Today was our last excursion day off the ship.  This morning we pulled into Icy Strait Point, which is an area Norwegian Cruise Lines is developing.  We were the only ship stopping here.  I think other ships sometimes come here.  It’s like they needed one more stop on this trip, so they created one near the sleepy little town of Hoonah (about 700 people).

The ship docked on the edge of land they are calling “a wilderness landing,” and we unloaded in a place with nothing in sight except for a path to a “transporter gondola.”  It was like a big fancy enclosed ski lift that took up over and through a wooded area to a pretty newly developed (tourist) area built up around an old cannery that now houses shops and some restaurants and things to do, like a long zip line (a different gondola up to the top of another mountain for a 90 sec zip ride down) for only $250.  We figured $3/second or so.

The area was nicely developed.  The old cannery was part museum showing the history of canning salmon here (which I’ve read 100s of pages about in my Michener Alaska book).  That was interesting to me.

We’d made arrangements to go whale watching later this morning.  We went in a van with the wife of the whale watching guide, Sean. Sean and Theresa are retired school teachers and live in Hoonah, where Sean grew up. They love it here.  Below is the little boat we went out in to spend a few hours watching the whales frolicking around us.

We saw some sea otters floating on their backs and a brown bear mama with her cub on a beach, eating from piles of seaweed the tide brought in.  And we saw humpback whales, spouting all around us, then dipping down into the sea, waving their beautiful tails at us.  We saw probably 50 or more tails waving from the groups or pods of whales around us.  It was fun.  We didn’t see any Orca whales.

It was pretty relaxing to be out on the sea (in this inlet) with islands and land nearby.  The water was like glass.

Then back to shore, where Claire and Graham met us with Caleb and we walked through the board-walked area around the shops, then walked most of the way along the shore on a path to Hoonah town.  This has always been a fishing village.  They do a lot of King Crab fishing, halibut, salmon and more here.  Locals can catch what they need for “subsistence” and there are places by the docks where they can clean their fish.  Outsiders need licenses to catch here in Alaska.

We had to be back on the ship by about 6:00.  We were probably the last ones to board, soaking up the last of our ground time in Alaska.  It was nice to just stroll and be with the kids and Caleb, who makes everyone happy.