Way back in June, 1981, fresh out of college with the whole world beckoning, two friends and I drove my Chevy Citation from Essex, Connecticut, to Alaska, with the intention to work in a cannery and explore the untamed North. We crammed into the small car with camping equipment, backpacks, food, 2 spare tires, and ambitious innocence. We left in early June with the temperature over 90 degrees.... with 3 pairs of skis on top of the car! That generated lots of comments during the first 10 days or so of driving, until we actually used them at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park! After Glacier, we drove north through Alberta and joined the AlCan Highway, which was all unpaved back then, but the little Chevy made it well, with only one flat tire, if I recall. We had an amazing summer, spent mostly working in a fish factory in Homer, followed by almost two weeks backpacking and camping in the Brooks Range up in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But that was 40 years ago... I had always wanted to go back, but hadn't thought very seriously about it until the summer of 2021. At that time we were over a year of slogging through the Covid pandemic, and I had just gotten my second Moderna vaccine. My last major trip had been to Ethiopia (click here for photos) in February 2020, which I was lucky enough to just sneak in before Covid hit. Once I got vaccinated, I was yearning to travel again, and for lots of reasons, Alaska kept coming up as a possibility. I found a guided birding trip (Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT)) that focused mainly on the Anchorage area, and I extended it afterwards with a trip pretty far out in the Aleutian Islands (Unalaska/Dutch Harbor). I also spent a few days around Denali National Park, which we had only visited briefly in 1981, and.... of course.... I had to revisit Homer. I have to say, although we had an unforgettable summer cutting up fish in Homer back in 1981, we missed an awful lot. Homer has very interesting ocean day trips, and is also the main jumping off place for bear viewing (one flies across Cook Inlet to either Lake Clark National Park, or Katmai National Park or surrounding lands). I was fortunate enough to go bear viewing this time, and we saw many (intimidating!) Alaskan Brown Bears at close range - much closer in fact than the above photo suggests.
The gallery below shows highlights of this 2021 trip. The links below show more photos from the four main segments: Anchorage/ Seward area, Denali, Homer, and the Aleutians. Please use those links for additional photos:
Anchorage/Seward
Denali area
Homer area and up-close bear viewing
Dutch Harbor - Unalaska (Aleutians)
But that was 40 years ago... I had always wanted to go back, but hadn't thought very seriously about it until the summer of 2021. At that time we were over a year of slogging through the Covid pandemic, and I had just gotten my second Moderna vaccine. My last major trip had been to Ethiopia (click here for photos) in February 2020, which I was lucky enough to just sneak in before Covid hit. Once I got vaccinated, I was yearning to travel again, and for lots of reasons, Alaska kept coming up as a possibility. I found a guided birding trip (Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT)) that focused mainly on the Anchorage area, and I extended it afterwards with a trip pretty far out in the Aleutian Islands (Unalaska/Dutch Harbor). I also spent a few days around Denali National Park, which we had only visited briefly in 1981, and.... of course.... I had to revisit Homer. I have to say, although we had an unforgettable summer cutting up fish in Homer back in 1981, we missed an awful lot. Homer has very interesting ocean day trips, and is also the main jumping off place for bear viewing (one flies across Cook Inlet to either Lake Clark National Park, or Katmai National Park or surrounding lands). I was fortunate enough to go bear viewing this time, and we saw many (intimidating!) Alaskan Brown Bears at close range - much closer in fact than the above photo suggests.
The gallery below shows highlights of this 2021 trip. The links below show more photos from the four main segments: Anchorage/ Seward area, Denali, Homer, and the Aleutians. Please use those links for additional photos:
Anchorage/Seward
Denali area
Homer area and up-close bear viewing
Dutch Harbor - Unalaska (Aleutians)