Part of The US National Parks
- Where
- West of Juneau, south-east
Alaska; air or sea only - Coordinates
- 58.45° N
135.88° W (visitor centre, Bartlett Cove) - Established
- Monument 26 February 1925;
park and preserve 2 December 1980 - Area
- 3,280,840 acres
(park and preserve) - Tidewater glaciers
- 11 reach the sea, 8 of them
inside the bay (Park Service) - Best visited
- Late May to early September,
busiest in July (Park Service) - Advisory
- United States
(no State Department level)
A long morning up a grey fjord in fine rain, with the forest on the shore getting younger and thinner the further we went, until there was bare rock and nothing else. Then a wall of blue ice across the end of the water, groaning to itself. Nobody spoke. A piece the size of a church let go and fell, and the sound arrived afterwards, late, like an apology.
The short answer
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is a unit of the US National Park Service in south-east Alaska, west of Juneau. It became a national monument on 26 February 1925, after a campaign in which the ecologist William S. Cooper was instrumental, and President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that made it a national park and preserve on 2 December 1980, the Park Service says. Its fact sheet gives 3,222,434 acres of national park and 58,406 acres of preserve, 3,280,840 acres in all, roughly the size of Connecticut, of which 2,656,200 acres are designated wilderness. With Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Canada’s Kluane National Park and Tatshenshini-Alsek Park it forms a World Heritage Site of 24,313,000 acres. Eleven glaciers in the park reach the sea, eight of them inside the bay, some only at high tide.
Why it's worth knowing
A bay the ice gave back. Ice has shaped the region for at least seven million years, the Park Service says, and today’s glaciers are remnants of the Little Ice Age advance that began about 4,000 years ago and reached its greatest extent here around 1750. Since then the ice has pulled back up the fjord, and the park says plants and animals pioneer the new ground behind it, so that a journey north from the forested lower bay ends among the rock and ice of the upper bay. In 1916 the plant ecologist William S. Cooper began studying that succession, and his findings led the Ecological Society of America to press for the area’s protection. Recent research, the park says, found 11 per cent less glacial ice in Glacier Bay than in the 1950s, though heavy snowfall in the Fairweather Mountains keeps a few glaciers stable or advancing.
Ice that falls into the sea. Tidewater glaciers end with their snouts in salt water, which undermines their fronts so that blocks of ice up to 200 feet high break off, the Park Service says. The glaciers flow forward about 3 to 6 feet a day. The park’s glaciers page gives the ice at their faces as about 200 years old; its questions page gives anywhere between 75 and 200 years, depending on the length and slope of each glacier. In the West Arm, Margerie Glacier is about 55 nautical miles from Bartlett Cove and Johns Hopkins Glacier about 63; McBride Glacier, the only tidewater glacier in the East Arm, is about 40.
A sanctuary for whales. Humpback whales, endangered and 40 to 50 feet long, come to Glacier Bay in summer to feed after fasting all winter in places such as Hawaii or Mexico, the Park Service says, and in the park’s waters they have some of the strongest protections found anywhere. They are most often seen in the lower bay. Every boat, kayaks included, must stay outside a quarter of a nautical mile from any humpback.
The field notes
The ancestors' house
Glacier Bay is the Ancestral Homeland of the Huna and Yakutat Lingít, the Park Service says, and legends place the main pre-Little Ice Age village of the four Huna clans at what is now Bartlett Cove. Their villages inside the bay were overrun by the glacial advance of the 1700s, and after the ice retreated the Huna Lingít re-established fish camps and villages in the bay. On 25 August 2016, the centenary of the National Park Service, the Hoonah Indian Association and the park dedicated Xunaa Shuká Hít, the Huna Ancestors’ House, at Bartlett Cove: a 2,500-square-foot cedar clan house, the first permanent clan house in Glacier Bay since the villages were destroyed by the advancing glacier more than 250 years earlier, the park says. Master carvers and apprentices spent seven years on its carved and painted cedar panels, house posts and interior screen; the park also describes a Healing Totem Pole raised in 2018 that tells the sometimes fraught history between the Huna Lingít and the Park Service.
Cruise ships and quotas
Glacier Bay has a history of cruise visits going back nearly 150 years, the Park Service says, and most visitors still arrive by cruise ship or tour boat; more than 90 per cent of them never set foot on land in the park. In 2024 it counted 691,387 cruise ship passengers, 13,516 tour vessel passengers and 3,710 backcountry visitors, in its second record year in a row. The park limits vessels in summer to two cruise ships, three tour vessels, six charter vessels and 25 private vessels a day. Cruise ships do not dock anywhere in the park: they typically spend 9 to 10 hours in the bay, including about an hour in front of a tidewater glacier, and park rangers board them to narrate the day.
July 2008Blue ice framing the view out of a glacier ice cave.
Photograph: NPS Photo · Public domain · cropped
May 2008A U-shaped valley carved by a glacier, above the water of the bay.
Photograph: NPS Photo · Public domain
July 2019A hermit thrush in the forest at Glacier Bay.
Photograph: NPS Photo · Public domain · cropped
- Be out on deck on the side facing the ice when the engines go quiet. Wear every layer, and both gloves.
- Stand still at the ice front and listen for as long as they let you. It talks most when nobody else does.
