Alaska SeaLife Museum

Seward is the most northern port city we visited.  While there, we went to the Alaska SeaLife Museum.   It is one of 23 Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers (CELCs) across North America.  The goal of CELCs is to educate and involve people in addressing critical environmental issues.

For visitors like me with limited time, the Center also provides an opportunity to see some of the native wildlife up close in an environment safe for them and safe for me.  These are a horned puffin (above) and a crested puffin (below).

In the lower level of the Center, I watched a seal practice swimming upside down.  On the upper level I watched the same seal pull itself out of the water. 

There was one huge sea lion.

 There were some big and ugly fish to see, too.  I think they are rockfish.

A staff member enlisted two volunteers to feed the birds.  The volunteers loved doing it.

Sled Dogs

 One of the most enjoyable excursions on this Alaska trip was visiting the home of Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team, where we got a ride with sled dogs pulling our cart.  These sled dogs have been bred to race!  When they think their handlers are getting ready to hitch them up, the baying is deafening. 

 The dogs have been specially bred for generations.  Each racing family makes different breeding decisions.  Most are specialized working mix-breeds rather than a single purebred type. Mushers breed them for speed, stamina, and work ethic rather than looks. 

A sled in an Iditarod race is pulled by 12 to 16 sled dogs.  Our cart was pulled by 12 dogs.

And they're off!  It was fascinating and fun to sit behind them and admire their strength and teamwork.

The Seavey's grandfather, father, three brothers and now grandsons have all raced in the 1,000 mile Iditarod race from Anchorage to Nome, on the Bering Sea.  There are cups and trophies all around their campus.  This is the grand prize trophy for winning the 2017 Iditarod race.

Kachemak Bay

 We stopped in Homer, Alaska, a small town on the Kenai Peninsula, on Kachemak Bay.  I took a boat ride into the bay.

The cormorants here are pelagic cormorants, but we did see one double-crested cormorant that was a long way from home.

Some of the islands are loaded with birds.

Sea otters are playful.  They love to swim on their backs.

Rocky islands were both plentiful and attractive.

This, understandably, is called Elephant Island.

We have seen bald eagles almost daily on this trip.  Generally they have been at a distance.  This eagle was on a rocky outcrop not too far away.

The naturalist was excited to see this young black bear.  It was the first black bear she had seen on this island all summer.

Salmon Hatchery

 

We visited a salmon hatchery outside Valdez, Alaska.  

A gazillion seagulls hovered around.  Between the fog and the constant motion, I couldn't get a good photo to illustrate how many there were.

A gull was ready to pounce.

A flock of gulls rested after a meal.

The salmon are so tightly packed it is hard to understand how they can maneuver.

Several sea lions thought this was a great place to pack on some pounds to survive the coming winter.

A Foggy Day

It was VERY foggy in Valdez, Alaska.  

Sometimes mountains peeked out.

The fog lifted a bit near us but stayed put behind a row of trees and in the mountains.

 Fog.  Clear.  Fog.  Clear.  Fog.

Puffballs.

I thought this was very pretty.

Valdez

We spent a foggy day in Valdez, Alaska.  Valdez suffered the biggest earthquakes ever recorded in the USA on Good Friday of1964.  The old town was abandoned and a new town was built four miles away.  

This old mural is on the side of a store in the new town of Valdez.  It has a prospector ion one side, an eagle on the other, bookending "The All-American Route."

Linked to Monday Murals.

RIB Ride

 We took a ride on a RIB (rigid inflatable boat) in Sitka.  Sitka is one of the few ports in southern Alaska that sits on the Pacific Ocean, not an inlet.

This is a different RIB from the same company.

We saw some lazy sea lions.

A little further out we saw dozens of sea otters.

We saw a "glacier errata," a huge rock left behind on an island after the glacier went onward.

We had a good lunch on Finn Island before returning to Sitka.