The “crown jewel of the Park Service” is a fitting title for Glacier Bay National Park. With blue skies above and Marjorie Glacier in front of us, we started our day of exploration. Brown bears roamed the shorelines, mountain goats did convincing imitations of laundry piles. A group of Steller sea lions seemed to take exception to our attentions towards the goats on Gloomy Knob and photo-bombed them. Onward to Geike Inlet where a sleepy brown bear reclined in a snowbank, and five wolves traipsed up a snow slope, and a moose reclined down the inlet in the same style as our prior bear. Onward to South Marble Island with the boisterous and odiferous Steller sea lions draped about the shoreline rocks. Staccato squawks of kittiwakes and other gulls filled the air as a pair of bald eagles sporadically took flight, upsetting the avian residents of the island. A stroll around the park headquarters at Bartlett Cove amongst bird song and golden light put the finishing touch on our day in a gem of a national park.
5/17/2023
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National Geographic Sea Bird
Inian Islands
This morning found us where the Pacific Ocean meets Cross Sound and Icy Strait, the Inian Islands. Named by William Healey Dall, one of Alaska's earliest scientific explorers, in 1879, the Inians are a mecca for wildlife. The powerful tidal currents flowing in and out daily create a tremendous upwelling of nutrient-rich water. This area is where fishing boats from the various ports in the northern portion of the Inside Passage enter and exit. It was a glorious day with calm seas, which allowed us to cruise around the various islands in our Zodiacs drinking in the fantastic scenery and looking for wildlife. Unmissable were the Steller (or northern) sea lions, the largest member of the “eared seals,” first described in 1742 by Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German surgeon and naturalist on the Bering expedition. We saw many of them on “bachelor haul-outs,” rocks where single males of all ages bask, posture and feed on numerous species of fish. Sea otters with pups are just about the cutest animals on the planet! As members of the weasel or mustelid family, southern sea otters are the smallest marine mammal. Like other members of this family, they have very thick fur. In fact, at 850,000 to 1 million hairs per square inch, sea otters have the thickest fur of any mammal. Without blubber to protect them from chilly ocean waters, sea otters rely on their thick fur.
