On this page of my scrapbook, you find me in the summer of 2001.
I joined Universe Explorer for a full season sailing the waters of Alaska. As I had my work experience from my tourism studies on Universe Explorer in the spring of 2000, I was familiar with this classic ship and the wonders that is Alaska.
One of the great wonders of Alaska is its wealth of tidal glaciers and there is non more historically enduring as Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve. This American national park located in Southeast Alaska west of Juneau.
Sport hunting and trapping are allowed in the preserve as long as you have all required licenses and permits and follow all other state regulations.
Sport fishing is another activity popular in the park. Halibut are frequently esteemed by deep-sea fishers and in rivers and lakes Dolly Varden and rainbow trout provide sport.
|
|
 |
|
Quick Fact: Tlingit Inhabitants Long before Europeans reached this part of the world it was inhabited by Tlingit Peoples, who had fishing camps set up on the shores of various inlets. While a glacial push about 300 years ago shoved many of these villages off the landscape, National Park Service historians note that “native people carried on their activities in many places along the nearby coast, places that may have been free of ice for as long as 13,000 years.” |
Quick Fact: European Exploration The landscape that was to become Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve was ice-capped when European explorers first reached this corner of the world. When Capt. James Cook visited the area in 1778, the Glacier ran past present-day Bartlett Cove, almost into Icy Strait. When Capt. George Vancouver visited the area in 1794, the Glacier had backed up to Bartlett Cove. John Muir made his first visit to the region in 1879. Glaciers restricted his foray into the landscape to the area around Geikie Inlet, though when he returned in 1890 he was able to make it to the area that bears his name, Muir Point. |
Quick Fact: Glacial Movements There are seven tidewater glaciers in the park. Four of these glaciers actively calve icebergs into the bay. In the 1990s, the Muir Glacier receded to the point that it was no longer a tidewater glacier. The advance and recession of the park’s glaciers has been extensively documented since 1786. According to the U.S. National Park Service, “In general, tidewater and terrestrial glaciers in the Park have been thinning and slowly receding over the last several decades.” Some glaciers continue to advance, including Johns Hopkins Glacier and glaciers in Lituya Bay. |
