In three times, the Temsco helicopter takes off from the operational base adjacent to Juneau airport.
The sudden height reveals the vast Fritz Inlet and the Gastineau Channel in which, more or less in the middle, the Alaskan capital nestled.
On the opposite side, towards the North towards which we are heading, we discover the Mendenhall valley, furrowed by the homonymous river. We see the mountains closer to the edge of the Boundary Range which, inland, separates Canada from the United States.
In July, with the Alaskan summer in full swing, they remain tricolor.
From a stewed green, from its base to the first third. Just above, a dark rock speckled and streaked with snow.
And in the imminence of the several sharp peaks, covered with a uniform white of eternal snows.
Behind these peaks, the Juneau ice field extends, also immense, the fifth largest in North America, to the point of extending into the Canadian highlands.
In a few secondary valleys flowed rivers supplied by the melting ice. For some time we flew over the coniferous forest of Tongass. The forest surrenders to the barrier of Lake Mendenhall and the colossal glacier that curved down the homonymous valley, with the front half-sunken in the lake it generated.
Meanwhile, the Tongass forest disappears. We fly over the lake and, in a flash, the grooved ice of the glacier. At low altitude, the helicopter follows its meanders.
It exposes us the cracks that widen and get worse on the most accentuated curve of the river of ice.
Landing at a Dog Mushing Field in the Juneau Mountains
We ascend against the current. The pilot pursues an organized camp on the snow, made up of huts for humans and, at some distance, kennels for dogs, also white and thus concealed.
We land between each other. Welcome us to the field dog mushing local, for generalized excitement of the huskies and malamutes, who already know what the arrival of the helicopter represents.
We are assigned a team of dogs. We glided, in zigzags, through the snowy vastness of that remote peak.
For the second time in fifteen days. We had done it close to Seward, on the Godwin Glacier, so, always rewarding, the experience lacked the surprise factor.
We value, above all, the panoramic privilege of, from the air, to be dazzled by the Mendenhall complex: the valley, the lake, the towers, the glacier and everything else that received that name.
Mendenhall Glacier: Ice Raid Above. and below
Okay, back to Juneau, we agreed that we should explore them by land and in detail. We join a small expedition focused on the land discovery of the glacier.
It takes place on the last day of July, starting at seven in the morning. Matching this time, the guide who leads us is called Dawn. We hike, first, for two hours, up the Tongass forest, the guide tells us that through areas that, 90 years ago, were under the glacier.
We reached the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. We appreciated it from a dark room with polarized windows that framed and highlighted that incredible phenomenon of Nature.
Then, we advanced to one side of the glacier's ablation front, to a margin on a lower level.
There, Dawn gives us helmets, cleats, harnesses and ice hammers. We equipped ourselves with a privileged view over the lake, the icebergs that floated in it and the main glacier that released them.
The embedding of the glacier in the earthy margin allows us to pass without difficulty on top of the ice. We walk along long grooves in the surface that the water flow opens and deepens.
We ascend to icy hills, overlooking endless peaks, ridges and other natural, cold, bluish sculptures.
Some, close by, looked more like toothed machines, ready to devour the large blocks of rock that supported them.
From its interior, torrents of water gushed out urgently to enlarge the lake.
A glacier frequenter, privy to its secrets, Dawn leads the way to something different.
And the Descent into a Breathtaking Ice Cave
Some mismatch between the ice and the ground had created an icy-blue cave that led to the depths of the colossus, with a solid appearance enough for us to be able to enter.
We descended as far as we could, until we were almost holograms submerged in the ice blue.
We photograph ourselves in those mystical looks. We drank from the water that fell from the ceiling, the purest and freshest that Alaska could offer us.
Dawn goes a little farther, probing if we could continue down. “No… further down doesn’t seem like a good idea.” inform us.
“It gets too dark. I can't even make out the contours well. In addition, even if it is imperceptible, the glacier is in motion and can trigger any surprise. We've already arrived here and you must agree that it was fabulous.
Let's go back upstairs.”
No sooner said than done. We had no intention of sacrificing ourselves to Mendenhall Glacier.
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall's Prevalence in Local Nomenclature
Mendenhall, Thomas Corwin (1841-1924), a physicist and meteorologist, dedicated a good part of his life to the definition of exact boundaries in the pan handle Alaska, between the United States and Canada.
As we have already seen, the valley, the glacier, the lake and some emblematic rock towers in the mountains above, were named in his honor in 1892.
As might be expected, the baptism of the North American settlers did little for the Tlingit natives of these parts.
At least among them, they continue to call him sitaantaago – the glacier behind the city – or even further Aak'wtaaksit – the glacier behind the small lake.
In times subsequent to its formation in 1929, it would have made another sense to consider the lake small. Since its maximum recorded length in the mid-4th century, the glacier has shrunk by more than XNUMXkm.
By height of the largest glacier Aak'wtaaksit, the surrounding territory was Tlingit with a permanent Russian presence of settlers who established outposts to capture furs, especially sea otters.
Alaskan Panhadle: From the Russian Presence to Seward's Madness
From 1804, despite frequent conflicts and battles against the Tlingit, the Russians made Sitka its Alaskan capital, subjected the Tlingit to work for them and caused a drastic break in the natives' way of life.
However, the Russians never founded a colony in or around Juneau.
In 1867, as the fur business was beginning to die out, the Russians agreed to sell Alaska to the United States. The business became known as "Seward's Madness” in such a way the Americans found the value that the politician offered to the Russians insane.
Still, it came to fruition.
A few years later, two Americans – Richard Harris and Joe Juneau – guided by a Tlingit chief named Kowee – found a vein of gold in what would become known as Gold Creek, around present-day Juneau.
Seaplane slides into Juneau dock after mooring in Gastineau Canal
It would be the first of several. In a few years of exploring the region, the Americans recouped the sum they had paid to the Russians and became profitable.
A migratory flow of Americans and foreigners flooded Juneau with outsiders looking for more gold. The Mendenhall Glacier zone itself was surveyed.
In such a way that one of its creeks received and maintains the name Nugget Creek (Nugget Creek). It's another one that empties into the Mendenhall Glacier.
Mendenhall Glacier and the Secular Retreat further from Juneau
The Mendenhall Glacier is currently almost 22km long.
In the retreat potentiated by the effects of the global heating also of the northwest of the United States, it made the lake to enlarge.
How, little by little, it enriched the ecosystem dependent on it, of which several types of salmon, salvelino, rainbow trout and other species of fish stand out.
Simultaneously, in 2012, the substantial retreat of the glacier uncovered an ancient forest that the ancestral advance had destroyed, covered and frozen.
The scientists were astonished when, when evaluating the antiquity of the trunks, stumps and branches revealed, they concluded that they were between 1200 and 2000 years old.
They also estimate that, in this era of increasingly warmer temperatures, the retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier will intensify. Barring a drastic reversal in the warming pattern, the ice river will separate from the lake it irrigates.
It will go even further away from Fritz Cove.
And falling further and further behind the Juneau that inspired the curious Tlingit name.
