The wonder of Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park
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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. Hank Lentfer lives in southeast Alaska, in a cabin by a stream just on the edge of Glacier Bay. It's a truly special place for Hank to do the job he loves. He's a professional sound recordist. In a place like Glacier Bay, if you take anybody,

and just drop them on a beach with a tent and a camp stove, one of the first things they're gonna notice is, "Oh my God, this place is so quiet." And one of the next things they're gonna notice is like, "Nope, it's not quiet. It's just filled with sound." - Ow!

And so often the most interesting sounds are the smaller ones, just the creaks and the pops. And when the face of the glacier calves, there's so much going on. They're vertical, they're unstable. It's a conveyor belt, right? They're just continually moving and then breaking away into the ocean.

And you can boat up to any of these bergs, some of them the size of a house, some of them the size of a suitcase. A lot of them are making this popping, bubbling sound and they're actively melting in the ocean and they're full of air bubbles and those air bubbles pop. And you'll come to the surface and pop at the surface of the ocean

And that air was trapped by a snowstorm hundreds of years ago, high in the ice field, and eventually got to the ocean. Little bubbles come up, these atmospheric bursts. Yeah, that whale trumpeting sound is...

It's just an amazing sound. And to get a great sound, so many things have to line up. And that particular sound, I had been up in Glacier Bay for like 10 days. And I was boating home and it was late evening. The water was flat calm. And I saw in the distance all these spouts, these whale spouts. It's like eight, 10 whales moving in a group.

And I steered the boat over that way and I got over closer to him. I shut the boat off and I was just hoping to get whale breath, which I have lots of recordings of. But then this whale made this trumpeting sound, which they don't do very often. Bears, they'll just come down and crush things.

the barnacles with their paw and then lick the shell and their little teeny gooey insides off their paw and off the rock itself and crunch it up. I have this microphone. They're just open mics. I set them up on a little tripod and I got 150 feet of cable. When it's

A favorable weather forecast, I'm not worried about rain, I'll run that microphone out before I go to sleep and run that cable all the way back to the tent. Because these birds start singing early. The dawn chorus is the peak time for recording and in summer that sun's coming up at 3:00 in the morning. So there's a lot of early wake-up calls.

And I'd set this microphone up underneath a thrush's tree, which happened to be on the edge of a cliff near the ocean. Sure enough, he starts singing, and I didn't even have to get out of my warm bag. I just rolled over, put the headphones on, hit the record button, and just laid there in my tent. And the microphone was right underneath this guy, so I was just getting this great recording and being serenaded. And then a whale swam by.

And just did a couple of breaths. It was just magic, right? Just to be transported right out of my tent into that world. Hank Lindfer, author and sound recordist in southeast Alaska. Well, last summer, I was lucky enough to visit Glacier Bay National Park. We went in by cruise ship, first to Johns Hopkins Inlet and then to Tar Inlet.

And even on a massive cruise ship, we felt immediately miniaturized by the majestic vastness of the mountains and the diamond blue glaciers. It's actually hard to describe the deep, beautiful thrill that I felt knowing that even the 1,083-foot ship I was on was nothing more than the tiniest, insignificant speck

drifting in a mountain's shadow. At the same time, in a landscape such as this, it's easy to fall into a now familiar pattern of despair. After all, we're talking about glaciers. And with climate change, glaciers that are in retreat. So I was equally thrilled and surprised to see that everywhere around us, nature had another story to tell, one of resiliency.

and a resilience that even emerges within the context of humankind's long and complex reliance on Glacier Bay. So I thought, that's worth talking about, and we're going to do that. Philip Hoogie is a marine biologist. He first started working at Glacier Bay National Park in 1990. 34 years later, in 2024, he retired from his position as the park's superintendent, a post that he'd served in for a decade. Philip, welcome to On Pointe.

