Tracy Arm
Interesting facts
- On 10 August 2025 a landslide of over 60 million cubic metres fell into the fjord near South Sawyer Glacier and sent water about 481 metres up the opposite slope.
- That wave is the second-highest tsunami run-up in recorded history, surpassed only by the 1958 megatsunami in Alaska's Lituya Bay.
- Scientists linked the 2025 collapse to the retreat of South Sawyer Glacier, which had removed the ice that once buttressed the valley wall.
- No one was hurt in the 2025 tsunami because it struck around dawn, before the day's tour boats had entered the arm.
- Red tree coral, Primnoa pacifica, normally lives 150 to 900 metres down, yet in Tracy Arm it grows in water only 6 to 30 metres deep.
- Because of those unusually shallow coral thickets, parts of the fjord are designated Habitat Areas of Particular Concern.
- The surrounding Tracy Arm–Fords Terror Wilderness covers about 653,000 acres and contains two great fjords, Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm.
Why it is worth it
Tracy Arm is a narrow glacial fjord that cuts some 45 km into the Coast Mountains of Southeast Alaska, running from Holkham Bay up to the twin tidewater fronts of the North and South Sawyer glaciers. The channel is hemmed in by steep rock walls scoured by ice, and in summer the water is thick with floating ice, from pieces the size of a hand to blue bergs as large as a three-storey building. It is one of the most dramatic stretches of water on the Inside Passage and a classic example of a young, still-working fjord.
The whole valley is the work of the Sawyer Glacier, which once filled it end to end and has since retreated roughly 48 km to its present position; the glaciers at its head still end in the sea, shedding the ice that drifts down the arm. Tracy Arm lies within the Tracy Arm–Fords Terror Wilderness, designated by Congress in 1980 as part of Tongass National Forest and covering more than 264,000 hectares, about a fifth of it under ice. The neighbouring Endicott Arm and the tidal narrows of Fords Terror, named after a sailor who in 1899 was trapped there for six hours by the rushing tide, belong to the same wilderness. The fjord itself was named after Benjamin F. Tracy, US Secretary of the Navy from 1889 to 1893.
Much of the pleasure here is in the wildlife against that scale of rock and ice. Harbour seals rest on the ice, mountain goats keep to the cliffs, and black and brown bears, wolves and deer live in the forests of the valley sides; Arctic terns and pigeon guillemots nest along the shore. Most visitors see the fjord from the deck of a ship: large cruise vessels and smaller tour boats run up the arm in summer towards the glacier fronts.
Getting there
The mouth of Tracy Arm lies about 70 km south of Juneau, which is the usual starting point; day-long boat tours to the Sawyer glaciers depart from Juneau in summer, and many Inside Passage cruises include the fjord. Juneau International Airport is the practical gateway by air; the geographically nearest airport, Petersburg James A. Johnson (PSG), is about 127 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Tracy Arm is a fjord in the U.S. state of Alaska near Juneau. It is named after Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy (1889–93). It is located about 45 miles (72 km) south of Juneau and 70 miles (110 km) north of Petersburg, Alaska, off of Holkham Bay and adjacent to Stephens Passage within the Tongass National Forest. Tracy Arm is the heart of the Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness, designated by the United States Congress in 1990.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
57.91139, -133.40222per Wikidata