Icy Strait, Glacier Bay National Park
Humpback whales surfacing in morning light.
This scene awaited us after breakfast this morning as a rare bit of sunlight poured down over the forest-covered ridge and onto a group of foraging humpback whales in Icy Strait, just outside of Glacier Bay National Park. The whales moved with grace and charm through the calm waters with wheeling motions punctuated by sunlit geysers of exhalation as their blowholes emerged first, then the massive back and finally the flukes, sometimes lifted clear out of the water. A young calf among the group sometimes provided comic relief when it would "surface to its own drummer" and perform mini-breaches at the edges of this stately procession.
But our eyes couldn't help but take in the backdrop of dense forest and this set our minds to wondering what lies in there? After a morning of watching whales, sea otters and birds we had a chance to find out. Anchored near shore we boarded Zodiacs and were dropped on a beach fronted with dense stands of cow parsnip and beach rye grass. Picking our way through this community we reached the alders that guarded the entrance to the forest primeval and we peeked in.
Bear Trail
What immediately caught our eye was an amazing example of what being a "creature of habit" can create. Repeated use of the same route by generations of brown bears has resulted in this series of plant-free-depressions in the forest floor, each one measuring several inches deep, sixteen inches long and nine inches wide. A single depression marks where a front and a hind foot have landed. The trail width is almost two feet and the stride, the distance from the center of one depression to the center of the next one (on the same side) is fifty-three inches. This trail was made by Ursus arctos, also known as the coastal brown bear here in Southeast Alaska, and in many places as griz, old man of the woods or simply grandfather.
Yesterday our view of a brown bear from the ship was exciting. Today, as we hiked into the forest we felt enough excitement from just knowing bears have called this place home since before the steam engine. And it wasn't just the bear trails that told us bears live here. Fresh bear scat (droppings) was to be found everywhere we went and in the skunk cabbage swamp there were bear-dug-holes where skunk cabbage roots used to be. A huge Sitka spruce tree standing along a section of well-worn trail was scarred from repeated rubbing and bear hair was stuck among the bark and sap. We explored the area with many a shout of "Yo Bear!" so as not to surprise any sleeping bruins, and were rewarded with both an aerobic workout and unique views of lichens, mushrooms, columbine flowers, varied thrushes, chestnut-backed chickadees, hillside bogs and many more terrestrial wonders of Southeast Alaska.
