Travel Destination - Alaska Inside Passage
The
cruise highlighted above sails the Alaska Inside Passage through
College Fjord and Glacier Bay and stops in Skagway, Juneau, and
Ketchikan on Alaska's panhandle.
Located
just thirty miles west of Valdez, College Fjord is an enormous ice
field, deep within Prince William Sound, resplendent with sixteen tidewater glaciers named for Ivy
League colleges. This breathtaking landscape is enclosed by steep
walls of ice and mountains which rise from sea level to 10,000 feet.
Glacier Bay lies in the middle of the 3.2 million-acre Glacier Bay
National Park and Reserve. The bay provides access to 16 active
tidewater glaciers. Visitors may see humpback, minke, and orca
whales in the icy waters or brown, black, and rare glaciers bears as
they forage for food along gravel beaches.
Known
by hopeful gold rushers as the gateway to the Klondike more than a
century ago, Skagway retains its charm with an outstanding
collection of memorabilia. It is also home to the renowned
narrow-gauge White Pass and Yukon Route Railway.
The capital of Alaska and the most cosmopolitan city along the
Inside Passage, Juneau is wedged between towering Mt. Juneau and the
deep waters of the Gastineau Channel. Only accessible by water or
air, the city boasts a rich history, a delightful shopping district,
beautiful glaciers, and stunning views of both water and mountains.
Once the ancestral home of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes,
Ketchikan boasts the world's largest totem pole collection, a major
attraction that is also a continuing art form. Creek Street, the
town's now-innocent "red light" district, is a major attraction. |
