Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier, blue ice sheet, 12 miles (19 km) long, southeastern Alaska, U.S. It was originally named Sitaantaagu (“the Glacier Behind the Town”) or Aak’wtaaksit (“the Glacier Behind the Little Lake”) by the Tlingit Indians. Naturalist John Muir later called it Auke (Auk) Glacier, for the Auk Kwaan band of Tlingit Indians. In 1892 it was renamed for Thomas Corwin Mendenhall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, who helped determine the boundary between Canada and Alaska.

The glacier is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide and more than 100 feet (30 meters) high at its terminus. It flows from the southern half of the huge Juneau Icefield, which begins in the Boundary Ranges along the Alaska-Canada border. A relic of the Little Ice Age that lasted until the mid-18th century, the Mendenhall Glacier is an example of a receding glacier (about 100 to 150 feet [30 to 45 meters] a year), displaying raw glacier moraine with exposed remnants of a long-buried forest. It is part of Tongass National Forest and is located 13 miles (21 km) northwest of Juneau; it is the only glacier in the region that is readily accessible by highway year-round. Adjacent Mendenhall Lake began to form about 1900 and has become about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, 1 mile (1.6 km) wide, and 220 feet (65 meters) deep near the center of the glacier’s face.