BERING SEA EXPEDITION CRUISE – Nome to Vancouver – Silver Wind

Fly to Nome. Nome is located on the edge of the Bering Sea, on the southwest side of the Seward Peninsula. Modern history started in 1898 when ”Three Lucky Swedes”, Jafet Lindberg, Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson, discovered gold in Anvil Creek…the rush was on! In 1899 the population of Nome swelled from a handful to 28,000. Today the population is just over 3,500.

Board the Silver Wind. Join us at a Sail Away cocktail party as we depart on our spectacular Bering Sea Expedition.

Remote St. Matthew Island is part of the Bering Sea Reservation since 1909 – it was one of America’s first wildlife refuges- and is now managed as part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. From the Glory of Russia Cape in the north to Cape Upright in the southeast, the island has a length of 51 kilometers and an area of 35,700 hectares. Massive cliffs reach a height of over 300 meters in some areas. These are favored by glaucous gulls, Brünnich’s Guillemots, Parakeet Auklets, and Horned and Tufted Puffins.

Saint Paul is the largest of five islands in the Pribilof Islands. These islands are in the middle of the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. St. Paul lies 240 miles north of the Aleutian Islands, 300 miles west of mainland Alaska, and 750 air miles west of Anchorage. The city of St. Paul is the only residential area on the island. The first non-natives to ‘discover’ St. Paul were Russian fur-traders in the late 1780s, led by the navigator, Gavriil Pribylov. Today, this small city has one school (K-12), one post office, one bar, one small general store, and a Russian Orthodox Church that is registered as a National Historic building. In summer, this island is teeming with wildlife, including about 500,000 northern fur seals and millions of seabirds.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind and catch up with what you’ve been meaning to do. So whether that is going to the gym, visiting the spa, whale watching, catching up on your reading or simply topping up your tan, these blue sea days are the perfect balance to busy days spent exploring shore side.

Russian traders following Vitus Bering in the mid-1700s would have been some of the first non-native explorers to visit Kiska Island in the Aleutian chain. The Japanese occupied the island during WWII and relics of war have been left behind in the harbor including a Japanese two-man submarine. The occupying force of 6,000 soldiers also left a Shinto shrine behind whose remains can still be seen today. Ashore there are ptarmigans, Lapland Longspurs and Bald Eagles. At a distance the cliffs of Sirius Point can only be described as “magical” and are home to Least and Crested Auklets, Peregrine Falcons and Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses.

Tanaga Island is situated in the southwest part of the Aleutian Islands. With a size of 204 square miles, this is one of the largest oceanic islands in the US. From the Bering Sea, the view of the island is impressive with Tanaga’s highest point, Mount Tanaga volcano. This 5,924-foot stratovolcano last erupted in 1914. During WWII, a Navy emergency landing field was established in 1943, with office and storage buildings, a runway, small-craft pier, radio building, and mooring area among others. The site was abandoned at the end of the war in 1945.

Part of the Aleutian Islands, Atka Island is one of the largest, at 404 square miles. The culminant point is Korovin volcano, more than 5,000 feet high. It is known to be one of the remotest spots you can find in the US. The population is composed of 87 Aleuts. The village has no post office and the only available communication mode with the outside world is a 50-watt radio transmitter. The village is backed by dramatic mountains. The houses are made of weathered board and a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church with emerald onion dome can be found among them.

Part of the outlying Aleutian Islands archipelago, which spirals out across the Bering Sea into the wilds of the Pacific, Dutch Harbor offers a dramatic backdrop and rich military history. Enjoy hikes along coastal trails to birdwatch more than 100 different species – and look on as huge clouds of cawing seabirds float on gusts of wind, filling the air with their raucous calls. Dutch Harbor is famous for its crab fishing industry – a dangerous, challenging pursuit. The Aleutian WWII Visitor Center and the Museum of the Aleutians provide extensive information on WWII in the Aleutians, prehistory, the Russian period, Unangan (Aleut) culture and recent history. A visible reminder of the Russian past is the Holy Ascension Cathedral, the oldest cruciform-style Russian Orthodox church in North America and a National Historic Landmark.

