On a previous visit to the United States, I had used the Turo car rental app to book a car and it had all worked great, at a cheaper rate than offered by the big agencies. So I fired up the app and was pleased to see a Nissan Frontier 4x4 ute was available. I ticked yes to bear spray for $5 extra on top of the about US$120 ($208) for the day.
Leaving the airport, we were taken to the Lakefront Anchorage Hotel, resembling a Queenstown lodge from the 1980s, the only difference being stuffed moose heads abounded rather than deer and Chamonix.
It was on the shores of Lake Spenard, used as a runway and airport for dozens of mostly privately owned seaplanes.
The following day we were met by driver and guide Guiellermo, who was a lawyer in his native Panama but pivoted to tourism as worker shortages in the US meant the odds of getting a green card were higher. He said he came to the northern frontier state for employment opportunities, and to be able to hunt game with a bow and arrow.
Guiellermo said there were two things you needed to know about Alaska: recreational cannabis is legal and there’s no sales tax.
Exploring Seward
The next morning he drove the contingent of foreign journalists hosted by Regent two hours south from Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, to the small port town of Seward. On the stunning drive, we skirted the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet, named by William Bligh, later commander of HMS Bounty during the mutiny, during Cook’s ill-fated third and final voyage when he was attempting to find the northwest passage.
The scenery as we traversed the wide roads was like Fiordland in winter but on a much larger scale, far less over-touristed, and with significantly more moose per square mile. Before heading over Moose Pass on the Seward Highway we stopped in at the Alyeska Resort, a luxury skiing lodge where guests step out right into the aerial tram to access the mountain.
Upon arriving at Seward, a small but busy fishing and cruise port clinging on to the end of a fjord below towering mountains, we boarded the Seven Seas Explorer, an almost embarrassingly palatial Italian-built cruise liner, for the two-week voyage across the Northern Pacific to Japan.
The ship sailed down the fjord into Resurrection Bay, passed the massive Bear Glacier and out into the Gulf of Alaska as the winds rose and the waters chopped up, bound for Kodiak Island, where we were to arrive the following morning.
Checking out Kodiak
Kodiak, famous for the eponymous bear, is the second largest island in the US, and home to the country’s largest Coast Guard base.
It’s rugged, heavily forested and its original inhabitants, the Sugpiaq native Americans, were joined by Russian fur traders in the 18th century, and later more settlers from the US arrived after the Alaska purchase in 1867.
After docking at Kodiak, those who had secured the excursions headed off to their bear-viewing trips on Zodiacs, while we traipsed along the waterfront past fish processing plants to try and find our ute.
The sturdy four-wheel drive was sitting on the waterfront, its keys in the lockbox and a can of bear spray, resembling a small fire extinguisher, in the console ready to go. Feeling like locals, we piled into the ute and, after grabbing some provisions at Walmart, were off.
There are only about 150km of roads on one small populated corner of the huge island, and we explored much of them. Heading north, we ended up at White Sands beach for a short hike through the forest, always slightly wary a bear could pop out, and following instructions to make noise as you walk so as not to surprise one. For better or worse, we did not end up seeing a bear but saw lots of eagles, deer and other wildlife in the otherworldly and primordial landscape.
After this, we drove about an hour south, to Pagashak at the end of the roading network, a stark treeless landscape home to the Pacific Spaceport Complex. After a bit of off-roading, we ended up on a beach that felt like the end of the world, studded with thousands of small fossils.
For lunch we drove most of the way back into town, stopping at Rendezvous Bar & Grill in Womens Bay just before the main settlement.
It is run by Toni Munsey, who was born on the island and had a classic Kodiak childhood as her father ran a lodge called Munsey’s Bear Camp, flying the children into town for supplies in their plane.
The clientele are mainly locals and the menu never changes.
Munsey says they don’t get many cruise passengers, being slightly out of town and off the beaten track, but she prefers catering to locals in any case. The locals are still here in February when the cruise people are long gone, she explains. The menu at Munsey’s never changes and they cut their own potatoes for the seafood chowder, using Munsey’s mother’s recipe. I ordered the cod burger and chowder which are fresh and flavoursome.
“The cod comes from a cannery that knows how I feel about fish,” says Munsey.
Back to Kodiak, we had an hour or so to look around town before the cruise ship left and there was the feeling the place was shutting down for winter. Then it was sadly time to fill up and say goodbye to the Nissan Frontier and back to the chandeliers and lavish meals of the Seven Seas Explorer, for one day and two nights sailing along the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands before arriving at Dutch Harbor.
Located on an island adjoining Unalaska, the main population centre of the Aleutian Islands, Dutch Harbor is the top commercial fishing port in the US by volume of catch. It’s home to the lucrative but dangerous crab fishery made famous in the Discovery Channel series Deadliest Catch. The place is seriously remote and feels like the end of the earth, with towering treeless hills and wild seas. It was the scene of the Battle of Dutch Harbor in 1942 and the concrete gun emplacements still atop the hills remind us it’s one of the few parts of the US to experience foreign bombardment by the Japanese outside Pearl Harbor.
A local who worked in the crab fishery said he made about $80,000 for six months of hard graft involving 18-hour days while at sea and extremely tough conditions, contingent on the captain and crew finding a good spot.
On Unalaska, we visited the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Ascension, built in 1825. Eagles sat on its spires eyeing the salmon in a nearby stream. Another local, Devon, said he was an Orthodox Christian attracted to the island for its history with the church, which remains strong. In summer the island was beautiful when the berry bushes flower, he said. In winter? “Not too bad, only 15 and a few feet of snow,” said Devon.
Then, it was time to return to the boat and while the Aleutian Islands are infamous for their wild weather, the sea was calm and sky clear as we sailed out of the harbour. That was until the water rippled in the distance and excitement blossomed through the ship as passengers spotted a pod of humpback whales who appeared to escort the ship out of the harbour.
It was to be our last sight of land for several days during a sometimes rocky crossing of the northern Pacific. And in the end, I was pleased we were able to forge our own way on the two remote islands, rather than be constrained to tours.
Details
Regent Seven Seas Cruises is offering a North Pacific Crossing from Vancouver to Tokyo departing September 17, 2025, for a 19-night voyage.
For more information, visit rssc.co.
