Whale Watching, Beaches & Gardens

Sunday morning we went whale watching with Harv’s and Marv’s Outback Alaska in the ocean passages west of Juneau.

We departed from the Auke Bay Boat Harbor, located northwest of downtown Juneau, right at the foot of the Mendenhall Valley.

Auke Bay was developed by the Feds in the 1950s as a research facility to support commercial fishing, then declared surplus in 2016 when NOAA moved into its new Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute (located up the bay, near Fairhaven). The property and facilities were then given to  the University of Alaska – Southeast to support its marine biology program, and the City of Juneau to expand its harbor facilities. Today, Auke Bay is Juneau’s primary commercial port, home to the Alaska Ferry terminal and to the hundreds of private boats that locals living off the grid use instead of automobiles for local transit.  

The harbor has a gorgeous setting.

We set sail that day in a tiny boat for a 3 hour tour. (Sorry – I couldn’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme out of my head for days.)

Meet our skipper, Graham who is orienting us to humpback whales with the help of Whalen Nelson.

What Whalen Nelson taught us about humpback whales…They are a favorite of whale watchers because they actively feed near the surface and are thus (relatively) easy to see. They are baleen whales: each whale has a series of several hundred fringed plates which hang from their upper jaws and work like a sieve, forcing large volumes of water through the plates while leaving food inside their mouths.  Although their maws are huge, their throats can’t swallow anything larger than the equivalent of a small grapefruit.  

A whale’s tale: the story hidden in their mouths

This region has very strong tides – 15-20 foot tidal swing – with strong tidal currents, and humpbacks feed in the currents, sucking krill and small fish like herring, hooligans and salmon fry into their massive maws. Humpbacks migrate south the Hawaii every year to breed and give birth to their young. During migration and breeding, they do not eat, relying on the fat they have stored from feeding in the north. So when they are in these waters, they are intent on one thing: food. An adult whale needs about 3000 pounds of food per day.

Humpback whales are massive animals: adults are 50-60 feet long and weigh about 90,000 pounds.  Their pectoral fins are about 15 feet long and their tail flukes are distinctively marked, like fingerprints. The whales in this area are named and known to all of the whale boat guides, here and in Hawaii. They are called humpbacks because of their stubby dorsal fin, which they hump in the air when surfacing. They exhale through a blowhole at a rate equivalent to 300 miles per hour.  The volume of air they can hold in their lungs would fill a Volkswagen. They usually spend several minutes on the surface, humping up and down  before lifting their flukes high above the water and diving deep underwater where  they can stay for up 30 minutes.

They are fast and very, very hard to photograph, especially from a rocking boat. Most of my whale pictures feature lovely blue water – and that’s it.

We were fortunate to encounter a mother and calf just outside the harbor.

Harbor seals seem to love these bobbing buoys.

Unlike Gilligan’s crew, we arrived safely back at the harbor after our three hour tour.

We opted for a late lunch at The Anchor, a lunch counter inside Auke Bay’s venerable Squirez Bar  (bypassing the trendy and overcrowded restaurant next door). The food was great and the ambience couldn’t be beat.  (Where else would you get to see a gator in Alaska?)

Graham had recommended a visit to Eagle Beach, so after lunch we drove north up the peninsula to  the Eagle Beach State Recreation Area (aka “The Swallower of Phones”), stopping at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum and the Shrine Of St. Therese on the way back.

The Eagle Beach Recreation Area comes equipped with a gorgeous setting, forested camp sites, two picnic pavilions, multiple walking paths, fields of wildflowers  and a very large (and rare) sandy beach. Lots of locals were out enjoying the sunny day.

Gary took the road less traveled on our walk, venturing across the beach and through the meadows.  Later, as we started back down the highway towards the arboretum, he realized that his new phone had decided to stay behind somewhere along the trail. Fortunately, he had a good idea where the phone had jumped out of his pocket (as he was gymnastically leaping over a stream). With the help of Mickey on his Apple Watch, the phone’s plans for escape were foiled.

We passed a little black bear munching [something] in the grasses along the highway.

The Jensen-Olson Arboretum was originally the home of long-time resident and Master Gardener, Caroline Jensen, who started gardening here in the late 1890s. She loved primroses (Primulae) and developed a nationally accredited collection including some that are rare in North America. Turns out the Juneau’s climate is perfect for primroses: cool, overcast, and constantly moist. The climate explains why primroses are not common in my part of the world and why I recognized very few of the brilliant blooms.  Her children continued to manage the garden after her death, then – respecting their mother’s wishes – bequeathed the property to the city for use as a public space on their own passing. The garden is a small but mighty vegetative gem, located right on the coast andf featuring more than 1200 plants (both native and cultivated).

I alway appreciate a loo with personality.

Our final stop was at the Shrine of St. Therese, described in the travel literature as a magical spot.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux lived in France in the late 19th century, She was canonized in 1925 for her “little way” of loving God and neighbor. How did a French saint who dies at 24 and never left France come to be the patron saint of Alaska with a national shrine? The first bishop of Alaska, Bishop Joseph Raphael Crimont, was a French Jesuit who knew her family and was deeply devoted to the saint. He successfully lobbied for land for a retreat center in Alaska in her honor. The complex was constructed between 1932, and 1945, with the chapel and gardens added in 2001.

We picked up dinner fixings at the supermarket on our way back into town, spending a quiet evening recuperating after another long day of touristing.