Postcard From Glacier Bay The temperatures of sea water and the Earth’s atmosphere are rising, and the park’s glaciers are retreating more rapidly than ever before . . . Story and Photos by Buddy Mays
I will be the first to admit that a onethousand-foot-long mega-liner carrying 2,000 passengers is hardly my first choice as an ideal platform for wildlife and nature photography in southeast Alaska. Most wild animals quickly skedaddle as something the size of a cruise ship blunders through the swells in their direction making enough noise to wake Davy Jones. But if you are on one of the lower decks just after dawn or an hour before dusk, and if the ship happens to be navigating slowly 16
through growler ice in Glacier Bay National Park, and if Mother Nature is in a good mood, and if you haven’t tugged on Superman’s cape or spit into the wind, the chances of getting some halfway decent photographs from the ship are better than average. I have been to the Land of the Midnight Sun many times, but I had never visited Glacier Bay National Park until last July when my wife and I set sail for Alaska’s Inside Passage on Holland-America’s Nieuw
