Glacier Bay National Park
Fay Schaller, our Glacier Bay National Park ranger, shared with us in her opening words that for one day, “you are visiting a wilderness, remote, changing, and yet still intact.” Only 250 years ago, Glacier Bay was ALL glacier and no bay. An incredible river of ice, thousands of feet deep and over 100 miles long. The ice has retreated and today we visited one of the 12 tidewater glaciers remaining. Margerie’s face towers over 200 feet tall and spans almost a mile at her toe. This land reminds us to slow down, take in the majesty of a wilderness carved by water and ice, and to silently pay tribute to those who were a voice for the legislation that was responsible for protecting this magical place.
“The Master Builder chose for a tool, not the thunder and lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent nor the eroding rain, but the tender snowflake, noiselessly falling through unnumbered generations,” wrote John Muir. To the Huna Tlingit people, the voice of the glacier was known as white thunder. Those of us on board National Geographic Sea Bird were inspired to create our own interpretations.
All around us there is ice or the work of ice in Glacier Bay. A bald eagle perched on an iceberg fished the bergy-bit strewn waters as we approached Johns Hopkins Glacier. Brown bears gathered berries along a glacial outwash plain. Humpback and killer whales foraged in the nutrient rich waters of the bay. Kelp surrounded the low-lying reef where sea otters ate urchins. Nesting tufted puffins and black legged kittiwakes circled above Steller sea lions hauled out on South Marble Island, while a ring of kelp attracted sea otters to a low lying boulder island. These days Glacier Bay is more bay than glacier. But the retreating ice has carved a home for a rich variety and abundance of wildlife.
Bertha Franulovich, from the Huna Totem Corporation was our Cultural Interpreter. In closing our day in Glacier Bay, where her grandfather fished many moons ago, Bertha gave each of us a silver paddle with an invitation to return one day. “Gunal cheesh ya’a hate yati-sit eeyi tee. Thank you for visiting Glacier Bay today.” Until our return, whether physically or spiritually, we will cherish the gift of Glacier Bay National Park.
