Dynamic Change

Glacier Bay's story is one of dynamic change in the wake of dramatic glacial movements.

• Glacier Bay collects many glaciers flowing from the tall surrounding mountains with abundant snowfall.
• As recently as 1750 a single glacier thousands of feet thick filled what is now a 65-mile long fjord.
• This glacial retreat has exposed a resilient land that hosts a succession of marine and terrestrial life.
• Here is an opportunity to see how the physical world shapes the biological.

Natural Laboratory

Botanist William Cooper spearheaded efforts to preserve not only a place to view glaciers, wildlife, and grandeur, but also a living laboratory to study and enjoy through the ages.

• Glacier Bay offers unexcelled opportunities to study earth's most fundamental geologic processes.
• A center where researchers from multiple disciplines collaborate to conduct management and ecosystem directed research.
• What scientists learn at Glacier Bay may one day foretell changes to the region and the world.

Place of Hope

Glacier Bay is a globally significant marine and terrestrial wilderness sanctuary.

• A place that offers human solitude and a remote wildness that is rapidly disappearing in today's world.
• A place of hope--for the continued wisdom, restraint, and humility to preserve a sample of wild America, the world as it was.
• It is part of one of the largest internationally protected Biosphere Reserves in the world, and it is recognized by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site.

Place of Inspiration

Long before there were written records of Glacier Bay, there were stories.

• Tlingit elders told of an ancestral homeland covered by advancing ice. For the Tlingit, Glacier Bay is woven into the tapestry of their lives.
• Glacier Bay is a powerful place that also inspires cultural expression in the scientist, the artist, the resident, the traveler, and those who make their livelihood from the sea.
• Glacier Bay continues to offer inspiration as we each endeavor to explore our connections to this dynamic landscape.

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