Jennie's trip to Kodiak Island

Jennie shares about her recent trip to Kodiak and how to decide if adding Kodiak to your itinerary is right for you.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska. Before we jump in, we want to take a moment to thank our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible.

You can join them at the link in the show notes. Enjoy the show. I. 

Hi everybody. I am so excited to share with you a little bit today about my recent trip to Kodiak Island, which was about a month ago over Memorial Day weekend, and I often bring you stories of. Guests who have traveled to Alaska who are excited to tell you about their trip. And those are really fun.

And I share with my email list always, lots of lessons from each trip, but I don't always record an episode about that. But I like to do that when it's a parAlutiiqularly unique experience or something that's new to me. And. Both of those are true with Kodiak, and so that's why I'd love to share with you a little bit about my trip today.

 Actually before we get into that,  I realized that I don't mention my email list as much as I should because that is where you get kind of real time up to date updates from me about where I am and what I've been. Doing lots of travel tips. So it's different from the information that's in these podcast episodes.

And in the show notes is the link to sign up for my email list.  I don't sell your email. I send an email every week about Alaska Travel and that's it.  So I wanna really encourage you to sign up for that if you're finding this podcast helpful because it is different,  information and kind of more detail about some of my travels in Alaska and my guests and my clients' experience.

And also,  that's an easy way to share links in email. It's harder in podcast form because then you have to go and you have to find it in the show notes and blah, blah, blah. All of that, so. Anyway, I just wanted to make a plug for my email newsletter before I dive in. Okay. So why was I in Kodiak?

So I have a good friend who has been on the podcast before. Her name is Molly. I. She was on the podcast in 2023 in episode 18, which was on June 14th, 2023, and Molly was born on Kodiak Island. She grew up in a remote community that is on the road system. On Kodiak, and then I met her because she lived in Fairbanks and also in Seattle for many years.

Went to grad school with Jay, she's also an archeologist. And,  then she moved back, uh, eight or nine years ago back to Kodiak, and,  took a job there at the Alutiiq Museum, which we're gonna talk more about in a few minutes. So I've always wanted to visit her ever since she moved back. And, it just hasn't worked out for various reasons.

There was the pandemic in there, there were a couple times I was gonna go, and then my tour schedule was conflicting or whatever, so I was super excited to finally make it to Kodiak. And the other thing that's really, that really drew me there is that it's different. It's not a place a lot of visitors get to.

It's a little harder to get to than some places, but it's super worth it. So I'm gonna share a little bit about my experience today, but I also really want to encourage you to go back and listen to that episode two years ago with Molly, where she tells about. Her story about what it was like to grow up in Kodiak and  a little bit about the archeology and the human history and Alaska native culture, which is the Alutiiq people on Kodiak Island.

 She talks about that in quite a bit of detail, so I wanna really encourage you to go back and listen to that. Okay, so I was in Kodiak for four days and that was awesome. I definitely could have stayed longer. I think the big thing that I would tell you about adding Kodiak to your itinerary is that you're going to have a very authenAlutiiq Alaska experience.

People are super friendly. Alutiiq culture is very visible and an important part of the community. That is really wonderful. If you're the kind of traveler who wants to have, you know, lots of great restaurant options and lots of kind of organized activities, Kodiak probably isn't the right place for you.

There are tours in Kodiak, absolutely.  And there are amazing things to do, but there are more kind of DIY on your own type of adventures and not all, but,  for the part, so.  If that sounds amazing, then you definitely wanna go to Kodiak. If you're like, Hmm, I don't know about that, then it might not be right for you.

The other thing I would say to consider is that Kodiak is really rainy most of the time. So while I was there, there were actually, of the four days I was there, two of them were really sunny.  One of them was really rainy and one of them was kind of half and half. So. You're not going to be able to count on having good weather.

I didn't, I did not expect to see the sun while I was there. It was really cool that I did because I got to see some pretty epic views that, you know, I might have missed out on otherwise. But I was definitely prepared and expecting for it to be raining, and I think that's important for you as well, if that.

