FORTY MINUTES OUT OF JUNEAU -itself hours from anywhere-our pilot excitably points out the first signs of civilization: Taku Glacier Lodge, a rustic, turn-of-the-century hostelry that’s home to the best traditional feast in Alaska. Our small band of adventurers-England, Australia, Canada and America are all represented-makes its way inside the lodge and rests beneath beaver, ermine, timber wolf and wolverine pelts. Our Alaskan feast-southern style baked beans, coleslaw, a manly hunk of sourdough biscuit-seems at first more Big Easy than Last Best Place, but then comes the King salmon. "What ‘traditional’ really means," chef Nick Steele chimes in, "is a beautiful mishmash of food from the lower 48-but the salmon, of course, is all Alaskan. Shoot, we eat this at least two hundred days of the year." Heavily doused in brown sugar, butter, white wine and lemon then cooked over local alder, it’s worth flying for. Today we’re also being treated to an impressive side show: a black bear scooping out, in sublime paw-to-fork unison with us, leftover marinade from the outdoor barbecue pit, barely four metres away. Then, on cue, he sashays into the September mist for more camera action, posing patriotically in front of a Stars and Stripes flag, perfectly backdropped by the Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier and wind-scalloped Taku River. That afternoon is, as it turns out, the start of a veritable embarrassment of wildlife riches. We are earning serious bragging rights during this week’s cruise to numerous ports of call on the Inside Passage, hugging Southeast Alaska’s panhandle. We’re seeing each creature in its rugged natural setting, but it’s all effortless. Forget the hassle of flying and dragging your luggage around: every night our ship delivers us smoothly to a new vista. All we have to do is wake up.

As the Silver Shadow noses into Sitka in much-improved weather, many of the 200 or so passengers (a mix of old and young) take to the decks for the scenic arrival through verdant islands. We pass swoon-
worthy cabins with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out and up to the distinctive Mt. Edgecumbe volcano. (All is quiet with the 976-metre monster today, although locals talk about a recent morning when the town panicked over smoke issuing from the crater-only to discover some wisenheimers had
lit a few tires and thrown them in as a joke.)

After transferring to a small catamaran, we retrace our route through the pristine waters of Sitka Sound. Within minutes, the helmsman cuts the engines as we spot "soft gold"-the name given to otters once hunted to near extinction for their prized coats. This is no ordinary sighting: it’s rare to see such a large raft of perhaps 20 unfathomably adorable otters, which are usually skittish. They float together on their backs and wash their faces before indulging in sudden energetic tumbles and tomfoolery-none, however, revealing the fabled stone they store under their arm to crack open tricky prey.

Barely able to catch our breath, we’re directed to look at the nearby shoreline where a sassy brown bear is going out for dinner. This behemoth needs to do even less than its furry compatriot in Juneau to secure food-in front of him lies a buffet of there-for-the-plucking sockeye, their presence unmistakable in the smell of decaying fish that marks the end of spawning season. For more than 30 minutes we watch him wind his way through Sitka spruce trees, tearing into the best of the docile fish and nonchalantly chucking away the less tasty. Nature’s last star turn of the day is a double feature: stately bald eagles grace the robust trees while Alaskan humpback whales breach out of the water before disappearing, with a slap of their tails, to carry on their feasting frenzy in the depths below.

The next day, we meet another hallmark of local wildlife-born-and-bred Alaskan Dayle Amundson. Following our own evening of whale-like gluttony aboard the Silver Shadow (gnocchi with gorgonzola and walnuts, with pine nut-crusted sole fillets and marinated eggplant), we find ourselves in the city of Ketchikan. It’s a smorgasbord of totem poles and stores selling souvenirs and jewellery, and more unusual opportunities, like donning royal robes and sitting on Russian thrones (a nod to Alaska’s previous owners) to have our pictures taken. Wearing a short black dress hitched up perilously over fishnet hose, Amundson, with her throaty laugh, takes us around Dolly’s House, one of the many brothels the state boasted in its bawdy pioneering days, perched on stilts above Creek Street. "We’re definitely still the last frontier up here," Amundson winks. "It takes a special person to live in this tough place. We’re the old Americans until the day we die."

At the other end of the spectrum are the Alaskans who came here to get away from it all. Some live in the lesser-visited Haines (often dubbed "the real Alaska"), a town that was a key stop on the route to the 1898 Klondike gold rush. Now the little village of old houses and shops is serene as the icebergs of Glacier Bay (save for thunderous "calvings," when giant pieces of ice shear off in seeming slow motion). It’s the kind of town in which a museum dedicated to hammers fits right in.

Returning to the Silver Shadow is like joining an elegant house party already in progress. Even at capacity the ship carries only 382 passengers with a crew-to-guest ratio of roughly 1.3 to 1, which ensures that your glass of champagne is refilled at every turn. From the Frette napkins and linen to marble bathrooms and teak decks, we could not be farther removed from the brutal lives of those early gold seekers. "We’re in a cocoon, far away from the real world," one woman tells me over a glass of-what else?-bubbly. She adds, confidentially: "It is very important to succumb."

Succumb we do. It’s absurd that you can eat three courses-be they American, Austrian, Italian or Indian-every night and still have room for desserts. Even the name of the ship’s suave Italian captain, Ignazio Tatulli, sounds good enough to eat. As a cruise virgin, I had been warned by friends about the perils of so much food-and a possible lack of exercise. Not here, however: I join a daily flow to the gym, then golf practice, circuit walking and jogging on deck.

In a few short days I’ve gotten up close and personal with nature and fine dining. I found the type of isolation that I thought had disappeared from our wired planet and had a living history lesson in the perils of the turn-of-the-century gold rush. I guess it’s true what they say-you never forget your first time.

For tourism information on Alaska, contact the Alaska Travel Industry Association (1-907-929-2200, travelalaska.com )

The best way to see Alaska is by cruise ship from Vancouver. The Silver Shadow (from $3,238 per person for a week’s all-inclusive trip) is part of luxury Silversea line (1-877-760-9052, silversea.com) and runs from June through September.