Thank you, Meg. So I was unbelievably charmed, obviously, by my brief visit to Glacier Bay. What does it mean to you to have spent so many years of your life in this spectacular national park? Oh, it's been an incredible experience, obviously.

both, um, essentially with, with seeing things and feeling things, but also culturally with connecting to the Huna Tlingit. Um, it's, um, it's been my, my life and, um, to be able to work there as a biologist and then, um,

return as superintendent was a magical experience for me. Yeah. Well, the Hunukunqat are obviously at the center of humankind's long reliance and experience with Glacier Bay. And we will hear that story in detail in a few minutes. But, Philip, I have to say, like, the thing that did surprise me the most, as I mentioned, is we went into this park. It's

full of these massive glaciers. And in other places that I've been, I've been in this, lucky enough to be in this world, the glaciers are in such rapid retreat that the story that's told by rangers or wardens there is one of, well, it didn't used to look like this five years ago. It didn't used to look like this 10 years ago. The glaciers are going to be gone forever.

Whereas in Glacier Bay National Park, the thing that the rangers were saying was, there's been so much movement of the glaciers over the past couple of centuries that right now you're also seeing this story of resilience and revival. What revival is that that's going on in Glacier Bay?

Well, you know, Glacier Bay preserves the change, the successional changes in landscape with the most rapid retreat of glaciers ever seen in North America, you know, occurring on a regular basis, by the way. It...

It provides a landscape that's wiped clean and then life returns to it. And we often call it the chrono sequence as you go up. It's the history of that change.

For thousands of years, for 5,000 years, the glaciers advance. And then over a 100-, 200-year period, they retreat. And then life returns. And then the glaciers come back and chop the trees down. And the cycle starts over. And that's happened many times at Glacier Bay. Why do they retreat so rapidly, the glaciers, after, like you said, spending 1,000-plus years advancing glaciers?

Well, you know, Glacier Bay ice advance and retreat is mainly this physical process rather than related so much to climate. The climate plays a role here. But basically, the mountains are so tall around Glacier Bay, up to 15,000 feet. And they provide this large catchment basin for the tremendous rains. We live in a rainforest here. And so there's lots of snow.

being produced and that snow turning into ice. And then that ice advances. And as that ice advances, it produces a protective wall of dirt and rock in front of it.

And that wall of dirt and rocks moves slowly down the fjord and gets deeper and deeper until it reaches the mouth of the fjord. And at that point, the protective wall of rock is washed away by the currents in icy strait at the mouth of the bay. And that...

means that the ice is bare and facing the effects of the water. And that effects of water undermines the ice, and it just retreats rapidly, you know, 70, in this case, 70 miles over a hundred year period. Wow. And then, as you're saying, we'll talk more about this in a few minutes, but

As the ice retreats rapidly, the nature that had been ground down underneath the glacier returns just as rapidly. One of my favorite things that we saw, again, from the deck of this cruise ship that I was on as we went further up into Glacier Bay was so many sea otters, which we'll talk about in just a couple of minutes. So, Philip Hoogie, stand by for just a moment. We are hearing the fascinating story of Glacier Bay National Park today.

We'll talk about humankind's long existence there. And later in the show, of course, we will touch down on the current state of the National Park Service as well. So there's much more to discuss in just a moment. This is On Point. Support for On Point comes from Indeed. You just realized that your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. There's no need to wait. You can speed up your hiring with Indeed.

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At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex.

Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts. You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And today we are listening to the story of Glacier Bay National Park. And why? Well, it has a very interesting story to tell about nature's resilience and

And ecological succession is what they call it at Glacier Bay. And how humankind has relied on the natural environment's ability to expand, retreat, and rebound. And why that matters to understand it now. Philip Hoogie joins us today. He was superintendent.

of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve from 2014 to 2024. Before that, he served at Denali National Park, but he also started his working career at Glacier Bay way back in 1990. So he has a long experience with the natural dynamism of

of Glacier Bay National Park. So, Philip, hang on for just a second, because again, as we've both been talking about, the human story is really also at the center of what makes Glacier Bay so special. And so in order to talk about that, I'd love to invite Darlene See into the conversation. She's cultural program manager for the Hoonah Indian Association, and she helped coordinate the construction of the Hoonah Tribal House on the shores of Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay.

And the Tribal House reconnects tribal members and visitors to the spiritual homeland there through ceremonies and workshops, and it provides park visitors opportunities to learn about Tlingit culture. Darlene C., welcome to On Point.