There’s something slightly eerie about the incredible petrified forest that appears, frozen in time, as the waters recede at low tide. The ghostly-white fossilized trunks and scattered logs close to Unga Spit’s beaches contain millions of years of crystallized history – preserved in the elaborately ringed stumps and fallen logs of the ancient forest. Believed to be the remnants of a sequoia or metasequoia forest, gigantic trees once towered on this island strung between continents. The forest eventually succumbed and was submerged and petrified by the thermal powers of volcanic activity from many millions of years ago, as the lands and seas churned and shifted during the Tertiary Period.

Unga is a ghost town on the southern end of Unga Island, once home to over 100 people originally settled by Aleuts in 1833. The name was changed to Unga in 1894. Life was challenging in Unga, and the population declined gradually over time. The post office closed in 1958, and the last family left in 1969.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind and catch up with what you’ve been meaning to do. So whether that is going to the gym, visiting the spa, whale watching, catching up on your reading or simply topping up your tan, these blue sea days are the perfect balance to busy days spent exploring shore side.

Hubbard Glacier is an active glacier, with a calving face that is more than six miles wide. One of the main sources for Hubbard Glacier originates 76 mi inland. It has experienced two major surges in the past 30 years. This glacier was named after Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a U.S. lawyer, financier, and philanthropist. He was the first president of the National Geographic Society.

Elfin Cove sits snugly on the southern shore of Cross Sound, which leads in eastwards to the Inside Passage. Northwards and across the Sound from the small community lies Glacier Bay National Park and the Fairweather Mountain range. Elfin Cove is a quaint little harbor clustered with attractive timber houses built into the wooded hillsides on stilts. The population swells to about 200 during the summer months, from a rather meager 6 or so during the snowy and isolated winters. Its commercial hub consists of a Post Office, mini-Museum, a General Store, the Coho Bar and numerous sports fishing businesses. In the summer months Rufous-backed Hummingbirds visit feeders scattered around the community. On the northern tip of Chichagof Island, Point Adolphus is a well-known area for humpback whale watching.

Eagles watch over the scenery overhead, while whales and sea lions add glorious weight to the animal life that thrives and thrashes in these icy seas. With a quintet of Pacific salmon species filling the rich rivers and waterways with life, settle back to enjoy the show. Sitka was the capital of Russian America until a deal was struck in 1867, and the territory was sold to the United States, with the handover ceremony taking place here in Sitka. The native Tlingit culture is an important presence, and elaborate totem poles adorn Sitka National Historical Park.

Painstakingly sculpted by the slow grind of colossal glaciers, the fjords of Rudyerd Bay are some of the Inside Passage’s most spectacular and humbling. Just 40 miles from Ketchikan, hordes of salmon splash in the region’s streams, while basalt pillars – left behind by ancient volcanoes – puncture the slow flow of the waters. A litany of plunging waterfalls gives sheer, monolithic cliff faces added life and vitality. With crowds of pine trees and snow-tipped mountains surrounding you everywhere you look, Rudyerd Bay is one of the Misty Fjords’ most precious and inspiring locations.

Since the late 19th century, Metlakatla has been the major settlement of the Metlakatla Indian Community of the federally recognized Annette Islands Reserve, the only remaining reservation in Alaska. It is located on Annette Island, and in 2010 had 1,405 residents. In 1886, William Duncan, an English tannery employee and lay member of the Church Missionary Society, along with a devoted group of Tsimshian followers, decided to leave his home village in British Columbia. The group arrived in 1887 and built a settlement laid out in a grid pattern like a European town. They named the town New Metlakatla, after the town they had left behind, but later dropped the ”New.”

Navigate through the intricate outlays of staggering  scenery, threading a needle between craggy, snow-dusted islands. To cruise this 500-mile stretch of Northwest beauty is to sail through a living work of natural art – with perfectly sculpted mountains soaring from the shoreline, and clutches of islands scattered across the dark waters with delicate attention to detail. A common sailing route due to its calm sheltered waters, gorgeous natural set pieces constantly play out here – whether it’s killer whales accompanying you through the breathtaking icy passages, harbor seals catching a break on floating hunks of ice, or wisps of cloud clinging to distant mountain peaks.

Disembark. Overnight Hotel Provided.

Boasting mountains, sea, culture, art and so much more, many cities claim to have it all, but few can back it up like Vancouver. Offering all of the creature comforts of an ultra-modern, worldly metropolis – even downtown has a hint of mountain-freshness to its air – and part of Vancouver’s appeal is how easily you can swap the skyscrapers for whale-filled oceans and mountain-punctured skies.

End of arrangements.