Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm, Southeast Alaska
The steep fjords of Southeast Alaska are one of the features that have lured visitors here for generations. Today, we were able to travel through two adjacent waterways carved by glaciers that begin in the Stickeen Ice Field: Tracy and Endicott Arms.
We awoke after last night’s heavy rain to clear skies and spectacular light on the scoured granite walls of Tracy Arm. Cruising along until both Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers came into view, we spotted sure signs of spring: namely, the attentive parents and young offspring of the animals that pup, nest, and cub here. A bald eagle bent over a nest where a hungry chick was no doubt calling for food. Harbor seal pups lay with their heads angled toward their mother’s bellies, ready for their next meal. A protective mother black bear waded through beach rye, disappearing into the forest with her two small cubs.
Upon leaving Tracy Arm against a strong incoming tide, seas moiling over the shallow water of an old terminal moraine, we entered a confluence of life: marbled murrelets, three species of loons, Bonaparte’s gulls hot on the wings of a bald eagle, humpback whales, and Steller’s sea lions worked the waters. Two brown bears, possibly a male in pursuit of a female, walked the beach. After such productive chaos, one might think the protected waters of Endicott Arm tame, but harbor seals hauled out on the ice here, too. We saw even more pups, including the just-born one pictured above, still tangled in afterbirth which may later provide a feast for bald eagles. A trip in our Zodiacs allowed us a seal-eyed view of the shifting ice, and we rocked in the waves caused by ice calving from Dawes Glacier along with everything else in the arm, Arctic terns chirring overhead.
Spring in Alaska brings together both individuals and species that travel through the winter months solitarily. The fierce, raw life of this place is both humbling and thrilling—so many beginnings, from lichen on rock to seal pups mewling, find a toehold here. I can’t think of a better way to begin a voyage of exploration and discovery.
The steep fjords of Southeast Alaska are one of the features that have lured visitors here for generations. Today, we were able to travel through two adjacent waterways carved by glaciers that begin in the Stickeen Ice Field: Tracy and Endicott Arms.
We awoke after last night’s heavy rain to clear skies and spectacular light on the scoured granite walls of Tracy Arm. Cruising along until both Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers came into view, we spotted sure signs of spring: namely, the attentive parents and young offspring of the animals that pup, nest, and cub here. A bald eagle bent over a nest where a hungry chick was no doubt calling for food. Harbor seal pups lay with their heads angled toward their mother’s bellies, ready for their next meal. A protective mother black bear waded through beach rye, disappearing into the forest with her two small cubs.
Upon leaving Tracy Arm against a strong incoming tide, seas moiling over the shallow water of an old terminal moraine, we entered a confluence of life: marbled murrelets, three species of loons, Bonaparte’s gulls hot on the wings of a bald eagle, humpback whales, and Steller’s sea lions worked the waters. Two brown bears, possibly a male in pursuit of a female, walked the beach. After such productive chaos, one might think the protected waters of Endicott Arm tame, but harbor seals hauled out on the ice here, too. We saw even more pups, including the just-born one pictured above, still tangled in afterbirth which may later provide a feast for bald eagles. A trip in our Zodiacs allowed us a seal-eyed view of the shifting ice, and we rocked in the waves caused by ice calving from Dawes Glacier along with everything else in the arm, Arctic terns chirring overhead.
Spring in Alaska brings together both individuals and species that travel through the winter months solitarily. The fierce, raw life of this place is both humbling and thrilling—so many beginnings, from lichen on rock to seal pups mewling, find a toehold here. I can’t think of a better way to begin a voyage of exploration and discovery.
