Wednesday, July 21, 2010

After a serious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, we set out for Seward. We stopped along the way Summit Lake, for a look at Alaskan water lilies and Arctic terns. Arctic terns spend the summer here (in the far north) and then winter in Antarctica, where it is summer - so, with that 20,000 mile commute, they spend their entire lives in areas with maximum number of daylight hours. They're thought to be the animal which experiences more daylight than any other organism on earth. (Yes, that's a couple of swans in the picture - the terns wouldn't pose for us.)

Seward is a small coastal town, situated at the head of Resurrection Bay, a long, narrow and scenic fjord flanked by steep mountains. One of Alaska's oldest and perhaps most scenic communities, the harbor is ice-free and it has been the Kenai Peninsula's principal port since 1903. The town is also the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad. Today, it's our departure point for an all-day cruise of the Kenai Fjords National Park.

Kenai Fjords National Park, at just over 600,000 acres, is the smallest of Alaska's national parks. It is made up of a range of coastal mountains which slowly sank into the ocean, transforming its glacial valleys into long fjords with rocky and steep walls. In many ways, it distills the essence of coastal Alaska into one place - wild, dynamic, and scenic, rich with the signs of glaciers, light with the marks of people, unforgiving in stormy seas, and unforgettable in warm sunshine. Here long peninsulas stretch into the Gulf of Alaska, while the sea reaches inland with long fjords and hundreds of quiet bays and coves.

Crowning the park is the Harding Icefield, an ice age relic - almost 700 square miles of ice up to a mile thick. It covers more than half of the park and feeds over 30 glaciers flowing out of the mountains. The icefield is a vestige of the ice sheet that covered Alaska during the last glacial ice age. The ancient ice gouged out Kenai's fjords, creating habitats for all manner of sea animals - including birds, harbor seals, northern sea lions, and sea otters. The fabled Kenai fjords are long, steep-sided, glacier-carved valleys that are now filled with ocean waters, many with a sparkling glacier spilling into the water at the end of the fjord.

We boarded our vessel, the Coastal Explorer and in no time, the captain was pointing out glaciers and wildlife. This is Bear Glacier, just outside of Seward; it provided a really nice backdrop to this humpback whale and her calf.

Other humpbacks were in the area - they are HUGE animals - you'd think we'd have more pictures!

We ventured into rougher water to visit the Chiswell Islands, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. These islands are rocky and uninhabited islands, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The area is very active seismically, which can be seen in the rugged landscape – the islands appear rise vertically out of the sea; there are no horizontal beaches.

The islands are inhabited by millions of marine birds and mammals, including a small rookery of endangered Steller Sea Lions.













Other mammals we saw included Dall porpoise, sea otters, harbor seals, and mountain goats!!

There were all sorts of birds around the islands and several rookeries on steep cliffs, reachable only by air. Some birds we saw included: pelagic cormorant, red-faced cormorant, bald eagle, kittiwake, parakeet auklet, tufted puffin, horned puffin, common murre (or guillemot), rhino auklet, and glaucous-winged gulls.

The red-faced cormorant occurs only in this area - the cold seas along the Alaskan coast. These birds are considered especially vulnerable to oil spills - there aren't many of them and they live right at the end of the Alaska pipeline.










The murre is more abundant - it nests in this area and spends its winter at sea. This bird is North America's version of the penguin, which it resembles in looks and behavior.

Everybody's favorite is the puffin, a seabird which nests on the rocky cliffs in cold climates. We enjoyed watching them swim and fly around our boat, wishing we could take one home with us ....

We headed into a quiet inlet to have a closer look at a couple of glaciers sliding down from the Harding Icefield. This first one is the Surprise Glacier - it was a surprise because we sailed right past it before anyone noticed it hiding behind a rocky outcrop.











The big show was the Holgate Glacier. This is a tidewater glacier, a valley glacier that flows far enough to reach out into the sea. Tidewater glaciers are responsible for calving numerous small icebergs, and we were fortunate to hang around for a while to watch nature at work.

The cracking ice sounds like gunshots, and the falling ice can make a big splash.



At the face of the glacier, we also learned about katabatic winds - downslope winds flowing from high up on the glacier, down the slope to the ocean surface below. We're talking about gale force winds and seriously cold air - invigorating to say the least.

After glacier-watching, we started back to Seward and got sidetracked by the amazing sight of humpback whales engaged in cooperative lunge-feeding or bubble-net feeding. We watched whales that usually feed individually (skim feeding) as they worked together to gang up on schools of herring. One whale blows bubbles to corral the herring. Another whale gives a deep, long feeding call. And finally, the whole group takes a great big mouthful of fish and water. Amazing behavior and it was even more amazing that the captain showed us how to spot the whales before they surfaced - and to time our picture-taking accordingly.

The trick is to watch for bubbles and to watch the birds (kittiwakes) because the birds can see the whales under the water. As the whales start rounding up the fish, the birds start to gather over them in hopes of getting a snack for themselves. As the whales begin to surface, the birds are frantic and it's time to start snapping pictures. Needless to say, it was quite a thrill to watch this and to get some photos, too.

We were sorry to have this boat ride end - it was an incredible day of wildlife viewing and spectacular scenery. Back at the dock, the fishermen were coming in, too - some folks had a lot of fish to clean!

We said goodbye to the sea otters playing in the harbor and took a quick ride around Seward before we left the area. This was another place heavily damaged by the 1964 earthquake. Here the shoreline fell 3-7 feet, just dropped into the ocean - and the tsunami that followed sent salt water 2-3 miles inland. There was great destruction, but ... much of the town is built high on the hills around the harbor and today the old town site is used for parks and RV camping.

Back in Hope, we went down to the local salmon stream to check out the action.  There were salmon in the creek - enough to attack fisherman.  This fellow was pretty happy with his catch.