Kenai Fjords A Stern and Rock-Bound Coast: Historic Resource Study

The Fjords

Resurrection Bay

Although outside the boundaries of the park, Resurrection Bay served as the principal location for expeditions and settlement in the region. Considered the largest fjord along the coast, it was likely formed by the collective massing of the Harding and Sargent icefields. [25] The Russian geologist Petr Doroshin visited the bay on several gold and coal mining expeditions to the peninsula in the early 1850s. Doroshin described a landscape in which glaciers known by Russian names cascaded down the mountainous entrance to the deep bay.

At the west side of the entrance to Resurrection Bay a great glacier [Bear Glacier] comes down the mountainside. Its moraines, coming from two sides, connect into one dark stripe down the middle of the glacier. As we advanced into Resurrection Bay we could see more and more of the branch of Nunikofski Glacier on the eastern shore. Streams run from under it as they do from Resurrection Glacier. [26]

George Davidson wrote of the bay in his 1904 article, yet given his tendency to reiterate earlier works and rely heavily on other sources, it is unclear if his description actually corresponded with how the bay appeared in the early 1900s. He wrote, "The head of Resurrection Bay is nearly three miles wide, and on the eastern shore, two miles from the head, is a glacier [Godwin Glacier] one mile wide facing the west and a little back from the shore." [27] Harding Gateway at the entrance to Resurrection Bay was named during the presidential visit to Seward on July 17, 1923. [28]

Aialik Cape, and the remainder of the southern Kenai Peninsula coast, are notable for being windswept and stormy. M. Woodbridge Williams/NPS photo in Alaska Regional Profiles, Southcentral Region, July 1974, 20.

Aialik Bay

Aialik Bay, a deeply forged inlet formed by the retreat of the Aialik, Pederson, and Holgate glaciers, extends approximately twenty-two miles from the face of Aialik Glacier to the Gulf of Alaska. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, USC&GS surveyor Paul Whitney observed that the Aialik Glacier was unique among Alaska glaciers because it likely left a "bar across the bay centuries ago." [29] In 1908 and 1909 geologists Grant and Higgins named Aialik Glacier and Aialik Cape after Aialik Bay, a name that originated from an "eskimo name obtained by the Russians and recorded as Bukh[ta] Ayalikskaya." [30] The glacier extends four miles from Harding Icefield to Aialik Bay.

Between 1908 and 1911, Grant also named several other features in the bay: Pederson Glacier, Coleman Bay, Holgate Arm, and Holgate Glacier. The derivation of the name Coleman is unknown. Grant named Holgate glacier for Dr. Thomas F. Holgate, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts of Northwestern University. [31] A field geologist during the summer, Grant was also a professor and the chair of the Northwestern University geology department. Grant accepted the position in 1899 and remained with the university until his death in 1932. [32] Addison Glacier is located between Pederson and Aialik glaciers. Grant named this glacier for his eldest son, Addison Winchell. [33]

Holgate Glacier, as it appeared in the spring of 1955. Alaska Sportsman, August 1956, 19.

The group of jagged rocky islands at the mouth of Aialik Bay acquired the name Ostrova Ayaliki during the Russian period. Then, in 1786, Captain Nathaniel Portlock visited the site and named them the Chiswell Islands, after a wealthy man named Trench Chiswell. [34] Portlock's name still holds.

Glacier limits in the Aialik Bay area. Steven W. Nelson and Thomas D. Hamilton, Guide to the Geology of the Resurrection Bay-Eastern Kenai Fjords Area, Anchorage, Alaska Geological Society, 1989, 25.

Harris Bay

Northwestern Lagoon is surrounded by high ice-capped peaks with glaciers flowing down the mountains from the top of Harris Peninsula. Upper Northwestern Lagoon has only recently been deglaciated, the glaciers having receded a mile or more in the last 20 years. Arctic terns and mew gulls were the first to colonize islands recently exposed by these receding glaciers. [35] — Nina Faust, 1977

Harris Bay forms at the mouth of Northwestern Glacier and Northwestern Lagoon. In 1908-09 Grant and Higgins named both the bay and the glacier for Abram W. Harris, president of Northwestern University between 1906 and 1916 and a friend of Grant. [36] In 1938 calving ice from the Northwestern Glacier crowded Harris Bay, the lagoon was "shoal and foul," and the entrance was "blocked by rocks, bars, and usually by large cakes of ice." [37]

Northwestern Glacier, as it appeared in the mid-1940s. Alaska Sportsman, October 1946, 20.

McCarty Fjord or East Arm of Nuka Bay

McCarty Glacier is believed to have been named after William McCarty of Seward. The USGS reported and recorded the local name in 1911. William McCarty was an entrepreneur and boat builder who owned the McNeily Cafe or Moose Cabin Cafe in Seward during the years 1904-05.

In 1913 Alfred H. Brooks of the USGS named the Dinglestadt Glacier, on the fjord's west side, for Konstantin Dingelshtedt, an employee of the Russian-American Company. In 1834 Dingelshtedt and fellow employee Ivan Chernof circumnavigated the west coast of the Kenai Peninsula. [38] Chernof Glacier is located ten miles to the north; both glaciers are part of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

McArthur Pass derived its name from the USC&GS steamer that was commissioned to survey the outer Kenai coast in 1906-07. In 1911, Grant named James Lagoon in honor of Captain James Bettels, a longtime Valdez resident. In 1927 and 1928, the USC&GS named Moonlight Bay and Roaring Cove, respectively, for descriptive reasons. [39]

Adventurers explore McCarty Glacier during 1919 USC&GS expedition. National Archives, photo 23-G-IAD-9795.

Nuka Bay (West Arm)

The estuary of Nuka Bay is ten miles wide and divides into two distinct bodies of water or arms. The name of what was originally called East Arm became McCarty Fjord. In 1826 Lieutenant Gavriil Sarychev published an Alutiiq or Eskimo name for the bay. The name Guba Nuka, or Nuka Bay, is derived from "nukaq" which refers to a "young bull caribou." [40] Sarychev had visited the area in 1790 and provided one of the earliest descriptions. His accounts attested to the impressive range of the glacier. He noted that

Nuka Bay is seven miles and a half broad at its entrance. It extends nine miles in length, having mountainous and woody shores. In the interior shore of the bay, we found in the cleft of a mountain, snow or ice, so high as almost to reach above the tops of the trees. [41]

Nuka Glacier, northwest of the bay, is an outflow glacier from the Iceworm Peak Glacier Complex. It flows into Bradley Lake but is located near the headwaters of the Nuka River. [42] The river is in the park, but the glacier is primarily outside. In 1908 the USC&GS bestowed the name Nuka on the large island to the west of the bay's mouth. Grant and Higgins named Yalik Glacier for the small settlement of the same name in Yalik Bay, which is part of Nuka Bay. [43]

Split Glacier–so named because a huge boulder has forced the river of ice to follow two paths–is located at the head of North Arm of Nuka Bay. Grant and Higgins noted that the glacier looked like an obvious route for travel and exploration between Nuka and Kachemak bays. [44] Few, however, have followed that route during the decades that have followed their observation.