Long before the present national park, the Huna Tlingit people lived in Glacier Bay. Among the evidence of their traditional activities are trees that were stripped of their bark for a variety of uses. You can read more about these trees, which are still growing around the lagoon in Bartlett Cove, by clicking on the picture. 

 

 

Read more about the European exploration, early tourism development, homesteading and other activities in and near what is now Glacier Bay National Park.

Pioneer ecologist William S. Cooper of the University of Minnesota conducted studies of plant succession beginning in 1916, and was instrumental in the move to have the area protected. Here you can read Dr. Cooper’s first-person account of his intensive lobbying effort, which met many obstacles but was ultimately successful. Cooper also details his losing fight to prohibit mining in the newly created national monument.