Human History
(For the Administrative History of Glacier Bay National
Park and Preserve, click
here.)
European Explorers
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 painstakingly maneuvered
their 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.
| Early
Peoples |
| John Muir
1879 |
| Following
the Earthquake of 1899 |
| The Scientists
|
| Monument
Formation 1925 |
| World War
II Influences |
| The
Monument Develops |
| From
Monument to Park 1980 |
| History Time-line |
| Home |
|
