Alaska 2024 - Day 10 Icy Strait Point
18 August 2024
The scenery heading into Icy Strait Point was spectacular.
We didn't pull up to the pier until 11:00 AM, so we had a relaxed morning watching the mountains, valleys, and islands roll by as we approached port and preparing for our Whale and Marine Mammals boat tour.
We headed out soon after we moored and made our way to our excursion. Not long into our tour, our tour boat Captain found some humpback whales and got us pretty close.
As we approached whales and wild life, the Captain slowed down when were still pretty far away and practically idled up to the limit of how close he was allowed to approach. Tours aren't allowed to get any closer than 100 yards. 100 yards from a whale feels really close!
The steep drop off from shore allowed the whales to swim and feed very close to land.
We saw a lot of sea lions playing. I kept calling them seals. Galina kept correcting me, telling me they're sea lions. I always thought they were the same or similar enough, but sea lions are quite different. Sea lions are brown and fairly mobile on land, kind of walking on their larger flippers, while seals more grey, have small flippers, and kind of wriggle on their bellies on land. The sea lions were usually pretty far away, and we didn't go very close, so I wasn't able to get very good pictures during this tour. There will be some better photos in a future excursion though.
We were only in port at Icy Strait Point from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and everyone had to be back on board at 6:30 PM. With only seven and a half hours to check the place out, we weren't left with much sight seeing time after the excursion.
Icy Strait Point is part of the town of Hoonah, but the village isn't that close to the pier. There's a nice walk along the shore to an old salmon cannery that has been converted into a museum and shops for tourists though. There's a large killer whale statue along the way.
Since it was Sunday, the cable lift was closed. Galina's not a big fan of heights, so we probably wouldn't have gone even if it was open, although this one doesn't look like it's too high from the ground.
The cannery museum was well organized and walked viewers through the steps of processing the salmon for canning.
Once cleaned and canned, the salmon was cooked in large steam cookers called Retorts.
The stores and gift shops were spacious and had elegant gift options.
After the cannery museum and gift shops, we headed back to the ship to relax and prepare for our next port, Skagway.
