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Welcome to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve!
The marine wilderness of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve includes tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes. This diverse land and seascape hosts a mosaic of plant communities and a variety of marine and terrestrial wildlife and presents many opportunities for adventuring and learning about this unique and powerful place.
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Dynamic Change
Glacier Bay's story is one of dynamic change in the wake of dramatic glacial movements.
- Glacier Bay collects many glaciers flowing from the tall surrounding mountains with abundant snowfall.
- As recently as 1750 a single glacier thousands of feet thick filled what is now a 65-mile long fjord.
- This glacial retreat has exposed a resilient land that hosts a succession of marine and terrestrial life.
- Here is an opportunity to see how the physical world shapes the biological.
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Natural Laboratory
Botanist William Cooper spearheaded efforts to preserve not only a place to view glaciers, wildlife, and grandeur, but also a living laboratory to study and enjoy through the ages.
- Glacier Bay offers unexcelled opportunities to study earth's most fundamental geologic processes.
- A center where researchers from multiple disciplines collaborate to conduct management and ecosystem directed research.
- What scientists learn at Glacier Bay may one day foretell changes to the region and the world.
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Place of Hope
Glacier Bay is a globally significant marine and terrestrial wilderness sanctuary.
- A place that offers human solitude and a remote wildness that is rapidly disappearing in today's world.
- A place of hope--for the continued wisdom, restraint, and humility to preserve a sample of wild America, the world as it was.
- It is part of one of the largest internationally protected Biosphere Reserves in the world, and it is recognized by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site.
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Place of Inspiration
Long before there were written records of Glacier Bay, there were stories.
- Tlingit elders told of an ancestral homeland covered by advancing ice. For the Tlingit, Glacier Bay is woven into the tapestry of their lives.
- Glacier Bay is a powerful place that also inspires cultural expression in the scientist, the artist, the resident, the traveler, and those who make their livelihood from the sea.
- Glacier Bay continues to offer inspiration as we each endeavor to explore our connections to this dynamic landscape.
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Write to
Glacier Bay National Park PO Box 140
Gustavus, AK 99826-0140
E-mail Us
Phone
Headquarters, General Information (907) 697-2230
Recreational Permit Information (907) 697-2627
Fax
(907) 697-2654
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Climate
Overcast and cool days are frequent in this maritime climate of abundant rain. Summer daytime temperatures range from the 50s to low 60s (F). The wet, stormy fall begins in September. Wool or synthetic clothing and sturdy rain gear - pants, coat and hat - are essential. more...
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Did You Know?
In 1899, an earthquake measuring 8.4 on the Richter Scale so shook the glaciers in Glacier Bay, the budding tourism industry nearly died. There was so much ice in the water from the shattered glaciers, visitors to Glacier Bay did not return to for over ten years.
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Last Updated: June 13, 2008 at 13:45 EST |