Potter Marsh features a lengthy boardwalk that provides several viewing points, allowing for a closer look at the marsh. It’s sort of an odd location – the highway is just beside the marsh. There were a few other people on the boardwalk, and we stopped at many points to see if we could spot wildlife. This place is known for it, but we only spotted a few birds – this still is a lovely walkway; there’s a stream running under the boardwalk, and after a point, it is just the sounds of nature that you hear. Lot of great spots for taking snaps here. The history of this wetland dates back to 1917, when it was accidentally created during the construction of the Alaskan railroad.
Right at the end of the boardwalk was a small rectangular area for resting. An old man was seated on the left, and beside him was a stand with binoculars set up for viewing – presumably was his.
He commented, “Take a look through it. You can see a bald eagle watching its little ones on the tree.”
There were a lot of trees at a distance, and yes, we could spot it – the eagle was sitting on a branch of a tree at the top; the man said it was the mom; it looked around once in a while, but otherwise, perfectly still. Without the binoculars, I couldn’t see it even though I knew the approximate area where it was supposed to be.
“How did you spot it?” I asked him.
“It’s hard now. But it was easy to spot when the place was barren a few months ago. I saw it then and so knew where it was.”
We chit-chatted with the man for a while till another group came along with kids. He was a volunteer and spent a lot of time in Potter Marsh. “There was a bear we saw a few days earlier in the morning.”
“Oh,” sounded exciting.
This definitely was a place you could come to daily to spend time watching nature go about its business.




As we returned to the boardwalk, we noticed a diversion – it seemed like an exit, but no one else was taking it. There was a board that talked about bears and moose in Alaska’s backyards. Most of Alaska, the board said, is moose country, and these moose are huge – can be as tall as 7 feet and weigh 1600 pounds! The board warned us about danger signs to look out for if you spot a moose – lowered head, stomping hooves, clicking teeth and licking lips, the board said might mean the moose is going to charge. Yield to the moose – it weighs half a ton!
It was an interesting place to have positioned this educational board – just as we were stepping off the boardwalk into what looked like a forest area with no idea what was ahead of us!
“Maybe there’ll be a bear here?”
Fortunately, there wasn’t – and the forest stretch ended quickly – it was just a short distance, like a mini-trail in a forest that took us to the back side of the parking lot.
Our next stop was a little further down the same highway – the Beluga Point. Belugas are a type of small whale – and this point was named so because Belugas do frequent the place, but this wasn’t the month for them. You’ll find that on the Alaskan highways, there are viewpoints set up so that folks can park their vehicles, enjoy the view, and not disturb the traffic. The railway line was just beside the parking spot fence, and some people had hopped across the fence and past the railway line to step on the rocky mass protruding into the water. There were two large rocky bodies – the first one was easily accessible, but the second one wasn’t.
“The only way seems like is to go into the water and enter through that small path over there.”
Except for the 2 people who were already there, no one else was attempting to get there.
The view was spectacular; we spent some time clicking snaps.

“There is some mist on the mountains in the distance – can’t get a clear shot,” Moorthy said. He was testing out his old professional camera that he brought along on the trip – think of the ones where you carry separate lens attachments.
“Maybe it’s the time of the day.”
“We should come early in the morning,” he said and continued changing the settings to see what gave him a better shot. We strolled further down to touch the waters.
Skipping!
“It is cold.” Sunny above but cold in the water.
Rakesh started throwing small pebbles on the water (in a sidearm action) to try to get them to bounce off the water’s surface. I later learnt that this is called ‘skipping stones’ or ‘stone skipping or skimming’. There are even stone-skipping competitions! Very soon, the other two got into a contest with Rakesh to test who could make the stone skip multiple times before it sank into the water. We spent 30 minutes in the area before moving along.

It was 9 pm, but the city was soaked in daylight – it just didn’t feel like the night! Seeing the time, we knew we’d have to find a restaurant soon – we always left the restaurant selection to Rakesh and Raghav since they picked good ones – they found a Mexican one called Tequila 61 in downtown Anchorage, gave us the chance to check out downtown as well.
It was 10 pm when we started dinner with daylight around! We had nachos (which were on the house and quite yummy), fish tacos, a veggie fajita (that you could assemble by adding the ingredients), and a lime-based dessert. The food and ambience were good; before leaving, I went to the restroom, and even the restroom had a unique design, with the walls decorated with plenty of pennies.



At 11 pm, we were back on the street, and daylight was still around; most shops had closed except one. The board seemed to indicate it was a small grocery shop. While the guys stepped into the car, I called out, “Hey, let’s just see what’s there in the shop and go.”
Raghav joined me. There weren’t many people in the area, but there were a couple of old men stumbling along whom we bypassed and avoided making eye contact with, though it sounded like one of them was muttering something. Not knowing what state they were in and considering the time of day, we did feel a little uneasy, but then, since there was still daylight, we felt okay venturing around.


As soon as we stepped into the shop, we knew this wasn’t your usual grocery store – this seemed like a cigarette shop, more specifically, a vape (e-cigarette) shop – plenty of flavours and products here.