Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve guide · 1 min read
Tlingit Homelands of Glacier Bay
Two Tlingit ancestral homelands lie within the park and preserve, and they still carry cultural and spiritual weight for living communities.
Tlingit people have called this region home for centuries. Across the advance and retreat of the ice, their clans and ancestors moved with the rivers and the wildlife around them.
People belong to the ongoing changes that shape Glacier Bay as well. Twice each day the tide can climb or fall as far as twenty vertical feet, and daylight stretches long in summer and shrinks to brief hours in winter. Each year salmon return to the streams where they hatched, and humpback whales feed in the bay during summer before traveling elsewhere to breed. The Tlingit have been woven into this cycle of disruption and adjustment for just as long.
Bartlett Cove is the one part of the park with developed facilities. Glacier Bay Lodge sits there, offering rooms in a rainforest setting, along with the Park Visitor Center and its exhibits and the Visitor Information Station. Park Headquarters, a public dock, kayak rentals, and a campground reached on foot are also there. The campsites lie within easy walking distance of the dock and the lodge, and the Visitor Information Station is about a quarter mile away.
Regular ranger-led programs take place in the cove. Rangers also climb aboard cruise ships and tour boats to talk about the bay and field questions from visitors. Several trails run through the rainforest around the cove, and walking the shoreline is another option. Along the water, sightings can include sea otters, whales, and moose.