Thank you, Meghna. Thank you for having me. So can you start by telling us a little bit of the history of the Tlingit people and how that's been really influenced by the advance and retreat of the glaciers in Glacier Bay? Sure.

Well, definitely. First of all, I need to start out by saying, please forgive me for any mistakes that I might make. And what I'm going to say, the Chu-Kinadi, or the Brown Bear Clan, this is their history to fully tell. I'll tell you the

the summary of it. And so, as you were speaking earlier, the changes in Glacier Bay, well, our people have called Glacier Bay homeland since time immemorial, time before memory. And about, oh,

In the mid-1700s or so, Little Ice Age chased our people out of Glacier Bay, and they had to go elsewhere to find home. And so the name changes there. One of the first names was Sesshu Yi, Edge of the Glacial Silt. And when the ice retreated, the name changed to Aksu, Among the Icebergs.

And then again, as it trudged and just transformed Glacier Bay, the name became Sitt-E-T-Gay-E, Bay in Place of the Glacier. And so just as fast as the ice came down, it retreated. And our people were longing to go back to homeland. Of course, it

the landscape significantly changed. But that didn't stop our people from resettling back in there, adjusting to the nature changes. And so that was about, oh...

1860s in that area, give or take. And so this land has always been so special to our people. And when I say time before memory or history, it just goes back. It just goes back. And then it's just so important as far as...

Well, you know how it is when you are raised in a particular area, and that is your home, survival and everything. And so it's just so important and so dear to heart. And we truly believe our spirits of our ancestors are all across the land there. I feel like I know a little bit of what you're talking about, because even though I've lived in New England for decades,

Half my life now, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and I never feel so much at home as when I'm back amongst the trees in Oregon. So to have the even deeper, like, you know, millennia-long cultural connection that the Tlingit people do to Glacier Bay forms this unique relationship. Can you describe to me a little bit more about how...

How the tribal people view sort of what Glacier Bay is, how it gives to them, and more about the spiritual significance of the area. Yeah.

Yes. When I had mentioned the glacier coming down and part of the history and the story for the Chukiniti people, a life had to be given there, you know, as far as...

losing people. And so that's even more of a tie there. And songs or history, you know, songs were created for that as far as having to depart Bishop Bay. And

Those songs are still sung today, you know, with all the respect for our ancestors. And usually there's not a dry eye in the area, you know, because as far as losing loved ones, and we're...

We have this long oral history and a deep connection to the land. And many Journey to Homeland trips up into the bay there, our ancestors are fed with food spiritually, and the songs are sung, and the robes, the blankets with the history on there are brought out, and special ceremonies happen there. And the names of our ancestors are called out who are no longer with us.

And Ha-Shagun, you know, connecting past, present, and future generations, you know, that strong connection to the land and the spiritual connection. So I can't say enough about that deep, deep tie there about who our people are, our way of life, and the deep connection to Glacier Bay. Yeah.

Philip, let me bring you back in here because what Darlene's describing is actually, you know, if you haven't been there and really like in your bones understand the natural environment there, it's a little difficult to really fathom what she's saying because as she mentioned in the 1700s,

the ice advanced, the glaciers advanced extremely rapidly. How quickly, it was almost, the National Park Service describes it as a cataclysmic change, Philip. Yes, good old days, Darlene.

Yeah, you know, in clicket history, they say that glaciers advanced, you know, as fast as a running dog. We've seen glacial surges and there's evidence that, you know, they can be amazingly fast. I mean, fast enough that, you know,

you know, meters a minute or meters a second and overrun places. But if you can kind of imagine, you know, the village that was at the mouth of Glacier Bay was on a piece of land that was back

by thousands of feet of ice, ice that went down 2,000 feet down into the fjord bottom and 2,000 feet high. And this just packed up. And then what it did is just overrun that sill, that cliff.

protective front right there and kind of came over the top and um and pushed out and you know it's very interesting there's you know the the Tlingit have histories of this happening um in um not just this time but in the past and um this wasn't the traditional um geological understanding and it's you know it's with um discussions with the Tlingit that you know that you know that the

the scientists at Glacier Bay started to look at this in a different way and started to examine things and find that this didn't happen in the traditional glacial story way that the geologists had first thought. And, you know, that it was not just one simple advance and retreat during the Ice Age, but part of a long process. Right. I bet...

