Monday Meanderings - 8.27.2016

One final post regarding Alaska - from a sort of a backward approach.

I'm narrating an audio book entitled "In Darkest Alaska." Strange title, but it deals extensively (!) with the earliest days of tourism along the Inside Passage - that nearly 1,000 mile-long sea lane that weaves up the coast from Puget Sound to Icy Strait and has been a sight-seeing attraction since shortly after the Alaska Purchase in 1867.

In the early days, the steam ships departed from ports ranging from San Francisco to Vancouver - same as now - and made stops at Fort Wrangell, then Juneau, Glacier Bay and finally Sitka. Over the years, those ports have changed somewhat; Fort Wrangell was decommissioned, so Ketchikan was added. Gold was discovered in the Yukon and Skagway became a major destination, but the one constant has been Glacier Bay.

The naturalist John Muir is given credit for "discovering" Glacier Bay in 1879. Never mind that a Tlingit Indian guided him to it, and there were native seal hunters living in a half-dozen permanent communities within the arm of the bay at the time. As tribute, the largest of the nineteen-some-odd glaciers in the bay at the time was named in honor of him, and thousands made the journey to see the Muir Glacier in Glacier Bay.

"The grandest glacier in the bay was the Muir Glacier. Imagine a glacier three miles wide and 300 feet thick at its mouth. Think of Niagara Falls frozen stiff, add thirty-six feet to its height, and you have a slight idea of the terminus of Muir Glacier."

I'm puzzled by this, because it was the Marguerite Glacier - not the Muir Glacier - that our cruise ship parked in front of and we spent the afternoon marveling at.  And, according to the friendly park ranger aboard ship, the width of the glacier is about 1 mile  - not 3, and the visible height at its terminus is "only" about 250 feet. So is the first description simply hyperbole? And did they change the name in the meantime?

 A quick check with Google and the mystery is solved. This photo and the one that follows were taken from the same location on the west shoreline of Muir Inlet in Glacier Bay, and show the changes that have occurred to Muir Glacier during the 113 years between September 1892 and August 2005.

The 1892 photograph shows the more than 328 feet high, more than 2.5 miles wide tidewater terminus of the glacier. Some icebergs, evidence of recent calving, can be seen floating in Muir Inlet

In the 2005 photograph, Muir Glacier is no longer visible, as it has retreated more than 31 miles from its former position. During the 113 years between photographs, Muir Glacier ceased to have a tidewater terminus (no longer touches water in the bay). There is no floating ice and the vegetation is abundant.

So, it's still in the Park, but Cruise Ships can't handle the 31 miles of dry land to reach it. 

Interestingly, when John Muir and his Indian guide "discovered" the bay, the glacier that bears his name was the end of navigable waters, 48 miles into the bay (middle arrow). The ice wall has since retreated some 65 miles from the mouth of the bay (top) and is only a remnant of the massive glacier that filled the entire bay. When George Vancouver mapped the coast in 1790, there was no visible bay - just a huge ice field over the entire area.