Seward – our final cruise stop!
Thursday 23 May
Sadly, our last port on what has been an incredible 10-day cruise. In previous blogs I have alluded to William H Seward, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State who purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, and we are now in the city named after him. Sandwiched between the snowcapped peaks of the Kenai mountains and Resurrection Bay, it is one of Alaska’s most scenic communities with Mt Marathon rising steeply behind the town.
Our first outing of the day was to the Alaska SeaLife Centre, a public aquarium and Alaska’s only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation facility. It is dedicated to understanding and maintaining the integrity of the marine ecosystem of Alaska through research, rehabilitation, conservation and public education. It opened in May 1998 and cost $55 million, of which $37.5 million was made up of funds from the Exxon Valdez oil spill settlement which seems absolutely appropriate! We were blown away with the Centre, the public exhibits included a touch tank where we could delicately touch small marine invertebrates like sea urchins and sea stars, numerous seabirds with a two-story diving pool, harbour seals, and Steller’s sea lions. There are exhibits of Alaska’s most important food fish – salmon, halibut, king crab and sablefish and easy to understand installations with interesting information and facts covering all assets of marine life and the Nose 2 Nose exhibit which enhances the underwater viewing area with a new Octopus Grotto where we could learn more about the resident octopuses. We had a very informative 90 minutes in there and got to know the seals quite well as they swam around in circles allowing us to have really close up views and even see the little ears of the sealions!
Geoff and I then ventured into the main street, Fourth Avenue and were very surprised, and a little saddened, to see so many of the Stores either closed, or permanently closed and up for lease, so there wasn’t much to look at, even harder to find an open coffee shop so we ventured back to the boat for a cuppa instead.
Our last excursion of this trip was a ripper though! We were booked to ride the sled dogs of the Iditarod! The Iditarod is a race that begins on the first Saturday in March every year and travels from Anchorage to Nome, across the Yukon River and along the frozen edges of the Bering Sea just south of the Arctic Circle – a distance of over 1,000 miles and takes roughly 10 days. Only Siberian or Alaskan huskies are allowed to race as these are the best two breeds designed for the extreme cold weather. The dogs need to consume between 10,000 and 12,000 calories per day and each sled team is pulled by a team of 16 dogs. The sport of driving a team of dogs is known as mushing and the drivers are known as Mushers. There are 26 checkpoints on the route and the driver must arrange for all the dog food to be deposited along the trail in advance. The youngest driver to ever win a rookie race was Dallas Seavey, who was 18 years old at the time. Mitch Seavey, his father, has won the 2014, 2015, 2016 and after a few years’ hiatus, also won the 2021 race, becoming only one of two mushers ever to win the Iditarod 5 times. and his winning time was 9 days, 2 hours and 16 minutes (with a prize money of $55,000 – which doesn’t seem a lot, given the hardship and endurance of the race).
So how lucky were we to be having our sled dog experience with the Seavey Family and their business, about a 15-minute drive from our ship! Their family history is deeply entwined with the Iditarod, grandfather, Dan Seavey Sr, helped organise and run the first Iditarod in 1973 and son Mitch is a five-time champion. We were met at the cruise ship terminal by Danny Seavey, Mitch’s son, who is the GM of the business and quite a character; in the relatively short drive on their bus he was full of interesting facts and information and when we arrived at their kennels and homestead, his young daughter, Cora gave us a very warm welcome. All we could hear was the dogs barking madly in their pens, obviously very eager to let off steam and race down the trails. The Seavey family own and breed over 100 Alaskan huskies, all are related, but they are careful about which dogs breed with which. Keen to get in the wagons, Jo and I were lucky enough to get the front seat and a fabulous view, photos and videos,of these amazing dogs. They were going crazy for a run, so as soon we were in the wagon, our young musher yelled commands at the dogs and we were off, once they were running the barking stopped and we careened around corners at quite a pace. Every now and then we had to stop to let the dogs cool off as it is much warmer here now and they heat up quite quickly. It was really fabulous being led around the trails with the most wonderful scenery of tall spruce trees and streams around us.
Once back at the kennels, we were ushered into a room where we were able to view Mitch’s very large collection of cups and trophies and were treated to an exhibition with one of the trainers and his husky, Maisy, who love him dearly and couldn’t stop licking him. Maisy was then dressed in typical attire for the Iditarod including a muscle vest to keep shoulders warm, a coat, leg warmers and booties…..and for the male dogs, a fur wrap for his privates! Interestingly, the mushers are also required to have at least 8 pairs of extra booties per dog as they tear easily on stones and branches along the route. It was a wonderful afternoon and so fun to experience and learn about something so different from what we are used to.
And that’s it….sadly our cruise has come to an end, and we disembark early tomorrow morning. Viking we have loved this trip so much. The care and attention to the finer details of this cruise has been amazing, so we are hooked….and booked….yep, you heard it right, today we booked ourselves on another Viking experience – and a very exciting one at that….watch this space for more details!
A final PS….we have enjoyed the most amazing cuisine and fine dining experiences, each and every restaurant and bar on this ship has offered incredible food, wines and cocktails… and yes, we probably have put on an extra kilo or two, but I would like to say that in my favour, although the photographs on the blog might show me looking a little like a Michelin man, I was at least wearing 5 layers of merino tops, a waterproof jacket, merino long johns, merino trousers and two pairs of merino socks – so yep, I did look a little thick around the waist as well!