Day 30 to 33 – Seward, AK

July 29, 30, 31 and August 1

Thursday – Sunday

(The days and dates are starting to get confusing so, if I’m in error, who cares! Right?)

Seward, population ~3000, is located on Resurrection Bay of the Kenai Peninsula. The seafood business is Alaska’s largest private employer, and the industry touches nearly every facet of the Seward economy.

Seward's idyllic small-boat harbor.

The Russians set up a shipyard here in 1793; but the town wasn’t officially founded until 1903 when someone decided it would be an ideal location for a rail-head. The railway wasn’t completed until 1923.

On Good Friday, March 27, 1964, a 9.2 Earthquake struck the town. Whole chunks of the waterfront slid into the harbor. 12 lives were lost when 40-foot tsunami waves struck within a half-hour of the quake. The town has rebuilt and is still a thriving fishing community supported also by its tourism.

Seward is the Gateway to the 600,000 acre Kenai Fjords National Park. The Kenai Fjords were established as a National Monument in 1978 and became a National Park in 1980. We took a tour of the fjords on this 200-passenger boat. Park Ranger-Amber was on board to narrate the tour, identify the wildlife and share information about the glaciers.

We bought the $10 boarding photo!

Our first "rare sighting."

We passed this tenuous boating situation on our “Major Marine” Kenai Fjord tour.

This is called “low water” fishing OR too many “drinks on the rocks”.

We saw lots of whale tails and dorsal fins.

A fare number of Bald Eagles were out and about.

William was able to get this picture.

The Sea Otter has one-million hairs/square-inch of fur making it a super-warm skin for parkas. In the late 1700’s their population was nearly decimated.

The western population of Stellar sea lions has been classified as endangered.

Thousands of Black-legged Kittiwakes were nesting on the rock islands.

Our very friendly crew (??) served beverages with real glacier ice!

Our trip took us to the Holgate Glacier.

We could see and hear the sounds of ice-chunks falling from the glacier - this is called "calving." We could also hear the glacier, itself, talking!

Glaciers are Blue because densely compacted firn and glacier ice absorb the light spectrum’s long wavelengths (i.e. red, yellow and green). Only shorter bluish wavelengths are reflected back for us to see.

New Words to me: Firn – Ice grains

Firnification - the process of compacting snow and ice into glaciers

The road to Exit Glacier is the only part of the Kenai Fjords National Park that can be reached by driving.

Kristina and Wm hiked the 9.5 -mile round-trip route to the top of Exit Glacier.

The view from the TOP.

The view from the BOTTOM!

Peter and I took the 0.9-mile hike to the base of the glacier!

The Alaska Sea Life Center opened in Seward on May 1998. Its main purpose is to serve as a state-of-the-art research and rehabilitation facility. Two-thirds of the cost ($37-million) came from a fund that was started when the state won a $900 million civil settlement from Exxon. The Exxon Valdez tanker went aground in Prince William Sound March 1989 spilling 11-million gallons of oil.

A sea Anemone - totally captivating to watch and touch.

We saw a lot of Puffins on our Fjord boat-tour but the pictures from the Sea Life Center look a lot better.

We’ve all heard of the Iditarod Dogsled Race from Anchorage to Nome but the 0-Mile of the Historic Iditarod Trail starts in Seward. Prior to its official founding in 1903, Seward had already been a Gold Rush encampment for at least a decade. It served as the southern terminus of the 1200-mile Historic Iditarod Trail which hopeful prospectors and mushers used to haul mail and supplies north and return with gold.

According to the Lonely Planet book on Alaska:

The 1100-mile Iditarod Dogsled Race to Nome begins in Anchorage – but only for the sake of appearances. At the end of a short run in Anchorage, the teams wave good bye to the cameras, pack up their dogs and sleds and drive to snowier country up north for the ‘restart.’ Wasilla serves as the second official starting point for the race, though lack of snow often pushes the restart north to Willow.

Historical fact:

There are an estimated 100,000 glaciers in Alaska which is less than 1% of the glaciers on earth!