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Your hosts on this very special departure are experienced nature photographers Sean Neilson and Andrew Peacock. Together they will guide and help you capture professional photos that tell the story of your incredible adventure into Glacier Bay National Park. Glacier Bay is an astounding natural environment, teeming with wildlife in an unparalleled wilderness setting making it a must visit for any nature and wildlife photography enthusiast. The Snow Goose is the perfect vessel on which to base this photographic workshop. With one instructor per five passengers you can be assured of personal attention to help you get the very best photographic output from the trip.
A trip up Glacier Bay is like a trip back in time. Old growth forests give way to bare rock as we make our way up into the upper reaches of the bay. Here, tidewater glaciers rumble and roar as they make their dramatic movements, all the while calving huge icebergs into the sea. Magnificent cliffs tower above our small ship as we wind our way up the fjord through the ice floes towards the faces of these massive glaciers. Along the way, Andrew and Sean will adjust our itinerary to maximize opportunities for photographing whales, bears, sea otters, puffins, wolves and the dynamic landscape. This will be a departure specifically geared toward photographing this amazing environment as widely as possible so that you can learn and benefit from Sean and Andrew’s years of experience photographing the natural environment.
Passengers will board the Snow Goose at the Park Service Dock in Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay – a short taxicab ride from the town of Gustavus. Following lunch and a brief safety and crew orientation we will set sail into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. For the next six days we will cruise, kayak, and hike this magnificent gem of our National Park System. Our aim will be to find and spend time photographing subjects that suit the weather and wildlife that we encounter. On the sixth day, we will venture outside of Glacier Bay proper into Icy Straits towards the Gulf of Alaska where humpback whales congregate.
Secluded evening anchorages allow time around dinner with Sean and Andrew to review images from the day and for them to share their photographic knowledge with you. Some evenings will allow exploration of the shore by kayak or on land with an opportunity to photograph in dramatic late light. It's amazing how much can be seen and heard along the shores in the quiet evening time. Before turning in we will bring out the charts to review the journey so far and to make a plan for the following day. The schedule is very flexible to allow for adaptation to the photographic variables that will be encountered along the way. The last day of our trip will bring us back to Gustavus, where we will arrive with a new appreciation of the world in which we live, and with incredible photographs and memories to last a lifetime. Many will opt to catch the afternoon flight back to Juneau to continue on with their Alaska adventures or head home. Others may want to stay in one of the hotels or bed and breakfasts in Gustavus to further experience a remote Alaska town.
*Remember: wildlife is wild life, so when it comes to stuff like whales and bears, these ratings show the likelihood of seeing those things as opposed to a guarantee. But that’s nature for ya – and who would want it any other way?
