Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
Glacier Bay didn’t even exist 210 years ago. When James Cook sailed past in 1778, and when George Vancouver further explored Icy Strait in 1794, what is now Glacier Bay was filled with ice, a small indentation ending in a massive glacial face. In 1879 the Scottish-born Naturalist John Muir came to test his idea that glacial ice had carved the landscape of Yosemite Valley. By then the ice face had retreated 48 miles into Glacier Bay. By 1918 the face of the Grand Pacific Glacier was 65 miles from the mouth of the bay. The retreat of the ice continues to this day. Vegetation has come to the newly exposed landscape. Sitka alder, spruce, and cottonwood now blanket slopes that were wiped bare by the ice; smaller plants have claimed the alpine zone, but a thousand feet or so above sea level. The plants provide food for bears, mountain goats, moose, and marmots. Salmon have colonized streams that did not exist decades ago. Humpback whales, porpoises, Steller’s sea lions, harbor seals, and sea otters all now swim and feed in the waters of the Bay. Glacier Bay is a laboratory for the study of community development and succession and a testimony to the dynamic nature of landscape and of life.
We picked up National Park Service Ranger Sarah Keefer in the early morning and headed up bay as the clouds of early morning lifted to reveal the Fairweather Range in all its snow- and ice-capped glory. Our first stop was at South Marble Island – a haven for breeding seabirds. The stars were the tufted puffins with their bright orange feet and bills and streaming golden plumes, but they were supported by a cast of thousands: pigeon guillemots with bright scarlet feet, black-legged kittiwakes gluing their nests onto sheer rock faces where they will be safe from predators, pelagic cormorants with pencil-thin necks…each of us had our favorites and called them out as they flew past our ship. All this was accompanied by a wonderful cacophony of sounds: black oystercatchers piping, kittiwakes calling out their name, and Steller’s sea lions loafing on the rocks and emitting their belching roars from tenor to deep basso. This is primarily a haul-out of non-breeding males, especially sub-adult animals waiting until they have grown large enough to challenge the large bulls for the right to breed. Mature, breeding males approach 2,000 lbs. The big fellow dominating the rock shown above must have been of that size. Perhaps he has been displaced by younger, stronger males at the breeding colonies and is here living out his life reflecting on his past breeding successes. We can only speculate.
We spent our day cruising under clear skies with spectacular views of the mountains above, past the blows of humpback whales hanging in the still air. Even islands seemed to levitate, a mirage caused by a temperature inversion above the cold ocean water. Twelve tidewater glaciers enter into Glacier Bay, and we visited several of them. Nearly to the Canadian border, we reached the Margerie-Ferris-Grand Pacific glacier complex. The rock-covered Ferris Glacier has pushed across the Grand Pacific as the latter has retreated. Adjacent Margerie is much cleaner, and its face was an abstract sculpture of ice pinnacles. Soon the ice will complete its journey from the mountains above and crash into the sea to become floating icebergs, bergie bits, and growlers. We waited, watched, and listened to cracks and groans coming from within the glacier that presaged a calving, and we were rewarded by the sight of tons of ice breaking loose from the glacier and falling into the sea with a mighty splash.
A visit to a colony of sea otters, ever-active in the kelp beds surrounding the Boulder Islands, an after-dinner walk around the trail at Bartlett Cove, a quick visit to the lodge, and a very successful day in Glacier Bay National Park was completed.
Glacier Bay didn’t even exist 210 years ago. When James Cook sailed past in 1778, and when George Vancouver further explored Icy Strait in 1794, what is now Glacier Bay was filled with ice, a small indentation ending in a massive glacial face. In 1879 the Scottish-born Naturalist John Muir came to test his idea that glacial ice had carved the landscape of Yosemite Valley. By then the ice face had retreated 48 miles into Glacier Bay. By 1918 the face of the Grand Pacific Glacier was 65 miles from the mouth of the bay. The retreat of the ice continues to this day. Vegetation has come to the newly exposed landscape. Sitka alder, spruce, and cottonwood now blanket slopes that were wiped bare by the ice; smaller plants have claimed the alpine zone, but a thousand feet or so above sea level. The plants provide food for bears, mountain goats, moose, and marmots. Salmon have colonized streams that did not exist decades ago. Humpback whales, porpoises, Steller’s sea lions, harbor seals, and sea otters all now swim and feed in the waters of the Bay. Glacier Bay is a laboratory for the study of community development and succession and a testimony to the dynamic nature of landscape and of life.
We picked up National Park Service Ranger Sarah Keefer in the early morning and headed up bay as the clouds of early morning lifted to reveal the Fairweather Range in all its snow- and ice-capped glory. Our first stop was at South Marble Island – a haven for breeding seabirds. The stars were the tufted puffins with their bright orange feet and bills and streaming golden plumes, but they were supported by a cast of thousands: pigeon guillemots with bright scarlet feet, black-legged kittiwakes gluing their nests onto sheer rock faces where they will be safe from predators, pelagic cormorants with pencil-thin necks…each of us had our favorites and called them out as they flew past our ship. All this was accompanied by a wonderful cacophony of sounds: black oystercatchers piping, kittiwakes calling out their name, and Steller’s sea lions loafing on the rocks and emitting their belching roars from tenor to deep basso. This is primarily a haul-out of non-breeding males, especially sub-adult animals waiting until they have grown large enough to challenge the large bulls for the right to breed. Mature, breeding males approach 2,000 lbs. The big fellow dominating the rock shown above must have been of that size. Perhaps he has been displaced by younger, stronger males at the breeding colonies and is here living out his life reflecting on his past breeding successes. We can only speculate.
We spent our day cruising under clear skies with spectacular views of the mountains above, past the blows of humpback whales hanging in the still air. Even islands seemed to levitate, a mirage caused by a temperature inversion above the cold ocean water. Twelve tidewater glaciers enter into Glacier Bay, and we visited several of them. Nearly to the Canadian border, we reached the Margerie-Ferris-Grand Pacific glacier complex. The rock-covered Ferris Glacier has pushed across the Grand Pacific as the latter has retreated. Adjacent Margerie is much cleaner, and its face was an abstract sculpture of ice pinnacles. Soon the ice will complete its journey from the mountains above and crash into the sea to become floating icebergs, bergie bits, and growlers. We waited, watched, and listened to cracks and groans coming from within the glacier that presaged a calving, and we were rewarded by the sight of tons of ice breaking loose from the glacier and falling into the sea with a mighty splash.
A visit to a colony of sea otters, ever-active in the kelp beds surrounding the Boulder Islands, an after-dinner walk around the trail at Bartlett Cove, a quick visit to the lodge, and a very successful day in Glacier Bay National Park was completed.
