Alaska Uncovered Podcast

The Best Wildlife Viewing Opportunities in Alaska

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Jay Flaming • Episode 150

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 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.

Hi everyone. This week we've got a reediting of an episode that Jay and I did for our Patreon subscribers. And as I think you all know by now, we're no longer keeping our regular weekly episodes, any of them behind a paywall. They are all here in the main feed, and we do still have Patreon. We do still have awesome Patreon supporters, those folks are all in our Alaska Planning Club.

I do a q and a every week where people submit their questions and then I, uh, record the answers and share them in Patreon. So thank you so much to those of you who are part of that, that really helps keep us going. You can join them. If you just go to Patreon and look for Alaska uncovered or follow the link in the show notes.

So we are bringing to the main feed, um, some of those episodes that we recorded in the past that are still really relevant and helpful. And this one is all about wildlife viewing and so we talk about. Tours for wildlife viewing, and we also talk about ways to see wildlife on your own. So that's what Jay and I talk about in this episode.

One more thing we do still have room for a couple more people on our. Authentic Alaska small group tour. So if you wanna do wildlife viewing with Jay and I as part of that tour, then register today and get one of those last couple spots. We've also got an early bird discount of $150 through December 12th.

Jennie, what is the best wildlife viewing tour?



. Well, first of all, I would say the best wildlife tour for you depends on what type of wildlife you wanna see when you're going and what your budget is.

Mm-hmm. So I can't really give. A general answer, but for myself, I'll give two answers, which isn't allowed, but I'm still in charge here. Right, 

right, right. 

And we let our guests give more than one answer sometimes. Okay. So I'll give two answers. The first one is, um, going out to Lake Clark National Park, um, for bear viewing Fly in.

Bear viewing. We've actually. I talked about that more than once. Mm-hmm. On the pod. But, um, you can hear more about how much I love it and why 

podcasting is an audio, audio, um, uh, experience.

But I will say having seen Jennie's pictures from her. Yeah, true. Yeah. Uh, that, I mean, they're amazing. 

They are amazing. And I don't even have a real wildlife camera, so I 

know 

that's why. 

Yeah. 

Okay. So that's the first one. The other one would be whale watching in Juneau. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And um, those are of course, very different experiences, but they're both amazing.

I would put them as equals. There are many other wonderful ones, but if you're asking me my favorite. Those are them. 

I have, I haven't done the Lake Clark bear viewing, but I have done the Juneau whale watching. Yeah. And I, you know, I lived in Skagway for years and didn't know how, and I even lived in Juneau briefly, and I didn't even know how amazing that was.

And I kind of wish I'd seen more. 

Yeah. 

Because that's, 

yeah, absolutely. And then the, what I would give as a strong backup, um. Like a strong number two would be the Tundra Wilderness Tour in Denali National Park. 

Oh yeah, yeah. That's a good one. And, and you, and there's more that's a little bit broader in that you're, you know, and 

less predictable.

One thing about that and 

less of a sure thing, 

I would say is, but so 

amazing 

is that, uh, on that tour. Um, don't just look for the megafauna. 

Yes. 

Uh, some of the little creatures and birds and supper. Arctic 

crown squirrels. 

Arctic crown squirrels, for 

example. 

Yeah. Just for example, there's a picture of one on the wall in our bedroom.

Yeah. 

Just gonna say, 

yeah. 

Yeah. 

It's adorable 

ground we call 'em. 

Yes. Okay. So that's my answer for that. So should we dive into wildlife viewing in general?



Okay. So Jay, you know, you've done a lot of wildlife photography and a lot of wildlife viewing in a lot of places for your whole life. What's your top tip for. Wildlife viewing in Alaska. 

Okay. My top tip here is gonna be, uh, the key is patients.

Yeah. 

And this I have found to be true all over the world. 

Yeah. 

And. I, my favorite example of this that I've really, I don't think on this pod, but I've related this in other places many times in my life, has been that I went, went snorkeling on the Gulf of Mexico,

um, so the, I was snorkeling off a beach and I came up out of the water and people were like, you can't sn you can't see anything here.

