Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center: Preserving the past, greeting the future

When the Forest Service’s Fireside Lectures began in 1962 at Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center attendees gathered around a roaring log fire in the observatory’s natural stone fireplace.

The wood-burning components remain functional today — along with two original curved settees — from the center’s first days. There were a few years where a propane flame fire filled the hearth. The tank was removed in December 2008 because the fuel deposited a sooty film on the windows and furnishings. The fire now is a flickering electronic version behind the woven metal fire curtain but it gives visitors the illusion of warmth on a chilly summer day when cruise ship guests need the sensation of comfort.

The big stone hearth is the centerpiece of the visitor center’s glass-walled observatory. But it tells a better story than toasty comfort. Rarely does anyone — either long-time resident or momentary tourist — pay attention to the multiple dents in the copper panels above the hearth. But they are a vivid memory from a dark winter night in the 1980s when visitor center live-in caretaker Valerie DeLaune returned to the building and noticed something odd.

“I came home late at night and halfway up the stairs I noticed the windows looked funny,” she wrote on Feb. 23 in a recollection. “There had been someone driving around shooting into houses and I think a church over a period of a couple of weeks, so I figured out what I was looking at. I hustled into the VC because I didn’t know if the scary people were still around. I went upstairs and there were several bullet holes in those thick double-paned windows, and some of the exhibits (that are no longer there) had been hit, and the copper fireplace.” The bullet dents remain today.

Former Forest Service architect Linn Forrest Sr. was the principal designer of the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. Linn arrived in Juneau in 1937 during the Great Depression to investigate options for future recreation site development of Forest Service land. He was soon involved in the federal agency’s Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration efforts employing Alaska Native men to carve or replicate 103 totem poles and three tribal community houses in Southeast Alaska villages. It provided much-needed employment while simultaneously preserving or creating precious Indigenous cultural artifacts.

The Forrests’ respect for Alaska Native culture resulted in an enduring feature of the visitor center: a wood-paneled cedar door carved by Steve Forrest, one of Linn’s three sons and also an architect, illustrating a Tlingit legend about how the Robin got its red breast. Depicted on the exterior carved door — which was the original main entrance to the visitor center — are different birds, flames and skunk cabbage leaves telling a story about Raven the trickster. On the inside panel just one bird face is carved: a Robin.

For the visitor center building Linn Forrest, Sr., then in private practice since 1952 as Linn Forrest Architects, carefully selected a location, design and materials to match the surrounding terrain. He chose a bedrock ledge so the building “blended with the scarred and polished outcropping,” according to a 1993 Historic Assessment Report compiled for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The report cites the quote from a 1963 Juneau Empire interview. Forrest did not want the building to obstruct or detract from the view of the glacier and landscape. First known as “The Overlook,” the curved construction and tall windows melded the building with the terrain.

“The visitor center intentionally sits nestled into the native bedrock, with its low-profile silhouette and natural material palette harmonizing with the surrounding landscape,” recently wrote Zane Jones, CEO and president of MRV Architects, the firm that evolved from founder Linn Forrest Sr.’s company. On April 8 Jones said, “the heavy timber structural system and stone masonry…feels as though it grew organically from the landscape itself.”

Forrest’s work is well known for the natural rock and rustic architectural style he incorporated into the Forest Service’s 1936 Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood in Oregon. He continued the practice of matching structures to landscape with the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. The massive rock-faced concrete fireplace made with Tee Harbor rock is built from the first floor up through the main floor and was visible above the roof. The fireplace measures more than nine feet high and 24 feet wide in the main floor observatory. The room radiates from the hearth in a 32-foot arc built of reinforced concrete and wood post-and-beam design. The building’s original cost was about $250,000 and took 314 days to construct. Local firms Triplette and Trucano erected the building.

The visitor center first hosted guests in May of 1962 with an open house that welcomed 1,700 people at a time when Juneau’s population was about 8,500. The official dedication was conducted a year later on July 21, 1963.

The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center is unique in many ways. It is the first interpretive center built in the country by the U.S. Forest Service. Its purpose, as stated on the entry plaque is “Dedicated in 1962 to the furtherance of knowledge and enjoyment of glacial phenomena.” The two key reasons for construction, according to the 1993 historic report, were to provide shelter from bad weather for visitors arriving on tour buses to view the glacier and to provide a “readily accessible year-round” attraction for scientists studying glaciology. At the time the only other facility for studying glaciers was located in Switzerland.

Despite being listed as having a summer tourist and scientific priority, the visitor center’s main connection has always been local. The weekly Fireside Lectures draw full auditorium attendance for three months every winter; kids still sled off the kame when it is snow covered and participate in ranger-led Saturday events. Hikes to the waterfall have replaced walks to the glacier’s face. East Glacier Trail is a popular 3.5-mile trek. Residents have strong memories of the outdoors as well as indoor facilities.

