The Harding Ice Field Snowmobile Development
During the 1960s, when mountaineers were showing an
increasing amount of interest in crossing the Harding
Icefield, local entrepreneurs were beginning to envision
the commercial possibilities of taking tourists up to
the icefield on short-term excursions.
Commercial interest in the icefield apparently began
in the spring of 1966 when Seward resident William C.
Vincent made his first visit. Vincent, who ran a
plumbing and heating shop, had lived in Seward since
1950; he was a Chamber of Commerce member and a two-term
city councilman. [112]
Vincent quickly became enthusiastic about the icefield;
by January 1967, he had assembled a four-person
development team and publicized a five-year icefield
development scenario. As his granddaughter later noted,
the team "proposed to make the Harding Icefield a
visitors resort with
glacier skiing, snowmobile tours, summer ski racing camps,
mountaineering, outward bound camps, and cross-country
ski touring." The first development project would be the
construction of a small dock at Bear Glacier. [113]
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A trio of skiers
crossing the Harding Icefield during the 1970s.
M. Woodbridge Williams photo, NPS/Alaska Area
Office print file, NARA Anchorage.
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Vincent's development project was never realized, but
others shared his dreams and decided to act. Jim Arness,
who operated a snowmachine rental shop in North Kenai,
"dreamed up" the idea of establishing a snowmobile
touring operation on the icefield near Seward. He
therefore teamed up with Joe Stanton, the head of Harbor
Air Service, and in the summer of 1969 the two
constructed a "shack" on the icefield–reportedly
"somewhere near the headwaters of Exit Glacier"–and
brought three ski-doos up to the site. The operation
that year apparently lasted for only a short time; snows
that autumn came so quickly that both their building and
one snowmachine were buried before they could be
removed. The items were never recovered. [114]
Undaunted, the pair returned the following spring and
began constructing a 16' x 20' equipment shed and
warming hut. Soon afterward, they flew ten ski-doos
(nine single-tracks and one double-track) and three
ski-boos (sleds) up to the icefield. [115]
In May, amid much fanfare, local residents and tourists
began flocking to the site; some came to ride the
snowmachines, but others wanted to ski, snowshoe, or
merely sightsee. By early June, approximately 100 people
had been flown up to the icefield, and by late July an
estimated 200 to 300 had made the trip. To judge by
contemporary accounts, reaction to the operation was
overwhelmingly positive; local resident Dot Bardarson
noted that her flight and snowmachine ride was "the best
$70 I ever spent." The project's backers, sensing that
it would be a long-term success, laid plans to increase
the size of their operation.
They envisioned a $1.5
million construction project that would include a
gondola lift system (to take people to the top of Exit
Glacier), a summit station, a lower terminal, and a
T-bar lift near the warming hut. [116]
But in early July 1970, the operation hit a major
snag when Bureau of Land Management officials in
Anchorage read newspaper accounts about it. They quickly
learned that the operation was being held on BLM
land–and thus needed an agency-issued Special Land Use
Permit–but Arness, the operation's organizer, had not
applied for one. Making the situation far murkier was
Interior Secretary Stewart Udall's 1966 land freeze
order. This action withdrew the Harding Icefield (along
with most of Alaska's unreserved public land) from
entry; as a result, Arness would not have been approved
for a permit even had he applied for one. BLM official
Sherman Berg drove to Kenai on July 9 and discussed the
matter with Arness; Berg personally expressed hope that
a satisfactory resolution could be worked out, but he
could promise nothing. Meanwhile, the agency handed
Arness a tresspass injunction. He was given thirty days
to quit his operation and vacate the area. [117]
Seward area residents, predictably, were saddened by
the BLM's decision. The Seward Phoenix Log, in an
editorial, said "Let us hope that something can be done
to see that the Cap development continues–it means a lot
to Seward and the rest of the Kenai Peninsula." H. A.
"Red" Boucher, who was running for governor at the time,
visited the icefield on July 20; he vowed to keep it
open and wrote a lengthy letter to BLM officials
protesting the planned expulsion. [118]
The actions of Boucher, Arness, and local officials
gave the operators a little breathing room; the
operation's deadline to vacate was extended from August
to November. But on the larger question, the BLM could
not budge, perhaps because of the precedent that such an
action would have had on other Alaska public lands.
Given that scenario, the operation continued in business
until September 1970, perhaps later. The operators,
however, were forced to leave so quickly (perhaps
because of a heavy, late-season snowstorm) that, as in
1969, they left their warming hut in place where it was
engulfed by the winter's snowfall. As for the
snowmobiles, several more were lost. One account states
that two were buried near the warming hut, while another
avers that the operators attempted to drive three off
the icefield but became stuck in the crevasses of Bear
Glacier. [119]
Bill Vincent, who fully supported the Arness-Stanton
operation, refused to give up. He recognized that the
icefield was an attraction that "would offer something
strangely unique to visitors regardless of where they
may have come from." Comparing the area to Columbia
Icefield in Canada's Jasper National Park, he
furthermore noted that the icefield could be put to any
number of uses, including "a military testing area for
arctic equipment and survival and an international type
hotel." As late as February 1971, he wrote that his
group "still plan[s] on seeking private capital to
develop the field." [120]
The continuing land freeze and the long battle over
Alaska's national interest lands, however, prevented any
such plans from being implemented, at least in the short
term.
One positive spinoff of Vincent's publicity and the
Arness-Stanton operation was a revival of interest in
Seward-based tourist flights over the icefield. As noted
above, flights over the icefield had been advertised,
primarily to Seward residents, for short-term periods in
both the 1920s and 1930s. In the decades that followed,
some tourists doubtless arranged for overflights with
Seward- or Homer-based pilots. But no one, so far as is
known, advertised such a service. Beginning in 1970,
however, the Milepost–a well-known tourist
publication–began to advertise the beauty of the Harding
Ice Cap in its Seward section and also urged tourists to
see the Ice Cap "via charter plane trips." This
verbiage, often accompanied by advertisements from local
air taxis, remained in future Milepost issues as
well as in other local promotional literature. [121] |