(bell chiming) - I'm Lynn Elmhurst.

I'm a travel journalist with a deep passion for sailing the high seas.

My most cherished travel experiences have been by water.

The spectacular scenery, fascinating ships, and maritime traditions you can only experience when you cruise.

When the whole world went into dry dock, I abided my time by diving into my library of footage to relive some of my favorite travel memories on the world's greatest cruises.

(ship honks) (jaunty instrumental music) (water whooshing) For me, a cruise to Alaska's like a Northern maritime safari with snow capped, forested mountains, glaciers, whales, and wildlife.

Today on World's Greatest Cruises, we're sailing up the Northwest coast of north America from Vancouver to the port nearest Anchorage, Alaska.

But a voyage to America's last frontier doesn't necessarily mean a pioneer lifestyle.

We're among about 750 guests and 550 crew onboard the Regents Seven Seas Explorer.

The first in its new Explorer class of ships.

With its multimillion dollar art collection, you find yourself suddenly coming face to face with works by artists like Picasso, illuminated by one of 500 crystal chandeliers, giving us nearly as much sight-seeing on board our ship as beyond its teak rails.

Our voyage hugs the coast along the inside passage, around islands and fjords, bays and inlets, to isolated communities and many places you can't get to by road, making cruising possibly the best way to discover the icy scenery, wilderness, marine residence, and local delicacies of America's 49th state.

(gentle music) We sail away from Vancouver's seaside skyline, saying goodbye to the city life with its skyscrapers and busy streets.

As the scenery transitions from urban center to tree covered mountains and the sparkling waters of the inside passage, we say hello to shipboard life and a new kind of neighborhood.

Regent Seven Seas cruises has a tradition.

One of the first events on board gives us the opportunity to meet the people who will be our neighbors for the next week.

(bell chiming) - [Andy] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is your cruise director, Andy, and we are getting ready for one of the greatest traditions here on Regent Seven Seas, and that is our ship-wide block party.

Come dressed as you are, get your wine glasses from your suite, and go out in the corridor.

You'll get a chance to meet some of your fellow guests who will live in your neighborhood.

I'm in my running kilt and will make a mad dash through every single corridor of the ship and say hello.

It's going to be a great block party.

- Rosario, yeah, that's why, I guess, he stays so slim because he's running around floor to floor.

(indistinct) - [Woman] And so much more fun when the captain comes to the party.

- I agree.

- Hey neighbors, wanna come in and see my suite?

- [Woman] Yes, please!

- Looks like a woman who needs a glass of champagne.

- I would like a glass of champagne, thank you.

- There we go.

(cork pops) (glasses clink) - Oh, the captain must be here.

Hello.

Nice to meet you.

(Speaking Foreign Language) Very nice to meet you.

We hear you're a fast runner.

- I'm really a fast runner.

I love to run.

That's my daily exercise, actually.

(Lynn laughs) - What's it like doing the block party?

- It's a long time tradition that I am there.

The people love it.

- So nice meeting you.

I'm Andy, the Cruise Director.

(Lynn clears throat) I have a little Scottish heritage, and so I thought this was a good day to wear my kilt.

- What is your favorite part of the block party?

- It is meeting everyone, because we must have, of the 750 guests, I'm sure we have 600 that come out.

All of a sudden it feels like a neighborhood.

(group chatter) (Lynn laughs) - Whoa, cheers.

- Cheers.

- And that's what we call a block party!

(upbeat drum music) (acoustic guitar music) - [Lynn] Our first port of call: Ketchikan, Alaska.

pulling into dock right downtown, from the top deck of our ship we may have the very best view over the rooftops of the city.

They call Ketchikan Alaska's first city and it lives up to that name in a couple of ways.

This is the beginning of the last frontier.

Ketchikan's on an island, right at the Southern entrance to the Alaskan inland passage, making it a natural first port of call now, and historically, too.

Downtown Ketchikan's a national historic district where the past is still very front and center.

Maybe nowhere more than on Creek Street, where you feel like you entered a time warp into real frontier days.

Delicate looking stilts hold up candy colored buildings where loggers, miners and fishermen went, frankly, to behave badly.

Ketchikan's also Alaska's first city, as the oldest incorporated city still in existence in the state.

As remote as Ketchikan seems, it's actually Alaska's second biggest cruise port, And that gives you a sense of the size of some of the communities we'll be visiting.

The town quickly disappears into the emerald Tongass National Forest surrounding it, and surrounding the whole island, of course, is the sea.

