Glacier Bay Basin in southeastern Alaska, in the United States, encompasses the Glacier Bay and surrounding mountains and glaciers, which was first proclaimed a U.S. National Monument on February 25, 1925, and which was later, on December 2, 1980, enlarged and designated as the Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, covering an area of 3,283,000 acres (1,329,000 hectares). In 1986, UNESCO declared an area of 57,000 acres (23,000 hectares) within a World Biosphere Reserve. This is the largest UNESCO protected biosphere in the world. In 1992, UNESCO included this area as a part of a World Heritage site, extending over an area of 24,300,000-acre (9,800,000 ha) which also included the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Kluane National Park (Canada) and Tatshenshini-Alsek Park (Canada). Part of the National Park is also designated a Wilderness area covering 2,658,000 acres (1,076,000 hectares).
Current glaciers cover an area and accounts for 27% of the Park area. Up until the early 1700s the area was a large single glacier of solid ice. It has since retreated and evolved into the largest protected water area park in the world. Glacier Bay, on the Gulf of Alaska, was known as the Grand Pacific Glacier, about thick and around in width. Over the last 200 years the glaciers have retreated, exposing of ocean, and in this process left 20 separate other glaciers in its trail. In 1890, the name "Glacier Bay" as such was given to the bay by Captain Lester A. Beardslee of the U.S. Navy. It was first proclaimed a U.S. National Monument on February 25, 1925, by President Calvin Coolidge.
History
thumb|right|Varying claims in the Alaska panhandle before arbitration in 1903. In blue is the border claimed by the United States, in red is the border claimed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Green is the boundary asserted by British Columbia. Yellow indicates the modern border.
Geologists believe that Glacier Bay existed during a minimum of four Glacial periods ending with the Little Ice Age, which has a 4,000-year-old record, as the latest period. All glaciers in the park today are said to be remnants of this glacial period.
The earliest recorded history of the Glacier Bay area starts with the 1741 Russian expedition of Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov. La Perouse (after whom one of the glaciers in the bay was named subsequently) established contact with the local inhabitants, the Tlingits at Lutya Bay, in 1786, though traditionally the Tlingit lived in the area before the last glacial advance forced them out. This was followed by the Russians staking their claim to the region.
In 1794, Joseph Whidbey, master of the Discovery during George Vancouver's 1791–95 expedition, reported that his exploration of this part of the coast was blocked by a wall of width and ) thick. Vancouver claimed the land for Britain in conflict with an earlier Russian claim, which was resolved by the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825. The United States purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 with a claim under that treaty of owning all lands up to "the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast". The United States and Canada agreed that an arbitration board would draw the exact boundary. The arbitration award given in 1903 resolved the Alaska boundary dispute by drawing a line that linked the mountain peaks in this area. Because the agreement froze the exact boundary in 1903, further retreat of the glacier does not alter the boundary as the coast extends northward. As a result, the northern edge of Tarr Inlet is approaching the boundary.
With the discovery of gold in the area, gold rush brought miners to the area. In 1890, Willoughby Island in Glacier Bay was the scene of a meeting of the miners, which was followed by the establishment of the Berry mining district. In the 1890s, a salt mine was established at Bartlett Cove. Fox farms and a cannery were also established; however, the cannery was abandoned in 1935. Now, it stands retreated to , as a remnant of the old wall of the glacier system and has 16 major tidewater glaciers (10, 12 and 15 are also mentioned in some references).
In 1899, wealthy railroad magnate Edward Harriman arranged for a maritime expedition called the Harriman Alaska Expedition to Alaska comprising an elite community of scientists, artists, photographers, and naturalists to explore and document the Alaskan coast. The voyagers, spent two months traveling from Seattle, along the coast of Alaska, to Siberia, and back again. In many ways, the expedition was an intersection of 19th-century science and 20th-century science. The expedition claimed to have discovered some 600 species that were new to science, including 38 new fossil species. They charted the geographic distribution of many species. They discovered an unmapped fiord and named several glaciers. John Muir and his friend Harriman who were members of this expedition were instrumental in governmental lobbying on National Park legislation says. The Harriman expedition was instrumental in documenting the extent of the glacier's retreat in 1899.
John Muir was seeking corroboration of the continental glaciation theories of Louis Agassiz, whose controversial Etudes sur les Glaciers was published in 1840. In 1925, Glacier Bay was declared a national monument. When President Calvin Coolidge declared the Glacial Bay to be a national monument, in 1925, the objective clearly stated was: