“Go, go, go” yell the ground crew as our helicopter lightly touches down, the whirring rotor blades blasting waves of downdraft into our faces as we run towards it and scramble aboard.

I buckle up alongside the pilot as we rise vertically like an elevator, before accelerating forwards over the deep waters of the nearby fjord stretching towards the horizon.

Seconds later, we swoop over a mass of snowy mountains forming an impenetrable jagged wall and into an icy wonderland swathed in an ivory blanket of snow broken only by craggy peaks encased in swirling wisps of cloud.

It’s an incredible sight and, at once, I understand why taking to the skies is one of the most thrilling ways to explore the immense Alaskan wilderness.

Below us, the tents and pens of a dog musher camp on Denver Glacier come into view and a few minutes later we’re running through the snow to a welcoming chorus of howling huskies.

We spend an entrancing 40 minutes here, learning about the lives of dog-sledders and meeting the boisterous troop, before cuddling some irresistibly cute three-week-old pups.

As we’re whisked back into the former Gold Rush town of Skagway, we get a decent close-up of our ship Riviera, which is spending its first season cruising Alaskan waters.

Our eight-night sailing to Vancouver departed from Anchorage and I’d flown into the city a couple of days early to get a flavour of this remote region.

Anchorage itself is nothing to write home about, with drab 1970s-style architecture and remarkably few older houses, a legacy of a devastating earthquake in 1964 that destroyed many original buildings.

Aside from museums, most attractions lie outside the city, which is a jumping-off point for stays in Denali National Park, home to North America’s highest mountain Mount McKinley (also known as Mount Denali) soaring to 20,310ft.

We opt for the Wilderness Express train with glass-roofed dome cars allowing for unencumbered views of the surrounding forest and snow-dusted mountains framing the horizon.

Our destination is the pretty town of Talkeetna, known for its arty community – whose creations stock the many tourist shops lining the main street – and, more novelly, for having had a cat as mayor.

Yet wildlife and adventure hold the key to Alaska’s addictive appeal which becomes increasingly evident during our cruise. 

On one boat trip from Sitka we watch mesmerised as a lone humpback whale slaps its fins on the water’s surface while cornering its prey in a display of bubble-net feeding, while on another, American bald eagles majestically circle overhead as we spy a brown bear and her two cubs casually padding along the shoreline.

We tick off sightings of playful seals, cute sea otters basking in kelp fields, porpoises speeding underneath our tour boat and spouting whales that thrill us with tail flips as they dive to the depths.

Chasing such adventures is hungry work, but this is where Alaska’s natural bounty comes to the fore with barbecue feasts of giant crab legs, steamed mussels and plump shrimps fresh from the abundant waters of the North Pacific.

For Oceania, which proudly proclaims to offer the “finest cuisine at sea”, it’s a match made in foodie heaven with local ingredients appearing on menus and in our onboard cookery class where we whip up a feast of creamy salmon rillettes and tender scallops.

Riviera’s relatively petite stature, which at 1,250 guests is considerably less than many mainstream ships cruising Alaskan waters, is another bonus, especially in view of overtourism fears amid rising numbers of cruise visitors.

This came to a head in state capital Juneau, where a bid to adopt Ship-free Saturdays was crushed last year. A recent proposal to cap ship visits to Sitka was also overwhelmingly defeated.

“The majority of the population in the ports are very pro-tourism,” Kyle McDonnell, business development vice-president of Alaska Coach Tours tells me.

“It’s a small group [against it] that have a loud voice, so when the votes come in, they typically don’t get passed because the majority of the folks living here are involved in tourism.”

McDonnell says an informal agreement has been struck with cruise lines to cap numbers in Juneau next year.

“This is where we are at right now, until we can expand a little more and spread things out as there’s a lot of room for growth in these ports,” he adds.