Ticking Off The List: WHALES, BEARS AND GLACIERS

Alaskan Odyssey Part Two: Tuesday 6th August 2019

So, we left Ketchikan in beautiful sunshine to meander (if a ship the size of the Royal Princess can "meaner") up the Clarence Strait and progressing between the Islands of the Inside Passage into Stephens Passage towards Juneau arriving at this most unusual state Capital early in the morning of Tuesday. There is no direct road access to Juneau, you have to get there by ship or by air.

Dawn, Stephens Passage

We had booked an organised shore trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, followed by a whale-watching boat trip. The Mendenhall Glacier is impressive but, like most glaciers worldwide, has retreated considerably in recent years.

A beautiful day for it!

Amazing patterns of ice

After the viewing of the glacier we trekked along the path on a circular route to get us back to our bus for the next step of the tour. While passing a dense area of trees a number of us noticed a large, black creature moving on the other side of the vegetation and about three of us in unison said, "Bear!". Guide Gene told us the bear would likely just continue through the bush and asked us all to retreat back with him. The bear family, as it turned out to be, had other ideas and, as we watched, a mother black bear stepped onto the path about 50 metres from us, followed by her two cubs. Mama bear totally ignored us and carried on the path away from us, but one of the cubs was quite curious about the strange "bears" on their path and gave us a stare before following mum (see photo). A short time later, we could see them through the trees and hear mum telling the cubs off for wanting to climb a tree.

Probably about as close as you want to be!

Our bear encounter was not quite over, though. Gene had got us to retreat back to a viewing platform behind us to maintain a safe distance. One of the young bears had other ideas, came back along the path quite close to the platform to look at us again (Gene was saying "Hey, bear" quietly and had the bear spray in his hand). The cub then moved away off the path to rejoin the family who were on their way to pass below the platform to get to the creek for a drink.

Close encounters of the "bear" kind

Well, after that bit of excitement, we headed back to the bus and off to the harbour at Auke Bay to board our Whale Watching boat with Gene and skipper, Tobie as our guides. We headed out into the bay and, with the help of local knowledge and radio calls from other boats we were able to see a total of five humpback whales, one on her own and, later, a pod of four including a calf.