Glacier Bay
Tlingit (pronounced klink-it) Indians and their ancestors inhabited much of what is now Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, with both permanent and seasonal settlements. Food and other resources were abundant. The small population of Tlingits thrived, living close to the land, and a rich culture developed. Near the end of the Little Ice Age, about several hundred years ago, advancing glaciers forced the Tlingit people to abandon their villages and move to Hoonah, across Icy Strait from Glacier Bay. Today, many Hoonah Tlingits still regard Glacier Bay as their ancestral home, and feel a special connection to it.
In 1794, as the mother ship H.M.S. Discovery, Captained by George Vancouver, lay at anchor in Pt. Althorp, a survey crew under the command of Lt. Joseph Whidbey painstakingly maneuvered their longboats through the ice-choked waters of Icy Strait. The remarkably accurate chart the survey produced shows a mere indentation in the shoreline, “terminated by solid compact mountains of ice,” where Glacier Bay is today. The great glacier that filled the Bay was by then in rapid retreat, and was the source of the floating icepack that so hindered Whidbey.
According to the Naturalist aboard ship, the whale has been beached here since April
What is a glacier? In general, glaciers form when snow accumulates at a faster rate than it can melt. The snow compresses under its own weight, gradually turning into ice. Under the force of gravity and its enormous weight, the glacier becomes fluid, and creeps slowly downhill.
Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Margerie Glacier 
Grizzly Bear 
Grizzly Bear / Beached Whale 
Grizzly Bear / Beached Whale 
Grizzly Bear / Beached Whale 
Glacier Bay
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