Get Outdoors - Destinations: Human History: The People of Glacier Bay

In 1794, as the mother ship H.M.S. Discovery, Captained by George Vancouver, lay at anchor in Pt. Althorp, a survey crew under the command of Lt. Joseph Whidbey maneuvered longboats through the ice-choked waters of Icy Strait. The remarkably accurate chart the survey produced shows a mere indentation in the shoreline, "terminated by solid compact mountains of ice," where Glacier Bay is today.The great glacier that filled the Bay was by then in rapid retreat, and was the source of the floating icepack that so hindered Whidbey. Any visitor who came by at the glacial maximum, a few decades earlier, would have found the glacier's tongue extending out into Icy Strait almost to Lemesurier Island.

Whidbey was not the first to see Glacier Bay; his record includes mention of the natives who paddled out in their canoes from what is now Pt. Carolus to meet his boats and offer to trade. Were these descendents of the people who once lived in the Bay but were forced out by the advancing glacier? Tlingit oral history is corroborated by modern science--it appears that lower Glacier Bay was habitable for many centuries up until about 300 years ago, when a final glacial surge would have forced the human habitants to flee their homeland.

How long they might have been there is unknown. There were people living over 9,000 years ago at nearby Groundhog Bay, but we may never know who they were. A site on Baranof Island shows that people with an unmistakable northwest coast culture have been in the region for at least the last 3,000 years.

Even as Glacier Bay itself lay encased in ice, native people carried on their activities in many places along the nearby coast, places that may have been free of ice for as long as 13,000 years. The oldest known site in Glacier Bay National Park, located in Dundas Bay, is about 800 years old. Natives were at Lituya Bay, on the park's wild outer coast, to greet Laperouse in 1786. Although a series of earthquake-triggered tidal waves, the latest in 1959, devastated most of the shoreline of Lituya Bay, a pocket of undisturbed forest still harbors archeological evidence of their life there.

In 1879, John Muir relied on Tlingit guides when he first visited Glacier Bay, seeking glaciers, adventure and spiritual enrichment. Muir was the first in a long line of distinguished scientists/naturalists to visit the park, perform research, and bring this remarkable area to the world's attention. Muir was greatly intrigued with the fledgling science of glaciology, and believed that his beloved Yosemite Valley had been carved by ice long ago. He came to Alaska, in part, to witness glaciers in action and substantiate his theory. Largely due to his enthusiastic writings, Glacier Bay became a popular tourist attraction, as well as the focus of scientific inquiries, during the late 1880's and 90's.

Muir's last visit to Glacier Bay was in 1899. He had agreed to join the illustrious Harriman Alaska Expedition somewhat reluctantly, as its grandiose style did not suit him. Assembled by the railroad tycoon Edward Harriman, the expedition brought together an impressive collection of scientists, artists, photographers and writers to explore the Alaska coast, from the southeast boundary all the way to the Seward Peninsula. The expedition members spent five days in Glacier Bay, and collected a wealth of data between memorable adventures.

The age of tourism and exploration in Glacier Bay came to an abrupt halt soon after the Harriman party departed. In September 1899, a massive earthquake shattered the Muir Glacier. Masses of floating ice prevented ships from closely approaching the glacier for at least a decade, and the steamship companies removed Glacier Bay from their itineraries. Over the next few decades Glacier Bay belonged to a hardy assortment of scientists and adventurous entrepreneurs, as well as native seal hunters, fishermen and egg-gatherers. A number of colorful characters, including the gold miners Joe and Muz Ibach of Reid Inlet and the hermits Jim Huscroft of Lituya Bay and Buck Harbeson of Dundas Bay, enlivened the local landscape.

In addition to rugged individualists who pursued mining, trapping, homesteading, fox-farming and other small-scale ventures, there was at least one successful corporate operation within what is now Glacier Bay National Park--a salmon cannery at Dundas Bay. Relying on a mixture of native, white and Chinese labor, the cannery was a large and prosperous operation between 1900 and1931, when the general lower demand and prices paid for salmon because of the Great Depression resulted in its closing. During the early 1940s, most of the structures associated with the cannery were dismantled, since the site had by then been included in the national monument.Scientific interest in Glacier Bay remained high in the years following Muir and Harriman. One of the scientists was also a visionary. William S. Cooper, a plant ecologist studying the return of plant life to the recently de-glaciated terrain, made numerous trips to Glacier Bay beginning in 1916. Enthralled with the beauty of the area, he convinced the Ecological Society of America to spearhead a campaign for its preservation. These efforts met with success in 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge signed the proclamation creating Glacier Bay National Monument, an area less than half the size of the present park. The proclamation cited the features and values of the area: tidewater glaciers in a magnificent setting, developing forests, scientific opportunities, historic interest and accessibility.

