Fortunately, I soon learned, Kenai Fjords National Park offers more than glaciers. The fiords, themselves, are a beautiful accident of nature that owe their existence to the grinding of ice. Glaciers carved the fiords, and glaciers still stand around with their toes in the water, admiring their handiwork. One of the Chiswell Islands in Kenai Fjords. Both Kenai and Katmai would feature prime real estate for creatures.
Wildlife tends to flock in after the big geological conflicts have been momentarily settled.
Battling tectonic plates had left a string of mountains along southern Alaska. Snow in the mountains formed glaciers that ground down the sandstone and shale, sliced through river beds and, over time, lowered the entire Kenai Range. The result is a fantastic landscape of water and rock and trees with a heavy population of birds, fish and sea-loving mammals. My trip to Kenai Fjords began with an early-morning stroll through empty Anchorage streets toward the train station. I had been expecting a slightly more exotic town, given its far remove from the lower 48.