Tracy Arm: My Narrow Fjord Adventure

Tracy Arm is a scenic cruising day (no port), but what a day. The ship entered the fjord early morning and we immediately felt the scale — sheer granite walls rising 4,000 feet straight out of the water, waterfalls cascading from snowfields, the fjord itself barely wider than two football fields in places.

The ship slowed to navigational speed and we spent the next 5 hours threading deeper and deeper into the wilderness. The water turned milky turquoise from glacial silt. Icebergs appeared — small at first, then house-sized, then car-sized chunks floating past in electric blue and white. Harbor seals lounged on the bergs like tourists on pool floats, completely unbothered as we glided by at 100 yards distance.

The captain announced we were approaching the twin Sawyer Glaciers — North Sawyer and South Sawyer. We rounded the final bend and there they were: massive blue-white walls of ice filling the head of the fjord. The ship cut engines and drifted in a field of icebergs. The only sounds were waterfalls, the creak and groan of ice, and the occasional thunderous CRACK of calving.

We watched for over an hour. South Sawyer calved first — a section the size of a building peeling off and crashing into the water with a boom that echoed off the granite walls. Then North Sawyer let go a massive chunk that sent waves rippling through the iceberg field.

On the way back out the fjord, golden hour hit — the granite turned orange, shadows deepened, and the whole place felt prehistoric. Mountain goats appeared on impossible ledges. A black bear wandered the shoreline, turning over rocks.