Tracy Arm Fjord Tour
  If you find yourself in Juneau and you would really like to
go on a glacier tour but the trip to Glacier Bay seems a bit pricey or you do
not have the time, Tracy Arm is as good as, or even better than, the Glacier Bay
Cruise. It is run by the same
company that runs the ferry between Juneau and Glacier Bay and the Icy Strait
whale watching tour. In fact, we
even had the same crew for those tours.
When the wonders of the world committee decides to add its next wonder, I
nominate this fjord as “the waterfalls wonder.”
The boat is called the “Teek,” a Tlingit word for Orca
or killer whale. The boat features
two decks – a lower deck that is totally enclosed and an upper deck that is
part enclosed and part open air. There
are several bathrooms onboard the Teek. The
crew serves a complimentary lunch of vegetarian chili or clam chowder.
Complimentary tea, coffee and hot cocoa are available during the entire
trip as well.
The eight hour cruise costs $110 per person.
It leaves at 9 a.m. and returns at 5 p.m. every day of the week through
the summer season (mid May until early October depending on the weather).
The tour leaves from the dock just behind the Goldbelt
Tour Center. To find it from the airport
or ferry terminal, take a right on Egan Highway.
 Watch for the Goldbelt Hotel on the left side of the Egan just after
passing the small boat harbor. The
Goldbelt Tour Center is a gray building directly across the Egan from the Goldbelt
Hotel on the harbor side. Contact Auk
Nu Tours for even
more information and reservations.
During the tour a naturalist speaks about the history of
the area as well as the geology and biota.
Our naturalist, Debbie, resides in the Juneau area and was actually
raised in a small lodge just below the Taku glacier. She told us a number of
interesting stories about growing up in southeast. My favorite story was about her wedding.
Shortly after all the guests had left the lodge she went back out to use
the outdoor “facilities.” Two
bears wandered into the yard and one started using the outhouse as a back
scratcher. When it finally looked
like the two bears were on their way out of the yard, Debbie crept out of the
outhouse and headed for the lodge. But
the bears caught wind of her, and chased her back into the outhouse.
A large part of her wedding evening was spent trapped in an outhouse by
two large bears.
On this tour we had the pleasure of
meeting Rick and Bev from Kansas. Rick
is a biology teacher at Shawnee Mission East High School, and Bev is the school
nurse there. They had been planning their adventure for about a year and
were making their way along an impressive three week journey through southeast
and the interior regions of Alaska.
The captain was an exceptionally experienced pilot and was
able to maneuver the Teek into some pretty cool places.
At “hole in the wall falls” he brought the nose of the ship right
into the falls themselves. Those seated downstairs in the enclosed area got to see what
the waterfall looked like from inside as he  washed all the fore windows with the
falls. Later in the cruise he
brought us into a tiny little cove allowing for up close and personal inspection
of another falls from the open deck on the stern.
We also were close enough to marvel at the number of wildflowers that
grow on the edges and crevices of the sheer rock walls that make up the fjord.
The boat enters the arm through an incredibly narrow
channel of deep water. Even though
it is only 500 feet wide in spots, it is deep enough to allow a Holland America
cruise ship to slip through. At
this point one begins to see the beautiful blue and white icebergs floating in
the water or perched up on beaches or sand bars.
The cruise visits two tidewater glaciers, and both of them were calving
while we were watching them. The
south Sawyer Glacier does not have much of a current to draw the ice away from
the glacier. This creates prime
habitat for harbor seals to use as birthing grounds.
And there were thousands of them laying all over the icebergs.
The cliffs of the fjord run almost straight up into the
clouds like stone walls carved by giants. We
visited the arm on a particularly rainy day.
Consequently, the cliffs were just blanketed by hundreds of waterfalls.
Pigeon Guillemots perched on ledges and fished in the amazing green
water. Eagles nested in the areas
where the trees grew. And on the
way back into Juneau the captain spotted a humpback whale feeding.
He was able to circle around and cut the engines so we could all watch
the whale blowing and diving.
Last Visited: July 2000
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