Glacier Bay, Alaska
Beneath a gray scalloped sky we entered Glacier Bay at 4:00am and tied up to the dock at Bartlett Cove. Park Ranger Aaron Grimes embarked (to spend the day with us) and soon we were northbound in this place John Muir called “the bay of great glaciers.”
Before brunch we sidled along Boulder Island to watch rafts of sea otters play and feed. A stiff wind blew, but we gathered on the bow undaunted, binoculars at hand. Next stop was South Marble Island, an active seabird nesting colony anchored in the middle of the bay, home to black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-winged gulls, pigeon guillemots, common murres, black oystercatchers, pelagic cormorants, and the most prized of all, tufted puffins.
Aaron Grimes welcomed us to the park and told us the history of Glacier Bay, how plant ecologist William Skinner Cooper convinced President Calvin Coolidge to create Glacier Bay National Monument in 1925, thus protecting one of the America’s finest scenic wonders and natural laboratories. In 1980 Glacier Bay became a national park. The National Park Service closely limits the number of vessels that enter the park, and we were fortunate enough to benefit from such regulations, as we often felt that we had the entire bay to ourselves.
In North Sandy Cove we watched a mother black bear and her cub feed along the golden shore for more than half an hour, turning over rocks to reach barnacles below. She would scrape them off with her paw and lick them down by the dozens. Never have fifty people on the bow of a ship been so quiet, or pleased. The only thing you could hear was the purr and whir of cameras.
Next came a mountain goat on Gloomy Knob. To cap it off we motored into Johns Hopkins Inlet, the wildest inlet in Glacier Bay, six miles long and bejeweled with icebergs. Slowly the Sea Bird slalomed through the bergs until we were two miles from the tidewater face of Johns Hopkins Glacier, one of the few glaciers in Alaska that (despite global warming) is advancing. The sun came out, the ice peaks glistened, and for a blessed hour we reveled in quintessential Alaska, the Africa of America.
The day was not over. En route back down the bay, we sighted a brown bear on Russell Island and watched for half an hour, its tawny fur back-dropped by vivid stands of fireweed. Nightfall found us in Bartlett Cove where we bid adieu to Aaron and had an hour or two to walk a forest trail and visit Glacier Bay Lodge, a fitting end to a great day.
Beneath a gray scalloped sky we entered Glacier Bay at 4:00am and tied up to the dock at Bartlett Cove. Park Ranger Aaron Grimes embarked (to spend the day with us) and soon we were northbound in this place John Muir called “the bay of great glaciers.”
Before brunch we sidled along Boulder Island to watch rafts of sea otters play and feed. A stiff wind blew, but we gathered on the bow undaunted, binoculars at hand. Next stop was South Marble Island, an active seabird nesting colony anchored in the middle of the bay, home to black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-winged gulls, pigeon guillemots, common murres, black oystercatchers, pelagic cormorants, and the most prized of all, tufted puffins.
Aaron Grimes welcomed us to the park and told us the history of Glacier Bay, how plant ecologist William Skinner Cooper convinced President Calvin Coolidge to create Glacier Bay National Monument in 1925, thus protecting one of the America’s finest scenic wonders and natural laboratories. In 1980 Glacier Bay became a national park. The National Park Service closely limits the number of vessels that enter the park, and we were fortunate enough to benefit from such regulations, as we often felt that we had the entire bay to ourselves.
In North Sandy Cove we watched a mother black bear and her cub feed along the golden shore for more than half an hour, turning over rocks to reach barnacles below. She would scrape them off with her paw and lick them down by the dozens. Never have fifty people on the bow of a ship been so quiet, or pleased. The only thing you could hear was the purr and whir of cameras.
Next came a mountain goat on Gloomy Knob. To cap it off we motored into Johns Hopkins Inlet, the wildest inlet in Glacier Bay, six miles long and bejeweled with icebergs. Slowly the Sea Bird slalomed through the bergs until we were two miles from the tidewater face of Johns Hopkins Glacier, one of the few glaciers in Alaska that (despite global warming) is advancing. The sun came out, the ice peaks glistened, and for a blessed hour we reveled in quintessential Alaska, the Africa of America.
The day was not over. En route back down the bay, we sighted a brown bear on Russell Island and watched for half an hour, its tawny fur back-dropped by vivid stands of fireweed. Nightfall found us in Bartlett Cove where we bid adieu to Aaron and had an hour or two to walk a forest trail and visit Glacier Bay Lodge, a fitting end to a great day.