for most people listening to this, this is the first time they've ever heard anyone say a glacier can advance at meters per second. I mean, it's really remarkable. And Darlene, that's why you're talking about the ancestors that were lost when Huna Klinkit villages were literally run over by the ice. But then as the glaciers retreated,

What's important to note is that the time period you're talking about, 1700s, all the way to 1860,

This is also a time where, you know, white explorers and then later colonialists were coming into the area there. How did that impact how the Tlingit people, you know, tried to exercise their own resilience in terms of returning to the land that the glacier had taken and then given back?

Right. Well, one of the dates that was mentioned, the first cruise ship, actually, I shouldn't, well, it was a cruise ship, I guess, the first ship into Glacier Bay, they say was, I believe, 1869. And our people went up to the ship, and of course, there's a language barrier, and they bartered, they traded, you know. That's one of the...

First encounters there. But over time, it became a National Monument in 1925 and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in 1980. And of course, I got to jump back a little bit to about the 1940s when it was required for...

kids to go to school. So that was another reason why our people, after they had come back into the Glacier Bay, they had to go and go back to Huna where they had resettled. And so, yes, it just is still our ancestral homeland, but to have it become a

a national park and preserve. Of course, there's many rules and regulations that were set upon that comes with being a national park. And so our people really, really wanted something more in Glacier Bay to show this is somebody else's homeland or people were there way before they were there. And so with our partners in the National Park Service working together and having our elders' wishes come true, they wanted that, something more that...

the footprint to show this is our homeland. And so the coming of Huna Shuka Hit, Huna Ancestors House, came to be in Barlacove. And that's a whole other long story I won't go into, but that was like a box of knowledge, a holding place, a place where traditions, ceremonies, meetings, not only tribal people come, but also visitors come there to learn more about the Huna Tlingit's way of life. Mm-hmm.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how tribal members do feel regarding the relationship with the National Park Service? Because I think the key thing to underline here is that by virtue of it being a national park, the Hunuklinget do not have direct control, right, over that land versus, you know, tribal land elsewhere in the United States. So, I mean, is it a good relationship? Is it rocky relationship?

I'd love your honest opinion. Certainly. Long ago, of course, it was very rocky. There were really rough waters there. A lot of hurt feelings, a lot of misunderstandings that happened, differences in beliefs as far as land. This is our ancestral homeland, and it had been since time immemorial, and then having to be chased out by the glacier, the ice, and then returning, and then...

happening later as far as becoming a national park. A lot of hard feelings were there, but over time, and I need to mention Stuart Kha. He was a Kaguantan man, George Dalton Sr. He was 90 years old, you know, and he had seen a lot in his years. And he still reached across those waters and built strong friendships with people in the national park and in Gustavus, you know. And so, yeah,

Many different things happen over time here. But what I'm saying is it took a lot of time and a lot of effort on both parts as far as the Hunah Tlingit and people in the National Park and in Gustavus to build relationships, you know, and it's a give and take. And so over time with

with many different things happening and having a superintendent like Fulapugi and going beyond there, hearing our elders cry as far as wanting something more. And I have to bring Kunishiki Head up again. This is the first tribal house in the National Park. And it meant so much. And with the dedication, even some of those people who were on the fence about it because it's

it was something that was never done before, meaning four original clans under one roof. Traditionally, there would only be one clan. But those people, some of those people who were on the fence about it, it was

it was undeniable with the dedication of that building breathing life into that building when it received its name and the spirits of our ancestors truly were all around and everyone could feel it, you know. And so that was really one of the most important steps here to build and to help heal relationships. Not everything is all healed but we've come a long ways. Yeah. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.

Philip, do you want to pick up on this thought that Darlene has said? Because this is not just an issue at Glacier Bay National Park. I mean, there's the bitter irony of a lot of the national parks in the United States is that they are on land that, you know, are the homelands of many different indigenous peoples of America. In my mind, another perfect example of this, funnily enough, is at Glacier National Park.

