College Fjord

About College Fjord

A glacier calving is an incredible event. When thousands of tons of ice peel away from a glacier a sharp boom is created that sounds like a massive detonation of high explosives. This in turn, is followed by a huge roar as newly born icebergs plunge into the sea. And an afternoon cruise in Prince William Sound’s spectacular College Fjord offers the possibility of witnessing this amazing event.

This narrow 20-mile long fjord in the northern region of the Sound was created by glacial activity over millions of years. Today it boasts a collection of 16 glaciers and from the right angle (on board Arcadia) it’s possible to see eight of the College Fjord glaciers at once.

Discovered a little over a hundred years ago College Fjord was happened upon while an expedition was looking for a short-cut to the Klondike gold fields. Included on this expedition were professors from Harvard and Amherst, who whimsically decided to name the glaciers after elite, east coast colleges (universities), including Amherst, Wellesley and Yale.

Harvard, the second largest but most striking of the glaciers, sits at the mouth of the fjord with a 1½ mile wide face. Columbia, the largest, covers an area of over 400 square miles, and in 2001 was one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world – moving nearly 30 metres per day and discharging icebergs at a rate of approximately 1.7 cubic miles per year.