Contributed by Richard Estelle
This month’s photo by Robinson, in the Palmer Museums’ Wimmer Collection, is of the face of Knik Glacier viewed from below at the bottom of the gorge after waters of Lake George had drained out. For many years, the glacier would annually advance to abut the mountain viewed at left in the photo, forming a dam on a large side valley. With spring and summer melting, the valley would fill with water (Lake George) until the water spilled over the ice and eroded a channel to escape.
This erosion of the glacier face and release of the lake water became a dramatic event of calving ice and violent water flowing through the gorge in which this photo was taken. Until 1966, when the glacier stopped advancing to form the dam, his dramatic discharge annually flooded the river valley below, including riverside homes and the community of Matanuska. An additional photo by an unknown photographer, from our Bunting Collection, shows a large chunk of the glacier face, perhaps as high as a five-story building, calving into the raging water below as the lake emptied in a matter of days.
Photo of the Month is a project of the Matanuska Valley Historical Photo Project, which aims to collect images and stories detailing the Valley’s past. You can view our ever growing collection of historic images online at www.mvhphotoproject.org. If you have photos of the Mat-Su Valley area, or information about some of the photos you see, please reach out to us at director@palmermuseum.org or 907-746-7668. This project is sponsored by the generous support of the MTA Foundation.
