Photo Essay: the ice is alive

Glacier Bay National Park is otherworldly. Take a boat ride through the silt-tinted green waters of the fjords and you will see the requisite Alaskan snow capped mountains and striking tidewater glaciers. When I visited Glacier Bay, I expected to see these expansive natural features, however, I never expected that the glaciers and the waters around them would be so filled with life. The front of a glacier is not silent or still, in fact, it is the center of many large dynamic processes. There are screams of sea gulls and the flapping of wings, splashes and cries of sea animals, and the unique sound of glacial calving, which starts as a deep rumbling and builds to cracks and whines before ice splashes into the water below. The sound will be heard long before you can see which piece of ice will fall from the front of the glacier, but the most reliable evidence where to aim your camera for the perfect shot will be acquired by keeping an eye on the sea birds. Just as the thunderous noise starts, but before you can see the falling ice, there will be a fan of sea birds flying to safety from the area where the cracks have started. While the environment is cold, it is hardly desolate. The icebergs that result from the glacial calving become perches for birds and safe resting places for seals. Seals are quite curious and like locals everywhere, they may stare a little because they know you are a tourist, but they, too, like seeing new and interesting things. The most popular way to visit Glacier Bay National Park is by boat, and if you want to see the tidewater glaciers and the habitats that surround them, you will have to float there. There are many tours and cruises you can take into Glacier Bay and I hope you will choose one that shares the Park Service’s mission of preserving this beautiful habitat.