Seward AK

Sunday July 8th 2012

  

The city of Seward was named for President Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, the man who engineered the Purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1876.

Seward is located in the Resurrection Bay on Kenai Peninsula, where Kenai Fjords is located.   

According to a 2011 National Marine Fisheries Service report, Seward is the ninth most lucrative fishing port in the United States based on the monetary value of fish taken from the port. In 2010, 69.2 million dollars worth of fish and shellfish passed through Seward.

 

 

Donna’s second sighting of a bear. 

 

Our first stop was a drive to the National park then hike a short hike to see Exit Glacier.  The 600,000 acre Park has fjords, calving glaciers, and the massive 300 square mile Harding Ice field. Nearly 40 glaciers flow from the Harding Ice Fields in the Kenai Fjords.

 

Mike and Donna in the Park, and a young couple from Anchorage having their wedding pictures taken.  She is originally from Russia, came to Alaska for Collage, met her mate and stayed.

  

Mike and Donna were not sure which way to go if a Tsunami should hit our parking spot.  Do you think she is cold, it was in the 90s and 100s when she left MN. and now it is in the 50s and 60s.  I don’t think we could build a fire big enough to keep her warm. 

  

The harbor in Seward.  Seward is a deep water port, many cruise ships stop, people get on buses and trains and head to Denali Park.   

 

         

Fishing cleaning at the harbor.  The orange fish is a Yellow Eyed Rock Fish. There also were many salmon and halibut being caught.

 

                                    

We booked a 71/2 hour boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park, and many of the Glaciers in the area.  Lucky us the wildlife was in abundance that day.  We saw Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, five Humpbacked Whales, Sea Otters, Puffins, Common Murres, and a boat load of eagles.  Mountain goats were spotted in the hills, and a few Porpoises.

The women in the second picture with the red jacket is the Captain of the Ship

  

Horned Puffin and Tufted Puffin.  One of the things I really wanted to see while in Alaska was the puffin, who wouldn’t they are so cute.  I did get to see flocks of them but I never got a really good picture for the blog.  I borrowed these pics from Wikipedia.

 

Sea Otters, they were so funny swimming on their backs. 

  

Bald Eagle and Steller Sea Lions.

 

 

It was so hard to get a good picture of a humpback, they surface and go back under so fast.  We had a mother whale with her 2 babies spend some time with us.  You really have to click on the picture to enlarge it.

 

We have 3 porpoises following our boat, you will have to take my word for it, I didn’t  get a very good picture. 

 

    

a few of the Glaciers we visited on the trip.  There was some calving going on, boy was that loud when the ice broke away from the glaciers.

 

Barwell Island were a row of concrete ruins set high atop the island, built during WW 2 

In 1942 during the Second World War, Japanese airplanes bombed Dutch Harbor on Unalaska and its forces captured two of the Aleutian Islands, Attu and Kiska. It would take the United States more than a year to mount a military campaign and retake the islands. The U.S. military quickly assessed importance of the Alaskan coastline in protecting the North Pacific shipping channels. Seward, Alaska was a city that had to be defended in case of attack.  Much of Alaska and the military effort in the  north depended on Seward's ice-free port and its rail connection running deep into the interior to points such as Anchorage and Fairbanks.

  

And my favorite the waterfalls. 

We saw so much more but it take me forever to tell you about everything.