Glacier Bay never disappoints, though it can be different every trip so we never know what to expect. We headed to our favorite puffin spot, expecting to see lots of tufted puffins…

…but we were happily surprised by a little gang of four horned puffins too!

There was also a small flock of common murres nearby, though I almost missed them in my excitement to photograph the puffins.

Gulls and pelagic cormorants were hanging out, nesting on the cliff face…

…but the tufted puffins dominated the scene.

Meanwhile the Steller sea lions were moaning and groaning nearby, hauled out on the rocks.

With big male beachmasters weighing in around 2000 lbs.

The youngsters ran around in big packs, splashing lightning-fast mercury with fins and whiskers.

Whales were plentiful in the lower part of the bay, and we had to wait for a mother and calf humpback to finish feeding before we could head into our anchorage for the evening.

It was a fantastic show! We kept our distance to keep from disturbing the whales, and they rewarded us with 30 minutes of blowing and diving tails.

Just in case we hadn’t had enough wildlife for one day, a black bear wandered out of the woods and spent a long time working along the beach, munching on barnacles, mussels and clams. He must have been in a fight or two – his right ear was laying flat against his head, and he had a chunk of nose missing.

We even got to see some nice sunset light (after 10pm) to close out our first day up in the bay. It’s hard to imagine that things can get better, but they usually do.

We always stop in Hoonah on our way to the Bay – we have made several friends there, and it’s a Tlingit town with a great vibe. We love to check up on the eagle tree – sure enough, there was an eagle sitting on that huge nest up there. It’s much too early to hope for eaglets, but we should hope for eaglet sightings in another month.

We happened to be in town on Memorial Day, and saw a sign about water taxi rides out to the island cemetery. The island anchors part of the harbor breakwater, and I once photographed a lone eagle sitting at the foot of a fresh grave. It was a moving sight, since the Tlingit people are divided into two moities: ravens and eagles. Well, on Memorial Day the cemetery had two different kinds of visitors – a pair of brown bears that spent quite a while out there.

We visited with our talented carver friends, and watched another friend work on her canoe paddle design. It will have her clan and house symbols on it, personalized even more with hints of her beloved dogs. A canoe paddle is very important – if you approach another village with peaceful intentions your raised paddle lets them know who you are, and as you dip your paddle into the water it tells the sea creatures who you are.

While we talked about paddles a raven sat close by, giving us a chance to study his iridescent feathers more closely. The “trickster” is a beautiful bird.

We had great weather to walk around town, and it was fun to watch the local kids splashing in the water… never mind that it’s about 50 degrees.

With promises to return to Hoonah in a few weeks we headed into Glacier Bay National Park, spotting a humpback tail-slapping as a welcome. You can feel the “whump” of the tail’s impact in your chest!

As always, there will be lots of other tales (tails!) to tell about this visit to the bay, but first we spent some time at the headquarters area, walking the forest trail and visiting the newly erected Healing Pole…

…which tells the story of how the Huna Tlingit people used to harvest many foods in the bay…

…and how the Grand Pacific glacier made a rapid advance in the 1750s, filling the entire bay and forcing the Huna Tlingit people out.

The story continues up the pole to show how the US Government and the Park Service took over the bay and made rules excluding the Huna people from their ancestral lands and preventing them from gathering their traditional foods. “Rough seas” eventually settled down and the pole shows the agreement between the Park Service and the Huna Tlingit which resulted in the partnership to create the Tribal House and to work together to restore their traditions. The story continues to evolve, but it seems to be headed in a very positive direction. Although most people think of Glacier Bay for the ice and plentiful wildlife, we value the cultural element equally.

And oh… the lupine! It was blooming all over the place – great swaths of that lovely blue-purple color. The bees were sure happy!

Beach strawberries were in bloom… it’s too early for fruit.

And to cap off our first day, I heard a rustling in the brush and we stood still to see a grouse come strolling out across our path.

Not a bad way to start off an adventure in the bay!