Glacier Bay, Alaska

Today the sun shown in Glacier Bay. Clouds drifted from the summit of Mount Fairweather, and its lofty dome glowed, imposing, yet remote. The sea was bright as planished silver.

Sea lions caterwauled from the rocks at South Marble Island, and kittiwakes circled the cliffs, uttering their nasal cackles. Puffins paddled around us in loose squadrons, their harlequin bills shining in the bright light.

Farther up the bay, we watched a brown bear lolling in the sun, munching berries, recumbent. Mountain goats gazed at us placidly, or skipped over the rocks, tiny kids in tow.

All of this we might take for granted, because Glacier Bay is an extraordinary place, even on an ordinary day. But we never expected the events of Margerie Glacier.

The water was a milky emerald shade, and icebergs appeared, sure signs that we were in tidewater glacier country. Rounding Russell Island we saw the ice. Margerie is clean, crystalline and white, all that a glacier ought to be. Ajoining Grand Pacific, defying expectation, is a lowering charcoal gray. We neared the glaciers, nudging bergs aside, and waited before Margerie’s towering face. The glacier did not disappoint; in the forty-five minutes we stayed we saw several reasonable cascades of crumbly ice. As we left the glacier, a remarkable discovery was made – a bear was walking among the huge ice pinnacles in the center of the glacier! Incredulous, we turned the ship, and there it was! The face of Margerie stands two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, and the bear appeared tiny. He appeared to move with trepidation, at one point lying down, seemingly contemplating the terrible drop before him. Then, nearby, the glacier began to fragment. Great chunks of ice seemed to hang in the air, so great was their scale. With a huge stony roar a wide section of the wall fractured and fell. Minutes later an even larger part of the glacier dropped, casting a huge fountain of seawater two hundred feet in the air, and sending out a series of great rolling waves to rock the ship. Not surprisingly, the tremendous violence of the elements spurred the bear into action. He began again to scramble through the disintegrating frozen labyrinth that surrounded him.

As we headed down the bay, we wondered, would the bear survive? No way to tell. But it is easy to project our own feelings and capabilities onto him. Though the bear seemed to lie down in perplexed despair, like as not he was merely cooling down on a “hot” sunny day. Bears are marvelously sure-footed and agile, and a half-mile clamber through seracs and crevasses would be nothing like the challenge we might face in a similar situation.

Glacier Bay is filled with drama of every scale. The lifespan of a mouse, the success of a seabird colony, the advance or retreat of glacier, all can interest or move us.

How lucky we are to have a place like Glacier Bay. How lucky we are to explore it. How lucky we are to see it on such a day!