Seward; Land of Glaciers and Sea Life.

Seward is a must visit city in Alaska; beautiful scenery and being on the shores of some of the best marine wildlife in Alaska.  The city also serves as the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and is a popular retreat for Alaskans.   The city also serves as the southern terminus of the 1,100 mile Iditarod National Historic Trail to Nome.  Due to its location at the end of the fjord, Seward was greatly impacted by the Good Friday Earthquake in 1964 that also hit Anchorage, 90% of the town was destroyed by fire and tidal waves.

Seward was like many of the coastal towns; cloudy in the morning and clearing later in the day.  We left in the fog for Exit Glacier, located 10 miles from downtown Seward. 

 

 Exit Glacier, located in Kenai Fjords National Park, is part of the massive Harding Ice Field which has countless alpine and tidewater glaciers that pour down into coastal fjords.  Exit Glacier is one of the few glaciers that you can hike to and it was an easy one mile hike from the visitor center. 

As part of the exhibit on the road leading from the visitor center there were signs along the way showing the location of the glacier at different time periods in the past century, it has receded 1 ½ miles since 1915.



Moose horns at the Exit Glacier Visitor Center

We then made our way back to Seward to visit the Alaska Sea Life Center, Alaska’s only public aquarium and ocean wildlife rescue center.  Their exhibits included sea lions, harbor seals, and a variety of sea birds including one of my favorite, puffins.  I had no idea that the Stellar Sea Lions in the region were so large, males are around 9 feet long and 1,500 pounds as compared to the smaller harbor seal which are 375 pounds and 6 1/2 feet long.  While it wasn’t a huge center, it had lots of interesting exhibits

and information about the area, some interactive sea pools and aquariums with the native sea life there. 

 

 

 

Their aviary included a large ocean tank where they had several species of puffins.  Puffins are very awkward on land but totally at home in the water. 

 

It was so entertaining watching them interact with each other on land and then dive into the water and swim with ease. 

Their area had a two story tank where you could go to the lower level and watch them dive and swim with ease.  The tank gave you a different perspective than just seeing them from the top of the water.




Puffin diving in the aquarium tank. 

After a full day in Seward, we looked forward to the next day, cruising Resurrection Bay and looking for whales and glaciers.