The first discovery of the southern coast of Alaska was made by Vitus Bering and Alexei Cherikof, in the vessels St. Peter and St. Paul, in 1741. On July 20 of that year, Bering saw the mountains of the mainland, but anchored his vessels at Kyak island, 180 miles west of Yakutat bay, without touching the continental shore. A towering, snow-clad summit northeast of Kyak island was named "Mount St. Elias," after the patron saint of the day.
COOK, 1778.
The next explorer to visit this portion of Alaska was Captain James Cook, who sailed past the entrance of Yakutat bay on May 4, 1778. Thinking that this was the bay in which Bering anchored, he named it "Bering's bay." Mount St. Elias was seen in the northwest at a distance of 40 leagues, but no attempt was made to measure its height.
LA PÉROUSE, 1786.3
3 Voyage de la Pérouse autour du monde. Four vols., 4°, and atlas; Paris, 1797; vol. 2, pp. 130–150.
Yakutat bay, in which we are specially interested, was next seen by the celebrated French navigator, J. F. G. de la Pérouse, in command of the frigates La Boussole and L'Astrolabe, on June 23, 1786.
The chart showing the route followed by La Pérouse during this portion of his voyage is reproduced in plate 3. In the splendid atlas accompanying the narrative of his travels, the explorer pictures the quaint, high-pooped vessels in which he circumnavigated the globe. These French frigates were the first to cruise off Yakutat bay. The last vessel to navigate those waters was the United States revenue steamer Corwin, which took our little exploring party on board in September, 1890, and then steamed northward to the ice-cliffs at the head of Disenchantment bay. So far as I am aware, the Corwin is the only vessel that has floated on the waters of that inlet north of Haenke island. One hundred years has made a revolution in naval architecture, but has left this portion of the Alaska coast still unexplored.
La Pérouse sailed northward from the Sandwich islands, and first saw land, which proved to be a portion of the St. Elias range, on June 23. At first the shore was obscured by fog, which, as stated in the narrative of the voyage, "suddenly disappearing, all at once disclosed to us a long chain of mountains covered with snow, which, if the weather had been clear, we would have been able to have seen thirty leagues farther off. We discovered Bering's Mount Saint Elias, the summit of which appeared above the clouds."