next destination is SKAGWAY, Alaska, famous place of the canadian gold rush! stay tuned….

Proceed to part 3 here