Doesn't sound good to you, then you're probably going to not love it. So I think if you're a traveler like me, you like to get to know people, you like to learn what a place is about, you like to just kind of explore and don't need, too many organize things that are structured around visitors, then you'll absolutely love Kodiak.

If that doesn't sound like you, it might not be your favorite. So before I talk more about what I did, I wanna just talk about getting there so you can get there on Alaska Airlines. So that's jet service from Anchorage. That's how I got there. That's what I would recommend.  There are also other smaller air services that offer,  flights to Kodiak.

You can also take the Alaska State Ferry if the schedule just happens to line up and you have the time,  it's gonna take you. A long driving day to Homer from Anchorage, and then I believe it's about an 18 hour ferry ride. So that is gonna take a long time. The flight is about 40 minutes, so the flight is very quick.

 I'd recommend so I stayed with my friend. I didn't rent a car. I drove her car around when I wasn't with her.  But you can rent cars and Kodiak.  There is, I believe, one hotel there, but I think it's a good place to get a vacation rental and kind of just be a part of the community during the time that you're there.

 I would say that you, you really do need a car to be able to get out and explore,  some of the things that make Kodiak. Really cool.  So that's what I would recommend. Okay, so let's talk about what I was doing.  The reason that I went at this parAlutiiqular time was two reasons. The primary one is that the Alutiiq Museum, which has been closed for two years.

For an extensive renovation,  reopened on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and so Molly invited me to come for that event. I'm so glad I did. It was really amazing. It was also the weekend Memorial Day weekend of Crab Fest, which is a big festival in Kodiak. And, and I have to say that's a really fun time to visit.

There's lots of food booths and arts and crafts, and there's a big, bounce castle kind of garden for kids, and it's just a really fun event when the kind of whole community is involved. So I really loved being there for that too. And there were people who had come from other parts of South Central Alaska, like Homer and Seldovia,  to come to Crab Fest and Anchorage too.

So that was really fun.  The Alutiiq Museum is a really special place. Again, we talked about that in a lot of detail in the episode with Molly a couple years ago, but I think as a person who had not been to Kodiak before, I was so. Impressed and, and with what they've done for one thing in a small community, small museum, they have so many things and they really thoughtfully made this beautiful exhibit and they built everything in house in Kodiak.

 It's just amazing.  They do a remarkable job of telling the story of the Alutiiq people from,  the time that. They think, uh, people first,  arrived on Kodiak Island, which was about 7,500 years ago, up until the present, and kind of the ways in which Alutiiq culture is really important today as well.

So that's wonderful. They have a great gift shop, if you like me, like to look for, locally owned and or.  Alaska made and Alaska native made things you can't beat the gift shop,  at the museum. So yeah, I just loved going to it. I would highly recommend it. There are a few small cruise lines that call at Kodiak,  every year, so definitely for sure go to the museum if you happen to be taking a cruise that includes Kodiak.

Okay, so that's the museum. Another thing that I really loved doing was walking around the harbor, and you've probably heard me talk about this with other communities in Alaska.  I. Walking around on the docks in any port town in Alaska is usually really interesting. You'll see a combination of working boats and tour boats in Kodiak.

It's pretty much all working,  fishing boats, the fishing fleet, and  you can walk around. That's a free activity where, you know, I saw a ton of sea lions. So this is a little bit of a soundscape of the sea lions and the Eagles in Kodiak Harbor.

  

 

Isn't that just so cool? I just love that soundscape of sea lions and eagles. I hope you caught the eagles there in the background. Anyway, a couple other things  wanted to talk about related to town. So I only went to two restaurants, well not even really restaurants.  While I was in Kodiak, I went to.

The,  Harborside Coffee Company and they were wonderful. They had amazing breakfast sandwiches and really good coffee. And I was there when it was very rainy,  and cold that day. So it was really perfect. And the other place I went that I would really recommend is Kodiak Island. Brewing company. I don't believe they had food, although they might have, if Crab Fest hadn't been going on, they might have had a food truck or something, I'm not sure.

But, they have a distillery there as well. And so I actually tried a cocktail,  with local ingredients. That was really cool. And they have a fun, that was one of the sunny days we sat outside on the deck.  It was really awesome. Anyway, so those are a couple other things that were pretty great in town.

