Journey through the Aleutian Islands

The original idea of this Alaska trip started with this ferry ride through the Aleutian Islands.  This is a chain of volcanic islands and smaller islands that mostly belong to the United States.  It starts from the Alaska Peninsula all the way west to the Russia Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.  It separates the northern Pacific Ocean from the Bering Sea to the north.  One thing you noticed when visiting these islands is the historic Russian influence

I've heard and seen them on the map many times but never thought of traveling here.  Instead of taking a commercial cruise, I thought riding the ferry and stopping at various islands would be an interesting and unique thing to do.  Compared to a commercial cruise, the ferry is no-frills.  There is no waiter to wait on you at the dining room serving you a fancy meal or maid to make your bed every morning.  In fact I didn't even have a bed.

Our first stop in the morning after Homer was Kodiak Island.  Most people have heard of the Kodiak bear, which is native to this island.  I enquired at the Visitor's Center about how I can see the bear but was told that I'd have to fly to the wildlife refuge to see them.  Where the ferry terminal is, it's far away from all the other activities on the island.  The residential area is about 4 miles away.  As the ferry was approaching Kodiak, I noticed there were some very nice houses along the shore.  Apparently, there are some fairly wealthy residents here.  Another surprising thing I saw was there were quite a number of Filipinos working here.  Almost the entire staff at the local McDonald's restaurant was Filipino.  I think some of them came to work only for the summer and go back to the Philippines when tourism slows down in the fall and winter.

The Visitor Center

A Chinese Restaurant here?

A Russian Orthodox Christian Church

Baranov Museum, which used to house the Russian-American (fur) Company

As you can see from the previous post, the ferry stops in small towns that you've probably never heard of.  Most of these towns have less than 100 people in the winter time.  In the summer, there is a lot more fishing activity so the population goes up by a few hundred.  This is what the Alaska Ferry is  meant for - to serve these remote towns.  Even after arriving here, some residents still have to travel quite far, either by boat or plane to go to other places on the Aleutian Islands.

As the ferry travels along the North Pacific Ocean, there is not much going on.  You see one beautiful island after another.  Once in a while you see whales in the distance spouting.  At one point we saw a pod of about 10-20 killer whales swimming together.  The captain was nice enough to circle around and got close enough for us to see.  I took some amazing pictures.  They were taken from a distance so I have to crop them so that you can see them better.

We were not so lucky the rest of the journey although once in a while we see some porpoises and sea otters.

Town of Chignik

Beautiful scenery along the way

More scenery

Traps for crabs

We were given a tour of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge at Cold Bay, which is next to the Bering Sea

Gazebo overlooking the refuge

Bear paw prints on the side of the lake

This bus took us to see the refuge where ducks spend summers

Sometimes the ferry arrives at a town in the middle of the night or early in the morning.  Guess what?  It was not exciting enough for me to wake up.  Our last stop is Dutch Harbor, which will be in the next post.