Excerpts from the Glacier Bay Website
Sailing through Glacier Bay today, you travel along shorelines and among islands that were completely covered by ice just over 200 years ago. When Captain George Vancouver charted adjacent waters of Icy Strait in 1794, he and his crew described what we now call Glacier Bay as just a small five-mile indent in a gigantic glacier that stretched off to the horizon. That massive glacier was more than 4,000 feet thick in places, up to 20 miles wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St. Elias mountain range. By 1879, however, naturalist John Muir discovered that the ice had retreated more than 30 miles forming an actual bay. By 1916, the Grand Pacific Glacier – the main glacier credited with carving the bay – had melted back 60 miles to the head of what is now Tarr Inlet. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge declared Glacier Bay a national monument.
The 1916 Organic Act, which created the National Park Service, requires parks "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein." A comprehensive program of scientific research and monitoring is thus required to ensure that Glacier Bay ’s natural and cultural resources are adequately protected. Some of these studies are focused on specific resource concerns, such as the effects of vessels on marine life or the impacts of shoreline camping on nesting birds. Other studies are broader in nature and intended to better understand the complex marine and terrestrial ecosystems of this large wilderness park. Such understanding is necessary in order to separate natural change from changes which are caused by human activities.
While some research projects at Glacier Bay are conducted by park staff, many are performed by scientists from other agencies or institutions under working agreements with the National Park Service. The importance of science-based management is widely recognized throughout the national park system and is incorporated into Glacier Bay National Park 's mission statement.
Please check out the National Park Services webpage for more information on Glacier Bay National Park!
