The Mendenhall Glacier
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Mendenhall Glacier from Mendenhall Lake, August 20, 2013
Since at least the Ice Age populating of the Americas more than 10,000 years ago, there have been people living in Southeast Alaska. Long before the Tlingít culture developed there were people here with their own culture. Once the Tlingít came to this area, perhaps 4,000 years ago, they had a very simple name for the glacier Aak'wtaaksit, the glacier behind the little lake (now Auke Lake), apparently often shortened to simply s'it, glacier. The current practice of simply calling it "the glacier" then has a very long history.
John Muir named it the Auke Glacier to honor the local Aak'w Kwaan Tlingít in 1888, a name adopted by early miners. The current name was given in 1892 to honor Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey who oversaw the first triangulation and astronomical work for the geodetic control from 1891 to 1895.
There are many reputable stories that he never stepped foot in Alaska, and his own writings never mention that he was here, yet the bare statement that he "was off on a trip to Alaska in the interests of a boundary settlement" from a biographical memoir of Mendenhall written by Henry Crew in 1934 for the National Academy of Sciences indicates otherwise.
John Muir named it the Auke Glacier to honor the local Aak'w Kwaan Tlingít in 1888, a name adopted by early miners. The current name was given in 1892 to honor Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey who oversaw the first triangulation and astronomical work for the geodetic control from 1891 to 1895.
There are many reputable stories that he never stepped foot in Alaska, and his own writings never mention that he was here, yet the bare statement that he "was off on a trip to Alaska in the interests of a boundary settlement" from a biographical memoir of Mendenhall written by Henry Crew in 1934 for the National Academy of Sciences indicates otherwise.