Roosting Dall’s porpoises and a crisp Alaskan morning greeted us here aboard National Geographic Venture as we continued to sail northward into ever earlier stages of latitudinal spring. Murres, murrelets, assorted gulls, loons, scaups, scoters, sea and river otters, eagles, shorebirds, cormorants, seals, sea lions, furtive harbor and the aforementioned exuberant Dall’s porpoises all brunched on purported herring eggs in the early morning as we approached Wrangell Narrows. It’s starting to feel like the Alaskan homecoming we’ve been anticipating, the one that has so welcomed and blessed our ships and guests for the last 40 years.
Just before a delicious brunch of our own, we started our way through the famed 22-mile “Christmas Tree Lane” of navigational buoys that make the razor-cut channel between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands something barely less than a fool’s errand. Starting at a -2 feet low tide, the bridge expertly tiptoed us along the tightrope waterway flanked by a 20-feet deep, bathtub ring of intertidal mudflats leading up to the channel’s many homes. As we looked for wildlife, a thrill-seeking Sitka black-tailed deer decided that our crossing of the narrows was a perfect time for its own crossing. Thankfully, it squeaked by our bow just in time and arrived safely at the other side. “Why did the deer cross the channel?” “To make your eyes open wide” seems to be our variation on a classic.
Safely through the narrows, we docked in Petersburg, a site with many familiar friends and places. Many guests took off for various hikes to explore the forest and its muskeg – the temperate rainforest’s climax community of peat and bog-adapted, potentially carnivorous plant life. Others opted for a two-wheeled jaunt about this tiny slice of Norway with its beautiful, tide-washed shoreline. Still more went to town to outfit themselves like true Alaskans in their Xtra-Tuffs, Ray Troll t-shirts, and waterproofed layers. Properly equipped, we dove into a Dungeness crab feast and watched a glorious sunset over Frederick Sound as more porpoises roosted alongside two sleepily transiting humpback whales just before dark. Tomorrow, we adVenture back into the fjords. Let’s see what they’ve been up to since we last explored them many months ago…
