Endicott Arm, Dawes Glacier & Williams Cove
The Sea Bird began her day with bright blue skies as the sun rose just after 4:00AM. Our vessel was maneuvering inside Endicott Arm heading towards the face of Dawes Glacier. We were traveling in the Tracy Arm – Fords Terror Wilderness Area. This 653,179 acre preserve holds one of the most outstanding opportunities for solitude, the primary characteristic of wilderness. In 1964, our nation’s leaders formally acknowledged the immediate and lasting benefits of wild places to the human spirit and fabric of our nation. That year, in a nearly unanimous vote, Congress enacted landmark legislation that permanently protected some of the most natural and undisturbed places in America. The Wilderness Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System to “secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.”
Our morning was spent cruising near the front of a tidewater glacier. The Dawes Glacier is located at the end of a spectacularly carved fjord, a thirty-five mile journey from the mouth located in Stephens Passage to the face of the glacier. Ice from the Pleistocene Era filled this fjord between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago and has continued a slow retreat since that time. In the wake of thousands of feet of ice, a fjord filled with seawater marks the path of that ancient sheet of ice. Along the walls of the fjord, glacial striations run horizontally leaving small crevices where the first plants began to take hold, starting a succession of many stages and levels of botanical growth. As those plants gain strength, animals enter the area to browse on the new growth.
As our Zodiacs returned from the first expedition to the front of Dawes Glacier, a mountain goat and her kid were spotted twenty feet above the waterline. During early summer months mountain goats make their way down to the waterline to feed on algae, available at low tide. The mountain goat we spotted was still losing her winter coat. Large patches of fur were hanging from the mother goat’s body as she made her way up and down from the salt water’s edge, back to her kid and into the protection of small shrubs.
The Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska have harvested this wool that is caught on the shrubs in the territories known to be habitat for mountain goats. Gathering was done in late spring when the animals moved to lower elevation. From that wool, a famous dancing robe was made called a Chilkat blanket. There is a story passed down amongst the Tlingit people about the origin of these great dancing robes. It is said that there was once a great ceremony where Raven was one of the guests and bore witness to the phenomenal ability of a spirit chief’s dance. The spirit chief made a long speech, offering Raven his dancing blanket to take with him when he journeyed to the villages of men. Raven accepted this inspired gift and in time offered it to the human race to unravel and weave again. It was in this way that native women became weavers of the beautiful dancing blankets. To this day, the women of the Tlingit and Tsimshian people carry on the traditions of gathering wool from the mountain goat and creating both Chilkat blankets and Raven-tail robes that are worn in ceremonies held up and down the Northwest coast.
The Sea Bird began her day with bright blue skies as the sun rose just after 4:00AM. Our vessel was maneuvering inside Endicott Arm heading towards the face of Dawes Glacier. We were traveling in the Tracy Arm – Fords Terror Wilderness Area. This 653,179 acre preserve holds one of the most outstanding opportunities for solitude, the primary characteristic of wilderness. In 1964, our nation’s leaders formally acknowledged the immediate and lasting benefits of wild places to the human spirit and fabric of our nation. That year, in a nearly unanimous vote, Congress enacted landmark legislation that permanently protected some of the most natural and undisturbed places in America. The Wilderness Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System to “secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.”
Our morning was spent cruising near the front of a tidewater glacier. The Dawes Glacier is located at the end of a spectacularly carved fjord, a thirty-five mile journey from the mouth located in Stephens Passage to the face of the glacier. Ice from the Pleistocene Era filled this fjord between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago and has continued a slow retreat since that time. In the wake of thousands of feet of ice, a fjord filled with seawater marks the path of that ancient sheet of ice. Along the walls of the fjord, glacial striations run horizontally leaving small crevices where the first plants began to take hold, starting a succession of many stages and levels of botanical growth. As those plants gain strength, animals enter the area to browse on the new growth.
As our Zodiacs returned from the first expedition to the front of Dawes Glacier, a mountain goat and her kid were spotted twenty feet above the waterline. During early summer months mountain goats make their way down to the waterline to feed on algae, available at low tide. The mountain goat we spotted was still losing her winter coat. Large patches of fur were hanging from the mother goat’s body as she made her way up and down from the salt water’s edge, back to her kid and into the protection of small shrubs.
The Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska have harvested this wool that is caught on the shrubs in the territories known to be habitat for mountain goats. Gathering was done in late spring when the animals moved to lower elevation. From that wool, a famous dancing robe was made called a Chilkat blanket. There is a story passed down amongst the Tlingit people about the origin of these great dancing robes. It is said that there was once a great ceremony where Raven was one of the guests and bore witness to the phenomenal ability of a spirit chief’s dance. The spirit chief made a long speech, offering Raven his dancing blanket to take with him when he journeyed to the villages of men. Raven accepted this inspired gift and in time offered it to the human race to unravel and weave again. It was in this way that native women became weavers of the beautiful dancing blankets. To this day, the women of the Tlingit and Tsimshian people carry on the traditions of gathering wool from the mountain goat and creating both Chilkat blankets and Raven-tail robes that are worn in ceremonies held up and down the Northwest coast.
