To A Guide to Seward, Alaska

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Seward's Small Boat Harbor was built north of the historic townsite in 1964, and a vibrant community has grown up around it. A major renovation of the harbor began in 2000, and is now the area that draws most visitors.

A line of glacier cruise boats in Seward's Small Boat Harbor. Glacier cruises and fishing are the two biggest draws in this section of "Alaska's Playground", the Kenai Peninsula.

This photo was shot from the deck of the cruise ship Radiance of the Seas in early June at 6:35 am. You can see what a cruise from Vancouver to Seward looks like in the extensive photojournal at YourAlaskaCruise.com. The mountain in the center is Mount Marathon.

The view down Resurrection Bay from Seward's cruise ship dock. A glacier cruise boat is heading out, and Seward's waterfront RV park can be seen along the shore.

Kayakers preparing to head out into Resurrection Bay from Seward's small boat harbor.

Seward's small boat harbor in 2002.

The Seward Airport (SWD) was built during World War II as Walseth Air Force Base. There are no scheduled flights to/from Seward, but charters are available. The runway seen in this photo, 13/31, is 4,533 x 100 feet.

The 2,138-passenger Celebrity Millennium at Seward's cruise ship dock, the Dale R. Lindsey Alaska Railroad Intermodal Facility. Most people who arrive on the ships unfortunately just pass through Seward on the way to the airport at Anchorage by train or motorcoach, without spending any time in Seward.

Inside the large cruise ship terminal, the Dale R. Lindsey Alaska Railroad Intermodal Facility, passengers collect their luggage and most meet their transportation provider.

This is a few hundred yards from the southern end of the Alaska Railroad, on the Seward docks. The northern end is at Fairbanks, 467 miles away.

The view across Resurrection Bay to the peaks on the Resurrection Peninsula in late July.

Looking across Resurrection Bay from Seward.

The Seward City RV park along the beach, with a tsunami evacuation warning sign at the entrance!

This wonderful children's playground was built on the Seward waterfront in May 2008. There's a time-lapse video on YouTube that compresses the 6 days of construction to 6 minutes.

The Iditarod National Historic Trail runs 1,000+ miles from Seward to Nome. Through the city of Seward, it is a very pleasant paved walking path along the waterfront, but much of the trail through the wilderness is rough or even impassable.

Interpretive signage along the Iditarod Trail walking path in downtown Seward makes the pleasant walk educational as well.

Two large sculptures by Alaskan artists were unveiled on the lawn in front of the Alaska SeaLife Center on June 8, 2011, World Oceans Day. In the foreground is Salmon, by Brad Hughes - this rock sculpture weighs 12,500 pounds. In the background is Bull Kelp, by Lisa Rickey - it is a stainless steel depiction of Bull kelp, a common sea plant, attached to a rock, moving under water.

The square in front of the Alaska SeaLife Center is a very scenic, people-friendly place.

This is Mount Marathon, 3,022 feet (921 meters) high. Each July 4th, a race is held from downtown Seward to the summit of Mount Marathon and back - the record time so far was set by Bill Spencer in 1981, at 43 minutes, 23 seconds!

Some of the contestants in the July 4, 2004 Mount Marathon race.

One of the historic homes along 3rd Avenue.

One of the historic homes along 3rd Avenue.

The Alaska Railroad station and Mount Marathon.

The view down Railway Avenue.

People enjoy the sunshine from the square in front of the Sealife Center.

Downtown Seward in 2001.

Downtown Seward in 2002.

The historic Van Gilder Hotel. Built in 1916 during the railway boom, it was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1980.

The section from Seward to Anchorage is by far the most impressive part of the Alaska Railroad. The location seen in this photo is where "The Loop", a series of huge trestles that filled the entire valley, used to be. When diesel locomotives that could climb much steeper grades became available, the trestles were no longer needed.

This is the Placer River Gorge, the narrowest of the canyons that the Alaska Railroad goes through anywhere. For a lengthy photojournal of an entire from a cruise ship in Seward, on the railroad to Anchorage, and a bit on exploring Anchorage, see The ExploreNorth Blog.

A boat trip into Kenai Fjords National Park is the most popular excursion in Seward. Park Rangers provide narration on many of the cruises offered by Major Marine Tours, which range from 3 to 8½ hours.

A female orca, commonly called a killer whale (Orcinus orca, with her calf in Kenai Fjords National Park. Female orca can be up to 27 feet long and can weigh up to 7 tons, while newborn calves are about 7 feet long and weigh almost 400 pounds. These whales were part of a pod of about ten that our boat spent about half an hour among.

Horned puffins (Fratercula corniculata) at a rookery in Kenai Fjords National Park, where they commonly nest in burrows along cliffs such as these. They dive off these cliffs to gain enough speed for flight, but they're really built for swimming underwater, not flying.

Steller sea lions, sometimes called northern sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), at a haulout in Kenai Fjords National Park. Adult females typically range from 530 to 770 pounds, males from 990 to 2,470 pounds. They were named after German zoologist Georg Wilhelm Steller, who first set foot in Alaska with a Russian expedition in 1741.

Although our boat captain called this the Surprise Glacier, it actually may not have an official name (most Alaska glaciers don't have names). It's in Holgate Arm in Kenai Fjords National Park, and was a surprise to see, as the gorge it flows down is quite hidden except from a fairly narrow angle of view.