In Montana, where the Blackfoot Indian tribe is there, and we visited a tribal demonstration. And I think I'm very glad that I felt deeply uncomfortable, right? Because the tribal members were welcoming us to their homelands, their ancestral homelands.

But we were there in a national park where they didn't necessarily have any control over how their homelands were being used. It was a tension which I'm glad to have felt. And I'm wondering how Park Service employees and rangers and superintendents like yourself navigated that or helped bring some balance to it.

Well, you know, the National Park Service is about preserving America's cultural and natural treasures. And cultural treasures, you know, mean all cultures in this country. And, you know, the role in Glacier Bay was to think of how we can facilitate

the continuance of culture and the connection of people on the land and be real partners in this. And I think as such, it provides a real model.

But, you know, if you visit Glacier Bay, you know, I think one of the first things to go see is there's a what I would call it like a truth and reconciliation totem pole that tells a story. It's called the healing pole. And it tells the story of the of the process.

park service and the Tlingit, the Tlingit being pushed out by the ice and the relationship, the stormy relationship and feeling locked out and the return and the working jointly together. The Tlingit have a wonderful term called Wushjin, which just means working together. And that

that term kind of more reflects the type of partnership that worked. And, you know, with each of the traditional cultures that are on different lands, um,

you need to adjust the model to fit with that culture. So it's not like one size can fit all. - Yeah. Well, Philip, hang on here for just a second, but Darlene See, Cultural Program Manager for the Hoonah Indian Association who helped coordinate the construction of the Hoonah Tribal House that we've just been talking about. Darlene joins us today from Juneau, Alaska. Darlene, thank you so very much for spending some time with us today.

Thank you very much, Meghna. We'll be back in just a moment. This is On Point. I'm ready for my life to change. ABC Sunday's American Idol is all new. Give it your all. Good luck. Come out with a golden ticket. Let's hear it. This is a man's world.

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You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And today we are talking about the remarkable story that Glacier Bay National Park has to tell about nature's resilience. And by the way, this year, Glacier Bay celebrates its 100th year as protected federal land. And Philip Hoogie joins us today. He served as superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve today.

for a decade. And, and Philip, I want to just get into a tiny bit more detail about that, you know, how the park shows nature's resilience because it,

Again, just to repeat, because it's such a remarkable fact to me that, what, 250 years ago, the entire area that ships and boats come into in massive Glacier Bay was entirely covered by ice. And then suddenly that ice just retreated as, you know, extremely rapidly. Right.

Now, when that happened, you talked about being able to see sort of stages of nature rebounding as you go up Glacier Bay closer towards the current foot or feet of where the glaciers are. What exactly do you see that shows that cycle of nature returning? Yeah.

Well, I mean, first is that you start traveling and you see 200 foot high spruce and hemlock trees. You know, not quite the final climax vegetation because they're only, you know, two or three hundred years. And it takes, you know, 400 or more to get to that type of environment, but really close.

And then as you move up, the trees become more scattered, smaller. You start to see more bare rock. You start to see some of the more alders, these pioneer plants, dryas, and

And the kind of what they call the periglacial plants, the ones that are right in front of the glacier. And then you start seeing more and more snow and ice. And then you see ice coming right into the ocean and calving. So you get that history there.

And that's why Glacier Bay was first recognized and interestingly was one of the prime proponents for establishment was the Ecological Society. He wanted to see it preserved as a record of an ecological process, you know, that it's changed. Well, I also, I mean, the animals that return with this sort of resurgent,

natural environment were remarkable to see. I mentioned the sea otters and I can't quite remember what the ranger told us when we were there, but the sea otters have only relatively recently returned. Is that right?

