Selections from George F. Nelson’s Diary:
Encounters with Glaciers and Icebergs
Throughout George Nelson’s diary, glaciers and icebergs receive more attention than any other feature of the Alaskan ecosystem. When describing these ice features, Nelson’s typically measured tone breaks into more creative, lyrical prose that celebrates the shapes, colors and textures of the ice. He even attempts to draw the glaciers and icebergs, generating some of the only illustrations in the diary, which are included at the bottom of this page.
The glaciers that Nelson observes are the same ones discussed in the official reports from the expedition’s geologists that were published in the Harriman Alaska Expedition book series; however, Nelson views the glaciers differently than the expedition’s scientists, trading their emphasis on quantitative numbers and geological jargon for metaphors of the spiritual and the sublime. His descriptions and drawings hold value as a compelling personal record of climate change.
As with any component of Nelson’s diary, his fixation with ice should be interpreted critically. Why did Nelson write more frequently about ice than the church services he provided to the expedition or his visits to missionary schools along the expedition path? Does he seek to ignore the violence of the system in which he was embroiled by focusing his attention on the aesthetic wonders of ice? Does he mobilize the icescape in service of the same colonial project to claim Indigenous territory? These are questions to keep in mind while reading the entries gathered below.
June 8
Huna Tlingit territory (Glacier Bay)
Delighted with Muir Glacier. Great masses of ice almost continually falling with roar like thunder. Mr. Muir says about 10 feet of ice fall daily. Glacier has a front of nearly two miles (1.81/100); 25 miles across farther back; 800 feet below water at its front; from 100 to 250 feet high at water front; moves in [centre?] about 7 to 9 feet a day; drains an area of 800 square miles; actual ice surface covers about 350 square miles, the mass of it 35 miles long and 10 to 15 miles wide, lying but a few hundred feet above sea level; fed by 26 tributary streams, 7 of which over a mile in width. If all their affluents were named & counted, as in Switzerland, the Muir might boast 200 branches or glaciers in its system.
Mr Muir tells me that water front of glacier is 2 miles farther back than it was when discovered it 20 years ago; he built his little cabin (still standing) on shore in 1890. Bay full of big and little ice-bergs—mostly very small—mere blocks of ice of all shapes, but some of them are 100 or 200 feet long and from ten to thirty or so more feet high. Exquisite shades of blue in larger ones; sapphire; vitral blue; cobalt blue.
Mr Muir says these big, dark blue ones break off from below surface of water. It is a fine sight to see front of glacier cliff break off and topple into the bay, and then to see the detached ice leap up partly out of the water 50 or 100 feet and then sail away on the great waters it has caused.
Map of Yakutat Bay that Nelson copied from fellow expedition member Henry Gannett, employee of the U.S. Geological Survey.
muir glacier, 1899. from the harriman expedition souvenir album, eberly family special collections library, penn state.
June 9
Huna Tlingit territory (Glacier Bay)
We could easily see that front of glacier had changed in appearance since last evening. Large beautiful ice bergs all around us; one of indescribably beautiful blue close along side of ship, and quite its length. Some of passengers say they were awakened in night by rolling of ship caused by commotion of water made by ice breaking off from glacier from above or from below. Mr Muir said: “Look at that ice berg; see how pure it is; and think what that means when you consider that it has been at work for a hundred years grinding mountains!” He says it is our privilege to see here not only how icebergs are born, but to see the birth of an island; for just beyond the middle of the glacier’s front rises the rounded top of a little mountain, completely surrounded by glacier ice; and so when the glacier’s work is done, water will flow where ice now flows and another island will be added to the map.
Most interesting lecture this evening by Mr Muir on the Muir Glacier, with anecdotes of his adventures. One in particular: found himself, after jumping across a crevasse 8 ft wide, on a glacier island 4 miles long; crevasses all around from 8 to 40 ft wide; crossed on “sliver” of ice 70 ft running diagonally across crevasse—like letter U in shape, viz, much lower in centre than at ends; sharp on top like wedge where sun had melted it; obliged to straddle it; chief danger, however, at beginning & end of crossing—descent & ascent—when footing for heel had to be cut in ice; little dog crossed, after much persuasion, after Mr. Muir, and gambolled about in great delight after the feat had been performed.
June 12
Interesting talks in the evening by Prof. Gilbert and Mr Muir—illustrated by map on blackboard—in reference to glaciers of Reid Inlet etc. They and Prof. Palache had just spent three days coasting in open boat—camping at night—along the Inlet. It appears that the glaciers have receded from two to four miles during past 20 years. Pacific Glacier has so far receded as to make three, Pacific and Johns Hopkins and another not yet named, but which we all agreed on suggestion of Messrs Gilbert, Muir and Palache should be called Harriman Glacier.