Mm-hmm. Snorkeling. This is a useless. And I saw other people snorkeling and they were just swimming around like crazy and they all saw nothing. And I had an amazing snorkeling trip. And, and the thing was, I went out over the reef and I stopped thrashing. And I just breathed and waited and the fish came out.

Mm-hmm. And everyone else had been just floundering around and running around, back and forth and never given a chance to witness, you know, they, the animals were afraid of them 'cause they were acting an awful lot like sharks or wounded whatever, boats, you know. And so they were just not, they were hiding when they came out.

And I've seen similar things, not just for that reason, but we, Jennie and I were just recently talking about this, but. Uh, one thing you need to do to see wildlife well is to recognize their patterns. 

Yeah. 

And then you wait for their pattern to come back around. So like, oh, that, that animal has been flying down to the river, it gets a fish and then it flies back to its nest.

Yep. You know, that kind of a thing. And then, and then you can see that on the next cycle as opposed to kind of chasing it, which never really works out well. So I think patience is the key. Showing up. Um, and knowing it's a little bit like fish, I think time is really big. Was just going to say, yeah. Is that the patient's part of like, it's fishing, not catching, you know, people used to say mm-hmm.

Wildlife viewing is a, um, low yield, high reward is what I would call it. Uh, that you will spend more time looking than you will seeing. 

Yeah, 

and I think that's another tip I would, I would put out there is if you're expecting like nonstop closeup. Animal viewing. That's really something you can only get in a wildlife park.

And, and there are places for that. And if you're on a tight timetable like the Alaska Wildlife, um, oh gosh, I just spaced out the, 

the Alaska Wildlife Conservation 

Center. Conservation Center. I was like, cc, what's it cc? It's not a community college. 

It's near, it's near Anchorage. 

Yeah. Amazing. And, and for a time limited 

Yep.

Wildlife viewing. Yep. Like that's great. But if you wanna see wildlife in the, in a natural setting, you kind of have to have, you're gonna have to set aside some time for 

it. Yeah. Absolutely. What about, I think that's really good advice. Yeah. 

What about you? 

Well, you know, going back to what we talked about at the beginning of the episode, I really recommend at least one wildlife tour for people for whom.

That is a high priority when visiting in Alaska, which it is for many people. And you know, a fly-in bear viewing tour is gonna be at least a thousand dollars a person. That's very expensive. But, um, whale watching is more like two or 300, right? Mm-hmm. So that's a lower price point. Um, and like 

the, the Downey tour is.

Considerably less a 

couple hundred. Yeah. Maybe one 50 to 200. Somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and I think given what you're spending on your trip mm-hmm. Especially a boat tour for whales or, um. The bus tour and you know, people will say, oh, I don't wanna ride a bus, but like, 

nobody does. 

But if you feel that way, go back and listen to the first episode in February with Heather, where she talked about how she was like, no way.

And then she loved it along with her entire family. So, um. 

I think also, you know, taking a tour, there's two components to that. One of them is that they can provide transportation that you won't Yes. While you're on vacation. Uh, they'll have a boat which can get you in wherever. They'll have a helicopter, they'll have a, a float plane, whatever.

Yep. Uh, they'll have a van. 

Yep. 

Whatever it is that they can get you. The transportation, but also the expertise of the guide is a big deal. Yep. And understanding wildlife biology is the key to reducing that. Um, idle time uncertainty. 

Yes. 

You know? Yep. And uncertainty. 

Yep. 

And the, the knowledge of the guide is, is really in my mind what you pay for.

Yes, 

absolutely. On, on a wildlife watching tour. 

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the, the other reason, so I think there's kind of two primary reasons which you basically just hit on, you know, one is transportation. I would kind of add to transportation, like that location expertise. Mm-hmm. That the guide has.

Mm-hmm. You talked about the importance of the guide, but also the behavior expertise and the knowledge that guides have, and the fact that they're there every day doing this, so 

they know what this bear 

does, you know? Yeah. It's much more, yeah. I don't wanna ever say that wildlife is a sure thing. There was like maybe a couple exceptions there.

That's the name. 

Wild. 

Yeah. It's not really wildlife if it's totally a sure thing, but if you want it to be more of a sure thing in less time, a tour is the way to go. The end period. 

