Alaska Solstice at Lake Clark: 24-Hour Light, Lazy Trout & Lodge Life

This solstice diary captures Alaska’s long-lit magic—24 hours of daylight, soft air, and time that never quite turns to night. The journey begins with a flight from Anchorage through Lake Clark Pass, where immense glaciers still cling to the valleys despite summer warmth and a changing climate. The destination: a historic log-cabin lodge—Alaska’s oldest—modernized yet true to its hand-hewn roots, with 270° views of Lake Clark, waterfalls, and mountains. While Joan unwinds on the deck, the crew floats the Copper River, a gentle drift guided by merganser ducks, gulls, and eagles. Trout action is slow this season—most rainbows remain in Lake Iliamna until salmon runs pull them upstream—but the few fish landed are giants.

Solstice here is about easing off the throttle: fewer bear chases, fewer marathon fishing days, more porch time. A Caribbean cook, Tion, turns the kitchen into a hub of comfort and conversation. Outside, beavers have transformed a once-muddy pond into a shining lake, and the property’s original, locally felled logs give every room the warmth of lived history. It’s the kind of place artists come to “find themselves and their art,” a residency of sky, water, and wood.

Along the coast, grass-eating bears graze like cattle, content to crop sedges rather than sprint after salmon or caribou. Photographing them through tall grass can be unnerving at close range. A practical field lesson arrives on the tidal flats: if trapped in quicksand, wiggle toes up and down in tiny strokes to invite water in and loosen the sand—then lift your feet free. Later, a catamaran session on Lake Clark frames postcard shots of the lodge against the shoreline. The finale is a reluctant goodbye: wheels up from this sun-washed sanctuary toward latitudes where days shrink back to ordinary length.