Prehistory and exploration The earliest traces of human occupation at Glacier Bay date to about 10,000 years before the present, with archaeological sites just outside the park dating to that time. Evidence of human activity is scarce, because so much of the area is or was glaciated for much of the period and because advancing glaciers may have scoured all traces of historical occupation from their valleys. Ongoing uplift of the land may reveal new sites that had been submerged by
rising sea levels. Most archaeological evidence is from the last 200 years. The
Haida,
Eyak and
Tlingit all could have occupied the coast until historical times, when the Tlingit came to dominate the area.
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was the first European to explore the Alaskan coast on foot in the region of Glacier Bay in 1786, arriving in
Lituya Bay and making contact with the Tlingit. Russian fur traders also probably visited the region in the mid-18th century. The region was later visited by
George Vancouver in
Discovery in 1794, during the
Vancouver Expedition. The explorers are believed to have seen the Glacier Bay ice at its peak, which coincided with their visits. Russians were chiefly concerned with the area until the 1880s, when Americans were drawn to Alaska and the
Klondike by the
Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s. The Pacific Coast Steamship Company ran tours up the Inside Passage from
Tacoma and
Portland during the 1890s, highlighting Muir Glacier and Glacier Bay. The accessibility of Glacier Bay brought naturalists and geologists to study, survey and name the glaciers. The
Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 was organized by railroad executive
Edward Harriman who recruited Muir,
George Bird Grinnell, photographer
Edward S. Curtis and several others to study the Alaska coast on a specially-outfitted ship, spending five days at Glacier Bay. The expedition noted significant glacial retreat. A few months later, the magnitude 8.0 earthquake that shook Yakutat Bay on September 10, 1899, caused Muir Glacier to collapse into the bay, filling it and making it less accessible and attractive to tourists. After 1900,
Taku Glacier became a popular destination. The Ecological Society established a committee to promote the designation of Glacier Bay as a national monument at the urging of Cooper, forwarding copies of their resolutions to President
Calvin Coolidge, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian and the governor of Alaska. The idea was opposed by the U.S. Geological Survey, which reported that the area had potential for mineral extraction. The Interior Department decided to send an agent to survey the area, assigning
George Alexander Parks of the
United States General Land Office, and a future governor of Alaska, to examine the area and to canvass local residents. Parks' 1924 report recommended a very limited boundary designed to include glaciers and little else. In response Cooper and the Ecological Society undertook a letter-writing campaign that supported the park Service and caused Coolidge to add some portions of mature forest to the park's boundaries. Coolidge's proclamation under the
Antiquities Act of Glacier Bay National Monument came on February 26, 1925.
National monument Alaska game managers came under heavy criticism in the 1920s for a perceived lack of interest in protecting
Alaskan brown bears. The state approached the Park Service with a proposal to expand the boundaries of the Glacier Bay monument using land from Tongass National Forest as a bear sanctuary. Park Service studies were favorable, and the Forest Service came to view an expansion of Glacier Bay as preferable to the designation of Admiralty Island as a national park, which was first proposed in the 1930s. By the late 1930s
Ernest Gruening, the director of the Department of Territories and Island Possessions and future governor of Alaska, suggested that the entire region be protected in a single unit extending up the Saint Elias Range to the Wrangell Range. The substance of Gruening's idea would not be realized until 1978, when
Wrangell-St. Elias National Monument would be proclaimed. In the meantime, the Wrangell-St. Elias proposal was set aside in favor of expansions to the east for bear habitat and to the west to protect the Gulf of Alaska coastline. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to expand the monument on April 18, 1939, creating the largest unit in the national park system at the time. During World War II the U.S. Army appropriated an area around
Excursion Inlet to be used as a logistics base for transferring materiel from barges transiting the Inside Passage to seagoing vessels, logging the area for pilings to be used in piers. The base was never used. At the same time the Army built an airfield at
Gustavus, which offered flat terrain and good weather. The airfield was completed too late to participate in the
Aleutian Campaign. However, it was one of four Alaskan airfields suitable for use by
B-29s, with and runways and modern navigation equipment. In 1955 the area around Gustavus was removed from the monument and returned to the public domain, together with at Excursion Inlet. No Park Service personnel were assigned to the monument until 1949, when a seasonal ranger was stationed at Bartlett Cove. The monument was administered locally from 1953 onwards. Starting in 1957 the facilities at Bartlett Cove were expanded as part of the Park Service's
Mission 66 program with employee housing and maintenance facilities. An administrative site was also developed outside the monument boundaries at the Forest Service ranger station at Indian Point on Auke Bay, closer to Juneau.
National park and preserve As a result of the 1971
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), of Alaskan public lands were eligible for inclusion in the national park system. Studies for expansion of Glacier Bay focused on the area around the Alsek River. Facing an approaching deadline imposed by ANCSA to resolve land allotment and seeing delays in the proposed
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in Congress that was intended to make a final settlement, President
Jimmy Carter used his authority under the Antiquities Act to proclaim fifteen National Park Service units in Alaska on December 1, 1978. The proclamation also expanded Glacier Bay National Monument to include the Alsek lands. The final ANILCA legislation, signed into law by Carter on December 2, 1980, established Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve from the national monument. The Alsek addition comprised the bulk of the preserve lands. The chief distinction between park and preserve lands is that sport hunting by non-residents is permitted in accordance with Alaskan game regulations in the preserve, but prohibited in the park. ==World Heritage Site==