Free Icy Clutches by Aaron Elkins Page A

Bartlett Cove and swings northwest past the Beardslees and into the great bay proper, one sails backward in time. With every mile, the land grows newer, more raw, as one closes on the shrinking glacier that carved out the bay in the first place. In three hours one traverses two hundred years of postglacial history.
    The evidence is there even for the untrained eye. At Bartlett Cove itself the ice has been gone for two centuries. The roots of mature Sitka spruce and western hemlock have taken firm hold under the mossy forest duff, and the green, soft, richly wooded land amenably shelters the lodge and the Park Service complex. But sixty-five miles away, where the present upper end of the bay terminates at the foot of the Grand Pacific Glacier, there are no plants at all—only bare rocks and gravel, still wet from the ice that had covered them for millennia. Sailing between the two points mimics the glacier's withdrawal; every mile covered is three years of glacial retreat. In less than half an hour the stately hemlock along the shores begin to disappear, and then the spruce give way grudgingly to tangled stands of alder and cottonwood, which in turn make way for willow, ryegrass, fireweed, and dryas, and finally for the coarse, primitive black crust of algae that marks the first scrabbling hold of the plant kingdom on newly exposed rock.
    For over an hour Julie and Gideon had sat relaxed in airplane-style seats in the boat, mostly hand in hand, watching the scenes slip by. The living attractions of Glacier Bay had made their appearance as if programmed. They had seen a trio of humpback whales lolling in the water; black bears swinging lustily along the shore; mountain goats on the high rocks; nesting kites and puffins tucked in stony crevices among the Marble Islands; seals and sea lions and bald eagles; clownish, red-beaked oyster catchers awkwardly stalking mussels.
    They had watched the blue water gradually turn milky green from the infusion of “glacial flour,” the powdery silt from glacially pulverized rock. The first icebergs—eroded, small, bizarrely shaped—appeared near Rendu Inlet at about the time they were breakfasting on minced ham and scrambled eggs from the ship's galley. And by the time they'd finished their second cups of coffee, they had caught up with the glacial flows themselves. At Lamplugh Glacier the boat slowed and stopped. With everyone else they went upstairs to stand on the top deck and gawk at the two-hundred-foot-high face of brilliant white, shot through with cracks of glowing turquoise blue. And to listen.
    Unlike mountain glaciers, tidewater glaciers are never quiet. The grinding noises are predictable enough, but the other sounds from the straining ice come as a surprise to those who haven't heard them before. Sharp cr-a-aks indistinguishable from echoing rifle shots. Long, slow boooommms like cannon fire in mountain passes. Gurgles, clicks, rattles, even wheezes and moans. Gideon and Julie stood for half an hour, hunched against a dry, scraping wind. With the others they murmured with pleasure when huge chunks of ice came away and slid ponderously into the water, making great splashes that left the icebergs rolling about in their wake.
    When the captain started the ship up again they went downstairs, poured cups of hot chocolate to warm themselves, and found their seats.
    "Julie,” Gideon said, balancing his cup as he slid in beside her, “there are some things I don't understand about glaciers."
    "Like what?"
    "Like how they work."
    "How they work?” Although she had seen her first tidewater glaciers here in Glacier Bay only the day before, she knew plenty about the glaciers in general. Olympic National Park, where she worked, had a dozen of them, and she herself had given lectures on glacial ecology. “Well, they start when snow accumulates faster than it melts over the years, and the old snow underneath is compressed by new snow, so that ice crystals—"
    "No, I understand how they