Discovering the Essence
Imagine that you can hold Glacier Bay in the palm of your hand. It is smooth and round, about the size of a large egg. It is heavy, precious. Slowly you begin to peel back its layers, its meanings. The first layer, world heritage site, comes off. Next, you peel away the layer for the biosphere reserve. You are now looking at the layer for the national park and preserve. Gently you peel that away. Naked and vulnerable, wilderness trembles in your palm. As you marvel at the beauty, the fragility, something catches your eye. You realize that by holding the land up to the light just so, you can see another image distinct yet intangible as the morning mists. This new image reveals the essence of life for a group of people called the Hoonah Tlingits.
To the Hoonah Tlingit, Glacier Bay is not only the place where they once lived, hunted, fished, collected eggs and berries. It is the center from which they gain their identity as people – their spiritual homeland.
The modern village of Hoonah is in Port Frederick on Icy Strait. Traditionally, four Hoonah Tlingit clans occupied territories in and around Glacier Bay. Advancing glacial ice pushed them out of the bay about 800 years ago. The changing social and economic landscape at the turn of the 20th Century prevented their return. When Glacier Bay became a national monument in 1925, its borders encompassed much of the traditional Hoonah Tlingit homeland. New federal laws severely curtailed Native activities within the monument boundaries. So began a painful period of Hoonah Tlingit and National Park Service relations.
But time has brought some healing. In recent years, the National Park Service has maintained an open dialogue with the Hoonah Tlingit and has actively encouraged them to return to the park to carry out traditional activities that are compatible with current regulations, such as berry picking. The park has sponsored boat trips for Hoonah school children and Elders to come into the bay so the youths may learn traditional ways of knowing in the very place that figures so prominently in their spiritual lives. Scientific studies are also underway to determine if it is possible to allow the Hoonah Tlingit to resume harvesting gull eggs, seals and mountain goats within the park without adversely impacting populations.
You will find the Hoonah Tlingit presence in and around Bartlett Cove. The sea otter hunting canoe on display next to the Visitor Information Station was carved in the park 1987 by a team of Native carvers under the direction of Elder George Dalton Sr. Sharp eyes will notice the two Tlingit trail markers carved into living spruce trees near Glacier Bay Lodge; one on the trail leading down to the dock and the other along the Forest Loop trail. Depicting an octopus and an eagle respectively, these carvings are modern renditions of markings originally used to show clan ownership over trade routes. Today, they serve as reminders of ancient ties to the land.
Ultimately, we will all carry within us slightly different versions of the essence that is Glacier Bay. We may guard it carefully. And from time to time, we can take it out to hold in our palm, to admire and share with others. Carefully peeling back the layers of our experience, we will rediscover the wonders we found to be sacred. And if we hold it up to the light just right, it might reveal something more.
