Leconte Glacier and Petersburg
It is said that if you want the absolute best photographs of a glacier, you hope for a gray, foggy day. And yes, it was so for us at this fjord, where it is quite difficult to gain entry due to the enormous quantity of floating ice. Some of the pieces were big and blue, the deepest blue imaginable, some others were smaller and flat. But the surface of the water was literally covered with ice. The sound of the crackling was loud, and we approached the face of the glacier slowly, enjoying every cold minute. The cameras whirred and clicked, saving memories for the future. And amid all this adventure, we had luck in seeing small and large pieces of ice calving off the front of the glacier. After a big splash, we counted the seconds till we heard the white thunder, or as the natives call it, sum dum. A big wave was the result of each calving.
By midday we had left that fjord and were headed out to Petersburg, a lovely small fishing city which up to a few years ago was the city with the highest number of millionaires per capita in the U.S.! But we were slowed down en route by the sighting of a small group of killer whales or Orcas, which we followed for a while. Petersburg awaited us with an interesting bog or muskeg, into which we walked along a boardwalk. Many acid-water adapted plants such as the insect-eating sundews, Labrador tea, bog cranberries and blueberries, as well as dwarf juniper trees and short lodgepole pines were seen. Rare also were the specimens of Alaska yellow cedar.
As we returned aboard, we had a sumptuous Dungeness crab and baby rib dinner.
It is said that if you want the absolute best photographs of a glacier, you hope for a gray, foggy day. And yes, it was so for us at this fjord, where it is quite difficult to gain entry due to the enormous quantity of floating ice. Some of the pieces were big and blue, the deepest blue imaginable, some others were smaller and flat. But the surface of the water was literally covered with ice. The sound of the crackling was loud, and we approached the face of the glacier slowly, enjoying every cold minute. The cameras whirred and clicked, saving memories for the future. And amid all this adventure, we had luck in seeing small and large pieces of ice calving off the front of the glacier. After a big splash, we counted the seconds till we heard the white thunder, or as the natives call it, sum dum. A big wave was the result of each calving.
By midday we had left that fjord and were headed out to Petersburg, a lovely small fishing city which up to a few years ago was the city with the highest number of millionaires per capita in the U.S.! But we were slowed down en route by the sighting of a small group of killer whales or Orcas, which we followed for a while. Petersburg awaited us with an interesting bog or muskeg, into which we walked along a boardwalk. Many acid-water adapted plants such as the insect-eating sundews, Labrador tea, bog cranberries and blueberries, as well as dwarf juniper trees and short lodgepole pines were seen. Rare also were the specimens of Alaska yellow cedar.
As we returned aboard, we had a sumptuous Dungeness crab and baby rib dinner.
