Glacier Sunset
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Glacier Sunset
(Watercolor/ Pastel 11" x 14")
After a seven day retreat at a center 20 miles north of Juneau, I signed on for a ten-hour trip in a small boat up the Tracy Arm Fjord, located 45 miles southeast of Juneau and home to the Sawyer Glacier. Petite by Alaska standards, Tracy Arm covers over 650,000 acres and is managed today by the U.S. Forest Service . .
Our boat captain circled us around an iceberg that was stunningly beautiful with turquoise blue colors and explained," ... ice absorbs all colors except blue .. the deeper the blue, the older the ice.'.' John Muir, famed naturalist, called Tracy Arm, "a wild unfinished Yosemite."
First time travelers to this majestic part of the planet, are struck by the ease of seeing so much wildlife: goats and black bears on mountain slopes, bald eagles on tree crags, seals sunbathing on icebergs.
These special places are at risk, however, not only from global warming of ice areas, but from proposals for oil and gas drilling. We witness the struggle of wild life to survive and ask ourselves, "Does wilderness still matter? Is it the canary in the mine? Do we see our human littleness as partners in the great story of creation or are we still warriors in it? What answers will we give?
