CRUISE PLANNERS

ALASKA – THE REAL FINAL FRONTIER

Alaska! It’s name means the “Great One” and its almost impossible adventures and the call of the wild make this an irresistible destination. Around virtually every corner of the state, you’ll find a national park that offers extraordinary fjords, breathtaking ocean coasts, rushing rivers, green temperate rainforests, majestic mountains, glorious glaciers, abundant wildlife and colorful people. An Alaskan cruise and cruise tour is the best way to experience nature at its most pristine and is the surest way to come away with unforgettable images and memories.

Departing from either Seattle or Vancouver, Alaska’s beauty is within your reach. You will cruise up the famed Inside Passage, known for its rugged terrain with few roads, and trace the route of the old time Gold Rush. You will stand in awe of Glacier Bay, a 5-mile bay of walls of active glaciers, where ancient, massive mounds of ice calve into the ocean making an incredible sound known to the locals as “white thunder”. The bay is filled with icebergs of all shapes and sizes, but underneath the waters surface is an amazing, living laboratory made up of a diverse and incredible environment that most people never get the chance to see. The naturalist in you will relish in the sight of the harbor seals using the ice flows as birthing beds, and the Hump-back whales breaching and playing in the cool bay waters.

Continuing on your journey, you may visit Alaska’s first city, Ketchikan, known as the “Salmon Capital of the World,” which is built on steep hillsides along the water. It features a colorful and bustling port along with being the ancestral home of the Tlingit Indian Tribe and the Saxman Native Totem Village, featuring the world’s largest collection of totem poles.

Nestled between snowy mountains and the Pacific Ocean, sits one of the most beautiful seaside towns in Alaska, Sitka. Sitka is a unique blend of Russian history and Tlingit culture with an onion-domed Russian cathedral that graces Castle Hill in this once-Czarist Russian empire.

Your next adventure awaits you in Juneau, where Alaska’s capital city boasts Mendenhall Glacier, a meandering river of compressed blue ice that is 1.5 miles wide and hundreds of feet thick which is the largest ice formation accessible by road. It is fed by a 1,500-square-mile ice field located outside of Juneau. Juneau was once part of the Alaska Gold Rush, and you may partake in an afternoon hike through the wild frontier or enjoy a quick ride up Mt. Roberts for spectacular views.

Skagway is one of the few one-time boomtowns which retains the flavor of the gold rush days. This “Gateway to the Klondike” is preserved as a National Historic Park and features one of the oldest narrow gauge railroads in existence. Sit back and enjoy the colorful saloons, dance-hall revues and shops.

With so much to see and do in Alaska, your vacation wouldn’t be complete without a special land tour of the Heart of Alaska, the Last Frontier - the Interior Region. The interior region of Alaska is a landscape of lush forests and fertile valleys, remote alpine tundra and majestic snow-capped peaks. Denali National Part & Reserve is a park the size of Massachusetts and serves as the center of attraction for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Here’s where most visitors hope to see the Big 5 of wildlife – the wolf, grizzly bear, moose, caribou and the Dall sheep. Denali is synonymous with adventurous spirit and is a popular destination for explorers who push the limits of human endurance. Home of Mt. McKinley, the largest mountain on the continent, every turn brings a new wonder as you journey miles into this astounding wilderness preserve. See soaring eagles, grizzlies crossing winding streams, Dall sheep traversing rugged cliffs and so many awesome sights that will stay with you forever.

Alaska is your chance to get a chance to get a taste of what wild America used to be like. . .a piece of America that offers the pure call of the wild. Do you hear it calling you?