Tracy Arm, South East Alaska
This morning we were granted a sample of weather more typical of SE Alaska than the succession of balmy, clear skies we had known in the past few days. Awakening soon after the Sea Lion had crossed the bar at the mouth of Tracy Arm, we found a flat, jade-green sea filled with floating ice, beneath an overcast sky. We entered a dramatic fiord that has been gouged through the bed-rock of the multiple, impacted “terranes” that form the complex geology of this coast. At the head of the fiord we witnessed in awe the power of that gouging – the Sawyer Glacier. As the river of solid ice passed over the ledge of bedrock and broke into huge “seracs,” deep-throated cracking reverberated down the walls of the fiord, hundreds of feet high; so did the sudden crashes of those seracs as they separated from the glacier’s snout as it calved. In our Zodiacs, we threaded a careful path between pieces of ice of diminishing size: icebergs, bergie-bits, growlers and finally, brash-ice. Many of the pieces we passed carried harbor seals nursing newborn pups. Some were skittish, diving to safety on seeing us. Others, more bold and curious, paused first to inspect these strange creatures visiting their abode.
The retreat of the Sawyer Glacier has left bare rock and gravel that has encouraged nesting of Arctic terns, and more and more pairs are seen here every season. We observed some that were carrying small fish, which gives the male a chance to prove to the female that he is a good provider. These terns have the longest known migration of any animal. The yearly travels of breeding adults take them from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, for a total of about 25,000 air miles. At just under 58 degrees north latitude, the Arctic terns of Tracy Arm have shortened that journey considerably. This is their southernmost nesting territory on the Pacific Coast of North America.
This area is significant historically, as well as being scenically magnificent. The Tlingit name is Sumdum, and a now-deserted village retains that name on modern charts. Two of Captain Vancouver’s lieutenants, Whidbey and Johnstone, met up near here in 1794 and celebrated their forging of the last link in the 3-season survey of this coast. The next morning, Whidbey made a formal Act of Possession of the region in the name of the British monarch. Vancouver called the mainland part of this area New Norfolk, after his home county, and the bay after Holkham Hall, a stately home there. Other nearby names on the map still reflect Vancouver’s nostalgia for Norfolk.
John Muir also explored these waters with Tlingit seal-hunter guides in 1879 and again in 1880, visiting Sumdum village and Holkham Bay. As we left the bay and re-entered Stephens Passage, a small escort of Dall’s porpoises rode and leapt from our wake in farewell. In a grand finale, a humpback whale breached repeatedly for our after-dinner pleasure.
Although the day was cool and overcast, we saw magnificent scenery in its true light. We watched the mighty process of mountain-sculpting ice from up close, and we visited the nursery of a new generation of seal pups tended by their devoted mothers. Nobody aboard complained about Alaskan weather.
This morning we were granted a sample of weather more typical of SE Alaska than the succession of balmy, clear skies we had known in the past few days. Awakening soon after the Sea Lion had crossed the bar at the mouth of Tracy Arm, we found a flat, jade-green sea filled with floating ice, beneath an overcast sky. We entered a dramatic fiord that has been gouged through the bed-rock of the multiple, impacted “terranes” that form the complex geology of this coast. At the head of the fiord we witnessed in awe the power of that gouging – the Sawyer Glacier. As the river of solid ice passed over the ledge of bedrock and broke into huge “seracs,” deep-throated cracking reverberated down the walls of the fiord, hundreds of feet high; so did the sudden crashes of those seracs as they separated from the glacier’s snout as it calved. In our Zodiacs, we threaded a careful path between pieces of ice of diminishing size: icebergs, bergie-bits, growlers and finally, brash-ice. Many of the pieces we passed carried harbor seals nursing newborn pups. Some were skittish, diving to safety on seeing us. Others, more bold and curious, paused first to inspect these strange creatures visiting their abode.
The retreat of the Sawyer Glacier has left bare rock and gravel that has encouraged nesting of Arctic terns, and more and more pairs are seen here every season. We observed some that were carrying small fish, which gives the male a chance to prove to the female that he is a good provider. These terns have the longest known migration of any animal. The yearly travels of breeding adults take them from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, for a total of about 25,000 air miles. At just under 58 degrees north latitude, the Arctic terns of Tracy Arm have shortened that journey considerably. This is their southernmost nesting territory on the Pacific Coast of North America.
This area is significant historically, as well as being scenically magnificent. The Tlingit name is Sumdum, and a now-deserted village retains that name on modern charts. Two of Captain Vancouver’s lieutenants, Whidbey and Johnstone, met up near here in 1794 and celebrated their forging of the last link in the 3-season survey of this coast. The next morning, Whidbey made a formal Act of Possession of the region in the name of the British monarch. Vancouver called the mainland part of this area New Norfolk, after his home county, and the bay after Holkham Hall, a stately home there. Other nearby names on the map still reflect Vancouver’s nostalgia for Norfolk.
John Muir also explored these waters with Tlingit seal-hunter guides in 1879 and again in 1880, visiting Sumdum village and Holkham Bay. As we left the bay and re-entered Stephens Passage, a small escort of Dall’s porpoises rode and leapt from our wake in farewell. In a grand finale, a humpback whale breached repeatedly for our after-dinner pleasure.
Although the day was cool and overcast, we saw magnificent scenery in its true light. We watched the mighty process of mountain-sculpting ice from up close, and we visited the nursery of a new generation of seal pups tended by their devoted mothers. Nobody aboard complained about Alaskan weather.
