Story Info
Story Info
Judith Aftergut
Gustavus, Alaska
2013
Type of Wounded Place
Story & Experience
We didn’t manage to get the people and our bird (a crane) and the setting all in one picture, but this series covers it. We’re on a beach overlooking Icy Strait in Gustavus AK just outside the boundary of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The land we’re standing on is the outwash plain from the time when all of Glacier Bay (70 miles in length) was filled with ice (200+ years ago.) We’re standing not far from what local people call the “crane flats,” where migrating sandhill cranes land in the spring and fall. So it is not surprising that we made a crane.
Our Radical Joy event was created to honor the glaciers here. They are, of course, disappearing. They were already receding from their maximum in the late 1700’s. They are now melting faster as a result of climate change. (Thirty-five years ago there were 12 tidewater glaciers in the inside waters of Glacier Bay; now there are only 6.) As you probably know, there was a heatwave in Alaska . Notice our suntans.
The inspiration for our gathering came from Judy Todd in Portland. I’ve been at several of the events she organized. This year I was in Gustavus so I thought we created this event in Alaska.
We didn’t manage to get the people and our bird (a crane) and the setting all in one picture, but this series covers it. We’re on a beach overlooking Icy Strait in Gustavus AK just outside the boundary of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The land we’re standing on is the outwash plain from the time when all of Glacier Bay (70 miles in length) was filled with ice (200+ years ago.) We’re standing not far from what local people call the “crane flats,” where migrating sandhill cranes land in the spring and fall. So it is not surprising that we made a crane.
Our Radical Joy event was created to honor the glaciers here. They are, of course, disappearing. They were already receding from their maximum in the late 1700’s. They are now melting faster as a result of climate change. (Thirty-five years ago there were 12 tidewater glaciers in the inside waters of Glacier Bay; now there are only 6.) As you probably know, there was a heatwave in Alaska . Notice our suntans.
The inspiration for our gathering came from Judy Todd in Portland. I’ve been at several of the events she organized. This year I was in Gustavus so I thought we created this event in Alaska.
Gustavus, Alaska
Image Credit:
- Aftergut Bird: Judith Aftergut
- Aftergut: Judith Aftergut
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