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On Board the Observer, Alaska, 1998

Observer, a wooden-hulled, World War II-era minesweeper that has been converted to a 12-passenger cruising yacht, glides through glassy water in Alaska's Inside Passage. This meticulously restored boat takes tourists through the heart of Tongass National Forest, 500 miles (800 kilometers) of sky-blue glaciers, grizzly bear tracks, wild beaches, bald eagles, spruce trees, and deep, mountain-ringed fjords.

(Text from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "A Wilder Passage," May/June 1999, National Geographic Traveler magazine)

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Photograph by Michael Melford