Glaciers & Alaska Inside Passage

Pressed between the Pacific and the Coast Mountains, Vancouver is the natural gateway to Alaska's Inside Passage — a city where temperate rainforest meets glass towers and where Dungeness crab and wild sockeye salmon define a Pacific Rim cuisine that rivals any in North America. Walk the 22-kilometre Stanley Park seawall, lose yourself in the Granville Island market, then ferry across to Victoria's Edwardian splendour. Alaska cruise season peaks from May through September, making Vancouver an ideal starting point for one of the world's great ocean journeys.

Ketchikan clings to the forested shore of Revillagigedo Island in Alaska's southeastern panhandle — a town so narrow that locals joke it is three miles long and three blocks wide. Revered by the Tlingit people for millennia as a place of abundant salmon, it is today celebrated as the Totem Pole Capital of the World: the collections at Saxman Native Village and Totem Bight State Historical Park preserve the most significant concentration of these monumental artworks anywhere. Creek Street, a boardwalk of colorful historic houses built over Ketchikan Creek, should not be missed. Summer (May–September) brings the best weather, with salmon running in the creeks below.

Sitka, set on the wild west coast of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska, is one of the Pacific Northwest's most historically resonant ports — a place where Russian Orthodox onion domes rise above totem poles and the great temperate rainforest presses down to the water's edge. The Sitka National Historical Park preserves the site of the 1804 battle between Tlingit warriors and Russian colonisers alongside a magnificent collection of monumental poles. Whale-watching, sea kayaking among sea otters, and brown bear spotting in the surrounding wilderness define the outdoor experience. May through September offers the most accessible and luminous conditions.

Hubbard Glacier, known as the "Galloping Glacier," is a breathtaking natural wonder in East Alaska, captivating visitors with its stunning ice formations and wildlife. Must-do experiences include witnessing the glacier calving and savoring local delicacies such as Dungeness crab and reindeer sausage in nearby Skagway. The best season to visit is during the summer months when the weather is milder and wildlife is abundant.

The Inian Islands are a wild, uninhabited cluster at the entrance to Alaska's Cross Sound, renowned for extraordinary wildlife encounters including humpback whale bubble-net feeding and massive Steller sea lion colonies. Must-dos include Zodiac excursions along the islands' rocky shores, watching cooperative whale feeding, and exploring tide pools teeming with marine life. Visit July–August for peak whale activity and the best sea conditions.

Haines is an authentic Alaskan town on North America's deepest fjord, home to the world's largest bald eagle congregation — up to four thousand birds along the Chilkat River — and a thriving arts community preserving Tlingit cultural traditions. Visit June through August via Cunard or Lindblad for glacier helicopter landings and coastal hikes, or October through February for the extraordinary eagle spectacle that makes Haines Alaska's best-kept secret.

America's only state capital unreachable by road, Juneau rewards the journey with a wilderness grandeur that few cities on earth can match. The Mendenhall Glacier — a living river of ancient ice — lies just fifteen minutes from downtown, where floatplanes dart above a waterfront flanked by spruce-draped mountains plunging straight into the sea. The must-do experience is a helicopter landing atop the icefield or a whale-watching excursion in Stephens Passage, where humpbacks breach in astonishing proximity. Juneau is warmest from June to August, though even summer days can bring the famous Southeast Alaska rain that keeps the rainforest perpetually luminous.