Alaska’s Most Remote Room with a View
Dec 11th, 2009 by wwftravel
View from the lodge. Courtesy Alaska Wildland Adventures.
It’s rare that we highlight lodging for a WWF tour, but Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge isn’t your typical accommodation. When was the last time, for example, that you stayed someplace only accessible by boat? The new eco lodge, now approaching its second season, is surrounded by 700,000 acres of pristine wilderness. It’s nestled within a Native-owned wildlife sanctuary on the edge of a lagoon, across from a glacier. The 16 private, hand built log cabins and 3,000-square-foot main lodge were designed to be minimally visible from the lagoon, while still offering spectacular views from within.
From your cabin’s back porch you might see seals, sea and river otters, mountain goats, black bears and a variety of birds such as black-legged kittiwakes, common murres and puffins. Thousands of visitors travel to Kenai Fjords National Park each year, yet the lodge feels secluded. And you can walk out from your porch and into a kayak or canoe for further exploration. Or hike along a forest trail to reach a sweeping glacial moraine.
View of the main lodge from the water. Courtesy Alaska Wildland Adventures.
Developed with efforts to minimize the impact on the natural area, the lodge is managed with a strong commitment to ecological sensitivity. The lodge is on heritage lands owned by Port Graham Corporation, an Alaska Native Village Corporation, which represent a small portion of the ancestral homeland of the Alutiiq people that once lived along and roamed the entire coast of Southcentral Alaska.
Kenai Fjords National Park is home to the Harding Icefield, one of the four major ice caps in the United States. The Icefield, which covers more than half of the national park, has carved long, steep-sided water valleys, called “fjords,” forming the perfect habitat and aquatic environment for a wide array of marine wildlife. The plankton-rich waters are natural feeding grounds for whales on their long migrations north and south. Above sea level, the chiseled fjords reach toward the sky, home to millions of migratory birds.
Visit Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge during our Kenai Adventure, June 30 – July 7, 2010, or our Backcountry Alaska tour, August 22 – 29, 2010.
