Five Fun Facts About Glacier Bay National Park

Glacier Bay National Park covers 5,156 square miles of Alaska’s Inside Passage, one of the last wild coastlines along the Pacific Ocean. Temperate rainforest, dynamic glaciers, and alpine tundra define this area of Southeast Alaska and make Glacier Bay one of the most unique national parks in the United States.

Podcast Episode Overview

Join us as we journey back to Alaska for some fascinating fun facts about Glacier Bay! I worked as a park ranger in Glacier Bay National Park, so I’m excited to share our unique experiences and surprise you with facts that make this park so extraordinary!

In this episode, we discuss:

What makes these the fastest-moving glaciers in the world
The location of the largest tidal wave recorded in history
Why this park was claimed by the government… for science
How Glacier Bay went from a rocky landscape to a rainforest in record time
The most remarkable thing about the wildlife in this park

We hope you enjoy learning more about why Glacier Bay is such an unbelievable park. We also hope you can visit Glacier Bay and see it all for yourself sometime soon!

Listen to the Full Podcast Episode:

Glacier Bay National Park Fun Facts

1. Glacier Bay National Park’s glaciers are the fastest moving in the world

Though we know Glacier Bay National Park for its incredible blue glaciers, which move multiple feet a day, the park actually used to be a lush valley with no bay.

The Tlingit used to set up summer fish camps along a river that flowed where Bartlett Cove now sits. Glaciers could be seen only in the distance in the mountains. At these fish camps, Tlingit families would catch bountiful salmon. It was like a mountain paradise where the Tlingit thrived since the 1400s. These are the ancestors of the Huna Tlingit.

Explorers between the 1500s and 1800s sought a route through the Northwest Passage, which, as we know now, never materialized. In their quest to find a shipping route, many explorers instead found other places and people along the way to the Pacific Northwest.

By the time Captain George Vancouver reached Southeastern Alaska in 1794, the Tlingit were no longer living in their mountain paradise. Instead, Vancouver found an icy straight carved 1,400 feet deep filled with a glacier over 20 miles wide, 4,000 feet thick, and over 100 miles long.

In an icy armageddon, an entire civilization was pushed out of their ancestral homelands. The Tlingit crossed the icy strait into what is now Hoonah, where they currently live.

Nearly 100 years later, in 1879, naturalist John Muir traveled to Glacier Bay to study the glaciers reported by Vancouver. He hired Tlingit guides and followed Vancouver’s map of the massive glacier he saw in the 1700s.

In another shock, Muir found an open bay instead of the glacier. Muir and the Tlingit would have had to paddle 40 miles into the bay to find the glacier that carved out the bay. Talk about a retreat!

On average, these glaciers retreated 2,640 feet every year for 80 years!

2. The largest recorded tidal wave in history happened at Glacier Bay National Park

To get a sense of how large this wave is, watch this video of a surfer breaking the world record by surfing an 86-foot wave. Now, multiply the height of that wave by 20.

That’s right. A 1,720-foot wave crashed on the shores of Glacier Bay National Park in 1958. It happened at Lituya Bay, a beautiful but remote area of the park.

As glaciers advance and retreat, they push the land down like a sponge. During the rebound period after glacial retreat, the land expands at a rate of one to two inches a year. That rapid rebound can cause earthquakes and landslides.

In 1958, an 8.0 earthquake shook the mountains of Lituya Bay and caused a massive landslide. When the land hit the water, it created a 1,720-foot megatsunami. The tsunami sloshed back and forth in the bay, an effect that could happen again someday in Glacier Bay National Park.

We talk more about the various ways Glacier Bay leaves you in awe in Episode 72 Exploring Glacier Bay: Trip Planning Tips and Activities.

3. Glacier Bay National Park is protected for its importance to scientific discoveries

Glacier Bay is one of the most unique areas in North America, if not the world, for research. Scientists can observe phenomena like climate change’s cooling and heating, ocean currents, plant succession, and so much more!

That’s why Glacier Bay was protected as a national monument and then as a national park, and its importance to scientific discovery was highlighted as the main reason each time.

Glacier Bay National Park, along with Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park, and Kluane National Park and Reserve form a massive UNESCO World Heritage Site as designated by the United Nations. Glacier Bay is also part of one of the world’s largest internationally protected Biosphere Reserves.

When you visit Glacier Bay, you’re bound to bump into at least one scientist. Some are studying humpback whales, orcas, and other marine mammals, while others are there to study the tidewater glaciers like the Margerie Glacier and the Grand Pacific Glacier. Harbor seals in Glacier Bay are so special that even they get their own scientists!

4. Temperate rainforests returned to Glacier Bay less than 75 years after being scraped away by a glacier

The name “Glacier Bay” may lead you to believe all you’ll see at the national park is an icy landscape and advancing glaciers carving out u-shaped valleys. In reality, temperate rainforest dominates much of the coastal land in the Gulf of Alaska. But that wasn’t always the case.

The same glacier that pushed the Tlingit out of their ancestral homelands also scraped all native vegetation down to nothing but rocks. When scientist William Cooper arrived in Glacier Bay National Park in 1916, he set up plots to understand how the rocky landscape left behind by glaciers would change over time.

In less than 75 years, a developed temperate rainforest stood in those research plots. That’s one of the many reasons Glacier Bay is known for being wild, resilient, and sacred.

Another scientist, ecologist Sandy Milner, conducted a study to understand how quickly salmon could return to a stream after being wiped out. Milner found that salmon could return in just ten years!

5. Glacier Bay has a wildlife viewing calendar to help visitors see its abundance of wildlife

There are so many species of wildlife to see in Glacier Bay National Park that you can divide the park into two: the marine park and the land park. It’s a lot to see in one trip! Luckily, the National Park Service created a calendar to help optimize your wildlife viewing experience.

While the glaciers are breathtaking and worth the trip alone, the wildlife is what will make your trip unforgettable.

In the early spring, between March and April, harbor seals birth their pups using the icebergs that break away from the glaciers. Steller sea lions make their way to inshore waters in March to feed on herring. Orcas, also known as killer whales, are common in the spring. Mountain goats wander down to lower elevations around April to feed on fresh green plants. You may also spot a bald eagle feeding near river mouths in the spring.

In later spring, between May and June, Sitka black-tailed deer give birth to their fawns and can be seen along forest edges. Like tufted puffins, many bird species find their way home to Glacier Bay to nest in the spring.

Moving into summer, humpback whales are the marine mammals to see. Researchers can identify humpback whales by the shape of their flukes, which are their tail fins. Through this identification, scientists know some whales have been coming to Glacier Bay National Park for decades!

Sea otters are also visible playing in kelp beds in the summer in Icy Strait and along the outer coast of Southeastern Alaska.

In the fall, moose with full racks can be seen in the park.

There’s so much to see and experience in Glacier Bay! The park is breathtakingly beautiful, wild, volatile, and untamed. We love Glacier Bay so much, and we hope you get a chance to visit soon!

Don’t forget to complete your task for this week! Which one of these fun facts surprised you the most? Head over to our Facebook or Instagram page and let us know!

Podcast minute markers

Fun Fact #1 (4:32)
Fun Fact #2 (17:04)
Fun Fact #3 (27:54)
Fun Fact #4 (31:16)
Fun Fact #5 (35:25)

Links mentioned in this episode:

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