LeConte Bay and Petersburg
Ice in the summer is always a treat, especially if there is over 1,000 square miles of it. It lies in the Stikine Ice Field over 5,000 feet above us. We had to settle for the LeConte Glacier delivery system that calves ice into the sea so we could see. Here we received the equivalent of a paltry sized ice cube 500’ on a side served to the sea each day.
First thing in the morning we cruised up to the face of the glacier to see how the ice was to be served. It didn’t look so friendly! An almost dead-vertical wall 200 feet tall bared its blue fangs at us. Deep growls, gunshot-like reports, and shattering sounds blasted rudely at our ship. Before our eyes, ice was pulverized and was gobbled up by gravity and the sea. Giant waves swept outwards, and ice soon bobbed to the surface. The deliveries littered the fiord’s surface.
Later we boarded Zodiacs to inspect the “goods.” Some bergs were huge blue hulks so dense they hungrily sucked in all the light they could hold. There was enough blue left over to consume us, too. Some carried rocks and mud, while others looked squeaky clean, their bright white caused by confused light that bounced around between surfaces.
The tide was rising and flooding the fiord. Imprisoned bergs were being freed from the bottom. One huge frozen mass rolled in slow motion while water poured from its dimpled surface. It bobbed in slow motion as if it had a life of its own.
We couldn’t let all this ice go to waste. Pieces were grabbed from the waters surface to crush with cold teeth. Kids sucked on delicate icy sculptures, and later other fragments were seen floating in martini glasses. Food coloring was dripped on the surface of other larger chunks to see the outline of crystals.
We all landed in the intertidal zone to inspect stranded bergie bits. Some of us rubbed, others licked, while a few peered into the glassy, mystical depth of frozen time. A big rock carefully guided, came forcefully down and smashed a piece of a sculpture to bits. It’s okay now. The evidence is all gone. Ice is transitory, momentary, fleeting almost not here in this deeply gouged and spectacularly beautiful fiord. This photograph shows two young people involved in the fun of finding all there is to see in the “cool” pursuit of summer ice.
Ice in the summer is always a treat, especially if there is over 1,000 square miles of it. It lies in the Stikine Ice Field over 5,000 feet above us. We had to settle for the LeConte Glacier delivery system that calves ice into the sea so we could see. Here we received the equivalent of a paltry sized ice cube 500’ on a side served to the sea each day.
First thing in the morning we cruised up to the face of the glacier to see how the ice was to be served. It didn’t look so friendly! An almost dead-vertical wall 200 feet tall bared its blue fangs at us. Deep growls, gunshot-like reports, and shattering sounds blasted rudely at our ship. Before our eyes, ice was pulverized and was gobbled up by gravity and the sea. Giant waves swept outwards, and ice soon bobbed to the surface. The deliveries littered the fiord’s surface.
Later we boarded Zodiacs to inspect the “goods.” Some bergs were huge blue hulks so dense they hungrily sucked in all the light they could hold. There was enough blue left over to consume us, too. Some carried rocks and mud, while others looked squeaky clean, their bright white caused by confused light that bounced around between surfaces.
The tide was rising and flooding the fiord. Imprisoned bergs were being freed from the bottom. One huge frozen mass rolled in slow motion while water poured from its dimpled surface. It bobbed in slow motion as if it had a life of its own.
We couldn’t let all this ice go to waste. Pieces were grabbed from the waters surface to crush with cold teeth. Kids sucked on delicate icy sculptures, and later other fragments were seen floating in martini glasses. Food coloring was dripped on the surface of other larger chunks to see the outline of crystals.
We all landed in the intertidal zone to inspect stranded bergie bits. Some of us rubbed, others licked, while a few peered into the glassy, mystical depth of frozen time. A big rock carefully guided, came forcefully down and smashed a piece of a sculpture to bits. It’s okay now. The evidence is all gone. Ice is transitory, momentary, fleeting almost not here in this deeply gouged and spectacularly beautiful fiord. This photograph shows two young people involved in the fun of finding all there is to see in the “cool” pursuit of summer ice.
