We started our day at a small indentation in the shore of Tracy Arm. Just after breakfast we heard briefings about kayaking and about how to behave safely in bear country–a good thing, since both were soon needed! The forest here is a rich deep green. Seemingly out of context in such a lush environment, big icebergs floated nearby, some the brightest, cleanest shade of white, others a beautiful blue. Big bergs are common here because they are too deep to float over the shallow moraine at the mouth of Tracy Arm. Kayakers and boaters enjoyed close views of these bergs. Others walked into the forest. Here they met “standard” coastal temperate rain forest, dominated by spruce and hemlock trees. Returning along the shoreline, walkers encountered brown bears! A sow and three cubs were foraging along the forest edge. Bears feast on salmon when available, but otherwise they are mostly vegetarian. Lacking salmon, these ate the next best thing–salmonberries. How thrilling and delightful to see bear cubs standing to look at us! These are bears we have seen before. They were fairly comfortable around us, which allowed us to get good views. Let us hope they do not pay for their tolerance. This area is in no way protected, and some of our “friends” in similar places have recently been shot for “threatening” those who carry rifles rather than bear spray.
In the afternoon we traveled up Dawes Inlet. Water changed from dark green to a beautiful milky jade and at last a cloudy gray. Icebergs became more and more numerous. And at last we beheld the Dawes Glacier. Draining the Stikine Icefield, this is one of the southernmost tidewater glaciers in the hemisphere. We jumped into our little boats for a closer look. From an intimate perspective, the many bergs were even more impressive, with colors ranging from silty black to the most intense sapphire. In size they varied from rock-hard marbles to tolerable tennis courts. We passed seals on the way to the glacier. Come to bear and nurse their young, the seals are here at a vulnerable time, and we did what we could not to disturb them. The glacier, without familiar forms for scale, defied comprehension. Only with a will could we remember that its face was 25 stories high. The calving of the glacier was unusually good. All saw great walls tumble from the glacier’s face, and, better yet, the silent but awesome birth of huge blue bergs in a submarine calving.
We went to bed exhausted but contented. Could anything surpass such a day? Time will tell, but Alaska regularly delivers many a phenomenal experience.
