Premium Sitka Scenic Tour: Alaska Raptor Center, Fortress of the Bears,Totems!

This was our family's favorite tour in Alaska. It was very comprehensive touring many natural and historical sites in and around Sitka. Our guide Becky was fabulous. She is a native of Sitka and was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable throughout the tour. We loved the Fortress of the Bears with all the antics of six brown bears and three black. The Raptor Center and Totem Park were also great. Becky talked about the plants, salmon, and totems at the park. She was able to extend the tour by driving us back to our ship rather than leaving us in town to catch the shuttle. I highly recommend this tour !

GREAT tour! All 3 tour spots were great! The Raptor Center and The Raptor Center were definitely the highlights! Enjoyed both immensely and to be that close to the birds and Bears was awesome! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the area as she grew up in Sitka and has lived there her entire life. Highly recommend!

We took this tour on our family vacation, we had a wide range of ages with us, 10 people from 6 months old to 78 yrs old, including an autistic teenager. Lindsey was incredible, she was very knowledgeable, willing and able to answer all the questions that we asked! She set the bar so high the remaining tours we had scheduled in other parts of Alaska just seemed 'okay' compared to our tour with her. Thank you, Lindsey, you made our trip - everyone talked about it for days afterward!

In our opinion, the most interesting tour that can be done in the Sitka. Personal attention, excellent organization, amazing views. At each point they give enough time to get an impression and not just waste time. We were also in a place where the Salomon are dead (beyond the plan). It was fascinating.

Although late in the season, we enjoyed incredible weather, sunny and about 60-62 degrees. The tour was done on a very personable level, with a van and only 8 of us. We sat in the back seat of the van and had no difficulty getting in and out. Our guide was Aakatchaq, a native Eskimo woman who was incredible. She was very informative, and although not from the area, she did go to the boarding high school in Sitka and able to give us a lot of local history and information which was helpful. We were able to visit all three locations listed in the title and found them all to be wonderful. the Raptor Center was very informative and a very worthy cause helping many injured birds of prey recover from mostly man caused events. The Fortress of the Bears was another very worthy endeavor started by a young man who is attempting to help cub bears who have been left orphaned by different events. If left in the wild, the cubs would not have survived. At present he has about 4 brown, 3 black and 2 brown bear cubs. The final visit was to the Totems in town and the visitor center where we viewed a film and learned about the history of Sitka. Overall we were very pleased with our choice of this tour while in Sitka.

Very nice excursion, Our guide allowed us lots of interaction with nature, picking berries and finding small crabs and snails. The Fortress of the bear exhibit was very nice also. Great bargain.

The tour hit three great stops, but what really made the experience exceptional was the knowledge and perspective of our wondeful Alaskan Native guide.

There were 7 people in the van we took on our tour. The small group made it easy to have a conversation with out Inut guide, Aakatchaq. All the sites lived up to our expectations but it was the conversation that was so unusual. We learned about plants that were poisonous as well as those that could be used for medicinal purposes. Aakatchaq knew the men and women who were inspired to save the bears and the injured raptors and understanding their motivation helped us appreciate why the animals were in confined areas. I could go on, but there's too much to say. It was just our best tour in Alaska

This tour is a great opportunity to see three incredible sites in Sitka. The Raptor Center was amazing. We were disappointed by the Fortress of the Bear. We saw four bears, and I was thinking that this was a rescue center to teach the Baby Cubs to survive in the wild. But it wasn't that, and they keep the bears healthy and able to survive, but then they sell them to a zoo. That is not a bad thing, just not what I was expecting. The National Forest was amazing, but the center was closed. I recommend this tour, but we did the 3:45pm tour and so I would recommend taking an earlier tour. Our Guide was very knowledgeable, friendly, and fun. Overall a Good Tour and recommend it for anyone that loves animals and want them to be treated humanely.

Bruce, who was our guide, knew more about Alaska, the bears, raptors, forest and plants, totems, the history and culture of the area, than anyone else we met during our cruise and other excursions in Alaska. We were running late so he even drove us back to our ship- if we could give 10n stars we would! Carol & AJ from Rhode Island