Williams Cove and Tracy Arm Glacier
Last night we steamed south down Icy Strait, rounded Point Retreat and threaded Stephens Passage. We had set course for one of the finest fjords in the region, Tracy Arm, a glacial canyon carved into mainland Alaska. First we paused in Williams Cove, a quiet cul-de-sac at the mouth of the fjord. Run ashore in our trusty Zodiacs, we teetered up greasy granite cobbles, skirted a skunk cabbage slough, tromped through a sphagnum quagmire, leapt like impala across a fast stream the colour of Guinness and were at once into prime rain forest. Confirmation of this was swift: within minutes it started to rain. We followed a bear track under soaring Sitka spruce and slender western hemlock, crying “Yo Bear!” wherever we had to push through a thicket of blueberries or Devil’s Club. Just out of devilment we left our trampled path and cut up into pristine forest, and found treasure: a green glade with huge hemlock stumps, each with a frothy green head of moss, but which showed the unmistakable marks of crosscut saws and notches to hold the sawboard. The Forest Ranger who joined us later confirmed that trees had been cut here in the 1880s to build a gold mining town at nearby Snettisham in Holkham Bay. We thrashed through the thicket, splashed down a stream and took a bear track out. At the forest edge, there was bear scat containing sedge mixed with shards of shell. And there on the foreshore was the living menu: a trampled meadow of sedge, and beyond it the granite cobbles covered in large barnacles on which the bear had gorged.
By afternoon we were deep in Tracy Arm and came on deck to be amazed: 1000 feet of turquoise water beneath the hull, polished pewter cliffs soaring 2000’ above us on either side. We crept between glassy blocks of glacial ice until we were face to face with the giant glacier: a 250’ face so blue that it seemed to glow from within. Periodically massive icefalls exploded into spray at its base, with the booming thunder which the Tlingit Indians called sumdum. Our day was made complete in Zodiacs and kayaks, drifting under the giant cliffs, gazing up at a Bald Eagle nest in an island spruce, and being baptized anew beneath a raging waterfall. Our entire week has been an Alaskan baptism: the soul cleansed by mist, rinsed with rain and sprinkled with spray. Lifegiving water, flung from the heavens. What an amazing experience life is, each day a miracle.
Last night we steamed south down Icy Strait, rounded Point Retreat and threaded Stephens Passage. We had set course for one of the finest fjords in the region, Tracy Arm, a glacial canyon carved into mainland Alaska. First we paused in Williams Cove, a quiet cul-de-sac at the mouth of the fjord. Run ashore in our trusty Zodiacs, we teetered up greasy granite cobbles, skirted a skunk cabbage slough, tromped through a sphagnum quagmire, leapt like impala across a fast stream the colour of Guinness and were at once into prime rain forest. Confirmation of this was swift: within minutes it started to rain. We followed a bear track under soaring Sitka spruce and slender western hemlock, crying “Yo Bear!” wherever we had to push through a thicket of blueberries or Devil’s Club. Just out of devilment we left our trampled path and cut up into pristine forest, and found treasure: a green glade with huge hemlock stumps, each with a frothy green head of moss, but which showed the unmistakable marks of crosscut saws and notches to hold the sawboard. The Forest Ranger who joined us later confirmed that trees had been cut here in the 1880s to build a gold mining town at nearby Snettisham in Holkham Bay. We thrashed through the thicket, splashed down a stream and took a bear track out. At the forest edge, there was bear scat containing sedge mixed with shards of shell. And there on the foreshore was the living menu: a trampled meadow of sedge, and beyond it the granite cobbles covered in large barnacles on which the bear had gorged.
By afternoon we were deep in Tracy Arm and came on deck to be amazed: 1000 feet of turquoise water beneath the hull, polished pewter cliffs soaring 2000’ above us on either side. We crept between glassy blocks of glacial ice until we were face to face with the giant glacier: a 250’ face so blue that it seemed to glow from within. Periodically massive icefalls exploded into spray at its base, with the booming thunder which the Tlingit Indians called sumdum. Our day was made complete in Zodiacs and kayaks, drifting under the giant cliffs, gazing up at a Bald Eagle nest in an island spruce, and being baptized anew beneath a raging waterfall. Our entire week has been an Alaskan baptism: the soul cleansed by mist, rinsed with rain and sprinkled with spray. Lifegiving water, flung from the heavens. What an amazing experience life is, each day a miracle.
