Our final day of exploration took us to the Tracy Arm Ford’s Terror Wilderness, a place with no roads, no buildings, and no trails. To tease apart the secrets of these steep-sided fjords, we utilized our fleet of small boats to gain a front row seat of Dawes Glacier. At one time this glacier was thousands of feet thick scouring the bedrock, carving a granite-walled landscape worthy of John Muir’s heart. Today, Dawes Glacier is receding and deflating, slinking back towards its lifeblood and source, the Stikine ice field, like a cowering dog hiding from a scolding owner. As the blue giant recedes, it exclaims a dirge that reverberates through the fjord: concussive explosions of falling ice. A shattering release of pressure draws our eyes and ears to ice falling from hundreds of feet to the cold water below. It’s with exuberant joy that we watch the glacier calve off unfathomable amounts of ice. The longer we watch, the more we see. Today’s lesson is that the glacier does not calve for us. Long after we are all gone, behind the curtain of darkness, winter’s cold cloak, and foul weather’s unwelcome hand the glacier will calve blue and white bergs. Every heart eventually stops beating. How many more pulses does the Stikine ice field have? Will Dawes glacier ever be thing of the past? What will happen if it’s gone?
Rather than dwell on the ravaging effects of climate change on our beloved Dawes Glacier, we decided to do a bit of underwater exploration this evening. Carrying a tethered video camera and a full face mask, I dove very near to the Tracy Arm bar in search of interesting critters at a new dive site. We transmitted this dive wirelessly to the ship’s lounge for all the guests, staff, and crew to view and listen to. For all its fun, Live Dives are a very different experience for me than for everyone else. Taking 70 or more people virtually underwater to an unfamiliar planet is a unique task. Whether it’s extolling the intricacies of nudibranch breeding behavior or musing about just why there are thousands of massive sea cucumbers, every Live Dive is different and challenging.
Today’s planning and experience paid off as Second Mate Chris and I found a unique dive site dominated by the oral tentacles of huge sea cucumbers that literally covered every available rock. I’ve never seen a site like this and with the help of modern technologies, our guests were there to see and hear about it as it happened.
