Alaska & the Inside Passage
Tidewater glaciers calve half a mile off the foredeck, humpbacks feed beside the tender, and the nearest crowd is a permit system away.
The Inside Passage is what charter looked like before charter: a thousand-mile lattice of sheltered water threaded between the Coast Mountains and the open Pacific, where the evening entertainment is a glacier dropping office-blocks of ice into your anchorage. Juneau — a state capital with no road in — is the hub; from there it is a short run to Tracy Arm's twin Sawyer glaciers, the brown-bear flats of Admiralty Island and the humpback grounds of Frederick Sound. Glacier Bay, the crown, admits just twenty-five private vessels a day in season. This is the rare place where a yacht is not a way of arriving — it is the only way in.
“We watched a glacier calve at breakfast and never saw another boat all day.”
The gallery
Signature anchorages
The Americas' wildest charter water: twin glaciers calving into Tracy Arm, brown bears fishing the Pack Creek flats, and humpbacks bubble-netting in Frederick Sound.
- Reid Inlet, Glacier BayThe park's favourite overnight — a small bight with its own tidewater glacier at its head, deep inside waters that admit only twenty-five private vessels a day.
- Tracy Arm Cove, Holkham BayThe staging anchorage for the Sawyer glaciers — well protected behind its bar, with icebergs grounding and refloating past the swim platform on every tide.
- Ford's Terror, Endicott ArmA granite hideaway entered through a tidal gate at slack water — named for the naval oarsman trapped six hours by the rip — and utterly still once inside.
- Red Bluff Bay, Baranof IslandChromite-red cliffs at the entrance, a waterfall at the head and flat-calm water for the toys; brown bears fish the salmon stream in August.
- Warm Springs Bay, Baranof IslandAnchor beside a thirty-metre waterfall and walk the boardwalk to natural hot-spring baths — nine springs, up to 48°C — staring down Chatham Strait.
- Cannery Cove, Pybus BayAdmiralty Island's postcard anchorage: mountain-ringed and calm, with Dungeness crab in the pots and some of the island's 1,500 brown bears on the meadows.
The scene
Celebration, Juneau
The largest gathering of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples — up to 2,000 dancers converge on the capital every second June; the 2026 edition, themed Enduring Strength, ran 3–6 June.
Sitka Music Festival
Alaska's premier chamber-music series fills Sitka each June — the 55th season ran 1–28 June 2026, complete with a classical-music cruise and a community crab feed.
Golden North Salmon Derby
Juneau's three-day king-and-coho hunt, run by Territorial Sportsmen since 1947; the 80th edition runs 7–9 August 2026.
Little Norway Festival, Petersburg
The fishing town settled by Norwegians throws its Syttende Mai party every mid-May; the 68th edition ran 15–17 May 2026 around Norway's Constitution Day.
John Muir's Glacier Bay
Muir came up the Inside Passage by Tlingit dugout canoe in 1879, chasing reports of an 'ice-mountain' — his dispatches, later in The Century Magazine, made Glacier Bay famous.
Table & stay ashore
In Bocca al Lupo, Juneau
Beau Schooler's wood-fired Italian-Alaskan — handmade pasta, wild salmon — named one of The New York Times' 50 best restaurants in America in 2023; Schooler is a six-time James Beard nominee.
Tracy's King Crab Shack, Juneau
Bering Sea king crab cracked at communal dockside tables since 2006 — a Food & Wine and Condé Nast Traveler favourite, steps from the tender dock.
Ludvig's Bistro, Sitka
Mediterranean technique on seafood straight off Sitka's boats — the town's bistro of record, tucked along the waterfront.
Pearson's Pond Luxury Inn & Adventure Spa, Juneau
Alaska's only AAA Four Diamond resort, hidden in rainforest minutes from the Mendenhall Glacier — the pre-charter night, sorted.
Baranof Wilderness Lodge, Warm Springs Bay
A fly-in lodge on Baranof Island's east coast, reached by floatplane from Sitka — fishing, whales and the hot springs at the door.
A week, sketched
Juneau
Board at Auke Bay's Statter Harbor, then take the helicopter up to the Juneau Icefield while the crew slips the lines.
Tracy Arm
Forty miles south the fjord narrows to the twin Sawyer glaciers; hold station as the ice calves, then anchor in Tracy Arm Cove among the bergs.
Endicott Arm & Ford's Terror
Run the iceberg lane to Dawes Glacier, then slip through the tidal gate into Ford's Terror at slack water for the quietest night of the season.
Admiralty Island
Tender in for permitted brown-bear viewing on the Pack Creek flats, then round to Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay and drop the crab pots at dusk.
Frederick Sound & Warm Springs
The summer humpback grounds — bubble-net feeding, breaches off the bow — before a soak in the hot-spring baths at Baranof Warm Springs.
Red Bluff Bay & Peril Strait
A waterfall anchorage under chromite-red cliffs, then thread Peril Strait towards the outer coast.
Sitka
Russian cathedral, Tlingit history and the prettiest small-boat harbour in Alaska; disembark by jet from SIT.
Pair with
Plan this water
Alaska & the Inside Passage
Tidewater glaciers, brown bears and bubble-netting humpbacks in a thousand miles of sheltered fjord — the Americas' wildest charter water, entered on permits.