Margerie Glacier
Interesting facts
- When George Vancouver passed in 1794, Glacier Bay barely existed: a wall of ice about 20 miles wide and thousands of feet high filled its mouth.
- By the time John Muir arrived in 1879, the ice had already retreated about 48 miles up the bay.
- Margerie's face now stands roughly 65 miles from the mouth of the bay, a measure of how far the ice has withdrawn since the 18th century.
- At its fastest the glacier was measured moving about 2,000 feet a year, roughly six feet every day.
- Margerie rises close to the border between Alaska and Canada, in the high ice fields of the Fairweather Range.
- Glacier Bay is part of a vast transboundary World Heritage Site shared with Canada's Kluane and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks and Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias.
Why it is worth it
Margerie Glacier ends at the head of Tarr Inlet, in the far northwestern reach of Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, as a wall of ice about a mile wide and roughly 350 feet high, of which some 250 feet stand above the water. It flows about 21 miles from the southern slopes of Mount Root, a summit of nearly 13,000 feet in the Fairweather Range, and reaches the sea in a face of fractured towers and blue crevasses that seems almost too sheer to stand.
What makes Margerie remarkable is how alive it is. It is one of the most active calving glaciers in the park: slabs and columns of ice break from the face with a crack like a gunshot and a long rumble that echoes round the inlet before the wave arrives. Because the water drops away steeply in front of the terminus, ships and smaller tour boats can hold position fairly close, and passengers often wait in silence on deck for the next fall. The meltwater and the turbulence of falling ice stir up krill and small fish, and seabirds gather to feed along the face.
Its surface is strikingly clean — bright white and blue — while right beside it, on its northeastern flank, the Grand Pacific Glacier is dark with rock debris and moraine, so the two together look like a study in contrast. Margerie has been broadly stable in recent decades, neither advancing nor retreating much. The glacier is named after Emmanuel de Margerie, a French geologist who visited the bay in 1913.
Colour depends on weather: under cloud the ice glows deep blue, while in sunshine the face turns brilliant white against the dark mountains. Either way, the approach up the West Arm is part of the experience.
Getting there
There are no roads into Glacier Bay; the glacier is seen from the water. Large cruise ships and small expedition vessels enter the bay in summer, and a day tour boat sails from Bartlett Cove near the village of Gustavus up the West Arm to Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers. Gustavus Airport (GST), served from Juneau by air, is the gateway; Juneau, the nearest city, is about 176 km away in a straight line, and Gustavus can also be reached by ferry from there.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Margerie Glacier is a 21 mi (34 km) long tidewater glacier in Glacier Bay, Alaska, United States within the boundaries of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The glacier begins on the southern slopes of Mount Root, elevation 12,860 feet (3,920 m), on the Alaska–Canada border flowing southeast down the valley, then turning to the northeast toward its terminus in Tarr Inlet. Margerie Glacier is one of the most active and frequently-visited glaciers in Glacier Bay, which was declared a National Monument in 1925, a National Park and Preserve in 1980, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1986 and a World Heritage Site in 1992. While most of the tidewater glaciers in the park have been receding over the last several decades, Margerie Glacier has become stable, neither growing nor receding, while Johns Hopkins Glacier is advancing.
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