Mr. Muir told of Indian chief (Hoonish tribe) about 20 miles East of Brady Glacier. 20 years ago glacier came down and blocked up mouth of stream on which the Indians depended for their salmon fishing; Shaman (medicine-man) consulted; said ice-god was angry; might be appeased if two slaves were killed as sacrifice; the 2 slaves assumingly sacrificed; sometime afterwards the Chief appealed to Rev Mr Young (Presbyterian Minister in charge of Mission at Ft. Wrangell, on visit with Mr Muir to glacier) to pray so that ice-god might no longer dam up salmon stream, but he told the Chief nothing could be done.
June 19
Yakutat Tlingit territory (Yakutat Bay)
Dr Dall says further end not discovered till 15 years ago, as up to that time some distance beyond entrance was obstructed by glacier ice; no steamer or large boat has ever been here before, except Coast Survey steamer. Passed several magnificent glaciers: Duffield; Hubbard; Nunatak and Hidden. Hubbard particularly grand; more beautiful indeed on account of its setting &c than anything of the kind I have ever seen. On next page I attempt a sketch of it, as seen from above it.
At one point cave in front of ice like a great blue entrance to a grotto.
Day cool as in winter. Anchored about 9 PM in 90 feet of water; sheltered cove. Wrote two hours in morning and five hours in afternoon entering in Register notes of Mr Burroughs, our historiographer. We are told that the walled front of the Dalton Glacier is 2 miles wide; that of the Hubbard Glacier (including moraine) over 5 miles wide; and that the distance between the two is 10 or 12 miles; but so easily is the eye deceived in this region of magnificence and pure air that it is hard to believe, on the eye’s evidence, that these figures are not exaggerated.
The lives of ice: Sít' Tlein
Known to Nelson and other expeditioners as the Hubbard Glacier, Sít’ Tlein (“big glacier”) has been a site of Tlingit life and activity for thousands of years. At Shaanáx Kuwóox’, an ancestral seal-hunting camp near Sít’ Tlein, generations of Yakutat Tlingit harvested seals from the ice floes. This historic camp would be obstructed by an earthquake only a few months after the Harriman Expedition’s visit to the region.
Read more about this glacier in Leslie Hsu Oh’s essay in First Alaskan Magazine, “Sít’ Tlein: The Story of Hubbard Glacier’s Spirit and Indigenous Knowledge of Tlingit Seal-hunting Practices,” featuring the research of Judith Daxootso Ramos.
illustration of hubbard glacier (sít’ tlein) from nelson’s entry for june 19.
June 23
Yakutat Tlingit territory (Yakutat Bay)
June 25
Huna Tlingit territory (Glacier Bay)
Ice is being discharged from about two miles of the front, though not in such large blocks nor with such a great noise as from the Muir Glacier: Some of our party estimate that the remainder of the front—non-discharging—is at least three miles in width.
June 26
Alutiiq and Sugpiaq territory (Port Wells Bay)
When I looked out this morning, I found we were in Port Wells Bay, and right in front of us—a dozen glaciers, most of them coming down to the water’s edge, and one of them, the largest, having marks suggesting a curving wagon road worn through thin snow to dark soil. Morning sunny and genial, with a fresh breeze blowing down from the glaciers. Waters of bay whitened with “mush ice”—though some of the pieces are large—one apparently fifty feet long, and not a few presenting, together with their white shadows, fantastic shapes. The air is dry and musical with sound of waterfalls. Nearly everybody ashore for a closer view of the biggest glacier, hunting, fauna and flora, etc.
Sít’ Tlein (hubbard glacier), from the Harriman Expedition souvenir album, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State.
At some points great masses of ice were like pillars pressed together, with a clear line of demarkation reaching from top to bottom and reproducing itself in the shimmering water. There were three great caves in the ice front some little distance from each other, into all of which the water flowed; at one point projecting out further than other parts a tunnel had been formed, and we looked through its dark and mysterious depths to the water gleaming on the other side. Some of the tower-like masses of ice had dark right-angled depressions that looked like windows. Back and above this majestic wall of ice we could see its tributaries—four large rivers of ice flowing down—though too slowly for the eye to discern the movement from the mountains into one great glacier. All this seemed enough to crown this red-letter day among glaciers, but nature’s generous banquet was not yet over. We turned to the left into another inlet—never before explored, and therefore not on the maps—and now a veritable galaxy of glories burst upon us. This comparatively small inlet—only, apparently, about 15 miles long and a mile and a half broad—seemed a nest of glaciers. We counted four big and beautiful ones—besides the Barré, and besides several on the sides of mountains, with no ice front at the water’s edge. The magnificence of this group of glaciers, all seen at once, one of them resembling, in places, terraces or immense stairways, was further heightened by a mist that hung like a veil over one of the mountains making its snow banks and dark, bare spots seem like figured lace-work, and by orange-colored clouds that circled almost in the shape of a crown over the height of an adjoining mountain.
Gallery: Nelson's Ice Illustrations
