Alaska is one of the last truly wild places in North America, and is aptly considered our modern day “last frontier.” The wildlife and landscape opportunities here are like no place else. Join me for 9 days, 8 nights on an amazing Alaska Wildlife Photo Adventure.

This workshop coincides with the Pacific Herring spawning season, one of the largest spring herring spawning occurrences on the west coast of North America. The widely distributed herring biomass is an essential resource for the existence of almost all marine wildlife in the Pacific Northwest. The herrings’ annual event is a celebration of this crucial component of southeast Alaska’s natural environment.

Bald eagles gather by the thousands here, lining the tall tress along the shoreline with their majestic, stark white heads. The eagles’ keen eyesight and winter-long hunger leads to a more formidable aerial presence; we will keep our cameras ready as we watch their elegant dives into the cold water, clutching herring by the talon full. Seals and Steller sea lions rush through the tremendous schools of herring that ribbon the shallow waters. Humpback whales demonstrate a variety of foraging tactics to capture the extremely elusive schools of herring. It is not uncommon for us to witness the whales breaching, fluking, spouting, and displaying the fascinating ‘bubble-net’ feeding behavior up close.

Of course, the Alaskan marine feeding frenzy would not be complete without an appearance of the ocean’s top predator, the killer whale. The orca’s nomadic travels most definitely include a ‘layover’ at this epic seafood buffet. At times, we may be lucky enough to witness a pod hunting or migrating up close to our ship.

Weather permitting, we may get a chance to do a few on shore excursions to explore the unique, mossy beauty of the Tongass Temperate Rain Forest, with its black bears, brown bears, mountain goats, arctic turns, marbled murrelet, long-tailed ducks, common Pacific yellow-billed loons, black oyster catchers, and much more.

During this workshop, we travel aboard a privately chartered 84-foot world-class expedition yacht, navigating through massive fjords, glaciers, and icebergs, and more. This luxurious vessel was designed and constructed from steel with the same rugged integrity of vessels built for Alaska’s renowned commercial fisheries. It provides both comfort and accessibility to the most remote locations in southeast Alaska.

An onboard private chef prepares locally caught salmon, crab, halibut, shrimp, caviar and black cod purchased specifically for our culinary interests. Dinner will be served alongside a selection of boutique wines or specialty beers from Alaskan Brewing Company in Juneau, chosen by our Captain.