One of locals’ most appreciated original exhibits was a relief map of the glacier and surrounding vicinity that showed a portion of the icefield. It was created by the same artist who built a 3D model of France’s Normandy area for General Eisenhower’s World War II D-Day attack. Edward Damecki made the Juneau model in 1963. Generations of locals and visitors remember learning from the map where the Mendenhall Glacier originated in the icy plateau beyond their view. Unfortunately, too many fingers had touched the map over the years and wore off the highest peaks. When the visitor center was remodeled in 1999 the 3D map got a makeover that restored the mountain tops and added a clear plexiglas perimeter barrier. The big map is now carefully crated and in safe storage at a Forest Service facility. It was damaged by renters one night (that event ended all rental of the center). Additionally, the map was considered too out of date due to the glacier’s significant retreat. Plans for an updated exhibit include a similar electronic version.

When famed glaciologist Dr. Maynard Miller arrived every June with his new crew of Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) students the first stop he made was to show them the visitor center’s relief map and explain where they would spend their summer as they conducted scientific experiments on the icefield. Miller’s first exploration there was in 1946. The program continues today with different leadership after Dr. Miller’s death in 2014.

The visitor center conjures many memories for Juneauites. When the first director started winter programs in 1962 the building was smaller but the curved shape and 16 tall windows looked the same. KJ Metcalf, who still lives in Juneau with his wife Peggy, came from California as the first employee. He started the Fireside Lecture series. In those early years, the cozy log fire heated the room, melting snow from the wool sweaters of attendees and giving the observatory a homey wet-dog scent.

Many locals recall the closeness of glacier ice that seemed to fill the observatory view in the past. But perhaps the most well-remembered feature was the little restaurant located where today’s information entry desk and Discovery Southeast bookstore are situated. Any conversation with longtime Juneauites sparks recollections of favorite meals at the U-shaped serving counter ringed with 17 fixed stools. This writer’s delight was cherry pie. Others recall pecan or apple pies, or milkshakes and French fries with a hamburger.

While the memories are strong the business income was not. The cafe, known as The Sidtya, a Native-derived term then-translated as “in front of the glacier,” closed in 1974. Joe and Kitty Stehlik were the last operators. After closure, the Forest Service converted the space for educational slide shows.

When the coffee shop was operating, the glacier was close enough that people could walk to and touch the grounded terminus along the beach route to Nugget Falls. In 1975, a couple got too close and a large iceberg calved and struck them. The huge slab of ice fatally collapsed on the woman. Her body was never found. Her companion was medevaced with serious injuries. He survived. Witnesses recalled cautioning the couple to no avail to stay away from the ice because they had heard ominous loud cracking and popping sounds. They knew enough about the glacier’s dynamics to race to the injured person and extract him before the dammed-up water draining from the glacier and waterfall could overtop the calved ice and wash away the injured man.

As the visitor center construction was underway, two other major facilities were being planned nearby. Even before the public visitor center was built by the federal government there were plans to privatize the glacier’s prime location.

Two major development ideas kicked into high gear in the 1960s. Proposals included grandiose plans for an underwater/underground fish viewing exhibit in Steep Creek, a resort hotel, a ski area with aerial tramway into Steep Creek Bowl (behind Thunder Mountain) and a golf course in Dredge Lakes.

In March of 1961 the U.S. Forest Service issued a 20-page prospectus soliciting private capital to build and operate a large resort hotel near Mendenhall Lake. “Of the many glaciers in Alaska,” the document begins, “Mendenhall is the only one readily accessible to the average tourist,” and praised the “glacier face 100-200 feet high and a mile and a half wide of cobalt blue ice.”

The prospectus promoted a 130-room resort hotel, restaurant, conference center and parking complex that could not exceed 80 acres and must be completed within three years of receiving a 30-year special-use permit from the Forest Service. While the resort hotel idea languished the other development gained traction.

More emphasis was placed on a year-round sightseeing and skiing tourist complex. A separate 14-page prospectus solicited private investors to construct and operate an enclosed-car aerial tramway to access a natural ski bowl above Thunder Mountain at the headwaters of Steep Creek. Summer visitation was contemplated as generating sustainable funding for winter skiing. Bids were due July 1, 1965.

The lower terminal of the aerial tramway would be located along the road within a half mile of the lakeshore. The 8,800-foot-long cable car system would need to rise above 2,800 feet in elevation into the Steep Creek Bowl. Visitor facilities were envisioned at the lower and upper tram terminals. The successful developer would need to provide gondola capacity to move a minimum of 300 people per hour in two- to four-person enclosed cars and increase capacity to 500 people per hour in the future. One suggestion was that the road would need to be re-routed to accommodate parking for 250-300 vehicles and some buses.

After extensive review of a feasibility study, an April 3, 1964 memo concluded, “It is the opinion of this committee that the greatest problem involved in the ultimate development of the Mendenhall Recreation Area is that of congestion.” They also recommended “Large crowd areas should be buffered and separated from the salmon area which cannot survive under these conditions.”

Nonetheless, state and federal promotion of the ski area continued for several years. At one point the local ski area nonprofit corporation sponsored a naming contest with a $25 prize to the winner. The name “Glacierama” appears to have been chosen although documentation is fuzzy. For several years the ski bowl project continued to be called Steep Creek.

