Alaska—October 2020Valdez
This Valdez is pronounced with a long “e”. (There is also a Valdez in northern New Mexico, pronounced with the Spanish short “e”.) Port Valdez is well known for a devastating oil spill, but there is a lot of resilience in nature and Valdez is a good example. It is still very much an oil economy; the hospital is even in the shape of an oil tanker. Visiting at the end of the “season” allowed me to have a private glacier/wildlife tour. I’ll never forget the harbor seals, harlequin ducks and the plunking sound of ice bits against the boat hull at Shoup Glacier. During the boat tour we also saw river otter, sea otter, stellar sea lions, barrow’s goldeneye, pelagic cormorant, marbled murrelet, pigeon guillemots, surf scoters, bald eagles, brown bear and dall sheep. The color of the water in Valdez harbor is a beautiful bright shade of blue due to the glacier silt run off it contains. If you visit Valdez make sure to stop in Orca Bay Trading for a museum-like experience in a gift shop and right next door is Valdez Brewing. Between those two places you can spend a whole rainy afternoon.
