Capturing the Moment

   It has been a crazy week. I feel like our guests have experienced more exceptional wildlife encounters than most crew does working all season. Alaska is definitely providing for those willing to step out of their bubbles and hit the deck running.     This week started off with multiple sightings of black bears in the fjord leading up to Dawes Glacier. Then arctic terns and harbor seals lounging about on ice flows. We ran across orcas back out in Stephens Passage, who led us to more orcas that were predating on a dall's porpoise. Then we found the early season motherload of humpback whales with another pod of dall's porpoise. Then after birthday celebrations in front of a huge waterfall at Red Bluff Bay, we entered brown bear territory. Here we had a close encounter with two young bears on the beach at our landing spot! They trotted off into the woods and used our trail (really their trail), to stay well ahead of us until venturing off into the forest. We awok...

Hanging with Sea Otters Sea Otter Photographs for Sale   On the tours that I lead up in Alaska the wildlife is often a big draw. Every week we come across a plethora of charismatic megafauna, aka really cool big animals. Encounters with humpback whales, bald eagles, killer whales , and brown bears are usually at the forefront of everyones mind when the trip starts. And when we come across those animals it is easy to fall under the spell of their charisma. However it is a slightly smaller marine mammal that can melt the heart of just about everyone who encounters it…the sea otter ( Enhydra lutris ).   Covered in extremely dense fur, about a million hairs per square inch, these aquatic mammals of the weasel family stay warm by trapping air underneath their coat. But it is this same feature that drove early settlers to hunt these sea otters to the brink of extinction. Russia fur traders were prevalent in Alaska’s forming years because of the number of otters. Howeve...

Glacier in the clouds Harding Icefield   Exploring Kenai Fjords When I was 22 years old I flew from New York to Japan in what seemed to be an ever-present sunset glow. As we chased the sun around the earth I glanced outside at a frozen land with what looked like frozen rivers running through it. 13 years later I find myself finally flying over the same frozen landscape on my way to explore the Kenai Fjords National Park in Southcentral Alaska. On this peninsula nearly 40 glaciers slowly slide down from the Harding Ice Field. If Denali is Alaska's crown jewel north of Anchorage then this must be it's crown jewel to the south. And now, after working in Alaska's inside passage I have a newfound knowledge and interest in these glaciers, icefields, flora, and fauna that encompass this amazing national park. Lazy Harbor Seal   In the icy waters surrounding the peninsula we find seals, sea lions, humpback whales, orca chasing salmon under our boat, and birds of ...