Creation of the new monument meant the prohibition of most forms of commercial or extractive activities and inevitable conflicts with local people, both native and white. Although mining was originally disallowed, Franklin Roosevelt was convinced to open the monument to mining in 1936. Sporadic gold-mining occurred until passage of the Mining in the Parks Act in 1976 (one very significant claim, a nickel-copper deposit beneath the Brady Glacier, remains in private hands and may one day be developed). Conflicts with other human uses were most apparent after the Monument boundaries were expanded, more than doubling its size--in 1939. With the expansion, which had been eagerly sought by the Park Service mainly because of the wildlife habitat that would be preserved, Glacier Bay became the largest unit of the National Park system (a distinction it has since lost, although it is still larger than any park outside Alaska).

Commercial fishing was allowed to continue in the newly expanded monument, although there was actually no legal basis for it. Native seal hunting, a contentious issue for decades, was finally terminated in 1974. A number of fox farmers, and especially the homesteaders at Gustavus, who had settled starting in the 1910s and 20s, unhappily found themselves included within the expanded Monument in 1939. Resolution of most local conflicts, however, was put on hold over the next few years as World War II came to Alaska.

World War II changed the face of Alaska and Glacier Bay, essentially ushering in the modern world to this remote region. In 1941 an airfield and associated facilities were constructed at Gustavus. An even more ambitious and highly secret project began in August 1942, two months after a Japanese fleet launched an attack on the American military base at Dutch Harbor. This was construction of a huge supply terminal at Excursion Inlet, just east of the monument boundary. Completed in November 1943, the terminal covered more than 600 acres and included over 800 buildings and three large docks. Fortunately or unfortunately, the main theater of war operations had by the time of its completion moved beyond Alaska, and the facility was used for only a few months. In June 1945 700 German POWs were shipped to Excursion Inlet to dismantle the terminal. Some of the salvaged material was used to help rebuild the village of Hoonah, which had suffered a devastating fire in June 1944.

Turned over to civilian use following the war, the Gustavus airfield proved to be a windfall for both the monument and the local economy. Prior to the war, Park Service planners had envisioned a lodge and administration area at Sandy Cove, accessible only by boat. Now Bartlett Cove, which could be linked to the new airport by a few miles of road, became the focus of development plans. Vociferous appeals from local homesteaders, as well as support from national conservation organizations, resulted in the removal of more than 14,000 acres of land, including the Gustavus airport, from the monument in 1955.

Post-war prosperity and pride, and a burgeoning interest in outdoor recreation, led to a new initiative to develop the nation's parklands for visitor use. In 1956, NPS director Conrad Wirth announced Mission 66, a ten-year program of planning and development for national parks, timed to reach culmination on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Service. Glacier Bay was an eager recipient of Mission 66 dollars, which funded construction of the lodge (which opened on schedule in 1966), as well as the dock, employee residences, an administration building and other facilities at Bartlett Cove.

For decades there had been talk of elevating Glacier Bay's status to that of national park. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 finally achieved this goal, and also extended the park boundary northwest to the Alsek River and Dry Bay. Further protection and recognition of Glacier Bay's significance occurred in 1986, when the Glacier Bay-Admiralty Island Biosphere Reserve was established under the United Nations Man and the Biosphere Program. In 1992 Glacier Bay became part of an international World Heritage Site, along with neighboring Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Canada's Kluane National Park.

In the nearly 75 years since Calvin Coolidge took up his pen, the forces of controversy and compromise have forged a mature national park, which nonetheless continues to evolve. The national and global significance of Glacier Bay has been well established, and its preservation assured. But the devil is in the details. The human drama of the park has always focused on finding an equitable balance among three potentially conflicting arenas: preserving this irreplaceable treasure "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations", defining and accommodating legitimate local uses, and providing for the needs of the visiting public. Fine-tuning this delicate balance will continue to challenge park managers, and enliven history, into the foreseeable future.