Page 280 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Pacific Northwest

278  P A CIFIC NOR THWEST REGION B Y REGION

z Cruise to Alaska

Continuing a tradition that began in 1880, cruise ships ply the
Inside Passage, a protected waterway that runs along the BC
coast to the inlets of Alaska. The waters are calmer than those of
the open Pacific Ocean, so that whales and porpoises are often
sighted. The popular cruises, many of which are combined with
shore excursions, attract over one million passengers a year.

Mount
McKinley The sails of Vancouver’s Canada
Place, starting point for cruises

Wrangell
Mountains
Valdez
J Mount St. Elias
Seward
Cook
Inlet Homer
Hubbard
Glacier
Kodiak

Gulf of
Alaska
5 Prince William Sound
More than 20 active tidewater glaciers are
6 Kenai Fjords National Park to be found at the sound, with its 3,000
In the Seward region, the glacier- miles (4,830 km) of coastline. A horned
carved fjords of Kenai are home to puffin colony lives here year-round and
whales, sea lions, and tufted puffins. up to 5,000 bald eagles summer here.

7 Anchorage
Fabulous views of the
Chugach Mountains
can be enjoyed from
Key
Anchorage, situated
Cruise route on a broad peninsula
Major road in Cook Inlet. The
Alaska Native Heritage
Center here displays
historic tableaux
illustrating the daily
0 kilometers 200 lives of the region’s
0 miles 150 First Nations tribes.
For hotels and restaurants see pp290–91 and pp304–5

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