Saving Glacier Bay : Environmentalists, Cruise Ships Clash Over National Park Access

Even a 10-story cruise ship is a shorty in this icy realm.

The mountains of Glacier Bay National Park rise over the bay. Humpback whales weighing up to 37 tons surface and blow in mighty bursts of spray.

Then there are the glaciers, craggy, blue walls of ice, towering above the ships, crackling as they inexorably inch toward the bay, sporadically calving big chunks into the salty water.

The ships that in other climes might be marine skyscrapers are dwarfed.

But for more than a decade, the ships have loomed large in a debate over the park’s health and its role in preserving a rare marine ecosystem.

As the park has become more popular, the cruise industry has pressured the National Park Service and Congress to sharply increase the number of ships allowed inside the park.

While nobody is pushing to ban the big ships, environmentalists oppose an increase for fear that more ships will drive away the rare humpbacks that are among Glacier Bay’s most-photographed summer visitors. Some want a decrease pending a conclusive study of the ships’ effects.

The ships’ boilers also belch black smoke that sometimes leaves a foul-smelling smog hanging over the glaciers. And kayakers and hikers seeking solitude often are disappointed to encounter the ships with more than a thousand pair of eyes aboard and dangerous wakes behind.

“They’re expecting more of a wilderness experience,” said former Glacier Bay guide John Sisk of Juneau. “Then they see a huge cruise ship with the public address system blaring as they come around a corner.”

The park has seen a 60% increase in visitors over the last five years, making it Alaska’s most popular attraction after Denali National Park at Mt. McKinley.

Glacier Bay was designated a national monument in 1925 and a national park in 1980. Covering more than 3.2 million acres, the park is situated at the northern end of Alaska’s panhandle, 60 miles northwest of Juneau.

Entering the bay from Icy Strait, the mountains are covered with lush forests of spruce and hemlock. Inland the mountains shed their trees to reveal glacier-carved peaks and valleys filled with rivers of ice.

Wildlife abounds. In addition to the humpbacks, which feed on shrimp and tiny krill in the lower bay, there are minke and killer whales, Steller sea lions, seals and otters. Grizzly and black bears, moose and mountain goats patrol the forests and mountains, as eagles, puffins and other sea birds mind the icy shores.

The bay also provides a rare opportunity to witness the process of glaciation--the carving of mountains and birth of forests as the glaciers recede.

“It’s probably the best example of Ice Age forces still in action,” said Sisk, director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. “It’s incredibly new. When the United States was founded, Glacier Bay didn’t even exist.”

The park can be reached only by water or air, but this year a record 215,897 people made the trip, the vast majority on the modern cruise ships.

Each ship spends less than a day in Glacier Bay, venturing the 65 miles to Grand Pacific and Margerie glaciers at the terminus, and back to Icy Strait.

There is no dock to accommodate the ships, so the passengers get little more than a glimpse of the park. And sometimes the view is not very clear.

The ships also bring a big-city problem to the wilderness, smog. Alaska this year fined three cruise lines a total of $50,000 for repeated violations of air-pollution laws.

“When you get a cruise ship sitting up there at Margerie Glacier for maybe an hour, and there’s an air inversion because of the cold air flow off the glacier, it traps the emissions,” explains Park Supt. Marvin Jensen.

“So you’re looking at pristine glaciers through a haze of smog. That’s bad enough for the passengers, who are somewhat understanding because they’re on the boat. But what about the folks who have paddled all the way up the bay?”

Of most concern to conservationists, however, is the ships’ possible effect on the humpbacks, an endangered species under federal law, and Steller sea lions, which are classified as threatened.

In 1978, observers noticed a sharp decline in the number of humpbacks in the bay. Fearing that the cruise ships were disturbing the whales, the Park Service reduced the number of ship visits from 103 to 79 for the three-month season and imposed strict speed limits on all vessels.

The National Marine Fisheries Service began identifying the individual humpbacks and keeping a census. Between 1982 and 1991, the population fluctuated between 10 to 28 a year.

During those years, the Park Service increased the limit on ship visits twice, to the current 107. Some years the whale population declined, others years it increased.

There are contrary studies, some showing that the ships force changes in whales’ respiration and movements, says Tamra Faris, a federal fisheries biologist.

Others say the bay’s supply of food may be a greater influence on the whales’ decision to return. Jensen says both sides are speculative and more study is needed.

With support from Alaska’s congressional delegation, the cruise industry is pushing for a 68% increase in the number of ship visits to 180 a year--two a day, every day, throughout the season.

There already is a two-a-day limit, but the 107-visit cap limits that.

The industry argues that the number of tourists cruising the Inside Passage has increased, but the detours into Glacier Bay have lagged behind demand.

Gary Odle, director of Alaska marketing for Holland America Line-Westours Inc. in Seattle, says, “Glacier Bay is a highlight of a cruise to Alaska. There are few alternatives to see it unless you cruise it.”

The industry argues that the ships are an efficient form of transportation. Each brings up to 1,600 tourists into the park without leaving a footprint. Environmentalists agree, but say that does not justify bringing in more.

Mary Grisco, Alaska regional director of the National Parks and Conservation Assn., says supply and demand is inappropriate. Parks, she says, are “not Disneylands.”

“They’re places for experiences, for getting away and stepping out of everyday life, for reflection,” she says.

Seeing Glacier Bay from a ship, she says, “is the Alaska equivalent of looking at a park through a windshield.”

The Park Service is hurrying to complete a management plan that will set the ship visits for the future.

There continues a wrestling match between conservation groups, the courts, the Congress and the management agencies.

Meantime, the glaciers continue their creeping march to the sea.