Tracy Arm
Years ago a glacier cut through mountainous terrain bulldozing rocky material in front of it. As the ice retreated, the ground-up debris settled as a marker of the icy advance. Today we navigated through a naturally dredged channel across this old terminal moraine and entered spectacular Tracy Arm, one of two fjords that tentacle off Southeast Alaska’s Holkham Bay.
Evidence of glaciation, both obvious and subtle, abounds in this serpentine canyon. Mature rainforest backsteps in time, devolving from hemlock and spruce to alder and willow, to dwarf fireweed and mosses, to bare rock, trailing the retreat of the ice. Horizontal striations ride the canyon walls gouged by rocks once embedded in the glacier’s flanks. A dramatic granitic mound reminiscent of Halfdome sits between two hanging valleys, the glaciated curves slowly sinewaving through the scenery.
Occasional icebergs drifted by as we motored up the fjord admiring the sheer gray walls and the diversity of falling streams, waterfalls and rivulets running down. Snow and ice remained tamped in vaulted crevices and glacial blankets loomed above. It was at the head of the arm however where we found the heart of this icy paradise – two glaciers reaching tidewater.
A meltwater current flowing out from Sawyer Glacier cleared icebergs away from its face and the Sea Bird neared the crumbled blue mass. Migratory maestros arctic terns flitted like an orchestra conductor’s hand to their nest sites on confused quartz-infused metamorphic rock. Lateral moraine rubble from the recently receded ice lingered on the fjord walls pierced by waterfalls.
It was the iceberg’s eye perspective from our Zodiacs that truly put the icing on the cake. We slalomed through the aquamarine glacial milk pondering the icy inkblots, as curious of mother harbor seals nurturing their pups on the floes as they of us. Before the termini of mighty swaths of compacted snow we floated like icebergs in the fjord, appreciating the world created and opened up around us.
Years ago a glacier cut through mountainous terrain bulldozing rocky material in front of it. As the ice retreated, the ground-up debris settled as a marker of the icy advance. Today we navigated through a naturally dredged channel across this old terminal moraine and entered spectacular Tracy Arm, one of two fjords that tentacle off Southeast Alaska’s Holkham Bay.
Evidence of glaciation, both obvious and subtle, abounds in this serpentine canyon. Mature rainforest backsteps in time, devolving from hemlock and spruce to alder and willow, to dwarf fireweed and mosses, to bare rock, trailing the retreat of the ice. Horizontal striations ride the canyon walls gouged by rocks once embedded in the glacier’s flanks. A dramatic granitic mound reminiscent of Halfdome sits between two hanging valleys, the glaciated curves slowly sinewaving through the scenery.
Occasional icebergs drifted by as we motored up the fjord admiring the sheer gray walls and the diversity of falling streams, waterfalls and rivulets running down. Snow and ice remained tamped in vaulted crevices and glacial blankets loomed above. It was at the head of the arm however where we found the heart of this icy paradise – two glaciers reaching tidewater.
A meltwater current flowing out from Sawyer Glacier cleared icebergs away from its face and the Sea Bird neared the crumbled blue mass. Migratory maestros arctic terns flitted like an orchestra conductor’s hand to their nest sites on confused quartz-infused metamorphic rock. Lateral moraine rubble from the recently receded ice lingered on the fjord walls pierced by waterfalls.
It was the iceberg’s eye perspective from our Zodiacs that truly put the icing on the cake. We slalomed through the aquamarine glacial milk pondering the icy inkblots, as curious of mother harbor seals nurturing their pups on the floes as they of us. Before the termini of mighty swaths of compacted snow we floated like icebergs in the fjord, appreciating the world created and opened up around us.