The geomorphologist in me always wanted to go back in time to the late Pleistocene Epoch and experience what it was like to live about 12,000 years ago near the end of the Ice Age. But since I got tired of waiting for someone to invent a time machine, I did the next best thing and made a trip to Icy Bay, Alaska instead.
The huge, multi-armed bay was totally blocked off by ice at the start of the 20th century. Rapid retreat of the ice since then has opened up a bay that goes back more than 30 miles from the Gulf of Alaska. Icy Bay marks the coastal limit of Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve. The Wrangell-St. Elias mountain range is the highest coastal range in the world, a result of the collision of the North American continental plate converging with the Pacific Ocean plate. Mt. St. Elias is the second highest peak in Alaska, rising from sea level to 18,008′. It is truly a wild, uninhabited, remote place that is fraught with all sorts of danger, as well as beauty!
Just getting there is an adventure. The closest town is Yakutat, Alaska (pop. 597), which has scheduled air service from Juneau on Alaska Airlines. The Alaska Marine Highway (ferry) also makes some stops in Yakutat in the summer. In the late 90s, Yakutat made a name for itself when adventurous surfers came to the north country to surf the legendary 25 foot waves of the outer coast while dodging grizzly bears on the shore. But Icy Bay still remained a world away from Yakutat.
From Yakutat, we loaded our folding Klepper kayaks on board a float plane and made the 30 minute flight to a beach at Point Kageet near the foot of the bay. We were extremely lucky with the weather, as the high coastal range usually blocks the moist marine air which often results in incessant rain. But for the July week that we were there, a high pressure system dominated the weather and the skies were mostly clear.
Our trip was during a full moon, so after assembling our boats, we had to be careful where to beach them, keeping the 15 foot tidal fluctuation in mind. However, we chose to beach the boats much higher above the high tide line in case of an “event” that might occur. Due to tectonic plates colliding and pushing up mountains, along with glaciers bulldozing their way through those same mountains, the landscape is constantly in flux. Consistently calving tidewater glaciers could cause a wave surge which might push the sea above the normal high tide line. Since the area is so tectonically active, any landslide could cause a tsunami, which could wash our boats away. The landscape could either turn out to be a geomorphologist’s dream, or a kayaker’s nightmare. Time would tell which would be the case…..
We loaded our gear into the Klepper on a calm day and paddled toward Taan Fjord. Taan is the Tlingit name for a sea lion. Bergy bits from calved glaciers were abundant in the bay.
The start of the trip was magical, with the calm waters mirroring a perfect reflection of 18,008′ Mount Saint Elias.
Soon however, the idyllic scene took on a more menacing feel to it. The ice became so thick that it was impossible to paddle through it. Rather than paddle, we had to shove the berg bits out of the way and slowly pole our way with our paddles through the thick ice pack. At first it seemed like a novelty. But upon realizing that our folding kayaks risked being crushed if the wind picked up and pushed the ice together, we tried to make haste…but to no avail. That was a bit unnerving!
Sensing our frustration, a friendly harbor seal tried to help us out. She kept diving and showing up on a different ice floe. It seemed she was trying to tell us, “Hey, it’s easy! You’re doing it the hard way. Just dive under the ice if you want to get there faster!”
Seeing that we would never make it through the pack ice all the way up to the head of Taan Fjord, we chose to cross over to Tsaa (harbor seal in Tlingit) Fjord on the west side of the bay. We found a wonderful campsite for our tents on a depositional terrace high above the high tide line. The low light of late afternoon brought out the electric blue in the glacial ice, which was intensified by the purple and blue of fireweed and dwarf lupine. With 18 hours of daylight and the thunder of calving glaciers close by, we wanted to drink in all we could of this glorious landscape, so we avoided sleep as long as we could so as not to miss out on Icy Bay’s magic.
Later on that day it got a bit cloudier. We made a stop at another beach as the tide was rushing in. I walked out next to some bergs that were stranded ashore from the previous high tide which gave the impression that I could walk on water.
A couple of decades have passed since we did this trip, so when I show this picture I tell people that I can no longer walk on water at my age.
The following day we chose to work our legs instead of our arms and take a hike over the newly exposed landscape. It’s amazing to see plant succession taking place, with the pioneer species establishing themselves on the barren rock and soil. In time, a dense coastal forest will be here if there is not a new glacial advance.
On one part of the hike, we encountered stranded ice bergs far above the normal high tide line….evidence that an “event” occurred the prior evening while we were sleeping; probably a large calving event near the time of the high tide which caused a huge wave.
The following day, as the rest of the expedition party was getting ready to launch the kayaks after our lunch break, a couple of us climbed up a hill to take the picture of the scene below. Since the tide was incoming at the time, the rest of the expedition party had to stay with the boats and keep moving them with the incoming tide. None of us could imagine the devastation that this place would experience just a few years into the future.
On October 17, 2015 an earthquake caused a huge landslide (180 million tons of rock) in Taan Fjord which generated a giant tsunami that reached as high as 633 feet above the fjord. It was the fourth largest tsunami ever recorded. Luckily, since it happened in October, nobody was in the bay at the time. But it did end up stripping 8 square miles of forest from the landscape and scattered boulders over all of the beaches used for landing bush planes. Had it happened while we were there, it would have more than seriously ruined our day. It is hard to believe, but we would not have even been safe on the hill we took the above picture from! You can view videos on You tube and Tik Tok which highlight tsunamis in glacial fjords.
I’m sure the bay has changed a lot since we were there. I’m sure it still has a lot of ice. But we are presently in the Holocene epoch, and transitioning into the Anthropocene epoch, where humans have a great influence on climate. But if you want to see what the late Pleistocene was like, you should see it soon, before it is gone. Or, maybe you’re hoping that the invention of a time travel machine is just around the corner!
Geographical Journeys 
Amazing place, and just reading your story, I felt the cold. chilling isn’t it!!
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that’s funny! Your comment made me feel warm inside…
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Looking for warmth everywhere….in the kitchen right now…. no stove unturned
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