Seward Alaska!
On Our Way To Seward, I Stopped And Took This Of A Passing Train!
We Visited The Alaska Sea Life Center The Next Day.
We Saw!
The Alaska SeaLife Center, Alaska’s premier public aquarium and Alaska's only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation facility, is located on the shores of Resurrection Bay in Seward in the U.S. state of Alaska. Open since May 1998, it is dedicated to understanding and maintaining the integrity of the marine ecosystem of Alaska through research, rehabilitation, conservation, and public education. It is the only facility in the world specifically dedicated to studying the northern marine environment and the only one designed at the outset to combine research with public education and visitor components. The Alaska SeaLife Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska's marine ecosystems.
The Alaska SeaLife Center project cost $55 million; Exxon Valdez oil spill settlement funds made up the $37.5 million portion of funds dedicated to research and rehabilitation. An additional $12 million was raised by selling bonds, and $1.1 million was raised locally through private donations.
The Alaska SeaLife Center is a private, non-profit corporation with approximately 105 full-time employees and a staff of volunteers and interns.
In September 2011, the Alaska SeaLife Center was granted accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. This acknowledgment places the ASLC in the top tier of their field as less than 5% of the nation's 6000 zoos and aquariums currently have this standard of certification.
Research
The Alaska SeaLife Center is one of the only non-profit organizations in the world that has both a public aquarium and fully supported research facility in the same building. The SeaLife Center is affiliated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and collaborates with numerous state, federal and international agencies and universities.
The SeaLife Center studies the marine ecosystems of Alaska and the species who call it home. This includes species of marine mammals, sea birds, fish and invertebrates—some of which have been listed as threatened or endangered species. The Alaska SeaLife Center specializes in marine mammal and sea bird research on species including Steller sea lions, eiders, harbor seals, sea otters, fur seals and other species experiencing population declines in Alaska. Research strives to develop cutting-edge technology and techniques, while minimizing impact on the species and environment being studied.
The Science Department currently includes dedicated programs for pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), eiders, sea otters and salmon. Newly added is an oceanographic program that will complement a more ecosystem-based approach towards understanding the Alaska marine environments.-- it has wonderful animals from sea urchins to squid
Rehabilitation
The Alaska SeaLife Center provides care for sick and injured marine animals, yielding important information about wildlife populations. Through this program, the center rescues, treats, and releases stranded animals. It is the policy of the Alaska SeaLife Center to make every reasonable effort to rehabilitate and release as many rescued animals as possible. The main objective of the Rehabilitation Program is to return healthy rehabilitated animals back to their natural habitat. Stranded marine animals including harbor, ringed, spotted and fur seals, Steller and California sea lions, walruses, sea otters, and birds from all over Alaska are brought to the center for medical treatment, rehabilitation, and ideally, release. In cases where the animals cannot be released, they are kept at the Alaska SeaLife Center or transferred to another facility.
The Alaska SeaLife Center is the only permanent stranding facility for marine mammals in Alaska. Operating as a designated marine mammal "stranding center" within a marine research facility allows veterinarians and staff to learn a great deal about these animals during the rehabilitation process.
Rescued and rehabilitated animals provide the Alaska SeaLife Center with insight to their biology and physiology. This information adds to the pool of knowledge necessary to conserve threatened and endangered species. This program also assists with monitoring the status of wild populations through scientific study of ill or orphaned marine mammals and birds. Through communication and education programs, public knowledge of the marine environment and public awareness of its importance to our ecosystem is increased.
The Rescue and Rehabilitation Program is authorized by NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) and USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to respond to marine mammal and bird strandings from the entire gulf coast of Alaska. The program includes a veterinary staff, interns, and volunteers trained to respond and care for marine mammals and birds.
Education
The Discovery Education programs are developed in accordance with Alaska’s Science Content and Performance Standards and the National Science Education Standards. Programs are offered year-round at the SeaLife Center in the form of Day Programs and overnight Nocturne Sleepovers. Outreach Programs can be presented in schools in the Anchorage, Mat-Su, and Kenai Peninsula areas. Distance Learning programs can be presented worldwide to locations with interactive videoconference equipment.Exhibits
The Center's public exhibits include a touch tank where visitors can touch small marine organisms such as sea urchins in a shallow pool, a grotto for the center's numerous seabirds with a two-story diving pool, as well as harbor seals, sea lions a Giant Pacific Octopus, and a preserved Giant Squid. There also exhibits of Alaska's most important food fish such as salmon, halibut, king crab, and sablefish.
Alaska Seafood
Shrimp
Crabs
Puffins
Fish
Starfish
Eels
Exit Glacier
It received its name because it served as the exit for the first recorded crossing of the Harding Icefield in 1968.
In the spring of 1968, the first documented mountaineering party succeeded in crossing the Harding Icefield. Ten people were involved in the crossing, which went from Chernof Glacier east to Resurrection Glacier (Later renamed Exit as the newspaper reported that the group would be descending the "Exit Glacier"). Expedition members included Bill Babcock, Eric Barnes, Bill Fox, Dave Johnston, Yule Kilcher and his son Otto, Dave Spencer, Helmut Tschaffert, and Vin and Grace (Jansen) Hoeman. As noted above, Yule Kilcher, Dave Johnston, Vin Hoeman, and Grace Hoeman were veterans of previous attempts; of the ten, only four–Bill Babcock, Dave Johnston, Yule Kilcher, and Vin Hoeman–hiked all the way across the icefield. The expedition left Homer on April 17, bound for Chernof Glacier; eight days later, they descended Exit Glacier and arrived in Seward. Along the way, the party made a first-ever ascent of Truuli Peak, a 6,612-foot (2,015 m) eminence that protrudes from the northwestern edge of the icefield near Truuli Glacier.
