In the remote reaches of southeast Alaska lies one of the most extraordinary landscapes on Earth.
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Carved by ancient ice and framed by the towering Fairweather Range, its fjords, glaciers, and wildlife form a world both rugged and fragile. Deep within this wilderness, at the head of the Johns Hopkins Inlet, I captured the moment that became “Glacier Bay”.
This photograph is more than an image; it is a testament to the forces of nature shaping our planet in real time. The Johns Hopkins Glacier, one of the few in the park still advancing, looms at the far end of the inlet. Steep rock walls rise from turquoise waters, and a waterfall threads down the mountainside, carrying glacial melt into the sea. Harbor seals haul out on drifting ice floes. Seabirds wheel overhead, their calls mingling with the deep, echoing thunder of calving ice.
The geology here tells a story millions of years in the making — tectonic forces thrusting rock skyward, glaciers grinding it down, and life slowly reclaiming what ice has surrendered. Lichens, mosses, and dwarf willows cling to newly exposed stone. In time, shrubs and forests will grow, but for now, the landscape still wears the stark beauty of recent creation.
Creating “Glacier Bay” was an act of patience and respect. The inlet is closed to most vessel traffic during the harbor seal pupping season, and weather here can change in minutes. On the day I made this image, the air was crisp and still, the only movement the drifting of ice and the slow, silent passage of clouds over the peaks.