Wrangell Narrows, Petersburg & Frederick Sound
Today was an especially busy and exhilarating day for guests on the National Geographic Sea Bird. We started the day passing through Wrangell Narrows, a constricted channel requiring many navigational aids that the Captain and his crew adeptly used to get us through. We arrived at the Alaskan fishing village of Petersburg (pop. 3500) at breakfast, where we cleared U.S. customs and immigration. About half the travelers opted to go “flightseeing” in a six passenger float plane, which took them over Frederick Sound and up to LeConte Glacier. This glacier is the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America. A group of students from Petersburg High School has been monitoring the movement of the glacier for 22 years, recording the glacier’s retreat of about 1.2 miles since 1991 and measuring depths of up to 4,400 feet. The sights from the float plane were spectacular in the sunshine, with sightings of mountain goats, harbor seals on floating icebergs, and the Stikine Ice Fields. Other travelers rode bikes or walked around the Norwegian town of Petersburg, or took walks with naturalists across the channel on Kupreanof Island. There they looked for birds and plants in a typical muskeg, or bog, which cover about 20% of Southeast Alaska. A bald eagle in a nest, Steller’s jay, Sitka black-tailed deer, wolf scat, and shore pines were sighted. Others took a more vigorous walk through the moss-covered trees and skunk cabbage-lined trails of the temperate rainforest, experiencing first hand why it’s called a rainforest.
As if that wasn’t enough, after leaving Petersburg we encountered a group of humpback whales in Frederick Sound, some of the first of the season. These whales spend the winter in Hawaii where they breed and calve, then swim thousands of miles to Alaska to feed on krill and small fish. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation joined us to talk about the fascinating behaviors of these whales as we watched two humpbacks emerge and dive time and time again, just off the bow of the N. G. Sea Bird. They were so close that we could hear them exhale through their blowholes and could even smell their fishy breath! It was a spectacular show and a wonderful way to end our visit to Frederick Sound before heading north again.
Today was an especially busy and exhilarating day for guests on the National Geographic Sea Bird. We started the day passing through Wrangell Narrows, a constricted channel requiring many navigational aids that the Captain and his crew adeptly used to get us through. We arrived at the Alaskan fishing village of Petersburg (pop. 3500) at breakfast, where we cleared U.S. customs and immigration. About half the travelers opted to go “flightseeing” in a six passenger float plane, which took them over Frederick Sound and up to LeConte Glacier. This glacier is the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America. A group of students from Petersburg High School has been monitoring the movement of the glacier for 22 years, recording the glacier’s retreat of about 1.2 miles since 1991 and measuring depths of up to 4,400 feet. The sights from the float plane were spectacular in the sunshine, with sightings of mountain goats, harbor seals on floating icebergs, and the Stikine Ice Fields. Other travelers rode bikes or walked around the Norwegian town of Petersburg, or took walks with naturalists across the channel on Kupreanof Island. There they looked for birds and plants in a typical muskeg, or bog, which cover about 20% of Southeast Alaska. A bald eagle in a nest, Steller’s jay, Sitka black-tailed deer, wolf scat, and shore pines were sighted. Others took a more vigorous walk through the moss-covered trees and skunk cabbage-lined trails of the temperate rainforest, experiencing first hand why it’s called a rainforest.
As if that wasn’t enough, after leaving Petersburg we encountered a group of humpback whales in Frederick Sound, some of the first of the season. These whales spend the winter in Hawaii where they breed and calve, then swim thousands of miles to Alaska to feed on krill and small fish. Fred Sharpe of the Alaska Whale Foundation joined us to talk about the fascinating behaviors of these whales as we watched two humpbacks emerge and dive time and time again, just off the bow of the N. G. Sea Bird. They were so close that we could hear them exhale through their blowholes and could even smell their fishy breath! It was a spectacular show and a wonderful way to end our visit to Frederick Sound before heading north again.
