La Pérouse found enormous masses of ice detaching themselves from five different glaciers. The water was covered with icebergs, and nearness to the shore was exceedingly dangerous. His small boat was upset half a mile from shore by a mass of ice falling from a glacier.
Mr. Muir describes La Pérouse Glacier as presenting grand ice bluffs to the open ocean, into which it occasionally discharged bergs.
All agree that the appearance and surroundings of the bay are extraordinary.
Yakutat Bay is two hundred and fifteen miles from Sitka. It was called Behring Bay by Cook and Vancouver, who supposed it to be the bay in which the Dane anchored in 1741. It was named Admiralty Bay by Dixon, and the Bay of Monti by La Pérouse. The Indian name is the only one which has been preserved.
It is so peculiarly situated that although several islands lie in front of it, the full force of the North Pacific Ocean sweeps into it. At most seasons of the year it is full of floating ice which drifts down from the glaciers of Disenchantment Bay.
At the point on the southern side of the bay which Dixon named Mulgrave, and where there is a fine harbor, Baranoff established a colony of Siberian convicts about 1796. His instructions from Shelikoff for the laying-out of a city in such a wilderness make interesting reading.
"And now it only remains for us to hope that, having selected on the mainland a suitable place, you will lay out the settlement with some taste and with due regard for beauty of construction, in order that when visits are made by foreign ships, as cannot fail to happen, it may appear more like a town than a village, and that the Russians in America may live in a neat and orderly way, and not, as in Ohkotsk, in squalor and misery, caused by the absence of nearly everything necessary to civilization. Use taste as well as practical judgment in locating the settlement. Look to beauty, as well as to convenience of material and supplies. On the plans, as well as in reality, leave room for spacious squares for public assemblies. Make the streets not too long, but wide, and let them radiate from the squares. If the site is wooded, let trees enough stand to line the streets and to fill the gardens, in order to beautify the place and preserve a healthy atmosphere. Build the houses along the streets, but at some distance from each other, in order to increase the extent of the town. The roofs should be of equal height, and the architecture as uniform as possible. The gardens should be of equal size and provided with good fences along the streets. Thanks be to God that you will at least have no lack of timber."
In the same letter poor Baranoff was reproached for exchanging visits with captains of foreign vessels, and warned that he might be carried off to California or some other "desolate" place.
The colony of convicts had been intended as an "agricultural" settlement; but the bleak location at the foot of Mount St. Elias made a farce of the undertaking. The site had been chosen by a mistake. A post and fortifications were erected, but it is not chronicled that Shelikoff's instructions were carried out. There was great mortality among the colonists and their families, and constant danger of attack by the Kolosh. Finally, in 1805, the fort and settlement were entirely destroyed by their cruel and revengeful enemies.