Seward, Alaska

We would be spending the next couple days in Seward, on the opposite site of the Kenai Peninsula from Homer. We’d barely pulled into our campsite when someone from another RV walked up to me and asked if I liked salmon. I answered in the affirmative, not sure of where this conversation would be going. He proceeded to tell me about a fishing weir just outside of town where one could buy fresh salmon for $5 each. All we had to do was show up at 6:00pm. I didn’t know what a weir was and the whole thing sounded a little fishy to me (bad pun intended) but we decided to check it out anyway.

Sure enough, at 6:00 someone showed up and unlocked a little building that contained what amounted to a fish elevator. The Boy was very intrigued by the whole process.

Once there were a few fish in the bin, fish parts and blood started flying everywhere. The Boy didn’t seem too bothered by it until he got a whiff of the smell.

What I was told back at the campground turned out to be true, although today was a special day. The entire harvest was being donated to a group of native Alaskans. If we wanted to buy some $5 fish we would have to return at the same time tomorrow.

We picked up another interesting tidbit from our visit to the weir. A mother bear and her two cubs frequent this area on a daily basis. They had been in the creek just an hour before we arrived. We wandered over to the creek to take a look even though they appeared to be long gone.

There were no bears in the creek, although this gull was standing guard as though the creek belonged to him. Maybe tomorrow we would catch a glimpse of the bears.

Naturally, the question had occurred to us as to what we would do with our $5 fish once we’d purchased them. T-N-T, we were told, would clean and flash freeze them. They would even smoke them if we wanted. We stopped by on our way back into Seward to check them out. They were real nice folks. We came away with the answers we had been looking for and some delicious smoked salmon bellies.

This was the view out our camper door as we got up in the morning. Not bad, huh?

This municipal campground was basically a gravel parking lot. There was water and a dump site elsewhere in town. The main appeal of this campground, aside from the view, was its close proximity to the Alaska Sealife Center. It would be our first stop of the day.

Immediately behind our campsite was a rock embankment which sloped down into the water. To The Boy’s delight, a group of bunnies had made this area their home. They looked remarkably healthy, leading us to wonder how they ended up here.

The Sealife Center had a good reputation and was, I believed, The Boy’s one chance at seeing jellyfish this summer. He was excited at the prospect. This was probably the most kid-oriented activity of our entire trip so I was hopeful that The Boy would enjoy it.

I was shocked to learn that the puffin’s classic look is only temporary; it’s their breeding plumage. They don’t always look like this. Their broad colorful beak is a decorative shell that sits over their actual beak, which is much smaller and black.

These Murres can dive up to 700 feet below the surface of the ocean. Amazingly enough, this leaves them in second place behind Emperor Penguins, which can dive to 1700 feet!

The Sealife Center was impressive, although its jellyfish exhibit was not. It didn’t help that we’d visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium the previous summer. This probably created some unrealistic expectations. The Boy was still happy to see the jellyfish. He just wondered where the rest of them were.

Touch tanks are the best invention ever, in my opinion. Aquariums didn’t have them when I was a kid. They are now a standard part of the experience. The water in these touch tanks was pumped in from the bay and was extremely cold – so much so that it was painful to put our hands in the water for more than a few seconds at a time.

The Boy dived right in, feeling all the different creatures. His tidepooling experience in Homer made him an old hand at this kind of thing.

The Giant Pacific Octopus was having some problems with condensation on his tank so The Boy got proactive and took matters into his own hands. This resulted in a couple job offers from other members of the staff.

Before we knew it, it was time to return to the weir. It was us and one other person this evening. Mom grabbed two plastic grocery sacks and a garbage bag to transport the fish. The man working at the weir laughed when he saw the grocery bags. He referred to them as “pretend bags”.

There was some debate as to how many fish we should buy. We were limited by the available freezer space in our RV’s. This had to be a relief to Dad, who doesn’t really like to eat fish. We decided to purchase five.

The man in charge of the weir took a liking to my mom. He said she reminded him of his own mom. He asked me to take a picture of them together.

The guy with the guitar case is…I have no idea. He saw the camera and smiled. People in Alaska are just friendly.

It had been raining steadily for most of the day and continued to do so as we waited in line at the fish cleaning station at Seward’s harbor. Dad argued in favor of cleaning them ourselves, perhaps feeling that it was cheating to end up with so much fish for so little cost or effort. I argued in favor of paying someone to clean them for us while I took pictures, an argument that eventually won out.

The lady in the neon hoodie agreed to clean our salmon as we gathered around to observe. She told us that we had been given some really good specimens.

Darla was happy to be watching the cleaning process as opposed to participating in it.

Prior to our departure, Darla’s brother had requested that we harvest the roe (salmon eggs) from any female salmon we caught. He even sent along a kit with gloves, bags, preservative, and instructions on what to do with it. Glenn ended up hitting the jackpot; every one of our fish was a female.

After our fish were cleaned, we took all but a couple of the fillets to another establishment to have them flash frozen. They would be ready in the morning.

As Mom and Darla prepared our salmon dinner, this eagle came to rest on the wooden post just a few yards behind the 5th wheel. It was soaking wet like everything else on this day. We sat at the window and watched it until a neighboring RVer ran out the door of her camper with her camera and scared it away.

Jenga was the most popular game on our trip. When played in the camper, the wobbly table added an extra challenge. The Boy had been introduced to Jenga a few months earlier and had, in that short time, become pretty good at it. He won this game.

Our primary activity for this day was a short hike to Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. I had really been hoping for a bright, sunny day as there was an eight mile hike out to the Harding Icefield that offered incredible panoramic views along the way. Unfortunately, we got more of the same rain we experienced the day prior. There was no point to hiking eight miles in this weather.

The Boy’s bright orange jacket and vivid blue umbrella stood out nicely against the blacks and grays of the day. This was no accident. I had picked out both the jacket and the umbrella before leaving home. I wanted the colors to complement each other in photographs and to stand out against all of the green I expected to encounter in Alaska.

Glaciers in Alaska are like castles in Europe; after a while it is hard not to take them for granted. I had planned stops at several glaciers but I tried to make sure that the experience would be different each time. Unlike Surprise Glacier in Prince William Sound, Exit Glacier is a glacier visitors can walk up and touch – usually. The trail to the toe of the glacier had been washed out by all the rain. This would be as close as we could get.

Mom grabbed this shot of the Park Service map as we arrived back at the trailhead. The yellow lines denote the different ways to get to Exit Glacier. One can normally reach the toe of the glacier by walking along the edge of the outwash plain. Not this summer.

The gray line depicts a portion of the Harding Icefield Trail. The part of this trail included on the map is a steep climb through bear country. Bring your bear spray.

Mom captured this image of Seward’s historic Episcopal Church on our way out of town.

At some point along the Seward Highway I spotted this mass of flowers and pulled over. I ended up taking a series of shots using my tilt-shift lens to alternate between infinite focus and very selective focus.

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, Portage, Alaska

We began a new day at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center near Portage. We received free admission as part of our glacier tour six days earlier. The AWCC is a facility that rehabilitates native Alaskan wildlife. Visitors get a chance to see grizzlies, bull moose, and other animals that may have eluded them in the wild. The Boy thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Mimi took all the pictures during our visit.

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