The "Grand Slam" and Kenai Fjords: Tales of the Taylor Family Vacation

Caribou foraging on the tundra

Another two weeks gone! Two weeks ago, my family came to visit me in the park. Their first full day here, we took a shuttle out to Wonder Lake—a full 11 hour day of driving with a few half hour breaks along the way. Though the day started out cloudy, we ended up being extremely lucky, landing what the park calls a “grand slam” of wildlife viewing. This means that throughout the day we spotted at least one—though many times more—of the “big five” mammals of the park: bears, moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and wolves.

Bears are often seen from the park road in the Denali backcountry, but seeing them on a shuttle trip is not a given. We managed to see nine bears overall, and three or four of those were cubs. But though the bear is an exciting sight, seeing a wolf is even more so. Since 2010, the chances of a visitor seeing a wolf in the park has gone from 30% to 4%. The current park population is 49 wolves.

In the early days of the park, wolves were thought to be extremely harmful to the Dall sheep that are iconic to this area. Many people believed that the wolves would hunt them to extinction. Adolph Murie came to the park to study wolves in the 1930s. And what he found was groundbreaking: though the wolves did hunt the Dall sheep, they did it in a way that would not substantially hurt the population, going after the sick, injured, and young. I think it is incredible Murie saved the “wolves of Mt. McKinley” by studying them. If you’re interested in learning more about the challenges Denali wolves are facing today, drop me a note and I’ll forward you the paper I wrote in my ecology class this spring.

The rest of the week was filled with exploring the park and surrounding area. On Friday we drove down to Seward, AK, where we boarded a sightseeing cruise in Kenai Fjords National Park the next morning. After over a week of rain in Denali, the clouds in Seward cleared and we were given a brilliant sunny-with-blue-skies day.

It felt like we were spotting wildlife at nearly every new cove, island, or fjord. We watched humpback and fin whales glide near the surface of the ocean, spouting water in greeting as they passed. Puffins dove over the boat and skimmed the water with fish-filled bellies. Sea otters drifted in the waves, and stellar sea lions lounged in the sunshine on large rocks.

The turnaround point of the cruise was the Northwestern Glacier in the Northwestern Fjord, a destination few tour cruises visit. For nearly half an hour our boat drifted in the glacier’s bay, allowing us plenty of time to gaze at the sky-blue ice. Fun fact: the glacier was actually named after Northwestern University in 1909 (shout-out to you, Dr. Lin J ).

A photo of me holding glacial ice!

Tune in again soon!

Lindsey