Williams Cove and Tracy Arm
We awoke at the mouth of Holkham Bay. Like many inlets, the mouth here is shallow. Not only is it less thoroughly carved by glacial ice, but, as is often the case, the retreating ice left a large wall of rocky debris here. As tides empty and fill the bay, strong currents stir nutrients to the surface, creating productive water. We expect to see a concentration of life here, but today exceeded our best hopes. On one great iceberg we saw six perching eagles, on another more than a dozen. Later the eagles gathered in a whirling flock, dropping down to snatch fish from the water. Beneath them, the sea was fairly churning with loons by the score.
After breakfast we went ashore at Williams Cove. Here we walked for the first time through Southeast Alaskan coastal temperate rainforest. Moss was soft and spongy under our feet as we strode among ferns and huckleberry under great spruce and hemlock boughs. Meanwhile, others paddled about in kayaks. The bright sun made every view cheery and lucid.
After lunch we made our way up Tracy Arm. Southeast Alaska, ubiquitously fjord-rent, is a precipitous landscape, but here, where ice meets granite, the scenery is arguably the finest. Huge cliffs towered above our tiny-looking ship. Soaring mountains rose to rounded summits. Bergs became increasingly numerous. Some were of impressive size, calling to mind great mounds of sapphire, hoary ramparts or pale and craggy castles. Others were tiny, like crystalline swans or artfully sculpted glass.
At last we reached the end of the inlet and the source of the bergs. From our Zodiacs we neared Sawyer Glacier, one of many that drain the Stikine Icefield. The glacier falls like a jumbled waterfall from the Coast Range, and ends abruptly in an icy wall as much as 200 feet high. In a land of rock and ice, it was hard to grasp the scale of the landscape, until terns near the glacier’s face appeared as dancing gnats, Zodiacs seemed diminutive, and even our ship appeared swallowed in immensity.
Rich ocean, grand, ice-carved landscapes, and the forest that envelopes it are the hallmarks of Southeast Alaska. Today we savored all of them – a great introduction to a great land.