At a nearby lodge, we board a boat to get out on the water and up close to one of Alaska's prized delicacies.

- For those of you who have been here, have you been to the George Inlet before?

- No.

- So this is the first time at the George Inlet Lodge?

Exciting, folks!

Let's take off.

Let's make some new memories together.

(upbeat acoustic music) - [Lynn] The waters of Alaska are rich with several types of crab.

It's a controlled fishery with tens of millions of pounds of these tasty crustaceans are landed every year and sold around the world.

Even small scale, local coastal crowd fishing gives us a feel for the thrill of the catch.

- [Man] Looks like lunch!

- [Andy] I know!

(indistinct) - [Lynn] Let's grab this big guy out of here, shall we?

see if we can get you a female.

You can see the difference here.

So I'm gonna put the male on the right, female on the left.

The way you can tell the difference is males have a narrow triangle belly, females have the dome shape belly.

Have fun here?

Now some of you may be wondering, are we allowed to keep the females?

no, we are not.

Any ideas why?

- [Group] They're the most dominant species.

- [Lynn] Exactly, reproduction.

Now there're legal size limit.

Does anybody know?

- [Group] Six inches?

- [Lynn] Six and a half.

So yeah, six and a half inches lucky number for us.

Not so lucky for them.

What does he measure?

So, seven inches.

If you're scared to hold the crabs, don't worry.

This is the easiest and the safest way.

This is way number one.

When you put him upside down, he literally goes to sleep.

That's called tonic immobility.

One more time.

Whoop.

(Lynn laughs) So no worries if you're scared.

Way number two is on this plate.

So, put your hand in a cup and then stick him right on this plate.

Okay?

Way number three is the fun way, here in Alaska, and that is, of course, by the pinchers.

Now you hold on the meat of the pinchers there on the side.

If you hold on the spines like this, that gets really pokey really fast and then you're just gonna wanna drop 'em.

So on this side is the way you do so, but since this is most of our guys' first experience here in Alaska crabbing, we're gonna stick him on as a crab hat.

(group chatter) (group laughs) Another great photo opportunity.

And if you're feeling real brave you let go in the pictures.

(indistinct) Oh, he's moving!

(laughs) Yeah, I know it.

It's all good.

(acoustic guitar music) - [Lynn] Nothing like a brisk morning on the water to work up an appetite.

Back to dry land and the lodge where drogues of diners come by air, sea and road to get a taste of the daily catch.

Here, the freshest seafood imaginable is just part of daily life.

- Hey, look at that.

- Hey, there is.

- Can you see it?

(indistinct chatter) - That's awesome.

- The lodge outside of Ketchikan is a building with a past.

It was once a cannery bunkhouse moved here to the site of an old gold mine.

Now it's a gold mine of local culture and hospitality.

Following a crab from underwater pot to cooking pot to your plate is an essential Alaskan experience.

Ironically, for such a culinary delicacy, eating crabs legs is the opposite of delicate.

The mess is table stakes.

when it comes to tasting fresh crab from the shell, I think the work makes you feel like you've earned a decadent breakfast.

- I think it's not even nine yet- - Breakfast for the champions.

- But certainly five o'clock somewhere, I guess.

- Crab and, uh, the local beer.

- [Ryan] Exactly.

Yeah.

- So Ryan and I- - Okay.

- Are challenging each other to see which of us can crack all of our crab first.

- All right.

- So we'd like some tips from you to start.

- Okay.

So what you wanna do is you're gonna grab it right up here at the white base and separate like that.

So if you don't do that, when you don't grab at the base, let's say you grab down here.

What's gonna happen is you're gonna break it right there.

You're gonna miss out on this big chunk of body meat up here.

- What did you call that?

- This is your Alaskan lollipop.

- Cool.

- Just dip straight in your butter, but from here, you know, wherever it bends, you're gonna wanna break him.

- Yeah.

- So he bends right there.

(bone breaking) So just break him like that.

- And I already see things flying through the air.

- Yep.

- [Ryan] Yeah, exactly.

(Lynn laughs) (indistinct chatter) I think that got me.

- But from here on the opposite side of this Alaskan lollipop, you have this big white V cartilage there.

- Yeah.

- So then from here, what you wanna do is grab your fork and you slide one prong of your fork in it like this, and this is where you turn to each other and throw some crab shell at each other.

(Ryan laughs) - It's coming.

(Lynn laughs) - Exactly.