Yeah, I agree. 

I think one other, you can 

do it yourself, but again Totally. Your yield. Your yield is. Is lower. 

Yep. I also, and I love that you mentioned the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

One other thing along those lines, well, I guess it's two other things, is, um, the scene muskox. Oh, yeah. Which, unless you're going to the Arctic, you will not. And by the Arctic, I mean the actual Arctic, not just Alaska. Um, like if you're going up to. You know, gates are the North Slope Gates. The Arctic National Park.

Yeah. Sorry, I shouldn't have abbreviated that. Um, but in Fairbanks at the university, there's a Muskox farm where they do research on Muskox. And if you're an animal lever, that is a must do if you're not going to Fairbanks. Mm-hmm. There's also a muskox firm in Palmer, um, which also is really. Good. Um, the, the reindeer kind of a fun addition at UAF and, um, you know, there's more science being done there, but both of them are excellent stops that I would encourage people to 

check out.

Yeah. One thing I love about the University of Alaska Large Animal Research Center is that, uh, a, um. It's not a particularly polished visitor experience. It's not unpolished, but it's not, it's not Disneyland, you know? No, it's, it's a research center 

Yes. 

And an animal care center. And that's, you know, and they, and they have a great visitor mechanism.

Yeah. But it's, you know, it feels a little bit more like a, you know, a behind the scenes tour. Yeah. Then it does like a. Like a policy thing, and I love that about it. 

Yeah. 

And the second part about it is that the, the but behind seeing the muskox, the next cutest thing about it is seeing the undergraduate workers 

Yeah.

Tend to be animals. The 

students who are taking care of Muskox. 

I know maybe that's just me. I, 

no, it's not just you. It's wonderful. Yeah. 

Okay. I have. I have a hot take on wildlife. Okay. And I'm curious if you will agree with it or not. 

Okay. 

And my hot take is that what you bring isn't really important. And by that I mean some people get really fixated on binoculars and what binoculars and do you need a SPO scope and what's the best camera and that kind of stuff.

Yeah. 

And I don't think that's, I haven't seen that play a big part in people's actual wildlife viewing experiences. 

The same. I think unless you're a professional photographer. Um, I would focus on the experience more. I mean, you know. Mm-hmm. It's great to take photos of animals. I do it all the time with my phone.

Um, but, you know, if I want a really amazing wildlife photo, I'd probably buy it. 

Mm-hmm. 

Mm-hmm. Or have you take it for me. Right. But if you don't have a j. 

Or 

to do your wildlife photography, 

or if you're on the, you know, on the tour and the guy next to you has a lens the size of your leg. 

Yes. 

Ask him, Hey, can you, can you drop?

Yeah. Ask. 

Mm-hmm. Yes. Absolutely. 

And most of the time they'll be like, excited about it. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

And I think that often, again, another advantage of tours is often they'll have something like a spotting scope or a tele or binoculars. Yes. If that's useful. 

Yep. 

So I wouldn't worry too much about buying gear.

To take with you to, 

yeah. 

Anyway, 

I, I think I agree with that. If you already have it 

Oh yeah. Or you mind as well, or you like kind of, you're great. Yeah. I'm not telling you not to do it, but I just Yeah. But don't get, I agree. Don't let that be a sticking point or a, or a concern. 

Yeah. One thing that I wanted to.

Just talk about before we wrap up this episode, Jay is a few of maybe our favorite either places or tips for if you are going to just, um, look for wildlife DY on your own. Yeah. Like what? And you, you have that time and patience. And what are some of your. Uh, like a couple of your either go-to spots or strategies and then I can share mine as well.

Um, I, one of the, one of my go-to tips will be, uh, dusk and dawn. Yeah. Which in Alaska, midsummer doesn't mean much. Mm-hmm. But it does in other, and, um, uh, water sources, and we haven't talked about moose, but, um, looking for moose is. Anytime you see a pond Yep. Next to the road, if you're on a bus or you're driving or you're on the train Yep.

You see a pond look on the margins of that pond, uh, for the moose feeding in that. It's just an iconic Alaskan view. 

