Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
We can envy Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. He had the honour and privilege of exploring the coast of the Pacific Northwest 212 years ago, at a time when it was truly pristine and untouched. Setting out in longboats from his sailing ship, he and his crew meandered, measured and mapped the shoreline, penetrated endless coves and bays, and navigated angled fjords, all of which form one of the most contorted coastlines on earth. And he mapped the region with considerable accuracy. He dedicated names to many landmarks whose names endure today: Port Houghton, Frederick Sound, Admiralty Island, Chatham Strait, Cape Spencer, and Port Althorp. Another of his assignations was Icy Strait - and for an obvious reason. It was clogged with glacial ice... ice that calved continuously from a glacier’s snout that he described as being truly massive.
A name that Vancouver did not assign, however, was Glacier Bay. The reason was simple; there was no Glacier Bay in 1794. The huge glacier that was calving and spewing its ice into Icy Strait entirely filled what was to become Glacier Bay.
It is a much different scene today. The massive glacier encountered by Vancouver, and subsequently named by John Muir in 1879, has essentially gone. It has retreated some 65 miles northward, and now barely reaches into Alaska from its British Columbia source. Described as the most rapid glacial retreat in history, we were today able to enter into places not known to Vancouver – or even to Muir or Harrington or others who were to follow.
Indeed, although we envy Vancouver, there are many who will now envy us. We experienced a simply magnificent day in this expansive wilderness, engulfed in its natural beauty and awed by its strange ecosystems. Low clouds thinned as we pushed north. Sun shone on distant, snow-clad peaks. Glassy water showed every dimple from every fish and every bird. It was a day of wildlife and carved scenery... scenery that was carved slowly by relentless conveyors of rock and ice.
Sea otters, puffins, murres, kittiwakes and sea lions awaited us at South Marble Island. A distant brown (grizzly) bear worked the outflow stream at Tidal Inlet, while eagles kept watch. Mergansers and harlequins were joined by widgeons. The ice-polished bedrock of Gloomy Knob, enshrouded in morning mist, showed off its snowy mountain goats. Humpback whales and harbor seals broke the calm, aquamarine surface. Jaegers gave chase to kittiwakes, stealing a meal or two. A mother brown bear and her two cubs fed indelicately along the rich intertidal zone.
But the true measure of wilderness was our quiet time with wolves. Grey, brown and black, each with a hint of reddish fur, totaling four adults and three cubs reclined on a secluded beach then wandered in and out of the regenerating forest’s edge. We were silent, as were they. And that is the measure of an unforgettable wilderness experience.
We can envy Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. He had the honour and privilege of exploring the coast of the Pacific Northwest 212 years ago, at a time when it was truly pristine and untouched. Setting out in longboats from his sailing ship, he and his crew meandered, measured and mapped the shoreline, penetrated endless coves and bays, and navigated angled fjords, all of which form one of the most contorted coastlines on earth. And he mapped the region with considerable accuracy. He dedicated names to many landmarks whose names endure today: Port Houghton, Frederick Sound, Admiralty Island, Chatham Strait, Cape Spencer, and Port Althorp. Another of his assignations was Icy Strait - and for an obvious reason. It was clogged with glacial ice... ice that calved continuously from a glacier’s snout that he described as being truly massive.
A name that Vancouver did not assign, however, was Glacier Bay. The reason was simple; there was no Glacier Bay in 1794. The huge glacier that was calving and spewing its ice into Icy Strait entirely filled what was to become Glacier Bay.
It is a much different scene today. The massive glacier encountered by Vancouver, and subsequently named by John Muir in 1879, has essentially gone. It has retreated some 65 miles northward, and now barely reaches into Alaska from its British Columbia source. Described as the most rapid glacial retreat in history, we were today able to enter into places not known to Vancouver – or even to Muir or Harrington or others who were to follow.
Indeed, although we envy Vancouver, there are many who will now envy us. We experienced a simply magnificent day in this expansive wilderness, engulfed in its natural beauty and awed by its strange ecosystems. Low clouds thinned as we pushed north. Sun shone on distant, snow-clad peaks. Glassy water showed every dimple from every fish and every bird. It was a day of wildlife and carved scenery... scenery that was carved slowly by relentless conveyors of rock and ice.
Sea otters, puffins, murres, kittiwakes and sea lions awaited us at South Marble Island. A distant brown (grizzly) bear worked the outflow stream at Tidal Inlet, while eagles kept watch. Mergansers and harlequins were joined by widgeons. The ice-polished bedrock of Gloomy Knob, enshrouded in morning mist, showed off its snowy mountain goats. Humpback whales and harbor seals broke the calm, aquamarine surface. Jaegers gave chase to kittiwakes, stealing a meal or two. A mother brown bear and her two cubs fed indelicately along the rich intertidal zone.
But the true measure of wilderness was our quiet time with wolves. Grey, brown and black, each with a hint of reddish fur, totaling four adults and three cubs reclined on a secluded beach then wandered in and out of the regenerating forest’s edge. We were silent, as were they. And that is the measure of an unforgettable wilderness experience.
