Surely everyone who travels in Glacier Bay returns longing to see what was in the next cove, or over the next ridge. But nobody can ever know everything about a place like this. Nobody should ever know all of it, because our lives need such mystery and longing. Visiting here is like opening the back of a pocket watch and realizing how complicated the mechanism is. Things proceed at their own mysterious pace.
Glaciers recede and advance.
Vegetation forges ahead. Even the ground rises measurably each year as it rebounds from the weight of ice that smothered this corner of Southeast Alaska two centuries ago. You can examine each tiny cog and study every subtle ratchet, and still these movements cannot explain the whole laid out before you. Glacier Bay is not just a place of physical transformation. People can change here, too.