I follow the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center on social media, so I knew it was a location I wanted to visit while we were in Alaska.
We were closest to the center when we were in Anchorage, so we booked tickets and went on a beautiful Saturday. Knowing that summer activities in Alaska book up quickly, we booked our Walk on the Wild Side tour months in advance. Thankfully, Stephen had made a note because we almost booked tickets (again!) a few days before.
The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is an easy 50 minute drive from Anchorage to Girdwood, AK along the scenic Seward Highway. We arrived with about 45 minutes to spare before our tour and wandered around seeing some of the animals and relaxing in the shade. You can walk or drive around the center depending on which animals you want to see.
Walk on the Wild Side Tour
Our Walk on the Wild Side tour was led by Eddie. He was a fantastic guide who took the entire group into consideration with his pace and information. The only feedback I’d have for him is to explain words that are common to him like “subsistence” to younger tour participants – he used it a lot and I asked the 10 year old on our group if they knew what that was and they didn’t – so being an educator I defined it for them.
It’s also Eddie that made this tour worth its price. At the time of writing this the Walk on the Wild Side tour costs $125 per person which, as you might know, is our daily budget on our 50 state road trip. Any guide who was less kind, funny, interesting or enthusiastic than Eddie would’ve made us question the value of our tour which we felt was comfortably worth $75 per person.
One of the things the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is known for is its rescue and rehabilitation work. Here’s the hospital and quarantine area.
Here are just some of the animals we saw on our Walk on the Wild Side tour.
There were two highlights of the tour. First is the chance to feed an animal on the tour. You don’t know who you’re going to feed until the guide tells you. We fed Heath (as in Heath Bar), one of the chocolate-themed porcupines at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center – the others being Twix and Baby Ruth.
The process was very directed and safe. We lined up, got hand sanitized, walked up to feed Heath, the line exited the enclosure and we all hand sanitized again. It was a very quick process – which I’m sure is partly due to the size of our group and the attention span of the animals. Heath was very snack motivated (same, Heath!).
The second experience was seeing the bears. They have three brown bears at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. We were so lucky that the day we visited they were close to the fence and in the water by the viewing areas since they have several acres to move around. I could’ve watched the brown bears all day, but without our own water to play in it was REALLY hot.
After our tour we drove around the center. As we’ve had lots of opportunities to see bison we didn’t linger, but this was a really fun chance to observe the size of a Wood Bison hide.
The drive takes you past a beautiful river view where we couldn’t resist a selfie together. I was also able to capture a shot of the lupines in bloom.
It’s definitely worth a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Girdwood, Alaska. You’ll have to decide if the Walk on the Wild Side tour is for you, but even if it’s not there’s great talks, opportunities to feed the moose or do bear-specific tours and see all the animals on site.
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