Exploring Alaska with The Boat Company: What It’s Like to Travel the Last Frontier

Pulling out shrimp pots in Alaska’s early morning mist. Donning chest-high waders to fly fish for salmon. Catching the 49th State’s prized halibut from flat-bottomed skiffs or from your home base, a small ship that operates more like a yacht than a cruise.

It sounds like an Alaska sporting vacation that you traditionally find at remote (and very pricey) lodges. But The Boat Company – the only non-profit small ship cruise line in Alaska – has been providing its guests this type of experience since 1980.

If you haven’t heard of The Boat Company, you’re not alone. The company, which has two ships, Liseron and Mist Cove that carry 20 and 24 passengers respectively, has operated largely on word of mouth and repeat business. While the line only offers one itinerary – Juneau to Sitka and vice versa – the trip is never the same, as the exact anchorages and activities are left up to the captain and guest services crew.

After spending a week on Mist Cove, sailing from Juneau to Sitka on my eighth cruise in the Last Frontier, I discovered exactly what it is that makes The Boat Company unique among other Alaska lines. Here are the reasons that The Boat Company is a well-kept secret – and why it might be one that you want to share.

If You Love Fishing, The Boat Company is Your Dream Alaska Cruise

Unlike other Alaska cruises, where fishing may or may not be listed as a port excursion, rods and reels take center stage on The Boat Company; the cruise line’s shirts read Cruise, Fish, Explore, Protect. You can fish every day of your cruise, and the majority of guests on our sailing did. An Alaska fishing license is included in your fare.

Salt-water fishing from one of the Mist Cove’s five skiffs was offered as an activity every day on our sailing, and I took advantage of the opportunity three times. I’m not an avid fisher — my husband is — but I still had a great time out on the water and learning the sport. While I was slightly intimidated at first by the other experienced passengers, many of them clad in expensive Filson and Orvis gear, I found them to be encouraging and happy to help, with a side dish of gentle joshing.

My catch for the week consisted primarily of trash fish, particularly sculpin. These ugly spiked fish not only seemed to show up on my rod, they’d appear for other people when I was around; the ship dubbed me “The Sculpin Queen of Mist Cove.” So imagine my pride when on the second day, I pulled up a 28-inch halibut. While it was by no means the largest halibut caught – one guest reeled in an over-regulation 51-inch, 65-pound monster from the side of the ship – the achievement made me feel like I had caught Moby Dick.

Want to be a Shrimper? The Boat Company Gives You a Taste

Perhaps the most unique marine activity took place when Mist Cove sailed into Red Bluff one evening. Four guests were issued shrimping licenses, and we all gathered on the boat’s bow to watch them throw out the wire shrimp pots. Low-stakes bets and a lot of ribbing ensued.

But that was the easy part. The harder portion of the excursion came the next morning, when the same four passengers, along with a “spectator skiff” with those of us who wanted to witness the final results, went out shortly after dawn to pull the pots up. With the assist of a winch (and fortified by Irish coffee), each newly licensed shrimper drew up their basket to see what – and how much – seafood we’d find.

The first basket turned out to be the jackpot, with 33 shrimp. The next basket, though, only had three – along with several starfish and two small sculpin. (Faces turned accusingly to me). The third basket contained one, and the last one produced nothing. The quantity doesn’t matter, though, when the quality is so high. When those shrimp showed up atop our salads that night, we all proclaimed them among the sweetest we’d tasted. In my eight cruises to Alaska, four of them on small ships, the shrimping expedition was the most immersive excursion I’ve experienced.

The Boat Company Offers Outdoor Alaska Activities for Non-Fishermen Too

If you don’t fish, though, The Boat Company still offers things to do. Hikes with the ship’s naturalist, Charlie Cahill, were scheduled almost every day, through a variety of southeast Alaska terrain. I particularly loved entering the forest on Brothers Island, where we encountered a fairy land of plush green moss and unearthly nurse logs. Hiking poles were available for those who needed them.

Along the shores of Kuiu Island, we squished through mud so thick, we were glad The Boat Company encouraged us to bring high boots, preferably Xtratufs (footwear so prevalent in the Inside Passage, it’s known as the Alaska Sneaker). Salmon carcasses were strewn by the streams, evidence that bears had recently been by, further determined by scat and paw prints.

The Boat Company also carries a fleet of kayaks, and leisurely paddles took place in the cruise’s more secluded coves. On one outing at Red Bluff, the paddlers came up to a mama bear and her cub on the shore, both stuffing themselves with salmon to prepare for hibernation. A skiff ride was available for those who didn’t want the exertion, so they too, could have a bar

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