Seward, Alaska | Glacier Dog Sledding

the hearnes » adventure elopement photographers

Helicopter tour to a dog sledding adventure on a glacier | alaska elopement photographer

Today, I want to share something that I highly reccomend doing if you’re visiting the Seward area and want to learn a bit about what goes on with sled dog camps in Alaska! We did this adventure with one of our amazing couples, Jess and Barry, for their destination wedding this summer, but it was such a unique experience and so I decided to make a separate blog post to answer any questions anyone might have about the details of this excursion! Visiting a sled dog camp in Alaska is an awesome opportunity to learn about the famous Iditarod race, see the behind the scenes of the training they do, and meet the adorable dogs!! I have been fascinated by sled dogs my whole life, and used to dream of living in Alaska and having a whole pack of dogs up here, so to get to do this as part of my job was a dream come true! We even got to meet some of the sled dog puppies, which that experience alone made everyone’s day!

Sled Dog Tours in Seward Alaska

There are a few different sled dog kennels in the area, but we visited the Turning Heads Kennel camp up on Godwin Glacier near Seward. One of the super cool details of the trip was that we had to take a helicopter up to the camp, which is always a fun experience!! Our ride wasn’t very long, about 10 minutes, but it was plenty of time to soak in the views and learn a little bit about the area from our pilot. We flew over there with Seward Helicopters and it was a great experience! We highly reccomend them for tours of the area, they have a lot of different helicopter excursions available.

What we wore for our Helicopter Tour in Alaska

My biggest advice for what to wear when doing a helicopter tour is to bring layers, but don’t over-pack! You won’t have a lot of room, and ideally only one person in your group brings a small backpack, but you do want to be prepared for a variety of temperatures. I’ve found it’s often pretty warm in the helicopter, but when you’re landing on a glacier in the summer, the temps can vary so much! If it’s sunny and there is no wind, it can actually be quite warm. But if it’s cloudy and or windy, the temps can get super frigid even in warmer months. I suggest asking the tour company or pilot what the temps are like up on the glacier (or wherever you’re going to be landing) and planning accordingly. For this tour, they provided big waterproof glacier boots that went over our shoes, but I still reccomend packing closed-toed shoes with good traction on the ground. I always prefer to wear my hair up in case of wind, and bring a wind-proof jacket with me.

Photography Advice for your Helicopter tour to a dog sledding camp in Alaska

If you’re doing the tour we did and hoping to get some great photos of the experience, I reccomend bringing a versatile camera/lens set up. I chose to bring my Canon 5D Mark IV and 24-70 2.8. We were photographing this professionally, and our main focus was on our couple and their experience, but I think our strategies can be helpful for anyone wanting to do this tour and get some great photos! Firstly, you can check out this entire blog post I wrote on aerial photography for advice about shooting photos from the helicopter on the way there and back!

The main thing to know is the time on the glacier goes very quickly. You don’t want to be focused on your camera the whole time, making sure you get great photos, such that you don’t even really experience the thing you’re there to do!! For instance, if you’re so worried about getting photos of and with the puppies that you don’t even take a moment to really soak in the precious puppy kisses and howls, what was even the point?! I think going in prepared should help, and make sure you have everything you need beforehand. We both chose to carry versatile lenses (I was on 24-70 and Callen was on 16-35) so we wouldn’t be changing them out the whole time. I also chose to only carry one camera (sometimes I carry two for weddings) because I wanted to be able to have my hand free for puppy holding and staying balanced on the sled.

When we first arrived, we were greeted with the barking chorus of dogs that knew they were about to get to run! They were stoked, and after a brief chat with the trainers, we were allowed to go play with and pet the dogs. We made our way around, greeting them and giving out scratches, and then went over to the puppies! The trainers started handing them out and it was one of the sweetest things!! I ended up taking a lot of photos with a little puppy in one hand…very ideal. We cuddled the puppies for about 10 minutes, and then it was time to hop in the sled for a lap around their 1-mile training loop. For this, I chose to sit in the back so I could photograph Jess and Barry from behind. It was pretty easy to balance standing up to take photos. If you were taking your own photos, I would reccomend up front. We did get to stop a couple of times along the loop to pet the dogs and walk around, and then we each took turns yelling “alright okay!” their command for “go” which was super fun.

All in all, we had about 45 minutes on the glacier with the dogs. It went really quickly, but was so much fun and a really amazing experience. I would highly reccomend it for pretty much any age group. We felt very safe, had a super fun time, and felt like we got to see a different side of Alaska!

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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife wedding photography team with an emphasis on adventure. They live on the road as full-time nomads, allowing them to serve a large portion of the western US. You can typically find them in Moab, Utah or Yosemite National Park, California, with side-quests to Patagonia and Alaska. They believe love is the greatest adventure and strive to create photos that are epic, romantic, true, and timeless.

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