Taking a small ship through the Alaskan passage to Glacier Bay was a truly memorable experience. We saw several glaciers up close and took kayak excursions among the large pieces of ice that had calved from the face of the huge ice sheets coming down the mountain slopes. It was the deep blue reflection of the ice that caught my attention.
The blue ice is dense and very old as it was created by hundreds of years of snowpack crushing down to form the ice sheets and glaciers. It’s the denser ice that absorbs the longer light wavelengths (red) and reflects the shorter (blue). When the light hits these formations just right, the result is stunning.
The indigenous people of the region regarded glaciers as beings with spiritual significance. The Tlingit peoples referred to the rumbling sounds of the glaciers as “white thunder” and in many respects they considered glaciers as having great power. As we maneuvered our kayaks slowly through the ice fields it felt like being among ancient souls born from the giant glaciers.
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