Tidewater Glaciers in Seward - Passport Diaries

The train schedule allowed for six hours and 15 minutes in Seward before heading back to Anchorage. So Chris booked us a six hour wildlife cruise. I’ve been on my share of nature cruises, but: I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS.

The Kenai Fjords cruise took us through Resurrection Bay, around Aialik Cape, and up to the Aialik Glacier. This is a tidewater glacier, meaning the edge of it sits right in the ocean.

“We’ve hit an iceberg!” I exclaimed to Chris. We hit lots, actually—we even watched the glacier’s edge break and calve into the water. Ice covered the water all around us. It hissed and popped as the ice melted, releasing the air that has been trapped when the snow first compacted into glacier. Ice tinkled around us like chimes. This was my favorite part of the whole day, I think.

I even liked the glacier better than all the animals we saw: humpback whales (two or three!), sea otters rolling and floating with their pups, harbor seals lounging, sea lions barking, wrastling, and catching fish, puffins, the porpoise that look like mini orcas, and common murre. The murre birds sounded so cute; they made this distinctive humming, purring noise.

The captain’s commentary was ridiculous. “So come outside and put your head on a swivel…” She said about 15 times. She frequently reminded us of all the amazing animals and adventures “within reach today.” She referred to the feeder fish that come here in huge numbers as “biomass,” as in, “we see another sea lion diving through the water to feed on this rich biomass…” as it caught a fish in its jaws, which Chris thought was hilarious. “What biomass will we be feeding on for dinner, sweetheart?”

The kids continued to shock us by being great throughout our 14-hour day of train, boat, and drive time. Maybe we should have let them stay and play with Amber, but we couldn’t leave Isaac off a train ride. And what kind of blog post would this be without Eloise?!

So the whole day was intoxicating. I didn’t have huge expectations—nothing like traveling with kids to lower expectations, right? And I’ve been on coastal cruises before—around Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Japan’s 99 Islands, New York’s Thousand Islands earlier this summer, Australia’s Rottsnest Island, whale watching off Okinawa, etc etc, but this tour—especially the glacier—was unlike any other. And totally different from climbing around on a glacier like we did in Canada 10 years ago in the busses with the monster truck tires. It was really cool.

Speaking of glaciers being cool, the boat crew fished some glacier out of the water to bring around and show people. Then they left it on a counter behind where we were sitting. So I licked it. It’s Chris’ fault—he said it would become family lore or something. Ha ha! Licked a glacier!

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