Alaska Day 13

Last night, we watched the sun set as we drove towards Anchorage. It was hot pink and I finally snapped a picture just before it ducked behind a mountain. Before that it kept eluding me by hiding behind the trees. Kati drove until about half past midnight when it got too dark for her to see. At that point I took over. It never got completely dark, only a lingering dusk. Not long after I started driving, I noticed a blob of movement in the distance. As I got closer, it revealed itself to be a moose. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to pull over to take a picture.

I drove until we got just south of Anchorage at the top of the Kenai Peninsula. Keeping my eyes open was getting difficult since it was two thirty in the morning. There was a pull out along the Turnagain Arm (a Bay at the northern part of the pennsylvania) so I parked there and we settled down for another night in the car. It was a pretty spot, right by the water with the mountains rising up behind the sea. We could hear the cars diving by but my ear plugs muffled it somewhat.

On the Kenai Peninsula the mountains meet the sea—like in Valdez—and it is gorgeous. I love the ocean. I always have, But mountains and water—if there is a heaven this must be it. We slept a bit later than usual but I suppose a nine o’clock wake up isn’t too bad since we drove half the night and didn’t get to sleep until almost three in the morning. I slept okay. I must have been tired to sleep all cramped up but I know I slept because I was dreaming. In my dream we were back home planning to meet friends for drinks but as we were heading out I was upset because I had forgotten to pick up some souvenirs in Alaska. I will have to try to rectify that today.

We got to Seward a little after eleven and hated it so much we got out of there as quickly as possible. The crowd was suffocating. Cruise ships dock and tourists pour into the town like a plague. We went to Seward because it’s where the Kenai Fjords National Park visitors center is and we always stop at the visitors centers. But at this one I was short circuiting the minute I stepped through the door. It was tiny and crawling with tourists. Also, the town was packed with cars so finding parking was difficult. We slid into a spot they had fifteen minute parking which was really all we needed. We ran inside, used the bathroom, bought G3 a patch, and had time to watch about five minutes of the film about the park. We learned that when the Exxon Valdez spilled ten million gallons of oil in the Prince William Sound in 1989, the oil killed a quarter of a million seabird birds, 3,000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and countless other wildlife. The effects of the spill are still being seen today, especially since oil still washes up onto the shore. I remember when the spill occurred. Seeing all the animals coated in oil and dying was heartbreaking. Efforts were made to save as many as possible but the damage was too extensive.

Nearly all of Kenai Fjords National Park you need to see from the water. That’s our plan for Monday. The only part of the park accessible by land is the Exit Glacier, so of course I wanted to do the Exit Glacier hike. The park ranger said it was a two mile hike with some elevation and that it would take an hour and a half. It took me and G3 forty-five minutes and I wouldn’t even call it a hike. It was a walk. And you could tell, based on the way the trail was constructed—half of it was paved and the other half landscaped with an artificial rocky path—for tourists who are not accustomed to hiking. When the cruise ships dock, buses meet them in the harbor and carry passengers to the Exit Glacier. The trail was way overcrowded and after hiking in Denali and seeing other glaciers on our travels the hike and view was anti-climactic. I could have skipped it and not really missed anything. But if I had skipped it, I would have felt like I missed something. But seriously, why work so hard to “beautify”’ a trail for a certain class of tourists, especially when the National Park Service doesn’t charge a fee at that particular park?  I totally support the wheelchair accessible path, but the landscaped bit is unnecessary. Perhaps, I am just a backpacking and camping snob. I suspect that’s what my dad would have said.

Since Seward was too touristy and crowded, we fled as soon as G3 and I completed our walk. We had originally planned to visit the Sea Life Center after learning that they rehabilitate injured sea animals, but further research showed it was really just a glorified aquarium. As a result, we decided to head over to Kenai to maybe see some whales and to visit a meadery. When we woke up this morning the sky was cloudy. There was rain in the forecast so it was only a matter of when it would start. As we were driving to Kenai, the rain began.

