Johns Hopkins Glacier (Poem)

by Nathan Corliss

Go to these places.
On desolate rocks
With only wind,
The occasional friction of fabric on fabric,
And blood flow in your ears;
The vastness and grandness
Drowns any sensation of isolation
In a tsunami of awe that seethes through every follicle of being.
In this sensation experienced by far too few people,
There is overwhelming peace.

This poem was inspired by an Instagram post by @_bex_trex_, a Park Ranger in Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve.

Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve is where I experienced one of the most profound moments of “awe” in my life. I was 14, and we were 2/3s of the way through a family Alaska trip. The week prior I took a wilderness survival course in Sitka, which was three days of training followed by three days of primitive camping on an uninhabited island.

At some point after the survival experience, as my parents and close family friend and our Alaska host, Dave, were making final preparations for our boat loop that would apex at Glacier Bay, I had an emotional (and nearly physical) violent encounter with my older brother. As brothers do, he 17, me 14, tension boiled over and we nearly lost control — we somehow made amends and were able to stand each other’s company on our home for the next two weeks, the 35 foot, cement hull, Ulla. A seaworthy sailboat that had been converted into a fishing trawler.

Many moments of awe occurred on this trip, but the most profound was in Tarr Inlet, a small fjord in Glacier Bay. Chad and I had either kayaked or taken the small skiff ashore. We scrambled through brush then up the steep shrubby and crumbly valley side. We gained enough elevation that my mom, who was now on shore below looking for us for dinner, looked no larger than an ant.

The sun was setting, and it illuminated the glacier in voids of blue, grey, white, and nothing. The hillside along with Chad and I were illuminated in an orange that felt like an oozing blanket warming parts of me I still don’t fully understand. I was overwhelmed in awe — a sensation that informed a calm I had never felt before – a calm I still pursue to this day.

I don’t know if it was this moment we shared, but after it, Chad and I never fought again — and went on to become very close.