Tracy Arm
This morning the National Geographic Sea Lion cruised the length of the steep, deep and narrow fjord of Tracy Arm. Awaking in one of the jems of Southeast Alaska, we felt blessed to end the trip on the sunny side amongst bergy bits and brash ice and mammoth icebergs unleashed from South Sawyer glacier. Dropping Zodiacs into the water after breakfast, we slowly navigated through heavy concentrations of ice that became increasingly denser as we crept towards the lair and remnant Pleistocene Glacier. Taking on shapes of their own we could find a thousand features in the eroding ice sculptures from swans to whale tails while the hues of blue told a different story of snowfall and compaction. The Stikine ice field (one of three ice fields in Southeast Alaska) is shared with Canada, and while the South Sawyer Glacier is 25 miles long, Canada is only 12 miles away. The ebb and flow of Alaska’s glaciers and the pulses of advance and retreat have left a landscape of U shaped valleys, horns, cirques, 1200’ deep fjords and a thousand half domes that drew John Muir to Alaska. Amazing to think of the day when tourists first started coming to Alaska (after reading John Muir’s accounts) via steamship to places like Tracy Arm and how different it would have looked when Sawyer and South Sawyer Glaciers were one.
After lunch we repositioned the ship to less ice choked environs, so we could experience the fjord in the quietude of kayak and paddle. The sun glistening on silty green glacial water we explored both shores of the narrow fjord and were impressed by the waterfall descending from a hanging glacier. Paddling past bergs of varying sizes we soaked up the rays. Our days aboard the mother ship were coming to close as we made our way towards Juneau.
