Icebergs Ahead!

June 1             Icebergs in LeConte Bay

It is easy to spot the entrance to LeConte Bay. Be on the lookout for a fleet of icebergs grounded on the entry reef extending from the north shore. In some previous years we have seen huge armadas of bergs drifting along Frederick Sound just outside Petersburg Harbor, but not this year. No, today we had to travel 23nm southeast of town to view the calved icebergs at the source.

We wove our way through floating bergs, keeping a cautious distance from the larger ones since the bulk of their mass is unseen, hidden underwater by the cloudy celadon-colored, glacial-melt water. Several smaller bergs rolled over, unstable as the warmer seawater melted part of the underwater mass resulting in a top-heavy condition. 

The varied shapes often inspire fanciful comparisons to known objects, but today I just marveled at the colors displayed by this incredible number of icebergs. The morning's sunshine added drama to the sightings, intensifying the vivid blue tones of this ancient glacial ice. Some appeared lit from within with a cold blue flame.

The bergs grew more closely packed as we traveled farther up the bay, finally stopping us just before the last s-bend. We didn’t make it all of the way up to the face of LeConte glacier, never even saw it. It didn't matter, we thoroughly enjoyed our morning iceberg cruise in LeConte Bay anyway.

Photo: Nobeltec Navigation display - the red arrowed line shows our route, the green boat figure represents the boat's location. 

Photo: dots on the radar screen represent the largest icebergs in a one-mile range of the boat. The curving solid masses whow the shoreline.

Factoids from the 2015 Petersburg Viking Visitor Guide:

*-LeConte Bay and LeConte Glacier were named in 1887 for Joseph LeConte, professor of geology at the University of California.

*-LeConte Glacier… is perhaps the most studied glacier in the world. For 23 consecutive years student teams from PHS have surveyed the face and tracked the glacier’s movement.

*-The snowfield above the glacier runs up the Stikine River valley.It has the distinction of being the southernmost active tidewater glacier in North America.

*-The spring of 1998 saw the waters of Frederick Sound choked with bergs after a half-mile of ice from the glacier calved into the bay. 

*-LeConte Glacier (is like) a tube of toothpaste. The more snow pack and weight that compresses the ice further up the valley, the more ice advances into the bay. 

*-For the past decade, the face of the glacier has remained stable… within an average distance of 92 yards of its 1999 position. It’s tendency is to move forward with the spring melts, retreating again in the fall. LeConte has retreated 1.2 miles since 1991.

*-In some places the ice has been measured at 4400 feet thick.

*-At the terminus, about 200 feet of ice rise above sea level, and 800 feet are hidden below the waterline of the bay.

Icebergettes: Nature’s ice sculptures

Day 26

Was there a fishing derby going on in Frederick Sound? That’s what it looked like when we departed Petersburg’s North Harbor. We had the same impression on our first visit in 2000, when those bobbing white “boats” turned out to be chunks off icebergs that had calved off of the LeConte glacier. These chunks move slowly around the area, pushed about by wind and currents. Some bergs have deep bottoms and ground on rocks and islets, while others spread out to drift farther along the Sound. A few occasionally drift into Petersburg’s north harbor, necessitating some tugboat/pushboat action from the harbor crew in their sturdy skiffs. Most bergettes just travel along slowly, changing shape and location until they melt away.

Note the eroded, undercut waterline on some of the icebergs. As the saltwater (45-degree F or less) slowly melts the submerged surfaces, the berg become top heavy and will eventually turn over. Wind, water and weather carve fantastic shapes on Nature’s floating ice sculptures and it’s fun to imagine various recognizable figures… a gila monster? an aircraft? maybe an arrow?

Rain, Wind, Fog, and More Rain, etc.

Mid-August

You've read the title, you get the picture. Our run south was gray and wet, but that's just the big picture. There were interesting moments along the route.

Petersburg Harbor bustled with activity as seiners and packers returned with holds full of salmon, and then set out again for the fishing grounds. 

Seiners filled these docks, but trollers and gillnetters were active too.

The canneries ran full shifts, filling the bay with foamy effluent and the air with the aroma of cooked seafood (and more). Schools of herring swarmed the waters and screeching gulls and eagles whirled through the air everywhere. Just picture eagles playing fighter pilot as they maneuvered in the harbor; twisting, diving and pulling up rapidly to avoid masts and rigging while they plucked herring from the water's surface or tried to steal fish from another bird. That was some air show.

Occasional small icebergs drifted past the docks, carried up and down the channel by the swift-moving current.

Wrangell Narrows is a crooked, doglegged waterway that is dotted with a maze of markers which indicate the navigable main channel and several side channels. Easy to transit in clear weather, it's a bit more challenging in heavy rain and/or fog. Our onboard navigation program and radar were much appreciated in August's changeable conditions.

You don't want to travel on the wrong side of a marker.

The view forward.

The view aft.

The view on the radar screen... somewhat later.

Here's an unfortunate vessel; did the captain misread the markers, or run afoul of a hard-to-see gillnet? That's a troller - trollers don't fish with nets, but there is one hanging over the rear quarter.

Click on the photo for a better look at the net.

High winds and rough water in Sumner Strait caused a change in the cruise plan. A long run was scrubbed in favor of a short dash across the strait into St. John Harbor. With extra storm lines added to the usual complement of mooring lines, we rode out the gale pointed up into the winds at a Forest Service dock. Forty-knot winds howled through our bay, 60-70 knot gusts were recorded nearby in Clarence Strait. While we were comfortable and secure, it was worrisome to watch two big boats anchored across the bay as they rolled and pitched, swinging in 180 degree arcs around their anchors.

Zarembo Island's streams ran fast and dumped muddy water and scads of debris into the bay. Here's one log chunk rushing past the dock - I hoped we didn't meet up with this one or any other as we traveled on. 

Icebergs... well, bergettes

Check out how much of this iceberg's mass is underwater!

It happens every year, somewhere near Petersburg I am surprised by the presence of icebergs floating down the channel. Sometimes, way off in the distance, they look like an entire flotilla of skiffs, all clustered together like participants in some chilly fishing derby... nope, just icebergs. Occasionally they are beached, caught along the shoreline when the tide falls. This week there were just a few small bergs, peacefully bobbing in the calm water of Frederick Sound. 


I love the colors that hide deep within the ice, brilliant blues, greens and all shades in between. The technical explanations of light absorption, refraction, prisms, optic this and that are interesting but it's really all about the color. Color and shapes.