Get your fresh fruits and vegetables at the market on Granville Island; get your designer duds on Robson Street; get your culture fix in Chinatown; and get splashed by a beluga whale at the Vancouver Aquarium. And when you're all done, get sand in your shoes at English Bay before you head back uptown for fusion cooking at the vibrant restaurant scene of Gastown.

Its name may be unappealing, but the Tracy Arm/Ford's Terror National Wilderness of Alaska is more than 600,000 acres of beautiful, untouched back country. Included in its boundaries are numerous tidewater glaciers that naturally slough off their ice once they come in contact with salt water. This activity is called "calving," and is often accompanied by a thunderous roar as the ice splits away, and an almighty splash as it slips into the sea to begin a new life as an iceberg.

For years Juneau's livelihood, like that of many cities in Alaska, was tied to mining. The city itself is built on tailings from the A-J mine whose shafts perforate the hillside above town. Because it is Alaska's capital, Juneau prospers through government work and tourism. This is a great place to sample salmon baked over an alderwood fire, pan for gold, and hike the massive Juneau Icefield. If you feel the need for speed, hop on a sled and let a dog team pull you across the surface of a glacier.

The sidewalks are all but rolled up in Skagway come winter, so you can only imagine the frightful conditions endured by the gold prospectors who passed through en route to the Yukon, with a mandatory ton of supplies to be hauled with them over the steep and treacherous Trail of '98. 21st-century summertime visits to Skagway require nothing of the sort, but you can still ride the antique White Pass &Yukon narrow-gauge railway up through silvery-purple rock faces, past Deadhorse Gulch, to see what it was like back then.
Biking, rock- climbing and flight-seeing adventures are also available
from Skagway.

Cloistered in the rocky recesses of Alaska, Glacier Bay is a world still emerging from the Ice Age. Sixteen dazzling tidewater glaciers creep back and forth by millimeters, chiseling great masses of moraine onto their pristine surfaces.

In the heart of the Tongass National Forest, immerse yourself in Tlingit Indian culture and view the world's largest collection of totem poles; kayak the colorful waterfront and stroll the boardwalk that once led to Ketchikan's red light district.