by Walt K., Account Manager
I have now been to Glacier Bay National Park at least 6 times. I have also seen many of the other glorious sights in the state known as the 'Last Frontier'. This place is one that I recommend that everyone see when they come to Alaska. The Park offers glorious views of land, water and wildlife. And unlike many lower 48 Parks, it feels like the only humans seeing what you're seeing that day is your small tour group.

My wife and I flew non-stop from Seattle on Alaska Airlines to Alaska's state capital of Juneau. The sky was wondrously clear. The veteran pilot flew the powerful 737 through the mountain passes as if we were in a small sight seeing plane and landed softly in this small community of 30,000. The National Park headquarters is about 30 miles to the west and accessible by air or sea only. We boarded the Glacier Bay Tours and Cruises' (800 451-5952) Auk Nu ferry for our journey on the high-speed catamaran. Our destination was the small town of Gustavus. Gustavus is one of the many small, friendly Alaskan cities that you will find in Southeast Alaska. So small in fact that they got everyone together for a Millennium photo.

Our trip on the Auk Nu was quick that day as the water was very flat. Our afternoon adventure would be to explore the wildlife of Icy Straits. As we traveled, our trip was watched over by a Mt. Fairweather. Its' ever-white peak exceeds 15,000 feet and is one of the world's tallest coastal mountains. This range of tall mountains is the reason that glaciers exist. The mountains contribute to the annual snowfall of over 600 inches.

Our goal that afternoon was the Humpback whale. The Humpback whale summers in Alaska, where it feeds on the bountiful seafood and winters in Mexico or Hawaii to have their calves. These whales are still on the endangered species list. Estimates are that only about 2,800 of these massive (females can weigh up to 35,000 tons) creatures still exist in the world. Naturalists have counted 107 (the underside of each whale's fluke has a unique pattern of black, white and gray) that spend their summer in Glacier Bay. We saw seven of the whales that afternoon, including five at one time.

We returned to the Glacier Bay Lodge within the park for some evening refreshments. The bright, warm sun made the deck an obvious choice. We had trouble choosing from the menu as the salmon, halibut, scallops, shrimp and crab are all locally caught and wonderfully prepared.

The next morning we went fishing with Rick Smith (907 697-2233). I went fishing with Rick's partner, Mike Nigro more than 15 years ago. Rick had asked us if we had seen the sunset the night before. It was a trick question, as we were there only a few days after the summer solstice; the sun does not set this time of year. Fishing in Alaska is a unique experience, as the size of the fish are probably bigger than most people have ever seen. King Salmon can get up to 70 pounds and halibut up to 400 pounds. Halibut is quite an interesting fish. They start out their lives looking like any ordinary fish. Early on in their lives, their bodies become flat and their eyes migrate to the top, gray side of their bodies. The other odd thing about the halibut is that all of the large fish are females. Once the male fish reaches a certain size, it becomes a female.

Rick prefers throwing the really large fish back for several reasons: a 400 pound fish will probably be about 8 feet long and almost all muscle, so it is very hard to get it into the boat; because the flesh can be more than a foot thick, the fish meat will be tougher; and a large fish may have more than a million eggs inside of her. My wife caught a 30 pounder and I caught a 20 pounder (this size is the best eating). We did see a rather remarkable event that afternoon. As the tide was changing we could hear a large group of sea gulls. They were feeding on a ball of small baitfish. We weren't the only ones interested. We saw two whales approaching from different directions. The whale closest to us dove under the water. In a short time we saw the tip of its nose appear in the middle of the school of small fish. This whale had swum below the school of fish and swam to the surface with its mouth wide open, a mouth big enough to hold over 500 gallons. Humpback whales occasionally hunt in this same way in groups of six or seven controlling the small fish with the whale's air bubbles.

Our final day took us into Glacier Bay Park. Most of the park was covered with tidewater glaciers only 200 years ago. This area has been the home to the Tlingit people for a very long time. The rest of us found out about it due to the writings of environmentalist John Muir who explored this area with the help of the Tlingits in the 1860s. The area around the lodge has tall trees. The seeds of the trees were brought in by the wind or by birds. The soil that the trees grow in is the decay of earlier wind blown vegetation. We traveled into the park on the Spirit of Adventure catamaran. We were joined by a Park Service naturalist and a cultural interpreter from the Tlingits. The park has a wide variety of wildlife that can be seen from the boat. On our trip we saw eagles, sea otters, sea lions, puffins, seals, both black and brown bears, and mountain goats. The brown bears are much bigger here because of the plentiful supply of fish during the summer.

As we went further into the park, our boat would pass by small icebergs. In a short time we saw the source of these icebergs. It was the Margerie Glacier. This glacier (which is the compressed snow of thousands of years) is found on Mt. Fairweather. The glacier is 21 miles long, one mile wide and 250 high where it touches the salt water. When we approached the glacier, a full size cruise ship was in front of it. The ship seemed quite small in comparison. We stayed and watched in glorious silence as large pieces of the glacier calved into the sea.

I am not sure when we will be back to Glacier Bay, but we know that we will always have the visions of this unique scenery in our minds.

Photography by Walt K.