It is silence,
it is thunder
It is ancient
and just born.
Water
Rock
Ice
Time
Here in the balance of what's fleeting and what's forever
is a land unlike any other:
Glacier Bay
Long ago the native Tlingit people say
Seshuyee... what is now Glacier Bay, was a valley of grass.
A river teeming with salmon ran through it.
It's source was a great glacier at the head of the valley.
For the Tlingit this sacred homeland was Eden.
Tides washed the bounty of the seas to their shores.
The forests sheltered and fed them.
But life was to change forever for the Tlingit
when the great glacier of the river's headwaters began to surge forward.
So swiftly and brutally did it move
that the Tlingit tell of sitting in their canoes watching as ice buried their clan houses
forcing them to leave the home of their ancestry
and one called Kasteen whose spirit joined with the glacier.
Where there was once a valley of grass there was now a river of ice.
In the mountains lacy flakes fall softly and near constantly as heavy moist air
from the Gulf of Alaska encounters peaks in the Fairweather range
nearly three miles high.
Water turns to snow,
snow compacts to ice
and under the weight of a thousand storms
urged on by the relentless force of gravity
the rivers of ice begin to move.
The Fairweather range is one of the stormiest regions on earth.
Capable of producing glaciers that once formed
move inexorably onward
taking a path of least resistance to the sea.
nature writer John Burroughs on visiting Glacier Bay in 1899 wrote:
"We saw the world shaping forces at work...
we saw them transport enormous rocks and
tons and tons of soil and debris from the distant mountains
we witnessed the formation of low mounds and ridges and bowl shaped depressions
all the while with the muffled thunder of the falling bergs in our ears."
What makes Glacier Bay so fascinating is the pace of change here.
It is change observers can witness in a lifetime or even a decade or two.
The land where a lush forest filled with birdsong and Sitka spruce now stands,
was just 200 years ago buried under solid ice
In practical terms the recession rate in Glacier Bay is the highest documented
anywhere in the world.
But just as glaciers can retreat they can also
surge forward calving icebergs at their tidewater snouts.
Calving, advancing, retreating,
there have been four distinct pulses of glacial activity here in the past.
Four times ice has come down, filled the bay,
and then retreated back again.
But the Tlingit living on the outer coast,
an event that would change their lives forever
happened on July 4th 1786.
"At 6:00 in the morning
we stood for the passage to enter it with the end of the flood."
Under great white sails the ship of La Perouse slipped into Lituya Bay.
The Europeans had arrived.
Soon after in 1794 came Captain George Vancouver
who mapped the area we now called Glacier Bay.
At the time it was more glacier than bay.
Except for a five-mile indentation the land was covered with a mantle of ice
4,000 feet thick
yet by the time John Muir arrived only 85 years later,
the vast ice sheet had retreated 48 miles up the bay.
Muir was captivated by Glacier Bay.
Its solitude, its immensity.
"shortly after 3 o'clock in the morning I
climbed the dividing ridge between two glaciers 2,000 feet above camp for the
sake of the night news and how great was the enjoyment in the solemn silence
between those two radiant skies no words may tell."
It was Muir's enthusiastic dispatches to the San Francisco bulletin that drew early
tourists to Glacier Bay.
Arriving in 1884 Eliza Scidmore wrote
"Steaming slowly up
the inlet the bold-cliff like front of the glacier grew in height as we
approached it and there was a sense of awe as the ship drew near enough for us
to see the avalanches of ice that breaking from the front brushed down
into the seas with tremendous crashes and roars."
"In the observation of nature there is a very great joy"
wrote botanist William S. Cooper in 1922.
And one of the things that makes Glacier Bay such a rich
resource for study is that it has been so well observed and documented
The patterns of seasons.
The ebb and flow of tides.
For the Tlingit, life in their homeland has always meant knowing intimately
glacier Bay's rhythms,
weather,
seasons,
and wildlife.
Later, observers were quick
to recognize the significance of Glacier Bay as well.
For here was a chance to
study and record processes that could only be inferred elsewhere.
How does life return after glaciation?
What pioneer species arrived first?
What happens next?
How do nature and time conspire?
On a jumble of rocks the first lichens begin to take hold
mosses arrive, blown in on the wind.
And the natural process by which the land
comes to life in the glaciers wake begins.
Feathery seeds of Dryas settle
into barren moraines and outwashes pioneering the way for less hardy plants.
Fireweed,
alder,
cottonwoods,
spruce.
The progression from glacial barrens to coastal rainforest unfolds before your
eyes as you travel down the bay.
Meanwhile, underwater another remarkable transformation takes place.
The presence and abundance of many species in the marine environment
change dramatically along the length of the bay due to large amounts of fresh
water and sediment pouring forth from the glacier.
Slowly, surely, in ever successive ways as the glaciers recede,
life returns to the land and water
and teaches us the remarkable resilience of the earth.
William S. Cooper knew firsthand fragility and uniqueness of Glacier Bay
as a result of his classic studies of plant succession.
And so with the support
of the Ecological Society of America he recommended in 1922
that this area be put into the public trust.
In 1925 Calvin Coolidge set aside Glacier Bay as a National Monument
and in 1980 it was made a National Park and Preserve
containing some 3 million acres, 80% of which are designated wilderness.
The park is a world heritage site and biosphere reserve and one of the largest
marine parks in the world.
The role of preserving and protecting the great treasures contained within the
park is the responsibility of the National Park Service
Ongoing research helps the Park Service better understand the intricate workings
of nature and manage park resources.
National Park Service Rangers interpret the natural and cultural heritage of
Glacier Bay to thousands of visitors each year.
From boat permits and orientation for wilderness kayakers
to educational programs for communities and kids.
From interpretive walks and talks to programs aboard all the major cruise
ships entering the bay,
the goal of the Park Service is to help people
experience Glacier Bay to its fullest and inspire a sense of stewardship for
this extraordinary place.
The sun rises on still glacial waters.
Over on the rocks a chorus of gulls is tuning up.
Somewhere in the park a kayaker is paddling in inlet slowly, silently
while at the rail of a cruise ship guests are rewarded with breathtaking views.
Today some will hear the booming ancient sound that the Tlingit called
"white thunder."
Some will feel the waters rock gently beneath them
as pinnacles of ice crash into the sea.
A hiker may explore a coastal rainforest
or a windswept rocky ridge.
The experience of Glacier Bay is different for each who comes here
and changes by the hour and by the day.
It is for all of us
one of the world's elemental wild places.
And more than ever we need places that are forever wild