Tracy Arm and Williams Cove, Alaska
During the night the Sea Lion moved south through Lynn Canal and Stephens Passage. In the early morning we turned into Tracy Arm, a long glacially carved fjord that cuts into the Coast Range of mainland of Alaska, nearly to British Columbia. Over the last 2 ½ million years (give or take a few) ice has recurrently advanced and retreated as colder glacial periods give way to warmer interglacial interludes. With each advance of the ice, rocks carried along by the glaciers have carved ever deeper – scraping, gouging, and shaping the landscape. During the warmer interglacial interludes (the last such began some 12,000 years ago), ice turns to water and leaves the land. Sea level rises, and the deeper valleys are flooded to become fjords, the waterways of Southeast Alaska. Smaller tributary glaciers retreat, leaving behind the characteristic signature of a glacial landscape: U-shaped valleys with steep walls down which waterfalls now course and rounded domes smoothed by the passage of ice thousands of feet in depth. It was through such a landscape that we sailed this morning.
The glaciers of Alaska have not disappeared altogether (although in recent years they have been in rapid retreat). At its head, Tracy Arm divides into two branches, each leading to a tidewater glacier (that is, one whose terminus reaches the sea): the Sawyer and South Sawyer Glaciers. Ice that has dropped from the face of the glaciers now chokes Tracy Arm, providing platforms for the birthing of harbor seals. We boarded our Zodiacs for cruises around and through the ice, some of it white, some as clear as fine crystal, some in shades of blue as it plays tricks with light, and some covered with rock material carried down from the mountains above by the frozen moving rivers. A bald eagle sat quietly on its nest in an old spruce tree, stoically accepting our intrusion into its world. Soon it and its mate will be busy bringing fish to two hungry eaglets. Several bloody spots on the ice marked the entry of harbor seal pups into this world. Each will nurse on fat-rich milk for a mere three to four weeks and then it must make it on its own, for that is the way of harbor seals.
We spent our afternoon in Williams Cove at the base of Tracy Arm, where we explored the beauty of Alaska by kayak and by foot. We admired the myriad flowers of a coastal meadow, such as the brown-bronze chocolate lily with its lovely scent evolved to attract flies as pollinators. We entered the cathedral-like old-growth forest of majestic spruce and hemlock trees festooned with epiphytic mosses and lichens, with a rich understory of mosses, ferns, shrubs and herbs like the tiny shy maiden. We saw where the death and fall of a giant canopy tree has brought new life to the old-growth forest in the light gap so created. Our passage into and through the forest was along trails made by generations of bears, reminding us that we are only visitors in their world. Yo, bear!
During the night the Sea Lion moved south through Lynn Canal and Stephens Passage. In the early morning we turned into Tracy Arm, a long glacially carved fjord that cuts into the Coast Range of mainland of Alaska, nearly to British Columbia. Over the last 2 ½ million years (give or take a few) ice has recurrently advanced and retreated as colder glacial periods give way to warmer interglacial interludes. With each advance of the ice, rocks carried along by the glaciers have carved ever deeper – scraping, gouging, and shaping the landscape. During the warmer interglacial interludes (the last such began some 12,000 years ago), ice turns to water and leaves the land. Sea level rises, and the deeper valleys are flooded to become fjords, the waterways of Southeast Alaska. Smaller tributary glaciers retreat, leaving behind the characteristic signature of a glacial landscape: U-shaped valleys with steep walls down which waterfalls now course and rounded domes smoothed by the passage of ice thousands of feet in depth. It was through such a landscape that we sailed this morning.
The glaciers of Alaska have not disappeared altogether (although in recent years they have been in rapid retreat). At its head, Tracy Arm divides into two branches, each leading to a tidewater glacier (that is, one whose terminus reaches the sea): the Sawyer and South Sawyer Glaciers. Ice that has dropped from the face of the glaciers now chokes Tracy Arm, providing platforms for the birthing of harbor seals. We boarded our Zodiacs for cruises around and through the ice, some of it white, some as clear as fine crystal, some in shades of blue as it plays tricks with light, and some covered with rock material carried down from the mountains above by the frozen moving rivers. A bald eagle sat quietly on its nest in an old spruce tree, stoically accepting our intrusion into its world. Soon it and its mate will be busy bringing fish to two hungry eaglets. Several bloody spots on the ice marked the entry of harbor seal pups into this world. Each will nurse on fat-rich milk for a mere three to four weeks and then it must make it on its own, for that is the way of harbor seals.
We spent our afternoon in Williams Cove at the base of Tracy Arm, where we explored the beauty of Alaska by kayak and by foot. We admired the myriad flowers of a coastal meadow, such as the brown-bronze chocolate lily with its lovely scent evolved to attract flies as pollinators. We entered the cathedral-like old-growth forest of majestic spruce and hemlock trees festooned with epiphytic mosses and lichens, with a rich understory of mosses, ferns, shrubs and herbs like the tiny shy maiden. We saw where the death and fall of a giant canopy tree has brought new life to the old-growth forest in the light gap so created. Our passage into and through the forest was along trails made by generations of bears, reminding us that we are only visitors in their world. Yo, bear!
