Seward is a town of about 3,000 people. It was once a vital shipping town, as the port sent a variety of goods into interior Alaska. A massive earthquake and subsequent fires and a tsunami in 1964 all but wiped the place out. As we were told today, the industry has never completely recovered. Now, alongside fisheries, tourism is one of the big industries. You’re about to see why in the photographs and video below.
We got right up to the seagulls, thousands of whom lived in this one rock protruding from the bay. Later in the season, we learned, bigger waves will come through and clean the rock. This is probably important, but tourists wonder why they’re learning about it.
And now, three shots of harbor seals:
These next six will need no introduction. Our cruise captain says he’s been doing this for 15 years. Even he was oohing and aahing about some of the things we saw today, including two separate pods swimming right to us.
Mountains over the water are also impressive, just so you know:
We saw a glacier.
Up close.
We got right next to it. The cracking ice sounded like a rifle’s report. And, from far away, you could hear the glacier-quake, a rumbling thunder, heavy industry sound.
And the Aialik Glacier is the subject of today’s video. Watch until the end:
You want to see the orcas again? Fine. We went back for another quick visit to watch them eat and play.
Another mountain shot.
Our captain steered us — hey, what’s that?
That is a humpback whale.
I said a humpback whale.
We only got to see him for a few minutes because some people on our cruise had to catch a train. Some people have misplaced priorities. Here are a few more mountain shots as we cruised back into port at Seward:
We got off the boat, looked up into the sky and saw this:
The sun stays up — or, rather, it doesn’t get dark — here until midnight or later this time of year. But at dinnertime, that’s what you see.
We stopped by one of the few promising restaurants we could find in the mid-century, blue collar downtown. I had a pork sandwich at the Seward Brewing Company. Walked away with a recipe, too.
We got back to our lodge and walked across the street to the mountain stream. Jessica, Adam, Lauren and I tossed stones into it for an hour or so. It seemed like it would be twilight for forever.
