Tag: Iceberg

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Glacier Bay

SSA Photography (17 of 400)

This photograph was taken in Glacier Bay National Park in Southeast Alaska, just west of Juneau.  President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier Bay a national monument under the Antiquities Act on February 25, 1925. Subsequent to an expansion of the monument by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act enlarged the national monument by 817.2 square miles on December 2, 1980, and created Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

This is the Johns Hopkins Glacier, named in 1893 by H.F. Reid after the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, which sponsored an expedition to this glacier.  It is the only advancing tidewater glacier now (its advance started in 1924 when Grand Pacific Glacier started receding towards Tarr Inlet) and is combined with Gilman Glacier (first got attached to Hopkins in the 1990s, broke off and rejoined several times and once again it appears joined since 2000); both are advancing as one single ice block, and at the waterfront, has a width of 1 mile with a depth of 250 feet, rises to a height of 250 feet and stretches to about 12 miles  upstream.

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Fjords

SSA Photography (27 of 400)

This photograph was taken on the journey to Skagway, Alaska up the Inner Passage from Juneau.  I must admit that I was unaware that there were fjords in Alaska, as in Norway and Iceland.  A fjord is simply a long waterway cut by glaciers into the bedrock.  The stone walls of the fjords were incredible, as were the markings on them.  You can see in this photograph the dark tide lines on the stones which lead into a deep chasm in the rock.  Alaska was mysterious to me.  It was true wilderness, which fascinates me.  Even in the wilds of North Carolina, I am still mindful that I was not the first person to trod upon the dirt.  There is a distinct possibility that if you stray to far afield of the paths in Alaska, you may be the first human to do so.  I long to go back to Alaska.

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River of Ice

SSA Photography (20 of 400)

On the list of the most beautiful natural places I have ever been, Alaska ranks at the very top.  This glacier may have had a name, but so many others did not.  There were simply too many of them.  Beauty was within reach at every point on this trip, whether it was seeing the salmon in the rivers towards the end of their annual run, coming upon a group of ten bald eagles on the bank of a fjord, or paddling next to a huge river of ice that creeps along ever so slowly, carving mountains in its wake.  The force and the majesty of the state was almost overwhelming at times.  I could not capture it all, but this photograph is a stunning reminder of my trip there.  I cannot wait to go back with a renewed focus (and a better camera) to document the awe inspiring beauty of untouched nature.

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Jewel

SSA Photography (26 of 400)

This photograph was taken in a fjord near Skagway, Alaska while on a cruise up the inner passage.  The colors and striations on the ice, especially on the glaciers (which you can see in my gallery “Ice“) were simply breathtaking.  This little iceberg was no exception.  The deep teal of the water and the smokiness of the ice made the ice look like an uncut gemstone.  The reflection on the lower left side of the ice gives it some depth, and alludes to the ninety-percent of the “jewel” which remains unseen under the water.

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