- [Ryan] I'd been wanting to throw a lot of things at you over the years, so- - Now you get your chance.

- [Ryan] Now I get my chance.

- What that does is it creates a slit right down the center.

- Uh Huh.

- And I'm gonna separate it like that.

- Oh.

And look at that.

- [Ryan] Nice.

- Perfect.

Right on top for you.

- Okay.

- So then when you get to the claw here, this pincher, what we're gonna do is just lift it til you hear it click and then you can slide it straight out, just like that and straight out like this.

So now you can take these.

(cutlery clatters) - Crackers.

- [Ryan] And then they (indistinct)- - The tool.

- Yep.

From here, just place it on there like this and clamp down until you hear it crunch real good.

(bone crunching) And then there we go.

- There's something very primeval about cracking crab I think- - yeah, from here you can use your hands.

- Like caveman.

- Get that giant chunk of crab out of there.

- Yum.

So are we allowed to make a mess?

- You can.

It's encouraged actually.

(Lynn laughs) - Do you clean it off the actual- - Yeah, we'll, every two weeks, we'll come in, completely scrub the room, wash the windows, wash the ceiling, definitely the carpets, everything.

(Lynn laughs) So, yeah.

- Okay, awesome.

- [Ryan] Awesome.

- All right.

- Thanks so much, Greg.

- [Ryan] We're gonna get to it.

- So we have to crack all of this - All of it.

and see who gets through it faster.

- Don't eat any of it though.

- Okay I won't.

Be warned, I fully intend to spray you.

(laughs) - Okay, perfect.

- Okay let's go.

- All right let's go.

If it bends it breaks.

- If it bends it breaks.

(acoustic music) - [Greg] You all need another crab?

- We are oh... We're still on the first one, Greg!

(upbeat music) one, two, three.

(bone crunches) - I hate to tell you this, (Lynn grasps) but I'm actually done.

- And, also, may I point out how much work that is for that much result?

- I need a beer.

- Well, I first need to shake your greasy hand, your slimy hand.

- That was gross.

(Lynn and Ryan laughing) - Oh.

Melt in your mouth.

- Oh hello, friend.

Look at that.

(cutlery clatters) - Just got myself in the eye.

(Lynn laughs) - It's the sign of a good crab feast right there.

Just a one last lonely potato.

We gotta get going, Lynn.

- Okay.

Honestly, any minute now.

- [Ryan] Lets go now.

- Any minute now.

- Alaska.

Crabs.

(uplifting music) - [Lynn] From sea level to bird's eye view.

We're not exactly as eagle-eyed as our winged friends around here, but even on a foggy day, the view of the coast and untouched forests gives us a real sense of fastness of America's last frontier.

(jaunty music) Alaska has six and a half thousand miles of coastline.

That's more than all the other states combined.

The sea plane view hints at Alaska's remote and untouched shorelines, and it gives us a rare view of our docked ship from overhead as we return to the port in Ketchikan.

(upbeat music) - What did you think of that flight?

- Well, that's a once in a lifetime thing, There's no doubt about that.

- [Lynn] I mean, just beautiful scenery.

We were worried about that and the clouds are pretty low today and it was misting, but we were able to see some beautiful scenery and just where the water meets the land, and the colors, and the richness of the life.

And I mean really once in a lifetime scenery, and the viewpoint from the air is so spectacular.

It's a completely different perspective from the ground.

- [Ryan] Planes, trains and automobiles.

That's Alaska.

(upbeat music) (ship engine whirs) - [Lynn] Alaska's state capital stands on one of the largest wilderness areas in the United States.

About midway up the mainland Alaskan panhandle, Juno covers an area of over 3000 square miles.

Only 14 of those are urban.

No wonder Juno's been a cruise destination for over a century.

There's still a cruise greeter today.

Who dates back to that time.

This bronze statue on the cruise ship dock is Patsy Anne.

She was a deaf bull terrier who arrived in Juno in 1929, quickly became a beloved town mascot who was somehow still able to detect the whistles of arriving ships and endearingly raced to greet every single one.

The town's beloved canine was named Official Greeter of Juno in the '30s, and her statue carries on her tradition today.

The artist included clippings of dog hair from around the world in Patsy Anne's statue, symbolizing the universal connection between dogs and their humans.

Visitors are encouraged to greet her and touch her.

and in leaving, carry with you the blessings of friendship through your life's journey.

(water whooshes) So many times in our ports of call in Alaska, you hear some splashing in a stream flowing down from the mountains and you look down and realize that's salmon thrashing round, right at your feet.

