Chichagof Island Birding & Nature Adventure
Trip Highlights
Nesting Pigeon Guillemots
Nesting Bald Eagles
Salmon spawning in the rivers
Frequent Brown Bear sightings
A ½-mile walk through varied habitat, including some old growth spruce and hemlock
Description
In the lush vegetation of Chichagof Island, near Hoonah, Alaska, where Brown Bears outnumber humans, birding is an adventure! Your expert bird guide is also a naturalist, and you will learn about the natural and human history of the area, the plants, animals, fish, forests, and rivers. Pigeon Guillemots, Bald Eagles, Varied Thrushes, Steller’s Jays, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and Red-breasted Sapsuckers are some of the favorites, but this is so much more than just another birding tour. Come experience the vibrant ecological web created here, in Hoonah, Alaska, near Icy Strait Point where the towering temperate forests of Chichagof Island tangle with the rich marine life of Icy Strait.
Tour info
Why take this tour?
Do you feel like you haven’t truly experienced a place until you get to know the birds, plants, and animals? If so, we think you will love this excursion. At Icy Strait Birding Tours we love sharing our wild little corner of paradise, in Hoonah Alaska near Icy Strait Point with visitors from all over the world.
This land-based tour begins with a shuttle pick-up at the Icy Strait Point Excursion Hub, where you will be given a ride into the town of Hoonah (1.5 miles from Icy Strait Point), to meet your guide and transfer to the 15-passenger tour van. We will begin by making a few stops around town, including at a Bald Eagle nest and a small Pigeon Guillemot rookery. While at the rookery, we will use our high-powered spotting scope to scan the waters of Port Frederick for other seabirds, ducks, seals, or sea lions. Often Humpback Whales can be seen feeding right offshore! Next we will leave town, driving about 10 miles into the wilderness on gravel roads. Enroute to a walking trail, we will make a few stops at a scenic estuary, salmon streams, and anywhere that we encounter wildlife or birds of interest. Brown Bears, Sitka Black-tailed Deer, and American Mink are some of the most common mammals we encounter. The walking trail is where we see most of the tour’s smaller birds, such as sparrows, warblers, chickadees, swifts, wrens, flycatchers, kinglets, jays, and woodpeckers. We walk at a “birder’s pace” through a mixture of wooded habitats including some towering old growth Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock! Your guide will identify plants along the way and explain their traditional uses.
The trail winds down a 100ft hill before opening into a beautiful coastal uplift meadow, where we pause to enjoy the view and check for grassland birds before heading back to the van.
This is a perfect tour for birders, nature nerds and the insatiably curious. We know you will leave with a greater appreciation for Alaska’s rainforest ecosystem, but we hope you also will be inspired to learn more about the nature in your own backyard when you get home!
This tour is located in the Tongass National Forest, under special use permit from the Forest Service, USDA.
Included
Field guide booklet to 50 bird species and other wildlife commonly seen on our tours. (Yours to keep, and a handy way to keep track of your sightings!)
Binoculars
Spotting scope
A few trekking poles
Pick Up at Icy Strait Point Excursion Hub
All guests get a "Return to Ship Anytime Shuttle Pass" so you can Explore Hoonah!
Local Naturalist Guide
Back to Ship On-Time Guaranteed
Excluded
6.5% City sales tax
Drinks & Snacks - We encourage guest to bring a full reusable water bottle.
Gratuity - Never Expected - Always Appreciated if we did a good job!
$6.59 U.S. Forest Service National Park Fee
Frequently asked questions
Things to know
Mobility Issues
Guests must be able to climb in and out of a van several times throughout the tour & this tour includes a ½-mile walk on an uneven gravel path with some hills.
Guests must be able to climb in and out of a van several times throughout the tour & this tour includes a ½-mile walk on an uneven gravel path with some hills.
What to pack
We highly recommend bringing a rain jacket and waterproof footwear on your cruise and using them if the forecast for the day of your tour shows rain. If it has been raining a lot in the days before the tour, the trail will have some puddles.
We highly recommend bringing a rain jacket and waterproof footwear on your cruise and using them if the forecast for the day of your tour shows rain. If it has been raining a lot in the days before the tour, the trail will have some puddles.
Staying in the Vehicle
Guests will not be allowed to remain in the van while the rest of the group walks the trail, so this tour is not recommended for guests with walking difficulties.
Guests will not be allowed to remain in the van while the rest of the group walks the trail, so this tour is not recommended for guests with walking difficulties.
