Dundas Bay is located on the north shore of Icy Strait in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, about 24 miles (39 km) west of Gustavus and 11 miles (18 km) north of Elfin Cove, Alaska. It is the site of a historical salmon cannery on the western shore and a former Tlingit village on the eastern shore. William Healey Dall of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey named Dundas Bay in 1879, likely after Dundas Point. Captain George Vancouver named Dundas Point in 1794 in honor of Henry Dundas, the Home Secretary in 1791 and War Secretary in 1794. The Dundas River drains a watershed of about 64,000 acres (25,900 hectares) at the southeast end of the Fairweather Range. It flows southeast for about 16 miles (26 km) from the southern end of Geikie Glacier through a broad valley into Dundas Bay. The Fairweather Range consists mainly of rocks derived from magmatic intrusions in the Chugach terrane. The Chugach terrane began accreting along the western edge of the Wrangellia terrane around 230 million years ago. The bedrock primarily consists of graywacke, argillite, slate, and conglomerate sediments associated with turbidites deposited in a deep ocean trench. The bedrock underlying Dundas Bay is mostly granodiorite, formed from magma intruded during the Late Cretaceous period. Overlying this pluton, particularly along the Dundas River watershed, are Quaternary sediments deposited during glacial recession. The present-day landscape was largely shaped by the Last Glacial Maximum of the Pleistocene and subsequent minor glaciations during the Holocene, when ice advanced 1,600-1,000 years ago, 500-300 years ago, and 300-200 years ago. This glacial history transformed Dundas Bay from a fjordal seascape into a terrestrial environment dominated by glacier outwash sediments and ice-marginal lakes.

Xakwnoowu, a historical village, was situated on the eastern shore of Dundas Bay near the mouth of the Dundas River. It was inhabited by the T’akdeintaan clan of the Hoonah Tlingit. A trail linked this village to another settlement at Point Carolus in Glacier Bay. The Dundas River supports seasonal runs of chum, sockeye, coho, and pink salmon. Established around 1150 AD, the village was used until the mid-18th century by Tlingit ancestors who migrated north along the Pacific coast from the Nass and Skeena Rivers, founding northern Tlingit clans from Icy Strait to Yakutat Bay. The village centered around a fort on a refuge rock connected to the mainland by a sand spit. This steep-sided diorite dome, about 72 feet (22 m) high and 490 feet (150 m) long, is on the west bank of the Dundas River near its mouth. The elevation offers sweeping views of Dundas Bay, allowing observation of any water approach. Internecine warfare was common, with raids on the Chugach Sugpiat, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, and rival Tlingit clans, sometimes involving multi-village alliances. War parties traveled by canoe to attack enemy villages and besiege forts, typically killing men and taking women and children as prisoners or slaves. The weapons of war included bows and arrows, spears, double-bladed stone or metal knives, and clubs. Fighters carried shields and wore bentwood visors, carved wooden helmets, thick leather tunics, and armor made of wooden slats or rods. In 1794, when Vancouver anchored in Dundas Bay, Archibald Menzies, the ship’s surgeon and botanist, reported a Tlingit village in eastern Dundas Bay, likely the village of L’istee situated upstream on the Dundas River. Dundas Bay was a favored sealing ground for the T’akdeintaan, who resented the incursion of southern Tlingit seal poachers. These poachers were repeatedly driven off but threatened to return with 90 canoes and exterminate the T’akdeintaan. In 1880, Captain Lester A. Beardslee of the US Navy, commander of the Department of Alaska and of USS Jamestown, preempted a war among the coastal tribes by threatening severe punishment.

In 1900, the Western Fisheries Company of Portland, Oregon, built a salmon cannery on the west shore of Dundas Bay. The company reportedly paid a fee to the head of the T’akdeintaan Tlingit clan for the use of the land and the fish in Dundas Bay. Clan members continued to fish in the Dundas River and sold their catch to the cannery. Initially, the facility was a small hand operation capable of producing 300 cases per day, with 48 one-pound cans per case, and employed 96 workers, including 26 Native fishermen and 26 Native cannery workers. Most Native Alaskan fishermen used company-owned gear and were paid based on their catch. In 1900 and 1901, sockeye salmon were fished from Bartlett Cove, Dundas Bay, Taylor Bay, Glacier Bay, Surge Bay, Dry Bay, Excursion Inlet, Cape Spencer, Hoktaheen Cove, and Takanis Bay. In 1900, Jefferson F. Moser, aboard the US Fish Commission steamer USS Albatross, reported that the cannery harvested 67,000 sockeye salmon from these localities. Pink salmon were obtained from Mud Bay and Port Althorp. Fish were transported from boats to hand carts and wheeled up an inclined plane to the fish house at the seaward end of the cannery. Canning machinery was later installed, increasing capacity to 500 cases per day. These cases were transported to Seattle by regular freight steamers serving Southeast Alaska. The cannery changed ownership in 1901 when the Pacific Packing and Navigation Company purchased the facility and added a mechanized processing line. This company consolidated the properties and fishing rights of 23 other Alaska companies as part of the industry’s consolidation at that time. In 1905, the Northwestern Fisheries Company acquired the Dundas Bay facility. By 1912, a small Native Alaskan town had developed adjacent to the cannery buildings. Historical photographs show small houses and ancillary structures, mostly built on pilings, clustered along the shore of the sheltered inlet north of the cannery. In 1932, the Northwestern Fisheries Company sold the plant to Pacific American Fisheries, which never reopened it. With the cannery’s closure, most Native Alaskan workers relocated to the village of Hoonah on Chichagof Island. Read more here and here. Explore more of Dundas Bay and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve here: