Day Trip: Anchorage to Seward

Distance and time: about 127 miles/2 hours 40 minutes

Western Columbine, Kenai Fjords National Park

South of Anchorage, the Seward Highway, a designated All-American Road, leads to Seward, Alaska. 

Seward, Alaska small boat harbor

St. Peter's Episcopal Church 

The historic church, the first Protestant church established on the Kenai Peninsula, is at 239 2nd Avenue on the corner of Adams Street in Seward, Alaska. 

The year 1904 marked the first services in Seward held in by an Episcopal priest from Valdez. Construction on the building itself took place between 1905 and 1906. Consecration was conducted by the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska, Rt. Rev. Peter Trimble Rowe, on April 1, 1906. 

In 1924, the Dutch artist Jan Van Emple came to Seward for an extended visit, and during the following year he undertook a sacred work of art, “The Resurrection,” inside the church behind the altar. Known as a reredos, the mural is a uniquely Alaskan depiction of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. 

St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seward, Alaska

Instead of the more expected and traditional appearing apostles, the painting depicts people of Alaska including, as the Seward Historic Preservation Commission describes, "Eskimos, a trapper, a fisherman and a pioneer woman make up the foreground. The little Indian mother is unable to lift her head to up to heaven with the rest because her baby weighs so heavily upon her back."

Seward Historic Preservation Commission: ST. PETER’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

One view of Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska

Another view of Resurrection Bay

Cruise ships regularly dock at Seward, Alaska

Alaska Sealife Center

Question: How much cold, fresh sea water does it take to keep Alaska’s salt water aquarium fresh and friendly? 

Answer: about 4,500 gallons per minute. Visitors to the Alaska Sealife Center are treated to Stellar sea lions, seals, puffins and other sea birds and representatives of other arctic flora and fauna. It is Alaska’s only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation center, and is also a marine research and education facility. 

A puffin paddles for onlookers at the Alaska Sealife Aquarium

Exit Glacier

Exit Glacier, in Kenai Fjords National Park, is one of Alaska’s most accessible glaciers. It is an easy half-mile walk from the visitor’s center.

Exit Glacier near Seward, Alaska

Whittier, Alaska continued

Images of Whittier

Water is the industry and recreation of Whittier
Photo with thanks to Bobbi-Lynn Palmer

Winter residents of Whittier live in one building
Photo with thanks to Bobbi-Lynn Palmer

Whittier is a major cruise ship port
Photo with thanks to Bobbi-Lynn Palmer

Photo with thanks to Bobbi-Lynn Palmer

Photo with thanks to Bobbi-Lynn Palmer

Day Trip: Anchorage to Whittier

Distance and time: about 61 miles/at least 1 hour 30 minutes

Whittier is both a town of fewer than 300 people and an ice free port about 60 miles and one very long tunnel south of Anchorage. 

Whittier is a busy port for cruises and excursions

Cruise ships make Whittier on Prince William Sound a port of call, and it also supports all kinds of travel, recreation and commercial enterprise including the Alaska State Ferry, commercial fishing, the Alaska Railroad, freight barge service, a small boat harbor, and other recreation and tourism such as sea kayaking. While the town is small, with most people living in one building during winter, it handles visitors that number about 700,000 each year.

Weather is frequently wet, with the 20 feet of annual snowfall interrupted by about 15 feet of rain per year. In winter, the temperature range is from about 17 to 28 degrees. Summer average temperatures are usually from about 49 to 63 degrees.

The magnitude of Prince William Sound, like so much of Alaska, is hard to comprehend. It covers 2,100 square miles, with fjords reaching like long fingers and islands dotting the landscape. The area exceeds the size of all of Vermont in the lower 48. There is no other intact marine ecosystem in America that is larger. It is a rain forest, the northern-most one in all of North America.

Alaska’s glaciers fall into three categories:

• Alpine or hanging glaciers are ice masses that form high on mountain slopes
• Piedmont glaciers originate as glacial ice fans out at the foot or base of mountains
• Tidewater glaciers, like rivers of ice, are under pressure from their own weight as they move toward the ocean. Where ice meets water, great chunks or slabs of tidewater glacier ice will break away and crash with tremendous force, a process called calving. The results of calving are icebergs.

Cruises out of Whittier are popular for glacier viewing, since so many can be seen in a single day outing.

http://www.whittieralaska.gov/

Getting to Whittier

The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is often called the Portage tunnel or the Whittier tunnel by Alaskans. The tunnel wends through Maynard Mountain and connects the Seward Highway south of Anchorage with Whittier. In fact, it provides the only land access to Whittier. It is 13,300 feet long (4,050 meters). That makes it North America’s longest combined highway and rail tunnel in North America and second longest highway tunnel.

It is a controlled single lane tunnel with alternating vehicle and train use. Vehicles are required to wait in a staging area at each end of the tunnel until the fifteen minute interval elapses before the next scheduled departure in summer. During freezing temperatures and fixed winter openings, schedules are different.

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/index.shtml

There are vehicle size limits:

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/vehiclesize.shtml

There are also schedule limits. Locals remind visitors to be sure to exit Whittier before the tunnel closes at night. If you are caught on the Whittier side, you become a POW, prisoner of Whittier, for the night.