B&W gallery: Glacier Bay

Wachusett Inlet, to give it the local Tlingit Indian name, is a branch of Glacier Bay in SE

Alaska which is now designated as, and therefore has the protected status of, a National

Park. In 1977, a colleague and I joined a London University team (who were studying the

hydrobiology of glacial melt-water streams) to make our second film, which ended up on

television as a half-hour documentary on the retreat of the tide-water glaciers and the

transition from total glaciation to mature forest. All stages of this process could be seen in

Glacier Bay at the time. Our film was shot on a clockwork Bolex with one 400ft mag, a

wooden tripod and a few borrowed lenses. With only about 5000ft of colour neg stock, we

managed to stretch our previous (Naples) film's desperate shooting ratio of 2:1 to about 5:1 -

quite an achievement given that most of it was on the wildlife here.

The U-shaped valleys that you can see in this picture will be forested by now with Sitka spruce

and other firs of the boreal forest belt, with a thick carpet of mosses and lichens underfoot.

Streams that hadn't existed for 10,000 years are now home to migrating salmon, and bears,

wolves, moose and bald eagles are now in possession of land that was under 200ft of ice

when Capt. James Cook passed this way in 1778, 200 years ahead of us.

Wachusett Inlet, to give it the local Tlingit Indian name, is a branch of Glacier Bay in SE Alaska

which is now designated as, and therefore has the protected status of, a National Park. In 1977,

a colleague and I joined a London University team (who were studying the hydrobiology of glacial

melt-water streams) to make our second film, which ended up on television as a half-hour

documentary on the retreat of the tide-water glaciers and the transition from total glaciation to

mature forest. All stages of this process could be seen in Glacier Bay at the time. Our film was

shot on a clockwork Bolex with one 400ft mag, a wooden tripod and a few borrowed lenses. With

only about 5000ft of colour neg stock, we managed to stretch our previous (Naples) film's

desperate shooting ratio of 2:1 to about 5:1 - quite an achievement given that most of it was on

the wildlife here.

The U-shaped valleys that you can see in this picture will be forested by now with Sitka spruce

and other firs of the boreal forest belt, with a thick carpet of mosses and lichens underfoot.

Streams that hadn't existed for 10,000 years are now home to migrating salmon, and bears,

wolves, moose and bald eagles are now in possession of land that was under 200ft of ice when

Capt. James Cook passed this way in 1778, 200 years ahead of us.

Glacial Bay