Yes. 

And your odds are pretty high if you. You know, are driving down one of Alaskan's Road Alaska's roads and you kept, keep looking in those ponds. Yep. But look on the margins of water that, uh, like also look at a few pictures before you go out looking for something of that creature and, and look for what it is that's gonna jump out at you.

Yeah. Is it brown fur? Is it the way they move? Is it like, are you gonna be looking for them in a tree top, whatever, because it's actually, you kind of need to focus your brain on. What am I looking for? 

Yes. 

And you'll get after the first couple of times you like, you know, after you've seen a couple of musco herds, uh, muskox herds in a distance, you'll, you'll train your brain.

Yes. But one of the things with wildlife spotting and is, I can't tell you how many times I've had to have point out to someone, something that was quite close and they couldn't quite spot it. Yeah. And then, and then they spotted the next one before I saw. You know? 

Yeah. 

It's like you have to get your brain in on seeing.

Yeah. 

Uh, so I think that's another one. 

Yeah, I agree. I think those are really good tips. So maybe I'll just throw out to wrap up a few specific spots where I've seen a lot of wildlife mm-hmm. That, um, people are often visiting. So, um, for whales. Um, there are lots of coastal places where you can see whales mm-hmm.

In the distance. Mm-hmm. Um, if you're taking a cruise, definitely spend as much time as possible on the deck of the ship looking for whales. Mm-hmm. You will see many, many whales that way. That is an absolute sure thing. 

Absolutely. Yeah. 

Um, so that's one I, and then I'm thinking about birds, especially eagles.

I know some people live. In places like where you and I live, Jay in Seattle, where we see a lot of eagles at home. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um, that hasn't diminished my appreciation for seeing Eagles. So maybe for some people it does. Yeah, it hasn't for me. Um. But any coastal area of Alaska. Mm-hmm. I can almost guarantee you that you'll see eagles if you are looking Yep.

Looking for that golf. There'll 

be pool, there'll be 

in 

golf ball in the tree. 

Look for the white spot in a tallest tree. Yep. With a view of the water. 

Yep. And then also another pro tip is if you hang out near the harbor when the fishing charters are coming back. Yes. Places like Seward Valdez. Um, you know, there will just be tons of eagles flying around and it's kind of a cool thing.

And another thing is, and I don't wanna encourage bad behavior, but also look for where other people are looking. 

Yes. 

So if you see a group of people pulled over on the side of the road looking at something. Mike, check it out. Now, my former National Park service self will say, park your vehicle safely and off the road.

Yes, of course. Don't, don't walk traffic again. 

Stop in the middle of the highway. No, seriously. 

It never hap. But also, oh my God, it's a, it's a, it's so bad. Don't do that. Yeah. But, but watch or you see a cluster of boats. You know, like maybe, Hey, take a look over there. Because the thing is that that, um, one of the things, the secrets of like whale watching and some of these other is, is crowdsourcing.

Yeah. 

Right? So, uh, low frequency animals, something like a wolf. Very, very difficult to see. Um. And if you often I have seen them because someone else saw them. Yeah. And, and I stopped and saw them too. Yeah. So 

I think, um, the last one I wanted to mention is Moose, which you touched on. 

Mm-hmm. 

Mm-hmm. Um, moose, I would say of Alaska's kind of Big Five Mega Fauna is, um, probably the easiest to see on your own.

And so I wanted to throw out, um, three locations where. Maybe not a sure thing, but. Uh, pretty, if you're looking and not speeding and really paying attention, you have a very good chance of seeing moose. So one of those is along Chino Hot Springs Road. Mm-hmm. Um, out of Fairbanks. There are lots of ponds on both sides of the road.

I'm not sure I've ever driven out there without seeing a moose. Maybe once. Um, and then the other two places I was gonna mention are in Anchorage. One is Point Waroff, which is right by the airport. Right, 

right, right. 

I don't know why, but there's like always a moose there at Sunset. Always like all the time.

Well, they're 

scheduled. They rotate through. 

Yeah, they're on a No. Bruce the moose joke. No. Oh 

God. I was just, just wanted to go 

there, but I 

wouldn't 

No, no. 

