Glacier Bay National Park
Today we spent the entire day sailing through one of the wildest and most pristine places in southeast Alaska. Glacier Bay National Park is a wonderful place to spend the day viewing majestic landscapes, searching for wildlife and witnessing the power of the glaciers. Today, we had it all.
Starting early at south Marble island, many Steller’s sea lions were seen hauled out on the rocks, as hundreds of marine birds surrounded this small island. Tufted puffins, pelagic cormorants, black-legged kittiwakes, pigeon guillemots and many other birds frequent these recently de-glaciated rocks. Most of them come here to nest, since ecological succession has not yet covered the island with forests. As we moved on, a couple humpback whales were briefly seen, as we approached Gloomy Knob. Dozens of Mountain goats gather at Gloomy Knob, and some of the surrounding mountainous areas. Nannies with their newborn kids were seen, not too far from our ship.
As the day continued, the wildlife sightings just got better and better. We had two really good brown bear sightings. At this time of the year, when salmon is absent from the streams, bears dedicate most of their time to feed on the intertidal zone and to finding edible plants.
Every time we search for wild creatures ashore, we always wish secretly to find a certain animal that lives here, and that is rarely seen. Well, today our wishes became reality when we sailed through Russell Cut, and three wolves were found resting on the gravel. Wolves are mysterious creatures that are surrounded by myth and seem to have walked out of a fairy tale into the wild world.
We continued sailing north, and we could hear the ice under the ship’s hull as we approached Margerie and Grand Pacific Glaciers. These remnants of the last ice age began to flow before any human history was ever written. They still flow as massive frozen rivers, carving away the valleys and calving massive chunks of ice that will drift as icebergs through the silty waters of Tarr inlet.
