NNs On the Wind

It was up at 6:30, again, to get to the day boat for the 8 hour cruise up Glacier Bay. Turns out it was a 130 mile round trip from Bartlett Cove where the Lodge and National Park Service is. This is an enormous 3.3 million acres park that is also part of a larger UNESCO World Heritage site. We went nearly up to the Canadian border, and upper boundary of the park, where we paused for half an hour at the Margerie and the Grand Pacific glaciers. We were provided beverages (coffee, tea, juice, soda) and a mid-morning snack of clam chowder and a lunch of a sandwich with snack chips. It was chilly so the tea was nice to have.

There were about 30 of us and a park ranger with lots to share. He told us of the history of the bay, some stories, and helped us spot the many animals we encountered. More than 400 years ago the bay was the valley home of the Huna Tlingit. A mini ice age occurred here a few hundred years ago and by 1750 the native people had been forced from their home and the ice sheet covered the entire region of Glacier Bay and much of the surrounding mountains. The ice sheet scoured out an extremely deep valley such that when it retreated 250 years ago the resulting sea, flooded by the Pacific Ocean has some depths greater than 1000 feet.

Even in the last twenty years or so the influx of mammals and other bay inhabitants has been amazing. In the 1960s there were no sea otters and today they estimate there are more than 7000.  This is also true of the increasing numbers of bears, seals, sea lions, porpoises and whales. The brown bears here are very similar to the brown or grizzlies in the lower 48 except that they weigh 20-40 pounds more, on average. This is due to the abundance of food (fish) here.

We saw a number of “blows” from humpback whales and I saw the tail fluke and dorsal of two. There were furry White Mountain goats clinging to the rocky cliff sides above the bay. There were a large number of sea lions on some small rock islands. We saw several seals floating on a small chunk of ice. Apparently in the spring the mother seals have their young on the small ice flows. There were also lots of birds; various gulls, two types of puffins, a bald eagle on a small chunk of ice as well as other flying and diving birds.

It was an amazing day!!! It was chilly and windy at times. Near the glaciers there was a lot of ice in the water, which was an amazing teal/light blue color. We heard and saw the Margerie rumble and toss some small ice chunks down with a great thunder type of roar. We did not see much in the way of glacier calving as these were just boulder sized chunks. One of the crew netted a chunk for us to see on the back deck. It originated as snow at the top of the glacier some 200-300 years ago. The Margerie is advancing at a rate of 6 feet a day; however it is also receding at a faster pace due to what is considered climate change.  Our ranger guide showed us where the Margerie extended to when he was here a year ago. It’s dramatic to see the retreat in a year.

It was a long day so a bit of a nap ensued once back in our room. It’s hard to judge time here!!! We went for dinner around 8 and it was still bright as day. After dinner I walked down a path and found a nice view of the harbor and a ceremonial Tlinget House. The totems and paintings are terrific and probably meaningful, but I don’t know what they represent. I took the photos at 9:45pm, and again, it was quite light out.

https://www.alaska.org/assets/content/…/glacier-bay-national-park-full-brochure.pdf