When asked in a phone interview on March 27 about the reason the hotel and the ski tram project failed, original visitor center director KJ Metcalf said, “It was not practical and it was too expensive. As interpretation (education and science) became more of the Forest Service’s mission (the projects) were not compatible.”

It is a sobering thought today to imagine how congested the area would be 60 years later had the tramway plans materialized along with the visitor center and trail usage.

Another big news item at the visitor center in the 1960s was the arrival in 1968 of one of America’s most famous movie stars: Lassie, the collie dog. KJ Metcalf, as a Forest Service representative, was involved in the filming and worked closely with Lassie’s owner Rudd Weatherwax. KJ’s role was to provide some local knowledge as the four half-hour episodes were being developed. “It was an incredible experience to be part of Hollywood,” he said, but in the end he was glad he didn’t get the job of project coordinator.

Curious readers can search YouTube for Lassie’s Season 15 episodes filmed at Mendenhall Lake, Tracy Arm and north Douglas. Program titles are “Eagle’s Dynasty,” “Day of the Wolf,”“Glacier Canyon,” (U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescue scene), and “Last Frontier,” notable for a floatplane landing and taking off amid floating icebergs on Mendenhall Lake. At the time, Lassie was the canine sidekick of fictional forest ranger Scott Turner, played by actor Jed Allan. Naturally, Lassie is the hero.

As visitor numbers increased the facilities expanded. In the 1980s, the pavilion, bus passenger shelter, kiosk and outside restrooms were added. All maintained the natural stone facade that connects the structures to the landscape and matches the visitor center architectural style. The glacier was in front of Nugget Falls until 1984 when it briefly retreated, then surged forward before finally retreating to reveal the 377-foot high waterfall in 1988.

In 1997-99 a major remodel of the visitor center occurred. The building was closed. The large auditorium was built and other areas were expanded to accommodate crowds. During closure the outdoor pavilion was glassed-in to serve as a temporary bookstore and exhibit area, albeit very small. A pair of elevators was added with access through a long tunnel drilled into the bedrock. Due to considerable stress and strain from over-usage, those elevators frequently halted with visitors stuck inside. The elevators were replaced in 2017. Also that year the bookstore was redesigned as well as the Forest Service information desk where rangers greet guests and answer questions.

Keeping exhibits contemporary is a challenge. Three important exhibits were added in recent years to tell the story of the glacier and its environs. One of the most compelling exhibits features a James Balog “Chasing Ice” video compiling several years of time-lapse photos showing the retreating glacier flowing forward as a river of ice while at the same time shrinking and flattening. A “Salmon in the Trees” digital photo exhibit explains how fish feed a forest.

A local favorite exhibit completed in 2017 is a taxidermied black wolf resting on a high rock outcropping. It is the actual hide of the famous wolf called Romeo. A citizens group provided the funding for the construction of the special exhibit as well as the re-created wolf in a perfect likeness. A recording of his howl along with a winter photo of the black wolf on frozen Mendenhall Lake complete the exhibit. Those who remember the solitary wolf who played with dogs from 2003-2009 take some comfort in seeing him inside the visitor center. Books, stories and memories keep Romeo’s story alive, softening the wolf’s demise at the hands of poachers who were tried in a Juneau court.

In addition to a beloved wild wolf, the past 20 years have seen an increase in black bears. They provide a classic Alaskan attraction for thousands of summer visitors. As the glacier retreated a forest grew on the barren landscape which provides food and shelter for bears. Mother bears bring cubs from mountain dens and teach them to forage on spring grasses, cottonwood catkins and summer spawning sockeye and autumn coho salmon. Elevated platforms, fences, attentive park rangers and the absence of human food encourage safety.

For the past 63 years Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center has proven its architectural design stands the test of time. When it was opened, the glacier was a half mile from the building. Today the distance is estimated to be more than 1.6 miles away. The visitor center was initially planned for 23,000 guests per year. Recent estimates are nearly a million per year. Plans for expansion were approved by the Forest Service in December 2023, but no funding has been provided.

Many descendants of MGVC designing architect Linn A. Forrest Sr. continue to live in Juneau. Last week a four-year-old great-great-grandson raced around the outside of the visitor center, likely unaware of his inherited legacy but happy for a place to dash in fun.

The family continues to appreciate the beauty and function of the building. When Karen Forrest, daughter of Dick, and Chris Kondzela, daughter of Steve, spoke to their fathers about their youthful years working on the project, memories were shared. Steve Forrest, who drafted the building plans and carved the cedar door panels, remarked that the visitor center was a one-of-a-kind architectural vision of his dad Linn Forrest, Sr., and it was a unique opportunity to develop a federal recreation site in front of a glacier in Alaska.

Despite a strong past, the future is uncertain. Recent mass firings of federal employees in 2025 jeopardize normal visitor center operations this summer. However, the 1962 building remains as solid as its bedrock foundation. Its significance endures through the legacy of many lives devoted to serving and educating visitors.

• Laurie Craig has researched and written local history articles for the Juneau Empire for the past two years. She was a U.S. Forest Service park ranger at the glacier from 2004-2018 when she retired.