Millions flock to southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage every year to witness humpback whales breaching and massive glaciers calving into the sea. And while many cruise lines can take you there, only one operates as a nonprofit that donates all its proceeds to environmental causes in the region. Over the past 47 years, the Boat Company, using earnings from its two small ships, has invested more than $30 million in a variety of projects: improving hiking trails, funding wildlife-oriented nonprofits like a raptor center in Sitka, and going to court to stop logging in the Tongass National Forest. “We’ve been involved in every major lawsuit to protect Tongass for 45 years,” says Hunter McIntosh, the company’s president and executive director, who is the son of founders Michael and Winsome McIntosh. The company’s trips, which are typically weeklong sailings between Juneau and Sitka, open the door to the very trails and streams the family is working to protect. “We bring people out to show them the wilderness,” McIntosh explains. “One of the last beautiful places we have left.”—E.G.

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