Salmon, along with crab, of course, really put Alaska on the world's culinary map.

So of course the next thing that comes to my mind is dinner.

A chef on board was on the same page.

- Today we are cooking the Alaskan Redskin salmon straight from Alaska, with the crab hollandaise and the butter potato and butter asparagus.

So we will start cooking our dish from the hollandaise sauce.

so we need the white wine to make the reduction.

We need the shallots, I chop them up, and what we need to do?

We need to reduce them (cutlery clatters) until the white wine becomes almost dry.

Egg yolk inside of the bowl.

And we add the wine inside of the egg yolk.

(upbeat music) We are mixing the egg white with the white wine.

So we put on top of the water bath and we start to whisk.

So when you finish with the hollandaise, always keep the hollandaise in the warm place.

You can see the texture of the egg yolk become more thicker.

And basically you whisk until it's become the soft peaks Like you do with the meringue.

I think this is good enough.

Then we add our melted butter slowly.

Of course, at the end, we need to season with pepper, lemon juice, and of course, salt.

Here we go, our hollandaise is ready and we keep for a while on the side.

Their flesh is beautiful.

It has the nice color.

And you can see the it's quite fatty.

I prefer the seasoning for the salmon.

You can choose your own seasoning, Which one you like, yeah?

But I make the blend from nutmeg, sugar, salt, black pepper, little bit onion seeds, and coriander.

Season the fish nicely from both side.

(ambient music) And you put straight in the pan, make sure the pan is hot.

If you put in the cold pan, it become sticky.

So as you see, salmon is cooking, not stick to the pan because of the fat content of the fish.

I prefer to cook salmon medium to medium rare.

It's still a little bit under done in the middle, but nice and crispy outside.

But if you prefer to cook well done, you cook it well done.

You are the chef, you know?

On the kitchen.

You can see the sugar is caramelizing and you have the nice black spots.

Three-four minutes from each side to get it done.

Depends on the size of the steak.

So the hollandaise sauce, we will finish with the crab meat because the crab meat is coming from Alaska as well.

And you have different taste from the fish, and from the seafood in the same dish.

You put some chopped chives.

Here we go.

So you put the fish straight on the plate, three piece of potato.

Three piece of asparagus, just right on top of the fish.

And we put our crab hollandaise just over the fish and asparagus.

And we garnish with chives.

Very simple.

Alaskan Redskin salmon with the crab hollandaise, butter asparagus and parsley potato.

We are in Alaska.

The fish is fresh.

Goes together with the hollandaise and the crab meat, again from Alaska.

I'm sure you will enjoy it.

(upbeat music) (ambient music) - [Lynn] Our last port of call before we exit the inside passage, Sitka.

Sitka is on the outside coast of an island in the inside passage and in the heart of one of the largest temperate rainforests in the world.

That makes it the ideal place for one of the highlights of our cruise, an Alaskan style safari.

We are really excited to be in Alaska.

- Mmh!

- Of course, one of the things that excites us most is wildlife and this, we're told, is one of the best places to see wildlife.

- Yes.

- Tell us about that and why that is.

- I think it's just because of the amount of wildlife that we have here.

There's like a very densely populated amount of eagles and otters and whales, sea lions, and seals.

And then of course, all the bird life that we have, it's all in a, in a short distance to get to.

So you can come here to Sitka and you can see all of those things within two or three hours.

And I don't think that's something that you can't get at a lot of other places.

I think that's what draws people here and you get to see these animals behaving naturally in their natural environment.

- And Sitka has... is a very unique ecosystem, I understand.

The largest temperate rainforest in the world.

- The world.

Yes it is.

And it's, it's very different from rainforest that you would think of.

It's not tropical.

It's very, very wet here, but it's, it's much colder, you know?

And so it allows the forest to just be full of life.

It's a forest that's even more densely populated than ocean that we get to go take people out and, and see wildlife on.

So it, it's a, it's a pretty unique area.

- Are you guaranteed to see these things?

I mean, how hard is it?

- So hard is the naturalness, to guarantee that you're gonna see anything because the animals - - Well, mother nature is not entirely predictable.

(Lynn laughs) - No no, she's not.

But I've been very fortunate enough this year to be working with a captain that is, has been able to find one of the three things that we guarantee.

We guarantee an otter, a bear or a whale, every trip.

- So we're aiming - - And- - for three out of three.

- Yes we are.

