Cruise Ship Enters Seward Harbor With Whale As Long As A 6-Story Building Stuck To Its Bow

For The Second Time In 10 Years, A Cruise Ship Steams Into Seward Pushing A Dead Whale 

A cruise ship on the docks in Seward in 2010. (Country Journal archives)

A 5,000-passenger cruise ship, Ovation of the Seas, steamed into Seward on Sunday, June 21st, 2026 with an unwelcome gift for the small Alaskan seaside community. It brought with it a huge dead whale, stuck to its bow.

The docks at Seward. (Country Journal file from the archives) 

The 61-foot pregnant whale is among the second largest mammals now on earth. It's a deep sea creature - the same type that died and came ashore off the coastal trail in Anchorage in 2024.  The coastal trail's dead whale brought many gawkers out onto the frozen mud flats in Cook Inlet to examine it, before it was carted off to the Museum of Transportation, north of Wasilla, where it is being allowed to moulder until its carcass is clean enough for its bones to go on display. That whale was only 47 feet long. 

This is not the first large fin whale to arrive – dead – stuck to the front of a ship as it arrived in the tourist port city of Seward, Alaska. Ten years ago, in 2016, a juvenile endangered male was brought into harbor by the Zaandam. That ship was not a super ship like the Ovation of the Seas. It only carried 2,000 passengers and crew. Reports at the time say that whale was 50 feet long.

How long is a 60 foot whale? According to distance-calculating charts on the web, it's as long as a 6-story building. 

It's as long as this bridge that was stolen by thieves in India:

60-foot-long Bihar Bridge, stolen by thieves. (Photo, TheNewsMill, India)

It's as long as the height of George Washington's head on Mt. Rushmore:

60-foot-tall Washington carved head. (NPS)

And, it's as tall as three standard upended shipping containers, all in a row. 

Both whales – the one in 2016, and the one now in 2026 – were examined by NOAA scientists.