Whittier & Valdez
Whittier, Alaska
The area that is today’s Whittier, Alaska has been traveled through for centuries as a shortcut from Prince William Sound to the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet and Alaska’s interior. As early as 1914, the Alaska Engineering Expedition envisioned a tunnel and rail line to where Whittier is today. The onset of World War II led the U.S. Army to decide to build a tunnel through Maynard Mountain and construct the Port of Whittier, a strategically important deep-water port that is ice free year-round. By connecting the new port to Alaska’s interior by rail, the Army could bring in war material and personnel for the defense of Alaska. Construction of both the tunnel and port were completed by 1943.
At the conclusion of the war, the Whittier Army Post was temporary abandoned. However, the events of the Cold War reactivated the base in the 1950s and U.S. Army Corp of Engineers began a massive construction project to facilitate a garrison of over 1,000 troops. The Cold War construction era resulted in the building of seven concrete structures which remain today including the motor pool, headquarters, cold storage, and barrack buildings. In 1960, the U.S. Army deactivated the Whittier Army Post for a second time and razed everything except the concrete structures. The Good Friday Earthquake in 1964 destroyed the waterfront and railyard facilities, leaving only the Cold War era concrete buildings standing. Finally, the City of Whittier purchased the Cold War buildings in 1972 to be used by local businesses and residents of the community.
The 14-story Hodge Building towers over the community of Whittier. Built in 1956 to provide family housing to military personnel, the steel and concrete building could house 700 people with 177 2- & 3-bedroom apartments and 39 single units. The citizens of Whittier purchased the Hodge Building from the U.S. Government in 1972 and renamed it Begich Towers. Today, the tall building serves as the primary residence for nearly the entire town’s population. It houses not only apartments but also essential public facilities like a post office, general store, police station, health clinic, and even a school connected by a tunnel.
The Whittier Tunnel, officially known as the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, goes through Maynard Mountain. The 2.5-mile-long tunnel serves as the only road access to the community of Whittier. The tunnel was originally built for trains by the Army, but was later adapted to accommodate both trains and vehicles. Vehicle traffic through the tolled tunnel is one-way so it operates on a schedule which alternates direction every half hour. Vehicles queue up on either side of the tunnel in staging lanes and are released for the 10-minute drive through the tunnel once an hour.
As you emerge from the tunnel into Whittier, there is a train depot to your right and a cruise ship dock to your left. Throughout the summer months, cruise ship passengers arrive into Whittier and then are transported by rail or bus into the interior of Alaska to places like Anchorage or Denali. The Port of Whittier offloads railcars and shipping containers for transport into the interior via the active railyard in the middle of the town. There is an active harbor that is bustling with activity for sports and commercial fishing as well as sightseeing charters. Surrounding the harbor are a few shops and restaurants that cater to the tourists that often arrive by cruise ship or come through the tunnel for the day. There is also a ferry terminal for the Alaska Marine Highway System that connects Whittier to other Alaskan communities through Prince William Sound.
Ferry – Whittier to Valdez
One of the reasons for going to Whittier was so that I could catch the ferry to Valdez. The Alaska Marine Highway System offers daily ferry service between Whittier and Valdez onboard their MV Aurora. It is named after the Aurora Glacier that is located in Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve. The 235-foot-long ship was launched in 1977 and designed to carry 250 passengers plus approximately 33 twenty-foot vehicles at a speed of 14.5 knots. The MV Aurora is equipped with observation lounges with comfortable seating, a covered heated solarium, a cafeteria, and Wi-Fi.
Alaskan state ferries are quite popular, especially in the summer months, so reservations are a must for travelers. Fortunately, I made all my ferry reservations for my Alaskan adventure over six months ago. Upon arriving at the Whittier Ferry Terminal, you check-in and they assign you a staging lane number to park. Once it is time to load the vehicles on the ferry, the crew determines the appropriate loading order to best utilize the space on the enclosed auto deck. For my voyage, there was everything from travel trailers and motor homes to motorcycles and heavy equipment. Once you are directed by the crew to load, you drive your own vehicle down the ramp and into the auto deck where the crew directs you where to park. Passengers are prohibited on the auto deck once the ship is underway, so once you park you proceed upstairs to the passenger decks.