Access
The Exit Glacier is especially notable for being a drive up glacier (similar to the Mendenhall Glacier of Juneau). A spur road of the Seward Highway takes visitors to the only road accessible portion of the Kenai Fjords National Park and a number of hiking trails that take visitors to the terminus of the glacier or even up to the Harding Icefield itself. Although one of the Harding Icefield's smaller glaciers, because of its easy accessibility and abundant hiking trails around and above the glacier, the Exit Glacier is one of the most visited glaciers in Alaska. Exit Glacier is open year-round. Upon the arrival of snow, usually in mid-November, the road is closed to cars but open to a wide range of winter recreation –from snow machines to dogsleds, fat-tire bicycles and cross-country skiers.
Ranger Programs
Ranger-led walks to Exit Glacier are offered at 10am, 2pm and 4pm daily. These walks are approximately 1–2 hours in length. There are also Ranger Talks held in the Exit Glacier Pavilion at 12pm. These last approximately 20–30 minutes.
Our Ranger Guide For The Tour
Exit Glacier
Even Though It Was Misty Out
Everyone Enjoyed The Tour!
Larry Was Prepared To Stay DRY!
Ruth & Charles
Mary & Dianna
Hi Joan!
Now Its Raining!
But That Didn't Stop Us!
Skip, Chris, Mike, Diane & Joan
And Of Course
More Spectacular Scenery Was Around Each Corner!
The Pacific Ring Of Fire!
The "Ring of Fire" is an arc stretching from New Zealand, along the eastern edge of Asia, north across the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and south along the coast of North and South America. The Ring of Fire is composed over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.
This huge ring of volcanic and seismic (earthquake) activity was noticed and described before the invention of the theory of plate tectonics theory. We now know that the Ring of Fire is located at the borders of the Pacific Plate and other major tectonic plates.
Plates are like giant rafts of the earth's surface which often slide next to, collide with, and are forced underneath other plates. Around the Ring of Fire, the Pacific Plate is colliding with and sliding underneath other plates. This process is known as subduction and the volcanically and seismically active area nearby is known as a subduction zone. There is a tremendous amount of energy created by these plates and they easily melt rock into magma, which rises to the surface as lava and forms volcanoes.
Volcanoes are temporary features on the earth's surface and there are currently about 1500 active volcanoes in the world. About ten percent of these are located in the United States.
This is a listing of major volcanic areas in the Ring of Fire:
- In South America the Nazca plate is colliding with the South American plate. This has created the Andes and volcanoes such as Cotopaxi and Azul.
- In Central America, the tiny Cocos plate is crashing into the North American plate and is therefore responsible for the Mexican volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Paricutun (which rose up from a cornfield in 1943 and became a instant mountains).
- Between Northern California and British Columbia, the Pacific, Juan de Fuca, and Gorda plates have built the Cascades and the infamous Mount Saint Helens, which erupted in 1980.
- Alaska's Aleutian Islands are growing as the Pacific plate hits the North American plate. The deep Aleutian Trench has been created at the subduction zone with a maximum depth of 25,194 feet (7679 meters).
- From Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to Japan, the subduction of the Pacific plate under the Eurasian plate is responsible for Japanese islands and volcanoes (such as Mt. Fuji).
- The final section of the Ring of Fire exists where the Indo-Australian plate subducts under the Pacific plate and has created volcanoes in the New Guinea and Micronesian areas. Near New Zealand, the Pacific Plate slides under the Indo-Australian plate.
Our Campground Sign!
Some Things Are Plain & Simple in Alaska!
And Functional!
Seward (Alutiiq: Qutalleq) is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 3,016.
It was named after William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. In 1867, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia.
In 1793 Alexander Baranov of the Shelikhov-Golikov company (precursor of the Russian-American Company) established a fur trade post on Resurrection Bay where Seward is today, and had a three-masted vessel, the Phoenix, built at the post by James Shields, an English shipwright in Russian service.
Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Trail is at Seward. In the early 1900s the trail was blazed in order to transport people and goods to and from the port of Seward to interior Alaska.
The 1939 Slattery Report on Alaskan development identified the region as one of the areas where new settlements would be established through Jewish immigration. This plan was never implemented.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 21.5 square miles (56 km2), of which 14.4 square miles (37 km2) is land and 7.1 square miles (18 km2) (32.93%) is water.
Adjoining communities include Bear Creek and Lowell Point.Climate
Seward has, depending on the isotherm, a subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) or a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc), and lies just within the subpolar/subarctic zone, with moderate temperatures for Alaska and, due to its location along the Gulf of Alaska coast, high levels of precipitation.
Port Of Seward!
Tried my Luck in the Upper Kenai River
BUT?!?!
No Luck
May Be Better Luck Later On
Stay Tuned To See!
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