- This bay is a homeland. If the tribal house is open, go in as a guest, and listen before you ask anything.
- Give every whale a wide berth, and every seal on every iceberg too. They are at home; you are passing through.
- Write down what the ice does. (It did nothing for a long time and then everything at once, while I was looking for my pencil. The page now says ‘missed it’, underlined, in very wet ink.)
A blue iceberg, freshly calved. Icebergs calved from Glacier Bay's tidewater glaciers may last a week or more, the Park Service says, giving perches to bald eagles, cormorants and gulls and haul-outs to harbor seals. Pass close by and they pop and sizzle as they melt, releasing ancient air that was first trapped between delicate snowflakes high in the mountains and then frozen in under pressure; the park calls the sound "bergie seltzer". Their colours tell their story: white bergs hold many trapped bubbles, blue ones like this are dense and recently calved, and dark-striped brown ones carry rock the glacier picked up on its way down.
Tally, in the marginI had taken the lump of ice drifting past for silence. It took me a long while leaning over the rail to hear that it was talking, very small and very fast, and I held my own breath so as not to interrupt.
Getting there
How to get there. Glacier Bay can be reached only by plane or boat, the Park Service says. The park’s one road runs about 10 miles from the small town of Gustavus and its airport to park headquarters at Bartlett Cove. Alaska Airlines flies daily from Juneau to Gustavus in summer, and small air taxis and charters fly all year; the flight takes about 30 minutes. In summer the Alaska Marine Highway ferry typically calls at Gustavus twice a week from Juneau, at a dock 9 miles from Bartlett Cove. A daily boat tour runs from Bartlett Cove up the bay to the tidewater glaciers and drops off campers and kayakers, and many cruise itineraries through the Inside Passage spend a day in the bay, though the park notes that many Alaskan cruises do not visit it.
When to go. The main season runs from late May to early September, with July the peak, the Park Service says. Summer highs are 50°F to 60°F, some form of precipitation falls on an average of 228 days a year, and south-east Alaska gets about four sunny days a month in an average year; the park advises rain gear and warm layers.
What to arrange ahead. The park’s fees page says there is no entrance fee and no camping fee. Overnight campers and kayakers need a free backcountry permit, and campers at Bartlett Cove must attend an orientation at the visitor information station; private boats need a free permit to enter the bay in June, July and August, which can be reserved up to 60 days ahead. Tours, lodge rooms and charters are booked with their operators, the park says.
Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The park describes challenging conditions, difficult crossings and dangerous weather and water for kayakers, warns paddlers never to enter McBride Inlet because of its hazardous entrance, and asks visitors to be bear aware: black bears live in the forest around Bartlett Cove, and brown bears farther up the bay.
Mark this place
Common questions
How do you get to Glacier Bay National Park?
Only by air or sea, the National Park Service says. Alaska Airlines flies from Juneau to Gustavus in summer and air taxis fly all year, about 30 minutes each way; the Alaska state ferry calls at Gustavus in summer. A 10-mile road links Gustavus to Bartlett Cove, and many cruise ships spend a day in the bay.
Do cruise ships stop at Glacier Bay?
Cruise ships spend a day in Glacier Bay but do not dock anywhere in the park, the National Park Service says. They typically stay 9 to 10 hours, including about an hour at a tidewater glacier, with park rangers aboard. In summer the park allows at most two cruise ships a day.
How far have the glaciers in Glacier Bay retreated?
When George Vancouver mapped Glacier Bay in 1794, the National Park Service says, his map showed a single great glacier filling it; today the tidewater glaciers lie about 55 to 63 nautical miles up the West Arm from Bartlett Cove. The park calls it the most dramatic documented large-scale glacial retreat in the world.
How old is the ice at the front of Glacier Bay's glaciers?
The National Park Service gives two figures. Its glaciers page says the ice at the faces of Glacier Bay’s glaciers is estimated at about 200 years old; its questions page says anywhere between 75 and 200 years, depending on each glacier’s length and slope, since the ice flows forward about 3 to 6 feet a day.
Is there an entrance fee at Glacier Bay National Park?
No. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve charges no entrance fee and no camping fee, its fees page says, and no pass is needed. Overnight campers and kayakers need a free backcountry permit, and private boats need a free permit to enter the bay in June, July and August.
Where can you see whales in Glacier Bay?
The National Park Service says humpback whales are most often seen in the lower part of Glacier Bay, in Sitakaday Narrows, Whidbey Passage and around South Marble Island, and, for kayakers, in Hugh Miller Inlet and the Beardslee Islands. Every boat must stay a quarter of a nautical mile from any humpback.
Who are the Huna Lingít of Glacier Bay?
Glacier Bay is the Ancestral Homeland of the Huna and Yakutat Lingít, the National Park Service says. Huna villages inside the bay were overrun by the Little Ice Age advance; in 2016 the Hoonah Indian Association and the park dedicated Xunaa Shuká Hít, a cedar clan house at Bartlett Cove, the first in the bay since then.
What is bergie seltzer?
It is the popping and sizzling that icebergs make as they melt in Glacier Bay, the National Park Service says: air trapped between snowflakes in the mountains and frozen in under pressure escapes from the ice. Kayakers passing close to a berg can hear it, along with splashes and crackles of dripping water.
What to pack: the Small islands & boats kit, cold seas and wind