Glacier Bay Lodge & Tours: off-the-charts nature experience.

• Author: Cutler, Debbie
• Position: TOURISM - Guest editorial

BY DEBBIE CUTLER

MANAGING EDITOR

When you walk into lodge Headquarters for Glacier Bay Lodge & Tours, a joint-venture between ARAMARK and Hoonah Totem Corp., operated under a 10-year concession plan for the U.S. National Park Service that began in 2004, you just might meet lodge general manager Travis White. With his fresh smile, youthful stance and a warm welcome, you know you are in the right place.

Glacier Bay Lodge, built in 1967, is the only commercial overnight accommodations in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, and is a paradise for outdoor adventure-seekers, offering whale watching, kayaking, backcountry exploring, flight-seeing tours, fishing, river rafting, day cruises and much more.

Open from May 22 through Sept. 11, this cozy, rustic lodge has 48 rooms connected by a boardwalk in a village atmosphere, many with views of the spectacular Bartlett Cove. From many rooms you can see fishing vessels and cruise ships, mountains, trails and rainforests.

The lodge, which staffs about 90 when the season is in full swing, was featured in 2007 by the Public Broadcasting Service as one of the great lodges of national parks. It has a huge gas rock fireplace, giant wood beams and cathedral ceilings.

This is White's third summer at Glacier Bay Lodge & Tours, arriving from Missouri after first working in 2005 at Lynx Creek Store just outside of Denali National Park on the George Parks Highway. He's been all around the world, serving two years in the Peace Corps in Peru and lived and played in other places such as Asia and the Andes Mountains.

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"Guests say this is a unique place, a very scenic place, a special place," he says. "It's a destination in itself when you want to escape the multitudes."

Right now, he calls beautiful Glacier Bay home and "absolutely loves" his job, even though he is nine miles from the nearest town, the community of Gustavus, which still uses revamped 1930s gas pumps and has a mercantile with two porch swings to laze around on warm summer days. It's a place where children ride bikes and walk dogs, and old-timers talk about the two primary industries: fishing and tourism. Fishing, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, has been banned in the preserve except for a few who have been grandfathered in by the federal government. According to one resident, John Spute, co-owner of TLC Taxi, there are 450 registered voters in Gustavus and about that many residents.

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