Travel✈️

Summer Alaska

Posted by Wanyu Zhang on June 23, 2026

We visited three coastal towns in Alaska: Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway, where we also took a drive into the Yukon, Canada. The scenery was stunning: snowy peaks, emerald waters, whales, and glaciers.

Ketchikan

Our first stop: Ketchikan, “The Salmon Capital of the World.”

Ketchikan welcome sign above the shops, with green mountains and blue sky behind it

Creek Street: a former red-light district lined with colorful wooden buildings.

Colorful wooden buildings and boardwalks on stilts above the water at Creek Street

Juneau

At Mendenhall Glacier, ice, a waterfall, and summer greenery fit into a single view. Little purple flowers dot the foreground, while the glacier sits between bare rock and forested slopes across the lake.

Mendenhall Glacier across the lake, with a waterfall to the right and purple flowers in the foreground

That iconic whale tail, with snowy mountains in the background! Humpback whales return to Alaska in the summer to feed.

A whale's tail rising above calm water with snow-covered mountains in the background near Juneau

We were lucky enough to see three breaches in a row! The camera only caught one.

A whale breaching in a burst of spray near a forested shoreline in Juneau

Skagway and the Yukon

The next four photos were all taken in the Yukon :)

Railway tracks curving beside a blue lake, evergreen forest, and distant snowy mountains

A mountain streaked with snow above a blue lake framed by green trees

Carcross Desert: often called the world’s smallest desert!

Pale sand dunes and scattered evergreen trees at Carcross Desert beneath rugged mountains

Emerald Lake: nature showing off its colors.

Emerald Lake in the Yukon, with turquoise bands along the shore and forested hills beyond

College Fjord

Only half a mile from Harvard Glacier! The blue of the glacial ice was striking.

The broad blue-white face of Harvard Glacier above still water, backed by snowy mountains and low clouds

A closer view of Harvard Glacier's jagged blue ice and dark bands beneath cloud-covered mountains