Southeast Alaska offers many extraordinary sights, and today we saw not a few – eagles on icebergs, whale tails and marbled murrelets – but little compares to a big pile of poo. There is a philosophical question that has long puzzled humanity, but at last we have an answer and the answer is: Yes! At Williams Cove we found bear scat, and we knew it was mighty fresh, since its creators - a sow and three brown cubs – were still feeding nearby at the forest’s edge. What they left looked quite like horse dung, since at this time of year brown bears eat like a horse – primarily on grass-like sedges. Along the trail we found another pile, this of a black bear. This one was white as snow, the remains of a blackie’s favorite springtime meal – barnacles! But further along the trail came the morning’s climax – a veritable ursine outhouse, scat scattered in a score or more of impressive piles.
In the afternoon we looked for more piles – piles of ice. Travelling up Endicott Arm, hundreds of icebergs flowed around the ship. At last, we boarded small boats to venture near the biggest pile of all, the Dawes Glacier. Dawes runs out of the high country, draining the Stikine Icefield. It was impressive to see the glacier dropping great bergs with many a deep rumble.
