The Inside Passage is not a single route but a philosophy of navigation: keeping the vessel in sheltered water between the mainland coast and the island chain that runs from Vancouver Island north to the Alaska Panhandle, gaining latitude gradually while the landscape changes from the populated shores of Puget Sound to the true wilderness of the British Columbia coast.
The city of Vancouver is the logical start point — a provisioning and crew stop before the passage north through the Strait of Georgia, Desolation Sound (which Captain Vancouver named in a moment of evident low spirits but which is in fact the most beautiful anchorage in British Columbia) and the Broughton Archipelago. Here the coast becomes genuinely remote: the small communities are connected to the mainland by floatplane or water taxi; the anchorages have no roads to them.
British Columbia’s First Nations communities along the inside passage maintain totemic traditions that are among the most significant in North America. Klemtu, Bella Bella and the southern villages of the Haida Gwaii archipelago have been navigating these waters for at least 13,000 years; the cultural context of the passage changes when you understand this.
Alaska begins at Dixon Entrance. Glacier Bay National Park — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — is accessible to private vessels with a permit, and the permit system keeps traffic low enough that you can approach a tidewater glacier in near-solitude. The sound of ice calving is both sudden and immense.
- Glacier Bay National Park — tidewater glaciers accessible by superyacht permit
- Desolation Sound — the finest anchorage in British Columbia, surrounded by mountains
- First Nations totem villages of the British Columbia coast
- Humpback whale watching in Frederick Sound and Icy Strait
The Pacific Northwest season runs June to September. July is the optimum month: the longest days (eighteen to twenty hours of light in Alaska), the most reliable weather and the best whale watching as humpbacks concentrate in the feeding grounds of Frederick Sound and Icy Strait. The shoulder months are viable but wetter. Glacier Bay requires advance permit reservation — apply through ADY well before departure.
