Alaska's Inside Passage: Glaciers, Whales, and Wilderness

The Inside Passage is a network of waterways running along the Pacific coast of North America from Puget Sound in Washington State to Skagway in Alaska, sheltered from the open Pacific by a chain of islands that includes Vancouver Island and the Alexander Archipelago. The route passes through one of the last great temperate rainforests on Earth — the Tongass National Forest, which covers 68,000 square kilometres of southeastern Alaska and is the largest national forest in the United States — and through a landscape of fjords, glaciers, and mountains that has been shaped by the last ice age.

The Alaska Marine Highway System, a network of state ferries that has been operating since 1963, is the most affordable and most authentic way to travel the Inside Passage. The ferries carry passengers, vehicles, and cargo between the communities of southeastern Alaska — Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, Haines, and Skagway — stopping at each port for a few hours before continuing north or south. The journey from Bellingham, Washington to Skagway takes three to four days, and the scenery throughout is extraordinary.

Glacier Bay National Park, accessible by boat or small plane from Juneau, contains one of the most dramatic examples of glacial retreat in the world. When Captain George Vancouver sailed through the area in 1794, the bay was entirely filled with ice; today, the glaciers have retreated 100 kilometres, leaving behind a fjord system that is being colonised by plants and animals in a process of ecological succession that scientists have been studying for over a century. Tidewater glaciers — glaciers that reach the sea and calve icebergs directly into the water — are still active at the head of the bay, and the sound of calving ice carries across the water like distant thunder.

Humpback whales feed in the nutrient-rich waters of the Inside Passage throughout the summer, and whale-watching from the ferry decks or from small boats is one of the great wildlife experiences of the region. The humpbacks use a cooperative feeding technique called bubble-net feeding, in which a group of whales circles a school of fish while one whale blows a spiral of bubbles that traps the fish in a column; the whales then lunge upward through the column with their mouths open, surfacing in a spectacular explosion of water and fish. The behaviour is unique to humpbacks and is most commonly observed in the waters around Juneau and Glacier Bay.

Juneau, the state capital of Alaska, is the only state capital in the United States that cannot be reached by road — it is accessible only by sea or air. The city sits at the base of Mount Juneau and Mount Roberts, with the Gastineau Channel in front and the Juneau Icefield — the fifth-largest icefield in the Western Hemisphere — behind. The Mendenhall Glacier, a 19-kilometre tongue of ice flowing from the icefield, ends in a lake just 19 kilometres from downtown Juneau, and the visitor centre at the glacier's terminus offers views of the ice face and the icebergs floating in the lake.

Sitka, on the western coast of Baranof Island, was the capital of Russian Alaska from 1808 until the United States purchased the territory in 1867, and the Russian heritage is still visible in the onion-domed Cathedral of Saint Michael and in the Sitka National Historical Park, where totem poles carved by the Tlingit people stand in an old-growth forest at the site of a battle between the Tlingit and Russian forces in 1804. The Tlingit culture, one of the most sophisticated of the Northwest Coast peoples, is celebrated in the park's visitor centre and in the performances of the Naa Kahidi Theatre.

The best time to travel the Inside Passage is from May to September, when the weather is most reliable and the wildlife is most active. June and July offer the longest days — in Juneau, the sun sets after 10 pm in midsummer — and the best conditions for whale watching and glacier viewing. The shoulder months of May and September are less crowded and often have clearer weather than the peak summer months. Bringing waterproof clothing is essential at any time of year: the Tongass rainforest receives up to 4,000 millimetres of rain annually, and the weather can change rapidly.