Here are the places you will visit on a typical Alaska Inside Passage cruise. Your itinerary will include some, but not all of these ports of call.
Inside Passage Cruising - Enjoy such stunning sights as green islands, sparkling glaciers, and a coastline that features the most majestic of mountains as you cruise the Inside Passage.
Juneau - Accessible only by sea or air, Alaska's modern capital city maintains the trappings of its 1880's gold-rush era. Discover the Capital building, historical distric and the infamous Red Dog Saloon. Nearby, explore the Mendenhall Glacier, a massive river of blue ice.
Ketchikan - Built on an island along the watery Inside Passage of the southern end of Alaska, Ketchikan exudes a frontier spirit. It is known for its many totem poles, dramatically carved by Indian artists. Visit the quaint houses and shops on historic Creek Street, built on stilts along a stream.
Skagway - When gold was discovered in the Klondike, the settlement of Skagway grew overnight from one cabin into a city of 20,000. The prospectors finally left, but the false-front buildings and boardwalks remain. Taste the history at the Red Onion Saloon or at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
Sitka - Bounded by towering mountain peaks and the Alaska Marine Highway, Sitka boasts two pasts, as a Tlingit Indian village and as the capital of Russian America. Capture the spirit of both legacies at Sitka National Historic Park or at the elaborate Russian Orthodox St Michael's Cathedral.
Icy Strait - Greys, Minks, Humpbacks and Orcas are just some of the impressive whales you may encounter along the Icy Straits in Alaska. With a forest-like atmosphere, the Straits offer a main feeding area for many marine mammals. Hiking or kayaking will be the perfect way to view these amazing mammals in their natural habitat.
Haines - This historic town occupies a breaktaking setting on a peninsula along the deep blue waters of the Lynn Canal. Its Tlingit Indian heritage is preserve through art and dance at the Chilkat Center for the Arts. Visit the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve to see Alaska's most magmificent birds.
Victoria, BC - The island capital of British Columbia sports a decidedly British air. Double-decker buses and horse drawn carriages ply the streets, shops sell English woolens and the ornate Empress Hotel serves high tea every afternoon. Butchart Gardens blooms year-round in Victoria's mild climate.
The Glaciers - Typically you will only visit one of these Glaciers (You won't be disappointed with any of them!)
Hubbard Glacier cruising - Hubbard Glacier, longest tidewater glacier in North America, begins its 76 mile journey to the sea on the slopes of Mount Logan, the tallest moutain in Canada and part of the largest non-polar icefield in the world. At the point where it enters Disenchantment Bay, at the head of Yakutat Bay, it is 6 miles wide.Hubbard Glacier has been known to advance so fast that it dammed Russell Fjord and created a lake behind it, trapping many marine species. A dozen years after this phenomenon, the dam no longer exists, and Hubbard is no longer the galloping glacier it once was. But the continent's greatest tidewater river of ice stilll flows at a fast trot, regularly disgorging enormous calves into the waiting arms of the sea.
Glacier Bay cruising - With it's snow capped mountains rising to over 15,000 feet, Glacier Bay is one of America's most spectacular National Parks. Made up of a grand collection of jagged glaciers comprising an entire array of ecosystems, lush forests and protected coves open way to beautiful saltwater beaches and jewel-like lakes. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, a 65-mile-long fjord, is a marine wilderness park, a living laboratory for observing the ebb and flow of glaciers, and a chance to study life as it returns in the wake of retreating ice.
Tracy Arm cruising - Tracy Arm is a narrow 26-mile winding fjord that was once a glacier filled valley and is lined with sheer ice carved walls rising thousands of feet on each side. This spectacular fjord gives you a look at terrain most recently exposed by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age. Countless numbers of waterfalls appear at each turn. Icebergs make their way out to sea in all sorts of wonderful shapes. Mountain goats cling to the sheer cliffs of the fjord. The fjord ends spectacularly with the twin Sawyer Glaciers.