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, you have the ice opening up this area and part of this pattern would have occurred anyway. But you have sea otters being significantly reduced, almost to the point of extinction by Russian fur traders and then reintroduced in the 60s. And then you have this

landscape that opened up with all these different species of marine animals that colonized quickly, clams and crabs. And then you have the otters moving in and it's just, you know, the

an abundant plate with um with um few predators because they were also protected um you know they live more kind of in balance i would say with the the clinkette um before the russians um decided to that they were going to go after them for their furs um and so you just have this

incredible rapid expansion and, you know, and, and much of it happened, you know, during a time I was there. So I got to kind of witness this firsthand, you know, going from a few individuals to tens of thousands and then radically changing, changing, um, the environment. Um, and,

sea otters are in the marine environment are like beavers on land they they have this capacity to basically change whole ecosystems and and so um you know they um they ate a lot of the herbivores of kelp and then more kelp moved in and then they're kind of working their way up the food chain right now they're in this um kind of this this hyper abundance yeah they

say unnatural, but it is part of the natural process. And they're going to starve, you know, and they already are right now. And their numbers are going to go down tremendously until they get back kind of in balance. I was going to say, yeah, but that's a natural ecological self-correction. Yeah. Yeah. And we celebrate that. Yeah. So, Philip, I just want to...

spend the rest of the hour talking about two important kinds of changes that Glacier Bay National Park is not immune to. Just briefly tell, I mean, even though this like rapid advance, unbelievable advance and retreat of the glaciers there is a normal part of this unique environment. I don't think it happens as rapidly anywhere else.

Alaska overall in and of itself is being changed by climate change. Those temperate rainforests that you talked about, they're feeling it. So are we seeing the impacts of climate change at Glacier Bay also? We are. It's kind of a living laboratory for kind of seeing the different types of effects. And by rapid advance,

The surges occur rapidly. The ice advances in a relatively geologically fast time, like 4,000 or 5,000 years, but not as fast as the surges. But, you know, the east, you know, one thing that shows it very dramatically is the difference between the glaciers to the west side of the park and the east side. The east side glaciers are...

very much affected by temperature. The West Side Glacier is much more by precipitation. And precipitation is going up in our environment a little bit with climate change. And so, you know, the...

Some glaciers are advancing. You know, many are still in that kind of that retreat phase before they build up the protective sills. So it's, you know, the jury's still out on how fast they're going to advance. But the ones on the east side are definitely in more rapid retreat and more complete retreat than we would see and more like we would see in, like, Glacier National Park.

I see. Okay. Philip, hang on here for just a second because—and forgive me for interrupting, but I appreciate that overview of how climate change is having an impact on Glacier Bay. The other kind of change that—

Glacier Bay National Park, or quite frankly, all national parks in the United States are not immune to is politics. So for that, let me bring Bill Wade into the conversation. He's the executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. He was with the National Park Service for over 30 years, and his last role there was a superintendent of Shenandoah National Park. Bill Wade, welcome to On Point. Well, thanks for having me.

Well, I'm highly aware that we're having this beautiful conversation about what the landscape of Glacier Bay National Park has to teach us. At the same time, the Park Service itself, which is charged with protecting these special landscapes, is feeling the effects of the decisions by the Trump administration right now. I mean, can you kind of just describe to me how you see what's happening to the NPS at the moment?

Well, yes, there has been a series of actions or decisions by the administration that have had a significant negative impact on the National Park Service in particular. And the biggest one of those that started was actually on February 14th.

when approximately 800 permanent employees who were in their first year of appointment to a permanent position were just simply fired with about two hours of notice. And so those people now are without a job.

And that adds a problem to the already understaffed National Park Service and its responsibility to provide visitor services

and protection of the resources. I've been reading about how in some of, I mean, this is an issue everywhere, but some of the most visited parks in the United States, I mean, Yosemite is the one that immediately comes to mind. Staff and rangers there are almost in a panic about what are they going to do to protect the park, especially as we're, you know, in the beginning of the high season there and millions of people are expected to come. I mean, that seems like a genuine concern, Bill.

It's very much a concern, and of course it varies part to part as to what the impacts are going to be. But certainly we're hearing all kinds of stories about visitor center hours having to be reduced or closed on certain days, custodial maintenance in some places being affected, which means that maybe the public restrooms won't be cleaned as often or trash hauled as often.

Reservations for some of the campgrounds in Yosemite that you mentioned have been suspended.

