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The 1899 Harriman Expedition Retraced: Prince Rupert to Homer

Day by Day Report

  

Day — 1 2 3 4

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Day 4 — July 19
Harriman and College Fjords

Early, in Port Wells, the sun was shining, but as we headed up College Fjord, we entered dense fog. With a change of plans, we turned back for Harriman Fjord instead, where we recovered absolute blue setting off stunning mountain peaks (including Mount Muir) and cascading glaciers.

The exploration of Harriman and College Fjords was, according to Burroughs and Muir, the high point to the original Harriman Expedition. They named the main glaciers in College Fjord after the Seven Sisters women's colleges, a number of men's colleges, and a couple of Harvard presidents and finishing schools. They "discovered" and named Harriman Fjord and the major glaciers within it after passing into uncharted waters beyond the snout of Barry Glacier at the head of Barry Arm. John Muir and a small party stayed in Harriman Fjord for three days, exploring by rowboat and foot; they found signs of previous visitors in the form of cut trees and a hunting camp, and Muir dated a tree at 325 years old, proving that parts of the fjord had been unglaciated for at least that long.

The 2002 Harriman Retraced participants toured the head of Harriman Fjord by Zodiac, visiting the glacier front and a kittiwake colony, where plump chicks stared from their ledge nests. As we left the fjord, we were treated to a young humpback breaching. Back in College Fjord, we got a good long look at a grazing black bear and did another Zodiac excursion, in amongst the ice at the face of Harvard Glacier, where we saw a great deal of thunderous calving action (rocking us in the waves) as well as many seals and Arctic terns. A barbecue dinner on the pool deck, with the glacier as our backdrop, finished off an exceptional day.

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