July 1, 2008, Alaska Sealife Center, Seward, AK

The Alaska Sealife Center is right at water's edge as you complete the drive through town, a shining anchor for the main street through Seward. Go past it and you soon come to a waterfall and the street that becomes more and more rural/rugged as you go along the coast out of town with boat yards, camping areas and just plain folks living near the sea and apparently having a life in a rugged place. The photo at left is from down town looking toward Resurrection Bay from the street in front of the Chinese breakfast buffet (really a custom "whatever you want to eat we will fix" kind of place with a Peruvian waitress.

The Center (below) is an impressive looking structure from the outside (especially noteworthy having early Spring flowers blooming in July!), as well as from within. I heard a rumor, which I never confirmed, that Exon paid to build it after the Exon Valdez mess.
Admission is normally $20/person, but because of military, AARP and/or AAA discount, I got them for $16. As you enter, there is a relatively large and gift shop with good quality merchandise. Many native craft items are included. There is also a small snack shop/short order restaurant that seemed to be quite popular. It is one of the main attractions that people want to see when they come to Seward, and rightly so.

The trip through the center starts by going upstairs to the second floor and traveling through a hallway with windows into various sea creatures in aquariums and copious explanations posted on the walls and displays. These initial aquariums are fairly small compared to the much larger ones later where the sea lions and the general fish tanks are. I did not pursue or confirm but assume that the make - up water for the tanks comes from Resurrection Bay, just yards away; however the salinity of the bay may be below that needed for this purpose due to all the influx of fresh water, in the Spring especially. At the end of the first hallway you come into an open area with choices to be made as to what you do next. There are hands-on displays of urchins, anemones, and other creatures that you can touch.
At the end of the hall, there is a theater/room where various programs are presented throughout the day via film and/or staff or outside experts on various topics. We only had time for one non-continuous session about salmon and their habits. I recall nodding off during the talk due to time and schedule catching up with me. Put me in a darkened room with someone talking, and that is a common occurrence!

I did learn that each of the six or so types of salmon has a different life span and habits. All are spawned and hatched upstream in some remote (except for those fly fishers who flew in to the lodge in float planes and try to catch them) location where both the female egg layers and the male fertilizers die (they certainly must make quite a mess and stench) as they decompose and return to the earth from which they came. Each type of salmonhowever, as they head down stream and go from minnows (salmon have different names during their life span, but I use the term minnow for convenience). They eventually over a year or longer will get down to sea water where their system transforms such that they adapt to sea water. As they move out to sea, they go out to sea thousands of miles for their maturing cycle. On a species specific cycle which varies from 1 to 4 years, they will come back to go back up stream and repeat the cycle.

As you go through this area of the center, you can look out the windows into sections that are obviously not for the public to go into, but where staff and researchers study, work with and rescue animals and other critters which need attention. There appears to be different levels of research underway. IThe center is staffed by many local and outside experts who come for temporary or long-term research projects. It is an impressive and quite worth-while center, even without the tourist aspects.

Exhausting the options in this central decision area of the building, you will eventually make your way into a larger room/area with a tank with all sorts of swimming fowl, including puffins and other colorful and diverse forms of duck-like sea birds. This is about the only place you can get up close to these birds. You can see from the harbor and/or on the sea cruise where they are flying all about but then they are at substantial distances that you need hawk eyes to determine the details of color and structure. The birds are in a relatively natural looking area and are unconfined, seeming to have retained their abilities to fly if they desire.
From this area, you can progress to the outdoor area where the sea lions and the like are. They had seal and the Stellar sea lion which can get to huge sizes (1100 lb bulls, I believe). I still can't tell a Stellar from a normal one, but then I have never been "biologically exposed" to the degree that I recall some of the differences, besides size.

They are swimming in large tanks and seem oblivious to the human eyes watching their every move (or non-moves as is the case when they are lazing about). You then progress back down to the first floor where you are priviledged to see these same creatures and more tanks from down under in a rather large open area which also gives access to larger tanks for the fish that are swimming about in simulated habitat. You can see the sea lions much closer and better from down under than from the topside except for a few moments when they may come right by. One of the fish in the fish acquarium was the Ling cod, like the one I caught on the fishing trip which I had to turn back because the season did not open until the next day. From this area, you eventually, and reluctantly can wander out the hall and doorway back into the large foryer area through which you first entered, get something to eat, buy gifts or just leave.

Next: Exit Glacer and then The Road to Denali and the Dome Home