Glacier Bay National Park
Glacier Bay: The Land of White Thunder to the Tlingit people. Their name for this place refers to the booming and cracking of the slowly moving frozen rivers as they overstress their constituent ice. Along the front edge of the Bay’s tidewater glaciers, the white thunder oft times accompanies calving, (the breaking off of chunks from baseball size to those the size of office buildings, which then splash into the sea to the loud approval of kittiwakes nearby.) We were privileged to see some calving of pieces, in-between the extremes, crash down off the Margerie Glacier. It dropped ice, which had started out as snow, on the glacier’s parent ice field, 21 miles upstream. That was back when our country was new and few people in it even knew of Alaska’s existence.
Our first treat of the day, long before reaching Margerie Glacier, was the Steller’s sea lion haul out at South Marble Island. As we approached, we heard the barking of a California sea lion punctuating the rumbles of the Stellers’. Indeed, we quickly spotted the high sagittal crest of a young California sea lion. Young males of many mammal species are given to wide wanderings – looking for new territories and available females. Was this rover a harbinger of colonization by the expanding southern species as temperatures rise? Will there be, in future years, a barking as well as a rumbling haul-out in Glacier Bay? (If so, how will the two species get along? Is the resource enough for both?). Or will next year find the wanderer far to the south with nothing more than tales of his wanderings in the sea of the icebergs?
Our wandering sea lion may have a jaundiced view of Southeast Alaska, as our drought continues. We have had but a single day with even a hint of rain and a good deal of actual sunshine on most days. The sunshine has not been complete today. Though we have mostly basked in the sun and been able to observe many of the upper slopes, Mount Fairweather has managed to keep its cloud shroud pulled up about its head and shoulders. Still, this bay, with ice sculpted mountains rising thousands of feet up from its gentle waves, is a spectacle among spectacles.
One of the treats of the sunlight was a brown bear that changed colors as it moved. Every one of its movements shifted the light so that the bear slid from auburn to honey blonde, with dark brown legs, head, and hump. This solitary bear seemed content to be feeding, occasionally glancing up, curious as to why we were watching him. The two black bears we saw earlier were oblivious not only to us but to the world in general – it is the season of courtship for bears.
For the mountain goats plying their climbing skills on the steep faces of rock rising from the sea, it is the season of birth. One of the kids we saw was a stark reminder that, as beautiful as the Bay is, it is a hard land as well. The little goat, only a few days old, had injured a leg and was struggling to keep up with its mother. If the accident only bruised the leg, the kid will be scampering about, defying gravity again in a few days. If the leg is broken. . . . . the mountains forgive neither the weak nor the unlucky.
Days linger comfortably long as the summer solstice approaches, so we linger, at day’s end, at the mouth of the Bay. We visit the park’s visitor center and hike in the woods around Bartlett Cove; a quiet conclusion to delightful day.
Glacier Bay: The Land of White Thunder to the Tlingit people. Their name for this place refers to the booming and cracking of the slowly moving frozen rivers as they overstress their constituent ice. Along the front edge of the Bay’s tidewater glaciers, the white thunder oft times accompanies calving, (the breaking off of chunks from baseball size to those the size of office buildings, which then splash into the sea to the loud approval of kittiwakes nearby.) We were privileged to see some calving of pieces, in-between the extremes, crash down off the Margerie Glacier. It dropped ice, which had started out as snow, on the glacier’s parent ice field, 21 miles upstream. That was back when our country was new and few people in it even knew of Alaska’s existence.
Our first treat of the day, long before reaching Margerie Glacier, was the Steller’s sea lion haul out at South Marble Island. As we approached, we heard the barking of a California sea lion punctuating the rumbles of the Stellers’. Indeed, we quickly spotted the high sagittal crest of a young California sea lion. Young males of many mammal species are given to wide wanderings – looking for new territories and available females. Was this rover a harbinger of colonization by the expanding southern species as temperatures rise? Will there be, in future years, a barking as well as a rumbling haul-out in Glacier Bay? (If so, how will the two species get along? Is the resource enough for both?). Or will next year find the wanderer far to the south with nothing more than tales of his wanderings in the sea of the icebergs?
Our wandering sea lion may have a jaundiced view of Southeast Alaska, as our drought continues. We have had but a single day with even a hint of rain and a good deal of actual sunshine on most days. The sunshine has not been complete today. Though we have mostly basked in the sun and been able to observe many of the upper slopes, Mount Fairweather has managed to keep its cloud shroud pulled up about its head and shoulders. Still, this bay, with ice sculpted mountains rising thousands of feet up from its gentle waves, is a spectacle among spectacles.
One of the treats of the sunlight was a brown bear that changed colors as it moved. Every one of its movements shifted the light so that the bear slid from auburn to honey blonde, with dark brown legs, head, and hump. This solitary bear seemed content to be feeding, occasionally glancing up, curious as to why we were watching him. The two black bears we saw earlier were oblivious not only to us but to the world in general – it is the season of courtship for bears.
For the mountain goats plying their climbing skills on the steep faces of rock rising from the sea, it is the season of birth. One of the kids we saw was a stark reminder that, as beautiful as the Bay is, it is a hard land as well. The little goat, only a few days old, had injured a leg and was struggling to keep up with its mother. If the accident only bruised the leg, the kid will be scampering about, defying gravity again in a few days. If the leg is broken. . . . . the mountains forgive neither the weak nor the unlucky.
Days linger comfortably long as the summer solstice approaches, so we linger, at day’s end, at the mouth of the Bay. We visit the park’s visitor center and hike in the woods around Bartlett Cove; a quiet conclusion to delightful day.
