The next vessels to visit Yakutat bay after Malaspina's voyage, so far as known, were the Discovery and Chatham, under command of Captain George Vancouver. This voyage increased knowledge of the geography of southern Alaska more than any that preceded it, and was also of greater importance than any single expedition of later date to that region. The best maps of southern Alaska published at the present day are based largely on the surveys of Vancouver.
The Discovery, under the immediate command of Vancouver, and the Chatham, in charge of Peter Puget, cruised eastward along the southern coast of Alaska in 1794. The Discovery passed the entrance to Yakutat bay without stopping, but the Chatham anchored there, and important surveys were carried on under Puget's directions.
On June 28, the Discovery was in the vicinity of Icy bay, where the shore of the ocean seemed to be composed of solid ice. Eastward from Icy bay the coast is described as "bordered by lowlands rising with a gradual and uniform ascent to the foot-hills of lofty mountains, whose summits are but the base from which Mount St. Elias towers magnificently into the regions of perpetual frost." A low projecting point on the western side of the entrance to Yakutat bay was named "Point Manby." The coast beyond this toward the northeast became less wooded, and seemed to produce only a brownish vegetation, which farther eastward entirely disappeared. The country was then bare and composed of loose stones. The narrative contains an interesting account of the grand coast scenery from St. Elias to the eastern end of the Fairweather range; but this does not at present claim attention.
While the Chatham continued her cruise eastward, Puget ascended Yakutat bay nearly to its head, and also navigated some of the channels between the islands along its eastern shore. A cape on the eastern side, where the bay penetrates the first range of foot-hills, was named "Point Latouche;" but the same landmark had previously been designated "Pa. de la Esperanza" by Malaspina. The bay at the head of the inlet, which Malaspina had named "Desangaño," was named "Digges sound," after one of the officers of the Chatham. Boats were sent to explore this inlet, but found it "closed from side to side by a firm, compact body of ice, beyond which, to the back of the ice, a small inlet appeared to extend N. 55° E. about a league."12
12 Vancouver's Voyage, vol. 5, p. 389.
These observations confirm those made by Malaspina and indicated on the chart reproduced on plate 7, where the ice front is represented as reaching as far south as Haenke island.
The evidence furnished by Malaspina and Vancouver as to the former extent of the glaciers at the head of Yakutat bay is in harmony with observations made by Vancouver's party in Icy strait and Cross sound.13 Early in July, 1794, these straits were found to be heavily encumbered with floating ice. At the present time but little ice is met with in that region. On Vancouver's charts there is no indication that he was aware of the existence of Glacier bay, although one of his officers, in navigating Icy strait, passed its immediate entrance. These records, although somewhat indefinite and of negative character, indicate that the fields of floating ice at the mouth of Glacier bay were much more extensive a hundred years ago than at present; but they do not show where the glaciers of that region formerly terminated.
13 Ibid., pp. 417–421.