Cruising Alaska's Inside Passage

Story and Photos by Mark Bradley

The Orca (Killer Whale) and its calf breached the water at the same time just a few yards off the bow of our Celebrity Cruise Lines ship flashing black and white profiles for just a second before gracefully arcing their backs and disappearing again into the deep. It was a fleeting but memorable glimpse and the beginning of many more spectacular sights that awaited us as we navigated the narrow channel between the mainland and the many islands that make up Alaska’s Inside Passage.

Earlier we had flown into Seattle and then taken a speedy hydrofoil through Puget Sound to the charming port of Victoria, British Columbia on Canada’s Vancouver Island. Butchart Gardens, one of the world’s largest and most diverse botanical gardens awaited us there. Set in an old stone quarry, Butchart Gardens offers an assault on the senses with a unique landscape of color and symmetry unmatched in any garden I’ve seen anywhere in the world. It is a must see along with an overnight at the Empress Hotel which sits harborside resplendently welcoming royalty and select guests as it has for over a century.

But we had come to see Southeast Alaska so we departed by ferry the next morning for Vancouver where our cruise would begin. Our ports of call would include Juneau, the state capital; Skagway, the entry point for the Klondike Gold Rush; and Ketchikan, the Salmon Capital of the World.

As a first time cruiser, I was awed by the size of the ship and all it had to offer but we soon settled into our comfortable cabin and prepared for the first of many gourmet meals. Cruise ships are well known for the quality and quantity of their food and ours was no exception. After my third helping of Baked Alaska (a dessert ice cream cake), I could feel my belt tightening and looked forward to getting off at our first port of call the next morning, Juneau.

One thing they don’t mention in the travel brochures about Alaska is that Southeast Alaska is actually a temperate rain forest. It rains almost every day and is made up mostly of a lush, green coniferous forests. However, the rains don’t last long and as we traveled to the Mendenhall Glacier I soon found myself unprepared for my first look at this frozen river of ice.

We hiked away from the Visitor Center to get a better look at this massive slow moving monster and its shades of dark blue ice contrasted beautifully with the aquamarine pool of water and green trees surrounding it. It’s hard to describe its sheer beauty the first time you see it. But an even better look at a glacier awaited us up the coast.

I awoke the next morning to find icebergs floating alongside the ship and waterfalls tumbling down sheer cliffs of the narrow inlet that took us into Hubbard Bay. I pulled on a sweatshirt and stocking cap and scrambled onto the deck with my camera to get a panoramic look at the glacier that was shaped like a horseshoe and that was rumbling and grumbling like an approaching thunderstorm.

The captain maneuvered our huge ship within a quarter of a mile to see the calving or breaking away of 20 story tall pieces of the glacier as they plummeted into the sea with a great splash and clatter. This amazing spectacle continued unabated for over an hour producing one of nature’s grandest shows. I will never forget the sights and sounds of that cool summer morning in Alaska.