de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 17 



very different from those of today. Even now floating ice in early 

 summer may prevent travel above Haenke Island, and we have seen 

 bergs drifting down to Knight Island. On the other hand, there has, 

 in general, been a great retreat of glaciers near Yakutat since the 18th 

 centmy, and other geologists (Russell 1892, p. 172; Tarr and Martin, 

 1914, pp. 108 f.; Plafker and Miller, 1958) believe that Malaspina 

 encountered a solid wall of glacial ice in the vicinity of Haenke Island. 



The natives told us that before they had guns (which they 

 did not acquire until the end of the 18th century), they were unable to 

 camp above Point Latouche because of the floating ice. The main 

 seahng camp was then 3 miles south of the point, at a place called 

 Tlaxata, an Eyak word referring to the proximity of the glacier. 

 In the early 19th century, after the destruction of the Russian post in 

 1805, the natives made a fortified camp at Wuganiys, about 2^ miles 

 above the point. At the end of the century the sealing camps just 

 above Point Latouche were great centers (Grinnell, 1901, pp. 158-165). 

 Remarks made by some informants suggest, however, that there may 

 have been a period in the middle of the century when these places 

 were little used because of the ice. 



Until the middle of the last century, Russell Fiord was blocked by 

 glaciers which dammed up a fresh-water lake at the southern end of 

 the fiord. This barrier, undoubtedly due to the 18th-century ad- 

 vance, extended from Beasley Creek to Cape Stoss. The name for 

 the latter was an Eyak word, meaning "it has the glacier in its mouth." 

 This lake was drained by the Situk River (see Tebenkov, 1852, chart 

 VII ; Davidson, 1904, map vi). At that time it was possible to travel 

 by canoe from the lake, through a series of lakes and streams, to 

 Yakutat Bay just below Knight Island. The ice barrier broke some 

 time between 1850 and 1875, according to our informants, when the 

 dammed-up lake waters were discharged into Russell Fiord, reducing 

 the Situk River to a small stream. Tarr and Martin (1914, p. 230) 

 estimate that the vegetation on the old lake beach at the head of 

 Russell Fiord was not over 50 years old in 1909-13. This change in 

 the size of the river must have affected adversely any settlements on 

 the upper Situk, where a fortified village had been built shortly after 

 1805. We do not know, however, whether any attempt was made to 

 reoccupy this site after the original owners, the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi, 

 were massacred at their camp at WuganiyE. 



Native tradition also refers to a breaking of a glacier bridge across 

 the Alsek River probably about the same time or toward the end of 

 the centiu-y. Prior to this, the river had flowed out under a tunnel 

 of ice. The Tluk'^ax.vdi from Dry Bay, when making then- annual 

 trips to the interior, had to cany theu" canoes overland through a 

 gorge on the west side of the river in order to bypass the glacier, and 



