142 
THE DISCOVERY OF GLACIER BAY, ALASKA 
native boatmen, the old chief pointed to mount Fairweather and 
said : “ One mountain is as good as another. There, is a very big 
one. Go, climb that, if }’OU want to.” The disappointed ex- 
plorers were forced to turn Ijack, and then visited the most west- 
erly of Vancouver’s great ba3"s south of mount Fairweather, 
afterward named Taylor bay b}^ Coast Survey officials. In that 
most interesting and beautifully illustrated article, “ Among 
the Thlinkets,” Century Magazine, July, 1882, Lieutenant Wood 
wrote : 
“ !Mr Taylor decided to return home, and we accompanied him to Sitka. 
There I reengaged Sam and Myers, and, obtaining a new crew, returned 
at once to a bay about twenty miles southeast of mount Fairweather. 
My purpose was to explore the bay, cross the Coast range, and strike the 
upper watere of Chilkaht.” 
From that bay he “ went with a party of mountain-goat hunters 
up into the St. Elias Alps back of mount Fairweather — that is, 
to the northeast of that mountain.” He found that great game, 
also the rare St. Elias silver-tipped bear, crossed the divide to 
sight of the bush country explored Mr E. J. Glave in 1891, 
and returning to the ba}’’ spent several days, in the seal-hunters’ 
camp in Geikie inlet near the Wood glacier, as they were later 
named by Professor Reid. Lieutenant Wood had applied for a 
year’s leave of absence, with the intention of making further 
in;lependent ex[)loration in the interior of Alaska, ljut it was 
denied him. His brief reference to the Ijay in a popular maga- 
zine article cannot be accepted as Inlnging it detinitel}^ to the 
knowledge of the world, since he did not specihcally describe, 
sketch, ma]), or name any part ot the region. In ]>rivate letters 
and verbally, wlienever the subject has been Innached. Lieutenant 
Wood entirely disclaims being the discoverer of Glacier bay, and 
very modestly protested against Professor Reid’s naming for him 
the glacier beside Avhich he had camped. It was not vital.to him 
at the time that the bay was not charted ; he simpl}’- went along 
with the Hoonahs to the region where they promised great game — 
not going for glaciers nor glory, but only to shoot mountain goat 
and see the alpine region behind mount Fairweather. 
In October, 1879, Professor John Muir, who for two seasons 
had been searching for and visiting the glaciers of the Alaska coast 
from the Stikine river northward, found this bay full of glaciers 
of which native seal-hunters had told him. He, with his com- 
panions, Rev. Hall Young and four Christian Indians from Fort 
MT-angell, canoed to the head of the bay, camped for a few da}'S, 
