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Whittier Alaska-Recreational Paradise!

By
Real Estate Agent with Wolf Real Estate Professionals

My brother-in-law recently invited the family for a day outing from the small boat harbor in Whittier Alaska. 

Ricks fishing boat Whittier Alaska is a small town about an hour's drive from Anchorage.  The town is located on the water in Prince William Sound.  You access Whittier via a tunnel from Portage Glacier.  The tunnel itself is somewhat of an adventure.  The tunnel is the longest tunnel in north America, approximately 2.5 miles long.  It is a single lane tunnel, meaning traffic coming into Whittier takes it turn, and traffic coming out of Whittier has to wait on the inbound traffic.  There is a schedule for each direction of travel, basically east on the 1/2 hour and west on the hour.

Whittier Alaska-Recreational Paradise!Whittier is a small town with less than 300 residents.  It is a stopping point for cruise ships and the Alaska railroad, and a good sized small boat harbor.  It is remarkably scenic with mountains in every direction. 

There were 1o of us in the party.  We came through the tunnel at 8:30am on a Saturday morning.  There was already a line of trucks pulling boats, campers and regular cars.

A black bear looking for dinnerWe were in the water by 9am and motoring out of the harbor.  Prince Williams Sound is overwhelmingly beautiful.  The mountains are rugged and you'll see some glaciers in a few of the valley's.  There are whales, seals and sea otters, not to mention every type of water fowl found in Alaska. 

The salmon were pooling at the mouth of every stream looking for a spot to spawn.  The salmon were there literally in the hundreds on every stream.  This of course is a huge draw for bears.  Around every stream were bear signs.  It seems like the bears were so full from gorging

themselves, they were almost bored with the fish.  There were dead salmon laying uneaten on the bank.  Some fish only had a single bite out of them.  The bears were killing for sport and walking away leaving uneaten fish for the seagulls.  The bear in this photo was just cruising the beach looking for an easy evening snack.  She found a dead fish, picked it up and disappeared in the heavy under brush.

We caught salmon by trolling with herring and other bait.  Afterwards, we went to deeper water and pulled shrimp pots that my brother in law had dropped a day previously.  The pots were in about 300 feet of water.  Each pot had shrimp in them and we were able to re-bait the pots and lower them afer we harvested the fresh shrimp from the pots.

Dan in Whittier It was an outstanding day!  We caught the 8pm tunnel back to Anchorage, tired but excited about our catch of salmon and shrimp and the out door adventure with family and friends.  If you get the opportunity to visit Whittier or any other coastal town, I highly recommend it!

Comments (3)

Sam Chapman
Lakeway, TX

How cool.  I used tolive in Seward and hitchhiked to Fiarbanks and back quite often.  I don't remember a tunnel, but that was the late 70s.  When was it built?

Sep 08, 2010 10:50 AM
Anonymous
Dan

The tunnel was originally built for WW 2, but the new improved tunnel opened in 2001, I believe.  It's pretty nice. 

Sep 08, 2010 11:11 AM
#2
Anonymous
Dan

The tunnel was originally built for WW 2, but the new improved tunnel opened in 2001, I believe.  It's pretty nice. 

Sep 08, 2010 11:11 AM
#3