Thursday 9/8 - Icy Strait Point

Today we saw bears. There were these two having lunch, another further upstream doing the same and a big 700-800 lb bruiser who lumbered alongside of our bus.

Icy Strait Point is a two year old "village," reminiscent of Holland-America's Half Moon Cay. It's constructed at an old cannery outside of the Tlingit community of Hoonah and currently under contract to Royal Carribean/Celebrity. Only one ship a day is allowed in port. There's a couple of nice restaurants, shops, excursions and tours, etc. It's owned by the local residents who are shareholders in Hoonah Totem Corp. along with a Juneau-based developer. Everything is very well done. The wild life tour we took drives us 12 miles out of a town to an area with a built up boardwalk over the soft marshland down to a view point next to the stream where the bears come to eat.

It didn't hurt that the day was bright and sunny, and relatively warm (around 60). Yesterday, we were told, it poured rain all day. Sometimes you just hope you can be lucky!