It is a 5.5-hour voyage between Whittier and Valdez. The MV Aurora cruised through the Passage Canal past some beautiful glaciers and waterfalls before entering Prince William Sound for the trip to Valdez. On the day of my trip, the waters on the sound were very calm and we spotted numerous sea otters and jumping salmon as we cruised along. About halfway through the voyage, we sighted two orcas off the port side of the ship before they passed quickly behind us. Unlike the other tour boats I had been on, the ferries don’t stop for marine sightings so you have to be quick with your camera. After a very pleasant afternoon on the water, we sailed into the Valdez Arm of Prince William Sound and the Port of Valdez was in view.
Valdez, Alaska
In 1790, Spanish explorer Don Salvador Fidalgo named the Port of Valdez after Spanish naval officer Antonio Valdes y Basan. The town didn’t really flourish until 1898 when the Klondike Gold Rush brought prospectors to Valdez hoping to find easier routes to the goldfields. The early base camp for prospectors became a city in 1901 and grew rapidly with the construction of a road to Fairbanks in 1910. Following the 1964 earthquake, it was discovered that the town was built on unstable ground so Valdez was moved four miles east to its present location.
When oil was discovered in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay in 1968, Valdez was selected as the terminus for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The ice-free, deep-water port at Valdez was the perfect location for oil from the pipeline to be loaded onto tankers. The 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline transports oil from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez Marine Terminal which has the capacity of storing over nine million barrels of crude oil distributed across 18 storage tanks. The terminal, which is opposite of the city of Valdez, gravity fills awaiting tankers for shipment of oil to the lower forty-eight.
On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound. The grounding resulted in the spillage of approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil into the pristine waters, impacting 1,300 miles of coastline. The spill caused widespread environmental damage, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of seabirds, otters, seals, and other wildlife. While cleanup efforts were extensive, some oil remains in the environment to this day and continues to affect marine life. The spill also had a lasting impact on the local economy, particularly the fishing industry. The incident, which remains the worst environmental disaster in United States history, led to the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which increased penalties for oil companies and mandated double-hulled tankers in U.S. waters.
Located in Valdez, the Soloman Gulch Hatchery released its first pink salmon fry in 1982. Annually, the hatchery releases approximately 250 million pink salmon fry and 1.8 million coho salmon smolt. The mature salmon return to the hatchery at the end of their life cycle to spawn in late summer. A weir across the river prevents them from swimming upstream and directs them to the fish ladder where they return to the hatchery spawning building. Hatchery staff spawn as many as 16,000 adults each day and then spend the winter caring for the young salmon. In the spring, the young salmon are released into the open sea where they will live until the following summer when their lifecycle ends and they return to the place of their birth, the hatchery. The scene at the Soloman Gulch Hatchery as the salmon return is wild because waiting for them at the hatchery are hundreds of hungry Steller sea lions. These massive marine mammals, adult males can weigh up to 2,500 pounds, feast on the salmon until they literally cannot move and have to rest from the feeding frenzy.
While in Valdez, I booked a tour of Prince William Sound with Stan Stephens Glacier & Wildlife Cruises. The 7.5-hour tour aboard the Valdez Spirit cruises through Prince William Sound observing wildlife with the Meares Glacier as the destination. Located in the Unakwik Inlet, the Meares Glacier is a large tidewater glacier with a front wall of 200 feet and width of about 0.6 mile. The glacier was first observed in 1905 and named after an early explorer of the area, Captain John Meares. The Meares Glacier is currently advancing into old-growth forest, slowly pushing down trees.
On the cruise out to the glacier, we spotted several large rafts (groupings) of sea otters out in Prince William Sound. They were mostly floating on their backs resting with their faces and extremities out of the water. Unlike other marine mammals, sea otters don’t have blubber to keep themselves warm and their dense fur protects their core from the cold sea. Their heads, hands, and flippers are where they lose most of their body heat so that is why they keep them out of the water. We also spotted a humpback whale and lots of Steller sea lions.
As we sailed into the Unakwik Inlet, we began to encounter a lot of floating ice on the water. The Mearse Glacier sits at the end of the inlet and it has a beautiful wall of ice with beautiful blue shadows. The ship stopped just off the glacier and we were able to observe calving on several occurrences. Once again there we lots of harbor seals resting on the floating ice at the base of the glacier. It was really cool to see the glacier carving out the forest on its edges where uprooted trees and piles of soil were clearly visible.
