Photo of the Day 42

Gull Island, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, 1998

Photograph by Michael Melford

Gull Island, off of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, is a refuge for hundreds of seagulls. One of Alaska's most heavily trafficked areas, the Kenai Peninsula abounds with postcard views—snowcapped mountains, rivers that roil with spawning salmon, an abundant supply of moose, bears, eagles, and puffins, four active volcanoes, and a gigantic, otherworldly icescape, Harding Icefield.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Taking on the Kenai," May/June 1998, National Geographic Traveler magazine)