Amazing Alaskan cruise through the Inside Passage with Princess Cruises

ALASKA'S wild frontier is enjoying a new gold rush, in tourist dollars, as visitors spend up big both on land and at sea, writes Brad Crouch.

The Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge on the edge of the Denali National Park. Picture: Supplied

AS a wild frontier where nature rules, Alaska is not hard to handle, a conclusion that came to mind while basking in a hot tub pool.

I was on the rear deck of a luxury cruise ship, watching a massive glacier carve a huge iceberg, sending waves and artillery-like echoes across a remote fjord. Alaska's pioneers, such as those heading to the Klondike and Nome gold rushes, certainly did it tough in this vast land of extremes. However, tourism is new for this spectacular State and a host of well-credentialed operators make it easy to mix adventure with comfort. While an Alaskan cruise through the Inside Passage is a highlight for any traveller, the distance involved in getting there from Australia justifies adding a land tour. Many operators offer "cruise tours'' where you start with a land segment through the Alaskan interior as well as neighbouring Canada then relax - and unpack once - with a cruise. Land tours might take in the Canadian Rockies, a ride on the Rocky Mountaineer Train, visiting places like Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Whistler, the Icefields Parkway, the Columbia Icefield and Athabasca Glacier, and plenty more attractions. A Princess cruise-tour focused on Alaska took us to the heart of the so-called Last Frontier in the short summer, where on a good day you can get away with shorts and a jumper while marvelling at snow-topped mountains and spruce forests. A long-haul flight finally ending in Fairbanks in central-east Alaska had us based at the Princess Wilderness Lodge for exploring including a cruise up the Chena River gawking at beavers building dams between stops at an Athabascan indigenous village and a dog mushing farm. A four-hour ride in a glass domed train to soak up the views later took us to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge (pictured below) on the edge of the vast Denali National Park, home to majestic Mt McKinley, while a third stay was at the Mt McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge within view of the 6194m mountain. During the land tour, excursion options on the long daylight summer days ranged from jetboat rides and 4WD trips to wilderness bushwalks, visits to gold mines, pioneer villages and spotting wildlife such as moose, bears and eagles. The Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge on the edge of the Denali National Park. Picture: Supplied The luxury lodges with their huge fireplaces, warming meals and evening entertainment were a welcome retreat after full, active days exploring the "Greatland''. The land tour ended in Whittier, near Anchorage, where the gracious liner Coral Princess awaited in a sheltered bay for the next leg of the adventure, a seven-night Inside Passage cruise. It makes a home away from home - after unpacking it took time to explore a ship almost 300m long with more than 2000 guests and 1000 crew, indoor and outdoor heated pools, large show lounge, Broadway-style theatre, casino, deckside cinema screen, and multiple bars and restaurants. A series of blue-sky days saw us sailing largely protected waters seeing orcas and humpback whales, dolphins and seals, plenty of glaciers but few signs of humans. Three port stops were each an experience, and none needed boat transfers. Skagway is a tiny outpost seemingly frozen in time, a wild settlement on a deepwater harbour that was the gateway to the Yukon gold rush in 1878. When cruise ships call, its souvenir stores and saloons with swing doors do a roaring trade as visitors meander the town's wooden footpaths. Excursion options include a bus ride to the Yukon suspension bridge to see what the gold "stampeders'' endured, or for a more bawdy slice of life let the lady guides at the Red Onion Saloon feed you breakfast then walk you through what was a gold rush bordello -all good clean fun. Ketchikan is bigger but just as colourful, calling itself the salmon capital of the world. Streams flowing through the town are full of fish, and a must-do excursion here is a floatplane ride over forests to Neets Bay to see black bears standing in a broad fast-flowing stream swiping out metre-long salmon. Visitors can get reasonably close, while the bears are too busy fishing to worry about onlookers as bald eagles and other birds pick up scraps. The Alaskan State capital Juneau can only be reached by ship or plane, and tours here included the Mendellhall glacier with its waterfalls, forests and interpretative centre. However, for glaciers the view from Coral Princess is hard to beat. Glacier Bay is an incredible standout for scenic cruising. A fjord carved from a single massive glacier in the isolated Glacier Bay National Park, it is home to about 20 glaciers carving new valleys as they roll inexorably to the water's edge. Our floating resort stopped for about an hour in front of the magnificent Margerie Glacier. At 33km long, 1.5km wide and about 100m high its sheer size takes a while to comprehend. Most people were on deck marvelling at this work of ar. Under clear blue skies and sunshine I watched in wonder as Margerie gave birth to a prodigious chunk of ice the size of a building that joined other ice floes in the fjord to start a new career as an iceberg. The writer travelled courtesy of Princess Cruises.