Alaska Archives

Spectacular view of beautiful Haines (video)

January 21, 2023 by John L. Dengler

Haines, Alaska, and its surrounding mountains, rivers, and ocean is perhaps the prettiest towns I have traveled to. The panorama video above is an attempt to show the scope of what that beauty entails.

The picturesque coastal fishing community in southeast Alaska is located on the Lynn Canal between the towns of Skagway and Juneau. Haines is one of the few towns in southeast Alaska that is connected with the North American highway system. The Haines Highway (Alaska Route 7 or AK-7) travels through British Columbia and the Yukon (Yukon Highway 3) to connect with the Alaska Highway in Haines Junction, Yukon.

Haines is also an Alaska Marine Highway System stop, with ferries arriving from Skagway and Juneau. The ferry travels on the Lynn Canal, North America’s longest and deepest fjord.

Wildlife viewing opportunities are abundant. The Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve on the Chilkat River, near the confluence with the Tsirku River near Klukwan, is famous for the world’s largest concentration of bald eagles. At its peak in November, the American Bald Eagle Foundation sponsors the Alaska Bald Eagle Festival.

Moose and both black and grizzly bears are inhabitants. Grizzly bears, in particular, are seen on the Chilkoot River banks at the Chilkoot Lake State Recreational Site.

Additional outdoor activities include fishing (Chilkoot Lake, Chilkoot River, Chilkoot Inlet, Lutak Inlet and Mosquito Lake), hiking (Mt. Ripinski, Mt. Riley, and in the Takshanuk and Takhinsha Mountains), camping at Chilkat State Park and Chilkoot Lake State Recreational Site, kiteboarding in Chilkat Inlet, and in the winter, heli-skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing and snow-machining.

One of the prominent features of Haines is Fort William H. Seward. Built in 1904, Ft. Seward was the first permanent United States Army post in Alaska. Today the fort is no longer owned by the military.

The fort is located near the cruise ship dock. Cruise ships travel the Lynn Canal, a part of the Inside Passage, for its beauty — magnificent mountains and glaciers and marine wildlife such as whales, sea lions, and seals. From Juneau to Haines, cruise ships and ferries pass lighthouses at Eldred Rock and Sentinel Island and stunning views of Davidson Glacier and Rainbow Glacier.

Tourism, fishing, and mining are the main economic contributors to the local economy.

The area is rich in Tlingit culture. A great place to learn about the Tlingit Culture is at the Jilkaat Kwaan Cultural Heritage Center in the Tlingit village of Klukwan, located on the Chilkat River 22 miles northwest of Haines.

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Glacier Bay’s enormity is hard to fathom (video)

January 21, 2023 by John L. Dengler

The main bay of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Southeast Alaska is vast, stretching 69 miles from its mouth to the furthest extent. It is hard to imagine that the area shown (a small portion of the bay) was a single large glacier of solid ice only a little over 200 years ago.

In the mid-1700s, this view (and quite a bit beyond) would have been covered by a glacier nearly a mile in thickness. Since then, the massive glacier that filled the bay has retreated 69 miles to the heads of various inlets. Recent research determined that there is 11% less glacial ice in Glacier Bay than in the 1950s. Still, even with the earth’s rapidly changing climate, Glacier Bay is home to a few stable glaciers due to heavy snowfall in the nearby Fairweather Mountains.

The pictured view is of the Beartrack Mountains looking from Tlingit Point to North Marble Island and South Marble Island.

The park is an important marine wilderness area known for its spectacular tidewater glaciers, icefields, and tall coastal mountains. A popular destination for cruise ships, the park is also known for its sea kayaking and wildlife viewing opportunities. Glacier Bay National Park is home to humpback whales, which feed in the park’s protected waters during the summer, both black and grizzly bears, moose, wolves, sea otters, harbor seals, Steller sea lions, and numerous species of sea birds. The dynamically changing park, known for its large, contiguous, intact ecosystems, is a United Nations biosphere reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Editors note: The video is a panoramic composite of several overlapping still images.

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Grizzly bear saliva collection research project update

November 12, 2016 by John L. Dengler

Remember when I photographed the ecologist collecting grizzly bear saliva DNA left on partially-consumed salmon carcasses? Well, Dr. Rachel Wheat recently had her findings from that research project published. Wheat’s research found collecting salivary environmental DNA (eDNA) in this noninvasive manner is effective in results, time in the field and cost over other methods like having to trap a bear. Wheat believes this research will be useful in studying population densities, movement and feeding behavior.

The research and methodology is interesting. Read her paper, Environmental DNA from Residual Saliva for Efficient Noninvasive Genetic Monitoring of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) for details.

If you missed it, check out my original blog post and photos of her project, Collecting DNA samples from grizzly bear saliva, SAY WHAT?

Congratulations Rachel!

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Massive landslide pours onto Lamplugh Glacier

July 23, 2016 by John L. Dengler

I was fortunate to be in Haines, Alaska when a massive landslide occurred on the Lamplugh Glacier in nearby Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The slide occurred on the morning of June 28 in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska. The landslide was first observed by Paul Swanstrom, pilot and owner of Haines-based Mountain Flying Service. During a flightseeing tour of Glacier Bay National Park, Paul noticed a huge cloud of dust over the Lamplugh Glacier several hours after the slide occurred. He investigated the source and found a mountainside missing with a debris field 6.5 miles long, and one to two miles in width.

Two days later, I had the opportunity to survey the destruction first hand. It is hard to fathom how half of a mountain could simply disappear by spilling itself onto the glacier. The 4,000-foot-high mountainside released approximately 120 million metric tons of rock in 60 seconds during a landslide onto the Lamplugh Glacier. In an interview with the Alaska Dispatch News, geophysicist Colin Stark of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory described the slide as “exceptionally large.” He compared the massive landslide to roughly 60 million medium SUVs tumbling down a mountainside. Yes, that’s what he said. 60 MILLION SUVs careening down a mountainside, all at once.

There were several geologists on the plane with me who also wanted a closer look. Paul skillfully piloted his de Havilland Beaver close to the top ridge of the slide.

Boulders were still tumbling down the unstable mountainside as we circled the ridge, adding to the dust cloud still hanging over the Lamplugh Glacier. Even the geologists aboard were amazed at the power of what we saw. In an interview with Haines public radio station KHNS, Micheal West, director of the Alaska Earthquake Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said that the vibrations, equivalent to about a magnitude-5.5 earthquake, were picked up as far away as Barrow and Nome. Scientists say that tectonic plate activity and eroding glaciers are often the cause of such landslides. As glaciers melt, mountainsides no longer receive the buttressing support afforded by a glacier.

Landslides are not uncommon is this geologically active region. While most are smaller, last fall in Alaska’s remote Taan Fiord of Icy Bay, a similar-sized landslide produced a wave that took down trees more than 500 feet up the opposite mountainside.

Think about this. A wave of water crashing up the opposite mountainside of a bay to a height almost as tall as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, stripping the forested mountainside to bare rock. I guess it is nature’s version of a belly flop into a swimming pool.