way of life, woven around a central village, with shifting fishing and hunting camps. The food source of the natives was the rich Salmon fish resources of the area. A complex society evolved with rich artistic traditions. Tlingits claimed their fishing-dependent lifestyle was helped during the National Monument years, which kept out commercial fishing. After the area became a National Park, their fishing and hunting activities were curtailed except for certain religious exemptions. However, the National Park administration is closely interacting with the Tlingits to foster their cultural heritage. They are allowed access to the park to "harvest berries, a variety of seafoods, and traditional use items such as spruce roots and mountain goat hair (for weaving traditional blankets)". In addition the park is planning to establish a Tlingit longhouse near its main office, where Tlingit culture would be fully highlighted and also facilitate holding of cultural events. Climate The bay has a cool wet, coastal temperate rainforest climate. Three climatic zones have been discerned in the Glacier Bay; the outer coast along the Gulf of Alaska, which records mild temperatures and higher precipitation. However, it experiences less snowfall, the upper Glacier Bay where it is much colder and heavy snowfall occurs, and the lower Glacier Bay, which experiences heavy rainfall throughout the year. In the Bay as a whole, the summer temperatures vary between ) and , while the winter temperatures lie in the range of , with minimum going up to . Annual precipitation is in the form of rainfall and snowfall. On an average, 228 days are recorded as precipitation days per year, and precipitation is in the range of including of annual snowfall; the highest recorded snowfall is of the order of in the Fairweather Mountains. Flora and fauna The environment of Glacier Bay has been categorized under four main land ecosystems namely, the wet tundra, the coastal western hemlock/Sitka spruce forest, the alpine tundra, and the glaciers and ice fields; within the Bay proper, further break up into three major marine ecosystems are marked namely, "within in and around continental shelf, wave-beaten coasts, and fjord estuaries." Plants progressively moved in as the glacier retreated, so a 200-year-old spruce and hemlock forest presently exists at the entrance, grading up to more primitive plants such as mosses and lichens at the head of the bay. Because of current local climate change some glaciers are now retreating at