Valdez is where the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, that I followed for five hundred miles along the Dalton Highway from Deadhorse until Fairbanks, terminates. The pipeline carries millions and millions of gallons of crude oil each year over the eight hundred miles that lie between the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and the port at Valdez. The pipeline’s existence, and all that it entails, has always been controversial in Alaska, constantly pitting committed environmentalists against equally dedicated pro-developmentalists. It was here, in Valdez, that the oil which caused the devastation on Prince William Sound was loaded onto the Exxon Valdez shortly before it ran aground on Bligh Reef.

The holding tanks at Valdez at the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

In July, Valdez is swarming with tourists who come to fish in waters that are positively seething with running salmon. Competing with the tourists are bears, seals, sea lions, bald headed eagles and a host of other wildlife. On my way out of town, I cycle ten miles off the highway to witness this feeding frenzy before tackling the Thompson Pass.

The scene is slightly bizarre – RV’s are lined up in parking bays along the road and their owners are lined up along the shore, in droves, hauling fish out of the water and then, for the most part, simply throwing them back.

Tourists fishing for salmon in Valdez.

There are bear crossing warning signs at strategic points on the road and large flashing illuminated signs implore people not to approach fishing bears. I didn’t, however, see any bears myself.

Traffic.

Bald-headed eagles perch on the tree tops, calming surveying the fishing prospects from the land, while sea-lions, seals and sea otters advance from the water. The sea is murky and so for the most part the fish are not clearly visible, only the occasional dorsal fin breaks the surface.

I chat for a while with a woman who is patiently waiting while her husband fishes. We share her binoculars to get a closer look at the animals while she tells me about the bear she saw playing on the shore yesterday evening. I wonder whether I should stay for a night in the hope of a repeat performance but I find the whole scene a little disconcerting and so eventually I decide to tackle the pass instead.

Cycles are prohibited from entering the tunnel but the bored attendants collecting the toll are clearly intrigued and impressed by the idea of my journey. They direct me to sit prominently on a convenient rock next to the ‘restrooms’ while they solicit a lift for me with someone in a pick-up truck, the preferred vehicle of the majority in Alaska.

Before long I have a ride with a couple who have won a dinner on a cruise ship that will tour twenty-six glaciers on the Prince William Sound during the meal. They drop me at a fish and chip restaurant on the Whittier wharf and I indulge in fried halibut and chips while waiting for the 2.45 ferry. There are not many passengers travelling on the ferry and we are quickly loaded when the time comes.

The Aurora chugs effieciently out of Whittier as Jim, a US Fish and Wildlife Services officer, introduces himself and lists some of the marine animals we might expect to see in the waters of the Sound on the five hour trip to Valdez; humpback whales, minke and orca, seals, sea lions, a range of porpoises, sea otters. We head down the narrow Passage Canal and then enter broader waters and it is true – wildlife abounds.

Seals bob gently up and down, peeping shyly above the surface. A pod of unflamboyant porpoises appears as a briefly visible series of intermittent curved lines. A humpback whale also doesn’t give much away – a dark line above the surface, a gentle exhalation. Sea lions huff and puff more noisily like portly men unaccustomed to exercise, while sea otters loll indolently on their backs, grinning amiably as they watch the world go by.

Most things are happening underneath, unseen. The whale flips a tail fluke and slides under, into the depths. The calm surface is inscrutable and the scale of the invisible underwater realm hard to grasp. We pass a distant glacier and a mass of delicate blue ice floes float by, intricately carved by wind, water and sun.

A massive oil tanker sits on the horizon. Talk turns to the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, probably still the worst environmental catastrophe to ever occur at sea, and I ask Jim whether he was involved in the clean up attempts after the disaster. He falls silent for a moment. “No,” he says, “I couldn’t face it.” He pauses again. “I could have tore my heart out,” he adds.

Later he tells me, grieving still, that his children will never see the Sound as he saw it. The herring, among other species, haven’t recovered, twenty years on, and they are the base of the food chain. Dig on the beaches and you will still find oil there – almost 11 million gallons of oil were spilt and only 3 million gallons removed.

Islands on Prince William Sound.

Floating ice floes.

Holy blue ice.

Sea lions on a marker buoy.