Cancellation Policy
To receive a full refund guests may cancel up to 24hrs before the date of their experience. If your cruise ship is scheduled to come to our port and does not make it to our port, or we have to cancel, this would also be a 100% refund. If you book for the wrong port and do not give the appropriate...
To receive a full refund guests may cancel up to 24hrs before the date of their experience. If your cruise ship is scheduled to come to our port and does not make it to our port, or we have to cancel, this would also be a 100% refund. If you book for the wrong port and do not give the appropriate 24 hour notice No Refund will be given, so please. double check the port and date before booking.
If you book a party of X and only show up with a party of Y, and do not give the appropriate notice, No Refund will be given. There will be no refund for cancelations less than 24hrs from the date of the expereince. We need at least this small period of time to try and sell last minute abandoned slots. Thank you for understanding! ***There is a booking fee applied to all online bookings. This fee will not be refunded on partial cancellations. It is refunded on full cancellations. We unfortunately have no control over this as a business.***
More Experiences
Guaranteed Whale Watching in the Icy Strait Point, Alaska Area
Our Hoonah whale watching tour begins when we pick you up at the Icy Strait Point Excursions Hub. We drive along Shaman Point to the Hoonah City Harbor where our charter boat is waiting. Along the way, you may spot some of our local wildlife, including bald eagles, blacktail deer, and more. Hoonah is home to the largest concentration of Alaskan brown bears in the world, so keep your eyes open!
We then board the boat and leave Hoonah Harbor. While traveling along the shorelines, sightings of bears, deer, coastal ducks and geese, blue heron, puffin, terns, cormorants, and more are common. In the water, you may get a chance to spot humpbacks, orca, sea otters, sea lions, porpoises, and seals.
Large numbers of humpback whales come to Hoonah to feed in the nutrient-rich waters of Point Adolphus, Glacier Bay and Icy Strait every summer before migrating south again in the winter. The whale population begins to arrive in Hoonah in May and stays through September. Humpback whales are large baleen whales that can reach over 50 feet in length and weigh as much as 50 tons. They are most famous for their whale songs, thought to be used by males as a mating call. Humpbacks are amazingly active and typical whale sightings include diving, blows, and flukes (tails). Lucky whale watchers may get to see breaching or bubble-net feeding, a cooperative feeding method where a pod forms a circle and dives under the water. They blow air to create a wall of bubbles that force krill and plankton to the surface where the whales can eat them. Observing humpbacks practice bubble-net feeding is a real treat and a truly thrilling experience. We have a $100 whale sighting guarantee! If a whale is not sighted on your tour your will be credited $100.
Wilderness Tour and Brown Bear Search
Chichagof Island, or Shee Kaax, is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Alaska Panhandle. At 75 miles long and 50 miles wide, it has a land area of 2,048.61 square miles, making it the fifth largest island in the United States. Chichagof Island has the highest population of bears per square mile of any place on Earth and its dense rain forests are some of the last grizzly strongholds!
The community of Hoonah, with a year-round population of approximately 750, is located in the northern part of Chichagof Island. The vast majority of the island is made up of pure, uninhabited Alaskan wilderness teeming with wildlife! The Ursus arctos, or brown bear, is the king of the forest, but Sitka black-tail deer, bald eagles, minks, martens, beavers, ducks, and seabirds thrive on the island and are sometimes spotted on this tour.
This Alaskan wilderness and bear search tour is only offered May through September because those are the months that afford the highest probability of bear sightings. In late April and May, the bears are coming out of hibernation and looking for food. In June, the bears are mating and eating grasses on the tidal flats. Older males fight each other for dominance and mating rights with the females, who at times are not receptive and force the male to give chase.
In July, the salmon start their migration from the ocean up the rivers and we find the bears feeding in coastal rivers and streams. In August and September, the salmon have made it further up the rivers to shallow streams where the bears chase them.
Depending on the month and the weather, the wildlife can be found in different locations throughout the island. Your guide spends a lot of time in the forest and knows where to look.
Join us as we search for these amazing creatures!
This tour is located on the Tongass National Forest under special use permit from the Forest Service, USDA.
Icy Strait Fishing Adventure
Fishermen come from around the world to cast their lines in the waters of Southeast Alaska in search of halibut and salmon. Join the ranks of these traveling fisherman and book a trip with us today!
Icy Strait Kayak Adventure
The reasons to Kayak with us are endless! A few reasons might be to experience unspoiled nature and stunning scenery amid a mountainous back drop! Or simply the serenity and peace that speaks to ones soul while gliding silently across the water in this majestic, remote location.