(ship engine whirs) (waves crashing) - [Lynn] First of all, this island - [Guide] Yes.

- [Lynn] is almost mythical.

- [Guide] Yes it is.

- [Lynn] This doesn't even look real.

- Yes it's the St. Lazaria National Wildlife Refuge, and it's a bird sanctuary, so humans are not allowed to step foot on the island.

The only people allowed on there are researchers.

And because there's so many thousands of birds that live there.

We got tufted puffins there, we've got the common murre - - And the murre is the one that nests inside the caves?

- Right, they're inside those caves.

(water flowing) - [Man] Oh, wow.

Look at that.

- So these birds, they look like penguins.

They're not penguins, they're murres, and the captain's bringing us close to the cave.

He said, "let me know when this smell is so bad and I'll back away."

The smell is pretty overwhelming and it's not perfume that we smell.

(rain falling) - [Lynn] So what are we looking at?

- [Guide] So you're looking at the largest member of the Weasel Family.

That has the - - That makes this much less romantic sounding!

- [Guide] Yes.

(Lynn laughs) - And it's a really unique creature because it lives in the water its entire life.

And has no body fat on it and it's able to float effortlessly, thanks to how thick its fur is.

They can be up to six feet long too.

And what's nice is their numbers are over 20,000 here in Southeast Alaska.

Where they were almost hunted to extinction.

- I'm not sure a lot of people realize that they're in these sort of groups, these rafts.

- Yes.

- That's amazing, that...

So they just all hang out together for safety?

- [Guide] Yeah.

They will hunt more on their own because they like to steal each other's food.

They're quite ruthless when it comes to that.

But they do hang out together to keep themselves safe.

Whereas like if a predator, like an orca whale, let's say or a sea lion or something else might be coming along... Or a boat, they will disperse and all, once one swims away, they all dive away.

(ship engine rattles) - [Lynn] Hi.

I can't believe we've got a bear on the beach.

- [Guide] Yes they come to the beach quite often.

They're coming down to the beach to look for clams and which have been taught to them by their moms.

As we can see this bear is by itself and has learned to pull over rocks and look for clams under the rock- - [Lynn] And that's what he's doing?

He's clawing at the ground.

- [Captain] Yes.

- [Lynn] He's actually looking for clams.

- [Captain] Yes.

And sometimes when we've seen bear there, when we've seen a mom and cubs, you'll see her teaching these little cubs.

She'll, she'll dig up a big rock by herself and the cubs will come along, and she'll show them how to get clams, then she'll back off.

And now this bear that we're looking at, which is a yearling, has come up and learned over time to come and dig the rocks just like its mom taught it how to do.

- [Lynn] So he's just kind of new on his own.

- [Captain] Yes.

(engine rattles) - There he goes.

(fantastical music) - [Lynn] Over there.

- [Guide] That is a humpback whale.

How you can tell it's a humpback whale is more or less by the way it hunches its back when it dives, but it's definitely like a year or two old.

And the reason why we're seeing them dive is because they're diving way down to feed, 2-300 feet deeper more, because they literally spend almost 20 hours a day feeding on small fish here in Alaska.

- In the summers.

- In the summer times.

Yes.

- I've heard that they gained 30,000 pounds, - [Captain] Yes.

- [Lynn] in the course of a few months here.

- [Captain] Right.

That's the way they're distinguished how big a whale is, they are a ton per foot.

So 30 foot whale is 30 tons.

There's been times where we've had to kind of take a step back when they get really close.

'Cause it's a little overwhelming - [Lynn] Wow.

- [Captain] at times for sure.

- [Lynn] That's amazing.

Our maritime Alaskan safari makes a cruise even close to home one of the world's greatest.

Until next time on World's Greatest Cruises, wishing you fair winds and following seas.

More information about World's Greatest Cruises and the ship and ports of call featured in today's program on our website at www.worldsgreatestcruises.com.

(dingy chimes) Next time on world's greatest cruises, we sail to the rhythms of South America.

From the Tango of Buenos Aires, to the sultry Samba of Rio Di Janeiro.

(traditional music) Meeting taste makers with new takes on local culture.

- Carnivale!

(group cheering) - [Lynn] Can you help me find perfect shoes?

- Of course.

(laughs) Do you like high heels?

- [Lynn] I do.

- [Woman] Yeah.

- Simple at the front.

Sexy at the back.

(samba music) Until now, I've only drunk Cachaça in Crepidinea.

- Okay, cheers.

Oh, that's beautiful.