Carlsbad Caverns, the guided cave tours, the reservations have been suspended and those tours have been suspended. So the impacts are varying by park to park, but certainly this summer, probably visitors are going to see some impacts to what's being done today.

Yes, of course. Well, Philip, let me turn back to you here because perhaps Glacier Bay is quite different than Yosemite in terms of visitation and the relationship between, let's say, businesses and the park because there's a lot of

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what, more than 95% of people come into Glacier Bay National Park, similarly to how I did, on ships, right? So does that mean that the rest of the 3.3 million acres is pretty much untouched?

Yes. You know, Glacier Bay is a park that's very much preserved in an experience that you would have seen decades ago. You know, the same number, it's a capacity controlled system. We let in the same number of boats that we have for decades. But the boats themselves have gotten larger and the cruise ships have gotten larger. And so at the same time, it has a system where you would be up.

unlikely to...

There's a lot less likelihood to see other people and other boats. You know, the numbers have still gone up. We have we had served over 700000 visitors last year. Well, and also I should say that the the tight regulation around cruise ships in Glacier Bay is relatively recent. Right. I mean, now I think only two ships per day are allowed in. Absolutely no dumping whatsoever. And the cruise companies have to pay the park. Right. Right.

Yes, they have to contribute to the park and they also play a real partnership role kind of turning their cruise ships into tour boats. The rangers go aboard the boats and talk about the park situation. And it's quite an experience, you know. And, you know, the companies really get involved.

into it and the captains do. I once saw a captain of one of the cruise ships actually back a cruise ship up to see a bear on the beach. I've never had so much contact with park rangers as I did on that cruise ship, I can tell you. And it was marvelous, absolutely marvelous. But the point is, is that these things get negotiated, these agreements get negotiated, Philip. Could that change possibly? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, Glacier Bay definitely has, I would say, the best situation for cruise ships in the world in terms of the low effects on the area. But but also a very, very positive impact to the Alaska economy and all of that.

um, could be put to, um, to threat. I mean, you know, originally, um, you know, they stopped seasonal hiring that would have decimated. That would have been mean that we wouldn't have been able to have that presence on the boat. We wouldn't be able to manage the contracts. Um, you know, um,

At that point, the responsible thing when we can't even manage the contracts to go and monitor them like we should would be to not have them go in. The irony of the Glacier Bay system is that it is an incredibly efficient system. Most of it is not actually federal funds. We have the least amount of federal funds that go into our park, any park. We have this lean staff.

of only 68 permanent people for a 3.2 million acre park, 50 seasonals. And it runs like cruise ships do, you know, like clockwork. It would be easily disturbed. I see. Well, so with that, Bill, let me ask you, because you mentioned the 800 employees who were just very suddenly terminated. The Park Service also requested

really relies on seasonal employees as well. I mean, have those seasonal jobs been frozen or what's going to happen there? Well, originally, as Philip said, they did get frozen early in January. And in fact, some people who actually had received job offers at that point had those offers rescinded. Since then,

That has turned around, and the administration has authorized the Park Service to hire a total of up to 7,700 seasonals for this year. That's going to help immensely, although getting all of them on board in time for the early season in many parks is probably going to be problematic. But I think that will help immensely. But then what happens is,

After those seasonals, their term of employment is up. Then you go back again to a significantly understaffed National Park Service. And certainly some parks are going to be hurting more than others. Hurting how? I mean, these are gems. The National Park Service in my...

very personal opinion is one of the greatest things in the United States. And I think people are worried that like, are we talking about potential like ecological damage to some of these special places?

Well, I think we are if things keep going like they are and if the public doesn't get angry enough and upset enough to put pressure on their elected representatives to try to turn this around.

I think it's very possible that the understaffing is going to result not only in reduced visitor services, which I've already mentioned, but ultimately in some impacts to the very resources themselves.

Particularly, I think, some of the historic buildings, for instance, in parks in the east. If they don't receive the required maintenance and upkeep, they start to deteriorate. And then we all lose. We all lose. Then we all lose. That's correct. Well, Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, thank you so much for joining us. And Philip Hoogie, former superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, thank you.

Thank you as well. And folks, when you get out there this summer to visit those national parks, take care of them. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.