Scenes from a 2025 trip to Alaska.

My wife and I took this trip on our own while our kids were away on a school trip. We just wanted a few days to relax, so we picked Kodiak and lined up a few tours. A local guide drove us to a few spots on the island, and was kind enough to arrange a boat tour of the harbor and the surrounding area.

The real highlight was a flight on a 1957 de Havilland Beaver floatplane. When that old radial engine fired up, I felt like Indiana Jones for a minute.

We landed in the water off Katmai, waded ashore, and climbed up to the coastal plain. I was immediately struck by how remote it was: glaciers in the distance, a wide open plain, and bears grazing peacefully across it.

The bears were much closer than I expected, which was thrilling. Our only companion that day was another wildlife photographer out of Anchorage, also named Joe. He’d just had knee surgery, so I figured if things went sideways, I didn’t need to outrun the grizzlies. I just needed to outrun Joe.

This was the trip I picked up my first real camera for, and I came home hooked.

A big thank you to Janet Herr of The Kodiak Life for showing us around the island, and to Jo Murphy and Rolan Ruoss for the flight of a lifetime with Sea Hawk Air.