A member of the Huna Tlingit tribe came on board the Amsterdam to tell us the following story about Glacier Bay.
From American Field Trip online:
"I’m not sure which national park is geologically the youngest (Hawaii Volcanoes, maybe?), but Glacier Bay would certainly be in the top five. What is now a long bay surrounded by sheer peaks and winding glaciers was, only 300 years ago, a wide valley stretching away from the toe of the Grand Pacific Glacier. Home to the Huna Tlingit people from time immemorial, the valley was a fertile stretch, rich in resources and naturally protected by the mountains and the ocean.
Then, in around 1700, the Little Ice Age forever changed the landscape—cold temperatures and more snow made the Grand Pacific Glacier advance rapidly. Huna Tlingit stories described the glacier’s flow as being 'at the speed a dog runs.' Glaciologists can now back up the story of this galloping glacier—it’s called a surge glacier and 104 of them have been observed in North America (though most surge only rarely.) The glacier advanced more than 200 miles by 1750, only stopping when it hit the saltwater of the Icy Strait, which began to dissolve the glacier’s toe.
Thus pushed out of their ancestral home, the Huna Tlingit found refuge in nearby islands and inlets, later settling largely in a town known now as Hoonah (pop. 745). As the ice retreated through the 1800s, the people began to return home—instead of a wide valley, though, the land was covered in seawater where the glacier had been. They now called it Sit’ Eeti Gheeyi—'the bay in place of the glacier.'”
Here is a picture of tribe members after their return to the valley was official in 2016:
Here are pictures we took of Glacier Bay:
