I've read many marvelous reviews of flight-seeing to see bears, are their any bear viewing trips by boat?

Yes, there are, where will you be traveling to? Depending on where you'll be there are also great chances of bear viewing just a few feet ahead of you, like in Ketchikan. There is a Nature Wildlife Sanctuary walk and you go right by where bear feed. We were only about 20 ft. away from watching a cub snack on salmon a few weeks ago there

And you don't have to go to Alaska to see bears. Last month in Shenandoah NP, in the space of forty hours, I had six bear encounters and three near-misses. In none of these encounters was I trying to see a bear -- indeed, the one that ran out in front of my car on Hiway 211 was a bit of a problem. I asked a ranger about this, and he said the bear population had exploded over the last ten years.

We will be traveling to Denali, Seward and Homer. We're saving Ketchican and the Inside Passage for another trip.

Sorry, I have only done the inside passage. But might I direct you to www.cruisecritic.com 's ports of call section of the message boards. We did a wildlife adventure in Sitka by boat and saw a brown bear on this little island, it was amazing. Saw humpbacks, red and orage jellyfish, eagles, sea otters, deer, and last but not least the lovely bear sitting on his rump watching us