LeConte Bay, Petersburg on Mitkof Island, and Kupreanof Island
We woke up this morning near the entrance to LeConte Bay, home to LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier in the northern hemisphere. Various shapes and sizes of floating ice greeted us as the National Geographic Sea Bird made her way closer to this quickly retreating, actively calving glacier. “If you brought it, wear it” was the dress code for our Zodiac explorations of this prodigious display of icebergs. The Zodiacs played peek-a-boo with each other in the magical wonderland, which gave us a sense of scale, revealing just how massive these pieces really were. Some caught glimpses of an elusive black bear gamboling along the shoreline.
Towards the end of lunch someone exclaimed at an image outside the window. I turned and smiled at what I saw… houses! After five days of wilderness, we were approaching civilization - the fishing village of Petersburg on Mitkof Island. This small community with a population of 3100 processes approximately $22 million of seafood each year.
Once docked, we disembarked the ship to explore the streets and neighborhoods by bike and foot, walk the docks, and peruse the local shops. Many took a short Zodiac ride across the channel to walk the rich muskeg (aka bog) on Kupreanof Island. And a lucky few took to the air via flight-seeing to view the glaciers from yet another perspective.
At the end of the day we gathered to share stories of our day over appetizers and recap. At this writing we are about to roll up our sleeves, don bibs and dig into a delicious all-you-can-eat local Dungeness crab-fest. Yum! Gotta go…