Because 

we're 

trying to keep this one 

in time. No, no jokes. Yes. Um, 

can I throw out a, a flyer? Sure. I wanna say if you're driving the El Alaska highway, which you might be.

Yep. 

I wanna throw out a. A must do to me, which is to stop near, um, Kwani. 

Yep. 

Lake, uh, Kwani. There is a, uh, a trail and a pullout called Soldier Summit slash Sheep Mountain. Yep. And it's called Sheep Mountain because of the mountain sheep. 

Yep. 

Uh, doll sheep, and they are. All over the island. Very cool.

They're 

hundreds of them. 

Very cool. 

Yeah. 

Um, if you're driving the road often they're above you on the road sometimes like 10 feet above you on the road. Yeah. But it's completely unsafe to like stop there. 

Yeah. 

So you But, but do it, you know, use it to pull out and uh, just. Get a view up on the mountain and they're very cool.

They're one of my favorite parts of driving the AL Camp. 

Oh, absolutely. Yes. And another good place, um, for seeing them is along a tourniquet arm between Anchorage and Girdwood. There's frequently ones there too. One other place for moose, um, is Kincaid Park in Anchorage. Oh, yeah. Often has moose. 

Again, city park.

But yeah. Good moose 

for you. Yes. I I, my feeling is if you want. Seeing a bear to be a sure thing you need to do a tour. 

Yeah. 

I mean you, you have a very high chance of seeing a bear, but I feel like it's random, right? Like you just don't know when it's gonna Yeah. 

Plenty of people do a tour that don't 

actually happen.

And when I think about, I mean, they do an Alaska visit on my tours, especially the longer ones, we usually see at least one bear. But we've seen it in so many different places. It's not like the same. It's not like there's always a bear in this one spot. So those are my wildlife tips. 

I have one final, I think I'm wanna wrap.

Uh, and I know that we're out trying to keep this one on on time for once, but I have one thing which I wanna say I'm, I'm gonna give you a minute while I answer, is, uh, is there a, an unappreciated animal or viewing opportunity that you would throughout there that people may not have thought of or heard of?

And I, I'm going to answer that my own question with, um. Don't miss the chance to see salmon running. Yeah's a good one. And I know you don't think of them as wildlife. People think of like, oh, I want to go fishing, but don't miss the chance to see them. 

It's really cool. 

Uh, most of southeast Alaskans, Alaskas towns have a creek or a river because that's where the Juneau Ketchikan, um.

Um, Paines, you know, there are, there is a body of water flowing out that will have salmon running in it most of the summer. Various different kinds of salmon. Um, anchorage, uh, tons of areas in the, on the K Peninsula? 

Yeah. 

Yep. Where there's a river. Uh, even the Yukon River, the Tana River. Salmon running in.

They're harder to see in the glacial rivers because of the glacial silt in them, but it's really cool, especially like the red salmon running in the Russian or something like that, where it's just, 

yeah, 

intense. Color of the salmon running, and they're huge, you know, and they're, they're running and they're, I think that's a very, 

yeah.

Uh, and maybe you don't think of it as, as wildlife viewing right off the top of your head, but 

that's a good, that's a good one. I think related to that, I would answer bears at salmon runs in general. So Brooks Falls is the in cap. My national park is the police people know about. But really any river with salmon in it will have bears.

So that's the most sure thing there is. Depending on when your trip is, you've gotta figure that out and you've gotta be extremely. Careful. You have to be on, I was gonna say your bear safety. I 

was just gonna say, 

um, but you know, like you might in like rivers, like the Russian River, when the salmon are running on Kenai, you're not allowed to camp in a text there.

Right, 

right, 

right. For a good 

reason. 'cause the bears are 

Yeah. 

Thick. Yeah. 

So it's a, it's a big deal. You have to be very careful. You have to be on top of your bear safety. But I think that is an underrated right strategy 

for bear viewing. You could see that for bear viewing. Yeah. Lots of places besides the Brook Falls.

Yes. Brooks Falls. Yeah, 

absolutely.

Okay, bye.  📍 Bye. 

  





 





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Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
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Jay Flaming

Co-host