Glacier Bay National Park, Southeast Alaska
This week Lindblad Expeditions is hosting charters from Johns Hopkins University and University of Virginia alumni programs. Glacier Bay National Park is significant to Johns Hopkins, because the university is the alma mater of Harry Fielding Reid who did early research in the area and named an impressive glacier. This morning the Sea Bird made its way into Johns Hopkins Inlet through growling icebergs, and we awoke in front of Johns Hopkins Glacier within the depths of Glacier Bay National Park. When Reid was here, the landscape was different than it is today; the Johns Hopkins and Grand Pacific Glaciers both terminated near the head of Glacier Bay. Here are Reid’s words from 1890:
“The head of the inlet receives two large glaciers, the Johns Hopkins and the Great Pacific, which enter from the southwest and northwest, respectively. Their ends are separated from each other by a mountain mass some 5,000 feet high, whose topography I was unable to work out. A rocky knoll, half island, half nunatak, divides the end of the Grand Pacific into two parts, from both of which ice breaks off; but the western end is by far the more important. The calving of the bergs from this and from the Johns Hopkins Glacier opposite is continuous, keeping the inlet well covered with floating ice and the air pulsating with the thunder of the falls”
The glaciers continued their retreat, and today, we cruised several miles further, across the suture zone between exotic terranes and past smaller tributary glaciers to reach the head of Johns Hopkins Inlet and the magnificent Johns Hopkins Glacier, which is now connected with the Gilman Glacier (named after the first president of Johns Hopkins University) and is slowly readvancing. South of Johns Hopkins, there is a glacier that bears Reid’s name who returned to the same university as one of the institution’s most notorious professors.
Johns Hopkins escort, Patricia Conklin, and some of her cohorts came up with the top ten reasons that Johns Hopkins alumni and others decided to journey to Alaska.
10. To research the difference between the Maryland blue crab and the Alaskan Dungeness crab
9. To take the kayak marriage test
8. To learn the difference between dolomitic marble and granodioritic gneiss
7. To get a Hopkins hat
6. To observe a whale breach – again and again and again
5. To see who made the best wardrobe choices
4. To bond with their rubber boots
3. To research the difference between the eight different species of bears, up-close and personal
2. To experience first-hand the act of calving and to hear the sonic boom that follows this event
1. And the #1 reason the Johns Hopkins Alumni and their families and friends journeyed to Alaska is…so that they could get up at the crack of dawn, in the rain and fog and subject themselves to a chilly temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit in order to experience the thrill of being a “chip off the old block.”
This week Lindblad Expeditions is hosting charters from Johns Hopkins University and University of Virginia alumni programs. Glacier Bay National Park is significant to Johns Hopkins, because the university is the alma mater of Harry Fielding Reid who did early research in the area and named an impressive glacier. This morning the Sea Bird made its way into Johns Hopkins Inlet through growling icebergs, and we awoke in front of Johns Hopkins Glacier within the depths of Glacier Bay National Park. When Reid was here, the landscape was different than it is today; the Johns Hopkins and Grand Pacific Glaciers both terminated near the head of Glacier Bay. Here are Reid’s words from 1890:
“The head of the inlet receives two large glaciers, the Johns Hopkins and the Great Pacific, which enter from the southwest and northwest, respectively. Their ends are separated from each other by a mountain mass some 5,000 feet high, whose topography I was unable to work out. A rocky knoll, half island, half nunatak, divides the end of the Grand Pacific into two parts, from both of which ice breaks off; but the western end is by far the more important. The calving of the bergs from this and from the Johns Hopkins Glacier opposite is continuous, keeping the inlet well covered with floating ice and the air pulsating with the thunder of the falls”
The glaciers continued their retreat, and today, we cruised several miles further, across the suture zone between exotic terranes and past smaller tributary glaciers to reach the head of Johns Hopkins Inlet and the magnificent Johns Hopkins Glacier, which is now connected with the Gilman Glacier (named after the first president of Johns Hopkins University) and is slowly readvancing. South of Johns Hopkins, there is a glacier that bears Reid’s name who returned to the same university as one of the institution’s most notorious professors.
Johns Hopkins escort, Patricia Conklin, and some of her cohorts came up with the top ten reasons that Johns Hopkins alumni and others decided to journey to Alaska.
10. To research the difference between the Maryland blue crab and the Alaskan Dungeness crab
9. To take the kayak marriage test
8. To learn the difference between dolomitic marble and granodioritic gneiss
7. To get a Hopkins hat
6. To observe a whale breach – again and again and again
5. To see who made the best wardrobe choices
4. To bond with their rubber boots
3. To research the difference between the eight different species of bears, up-close and personal
2. To experience first-hand the act of calving and to hear the sonic boom that follows this event
1. And the #1 reason the Johns Hopkins Alumni and their families and friends journeyed to Alaska is…so that they could get up at the crack of dawn, in the rain and fog and subject themselves to a chilly temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit in order to experience the thrill of being a “chip off the old block.”