So let's move on to talk about things outside of town and also a couple of tours. So,  actually I think I'll start with the tours. So one thing I wanted to mention is that in. August, we're gonna have an episode all about the Kodiak Brown Bear Center, and that is not a day trip. That is a remote property that you can go to.

You have to get to Kodiak first, and then a flight out to the Kodiak Brown Bear Center is included. It's operated by the Koniag Corporation, so it's native owned and it is really amazing. So we're gonna have that episode coming up for you in the middle of August with Stacy Simmons, who is the manager of that property.

So,  that's something to look forward to. So for right now, I'll just mention that in and of itself is a reason to go to Kodiak.  A couple other kind of organized activities that. Are things you could do, you can definitely go fishing in Kodiak. That is, you know what a lot of the economy is built around along with the shipyard that's in Kodiak.

And then there are also tours that take you,  to other locations to see bears like Katmai National Park, places like that. So there are some options for. That kind of a tour, if that's what you're looking for.

Alright, let's get out of town a little bit and talk about the rest of the island. So, around Kodiak Island, there are many small villages that are fly in only, and then there's the road system where you can drive about an hour out to Chiniak, or Fossil beach. Those are both  at different forks of the end of the road.

And there are a few other places you can drive as well, but there's not a lot of miles to drive and it's pretty slow going.  'cause you've got curvy roads, that kind of thing. So,  there are many wonderful hikes. My friends who live there go hiking a lot. One thing I will tell you about hiking on Kodiak, well, it's wonderful.

 You do have to be prepared to hike in the rain, and you also have to be prepared for just more remote. Trails and trail heads. No cell phone service, no outhouses at the trail head.  

So trails can be a bit eroded or muddy.  So just be prepared for that. It's a place where it's important to be extra prepared for hiking and, have plenty of food and water and,  make sure someone knows where you're going. So I did a hike,  with my friends called Pyramid Mountain.  It was very steep but not super long.

We didn't go all the way to the top because we encountered snow. And so this was late May, so we stopped, but we still had an amazing view and,. I really loved that hike and I would highly recommend it. No cell phone service. You know, very steep trail, but also amazing views the entire time. So that was one place that I really loved.

 I'd recommend  doing your own research if you want to hike there around trail conditions. Things like that.  But that was a hike I really enjoyed. Another place I went, um, that was a bit outside of town that I really loved was Fort Abercrombie State Park. And it is a place with beautiful forests,  wonderful views out of the coast, out, onto the water of the rocky kind of areas out there.

It was wonderful.  And it was a,  cool, rainy, cloudy day when I was there. And you can see all kinds of things that were built to defend the United States during World War ii. So, a little bit of a side note.  Several islands in the Aleutian chain in Alaska were occupied by Japanese forces. During World War ii, Kodiak was not, but it was definitely a threat.

And so there was a lot of military buildup and you can kind of see, and there are interpretive signs about kind of the different things that are there, the different, sort of military structures. There's a wonderful little lake there. It's just a really great park. Kodiak also has incredible beaches.

And you know, this is not Hawaii, right? It's cold, it's wet. But the beaches are so wild and beautiful. Most of them are quite rocky. So I men mentioned Fossil Beach a few minutes ago. That's a wonderful place to go. There are all these really cool fossils kind of out at the end of the road.  It was cold and windy out there, but not raining.

So that was cool.  And then there are also. There are just so many beaches. Um, another one I really loved was White Sand Beach,  which doesn't really have white sand, it's more like gray sand, but  the sand is really ash from the Novarupta volcano that erupted in 1912 in what is now Katmai National Park.

And Kodiak, is quite close to that across the water as the crow flies. And so there was lots of ash, and even now, sometimes in the right weather conditions, ash from that volcano will blow across,  over to Kodiak Island even a hundred years later. So those are a few of the places I went that I really loved that I wanted to share with you.

 If Kodiak is a place you wanna go, I would really encourage you to look into it.  You could book one of my travel planning sessions in the fall when I start doing it. Again, if you wanna talk more about my trip or my thoughts and if it would be right for you. But I just wanted to spend this episode sharing a little bit about my trip.

See you next week. Bye for now.