Our maiden voyage into
Glacier Bay aboard the Wilderness Explorer lived up to our vessel’s
name--it was both exploratory and wild.
We certainly felt like
genuine explorers as we tested the limits and possibilities of this
new boat on her new route. Passengers and crew alike were alive with
anticipation as our boat pulled into unexplored inlets and anchorages
and as we crafted a fresh itinerary for ourselves day by day.
And wild? We pulled
past heavy brown bears foraging along the shoreline, watched arctic
terns wheel among the spray and thunder of calving glaciers, lifted
mammoth, dripping, sunflower stars from the sea floor, and steered
our kayaks among otters, playful sea lions, and the distant sound of
humpback breath. What really brought home the sense of the “wild,”
however, was a single, rare wildlife encounter one evening on the
dusky bank of Tidal Inlet, near the northern reaches of Glacier Bay.
Our boat and passengers alike sat quietly that night as we watched a
lone timber wolf meandering along the tide line.
The wolf was
long-legged and dark, and even at our distance we could feel the
gravity of his size: this was no ordinary dog. With fingers tight
around our binoculars and hips close against the railings, we watched
him breathlessly—but he did not watch back. He picked his way
slowly along the shoreline, nose to the ground. Whatever scents or
urges brought him to the beach, whatever the impulses and motives
that shaped his world, we were not among them. After a long while,
it was we who moved on from the inlet, leaving the wolf where we had
found him, moving like a muscle along the water’s edge, as
disinterested in our departure as he had been in our presence. How
thrilling, though, to share those quiet moments, witnessing. It felt
as though the spirit of wilderness itself had broken away from the
mountains and come trotting, dark-furred and lanky, into our view.
I think the encounter
was a reminder to us all that we are just visitors to this untamed
place -- profoundly fortunate to be able to come and to watch and to
go again. I also think, just maybe, it awakened a little bit of our
own wild side. It certainly seemed that way when, a couple days
later, one of our passengers took a “polar bear” plunge off our
fantail into Alaska’s icy waters, wearing only swim trunks and a
life vest! On an un-cruise, we, too, get to go wild.
Hannah Hindley
Expedition Guide
Wilderness Explorer
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