Williams Cove
Shades of gray and green and blue were the themes of the wonderful day we spent in and around the fjord of Tracy Arm. Actually, silver is a better word than gray to describe the skies over Holkham Bay when some of us awoke at 6:15 am to the dulcet tones of our expedition leader on the PA system, informing us that a humpback whale was performing just off our bow. This was closely followed by the glorious blue of a huge iceberg that had traveled more than 25 miles from the Sawyer Glaciers to the 1500 year old terminal moraine at the beginning of the fjord. This beauty must have been one immense piece of ice when it crashed off the front of the glacier to begin its journey.
The greens we found along the shore and entering the climax forest of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock on hikes in Williams Cove. The most interesting thing about the plants in this environment is that so many of them were either edible, medicinal, or part of the culture of the native inhabitants of the coastal rainforest. Notable examples were devil’s club used in shamanistic rituals and food stables such as silverweed and chocolate lily.
Most impressive of all was ice blue! We witnessed this wavelength all the way up the fjord in the form of innumerous blocks of ice floating out with the tide and finally witnessed the source at the rapidly calving tidewater fronts of the Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers. We even saw a few bits and pieces of blue sky to prove that silver is not the only color up there.
Colors were the visual part of our experience today. The mental part was the understanding that the tidewater glaciers of Southeast Alaska are rapidly disappearing. This has implications for everything from a potential sea level rise to the survival of the harbor seals that deliver their pups on the floating icebergs. So this is becoming a voyage of discovery in many ways. We look forward to what insights tomorrow might bring.
Shades of gray and green and blue were the themes of the wonderful day we spent in and around the fjord of Tracy Arm. Actually, silver is a better word than gray to describe the skies over Holkham Bay when some of us awoke at 6:15 am to the dulcet tones of our expedition leader on the PA system, informing us that a humpback whale was performing just off our bow. This was closely followed by the glorious blue of a huge iceberg that had traveled more than 25 miles from the Sawyer Glaciers to the 1500 year old terminal moraine at the beginning of the fjord. This beauty must have been one immense piece of ice when it crashed off the front of the glacier to begin its journey.
The greens we found along the shore and entering the climax forest of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock on hikes in Williams Cove. The most interesting thing about the plants in this environment is that so many of them were either edible, medicinal, or part of the culture of the native inhabitants of the coastal rainforest. Notable examples were devil’s club used in shamanistic rituals and food stables such as silverweed and chocolate lily.
Most impressive of all was ice blue! We witnessed this wavelength all the way up the fjord in the form of innumerous blocks of ice floating out with the tide and finally witnessed the source at the rapidly calving tidewater fronts of the Sawyer and South Sawyer glaciers. We even saw a few bits and pieces of blue sky to prove that silver is not the only color up there.
Colors were the visual part of our experience today. The mental part was the understanding that the tidewater glaciers of Southeast Alaska are rapidly disappearing. This has implications for everything from a potential sea level rise to the survival of the harbor seals that deliver their pups on the floating icebergs. So this is becoming a voyage of discovery in many ways. We look forward to what insights tomorrow might bring.