In Kenai we stopped at the Cultural Center where we watched a short video about the animals in Alaska and the gold prospectors in the area. The best part of the video was the adorableness of the animals. The videographers got the cutest shots. Sadly, only half of the polar bear cubs born survive. Unattended cubs are sometimes eaten by males. Once winter sets in and they can hunt, they are able to detect seals as far as twenty miles away. As for brown bears, they love this time of year because it is salmon season and they love feasting on fish. They spend the summer putting on up to 300 pounds so they can survive through the winter. And the salmon might as well get eaten because they will die anyway. Can you imagine swimming all that way upstream just to die? All that effort just so that your decaying body can nourish the eggs you laid. Those poor salmon.

In 1897, gold was discovered and the Klondike Gold Rush began. Roughly half the prospectors who set out to make a fortune didn’t even reach the mines. Many of them were on boats that got stuck in the ice. A quarter of a million men set out to find gold, but only 400 got rich.

Kenai sits on the Cook Inlet which during the Age of Colonialism was a popular spot for explorers searching for the Northwest Passage. Famous explorers who made an appearance at the inlet include Captain James Cook and Captain George Vancouver. It was, however, Russian fur trades who first established forts in the area, the first of which was built in 1787. Russians arrived in Kenai four years later. With the Russians came their Orthodox religion and missionaries intent on spreading it. The Chapel of St. Nicholas was built in memory of Igumen Nikolai, the first missionary who severed in Kenai. Along with Christianity, he brought the smallpox vaccine to the Peninsula and set about vaccinating many people.

After driving to and looking at a couple of the historic churches—because I just can’t resist a bit of history—I walked down to the beach. It was foggy and misty so G3 and Kati opted to stay in the car. The sand was coarse and dark, it looked more like dirt. Lined up waist deep in the water were local fishermen fishing with big hoop nets. Despite the cold and rain, I kicked off my sandals and walked in the water. I love the feel of sand and the sea. I didn’t walk long because my family was waiting for me. It was too foggy to see any sea life, but even if it had been clear, it was apparently too early in the season to see a beluga whale.

I had never had mead. I read about it—often. Usually in novels or historical accounts. I knew it was alcohol and that in a time long before water was safe to drink people drank mead. I also knew that it was made from honey but that people sometimes, when talking about it historically, mislabeled it as a type of beer. When we were doing our research for this trip—now, no surprise here—we did a search for wineries in Alaska and we stumbled upon Arctic Buzz Meadery in Soldotna, which is on the Kenai Peninsula near the town of Kenai. We stopped in to sample a flight. There were eight meads to choose from so we got two flights and shared them both so that we could try each one. We enjoyed them. If we were driving instead flying home we definitely would have purchased a few bottles. The meadery is new. It only opened in October of 2025. The women who owes it and brews the mead was a 911 dispatcher until the COVID pandemic. While she continued dispatching at night, during the day she would play around with various mead recipes in her kitchen. Shortly after COVID, she won some Alaskan lottery and used her winnings to open the meadery. She quit her day job and now her daughter works with her doing most of the marketing and severing mead to tourists like us. If you ever find yourself on the Kenai Peninsula do pay them a visit. You won’t be disappointed.

Once we got back on the road, we stopped at  Caribou Caboose Coffee and Creamery. Kati and G3 both enjoyed it. I did not. The vanilla ice cream tasted too artificial. I did, however,

really enjoy the banana.

It is still raining. Kati and G3 have decided we should sleep in the car again to avoid having to set up in the rain. Sleeping in the car does save money since we don’t have to pay for a campsite. I suppose having spent as much money as we did to rent the car, we might as well get our money’s worth. We parked along the side of the road just outside of Hope right across the Turnagain Arm from where we slept last night. On the way here, we drove alongside Six Mile Creek and off in the distance, on a sand bar in the creek, I spotted another female moose. Kati stopped, but by the time she got out of the car, the moose was walking away. She saw only her rear half as she disappeared into the bushes.