United States
In the remote wilderness of southeastern Alaska, where the Coast Mountains rise in an unbroken wall of granite and ice, the Stikine Icecap sprawls across nearly 6,000 square kilometers — one of the largest icefields in North America and a landscape of such raw, primordial grandeur that it seems to belong to a different geological epoch. For cruise passengers privileged enough to witness its glaciers from the deck of a ship or the open bow of a Zodiac, the experience is nothing short of transformative.
The Stikine Icecap feeds numerous tidewater and valley glaciers that flow down through the Coast Mountains to the sea, their blue-white faces calving icebergs into the frigid waters of the channels and fjords that indent this spectacular coastline. The glaciers display the full spectrum of ice features: deep crevasses glowing an otherworldly blue, seracs teetering in gravity-defying towers, and moraines striped with the pulverized rock of mountains slowly being ground to dust. The scale is almost impossible to comprehend — individual glacier faces can stretch a kilometer wide and tower sixty meters above the waterline, with far more ice hidden beneath the surface.
The wildlife drawn to these glacial environments adds another dimension to the experience. Harbor seals haul out on floating ice in numbers that can reach into the hundreds, their sleek forms dotting the bergs like living decorations. Bald eagles patrol overhead, while Steller sea lions gather on rocky promontories near the glacier faces. In the surrounding waters, humpback whales surface and blow, their exhalations hanging in the cold air like smoke signals. The nutrient-rich glacial meltwater drives a food chain that supports an abundance of marine life remarkable even by Alaska's generous standards.
The geological story told by these glaciers is both ancient and urgently contemporary. The Stikine Icecap is a remnant of the vast ice sheets that covered much of North America during the Pleistocene, and its glaciers have been retreating — some dramatically — in response to climate change. Witnessing the calving of massive ice blocks into the sea, hearing the thunderous crack that echoes across the water, provides a visceral understanding of geological processes that no textbook can convey. Many expedition ships carry glaciologists or naturalists who provide context for what passengers are seeing.
Glacier viewing along the Stikine Icecap is exclusively an expedition cruise experience, with ships navigating the narrow channels and fjords that provide close access to tidewater glacier faces. Zodiac excursions bring passengers even closer, allowing them to weave among floating ice and approach the glacier fronts at a safe but thrilling distance. The viewing season runs from May through September, with June and July offering the longest daylight hours — up to eighteen hours of usable light — and the highest likelihood of calm conditions. Passengers should dress in warm, waterproof layers regardless of season; temperatures near the glacier faces can be fifteen degrees cooler than open water.