Twin Glacier Camp, 30 miles northeast of Juneau, opened in 1923. From the site visitors could view the nearby glacier, hike, hunt and fish, and enjoy the Alaska wilderness.

The camp was built and operated by the Taku River Trading Company, a commercial venture of Alaska physician and businessman Harry Carlos DeVigne. It is one of a number of wilderness camps and lodges that opened around Alaska during the 1920s when the visitor, fishing, and big game hunting industries greatly expanded. 

Visitors began traveling to Alaska to view its scenic beauty, wildlife, and Native cultures in the 1870s. Before the end of the century, four steamship companies serving Alaska were advertising tours through southeast Alaska's Inside Passage. These tours included viewing and walking on glaciers in their itineraries.

The most accessible and popular glaciers in southeast Alaska was Taku Glacier, described in tourists as "two miles wide and 300 feet high, gleaming in green and blue." After World War I, the Alaska tourist industry rapidly expanded. More people became visiting Alaska as its big game hunting and fishing opportunities became better known, and as these opportunities became more limited in the western United States. A nationwide boom in leisure activity and a multiplication of Alaska travel routes lured people northward in dramatically increasing numbers.

Alaskans began to reap substantial financial benefits from tourism as visitors began to explore more of Alaska than could be seen from the deck of a steamship. Originally a gold rush town and then the territory's capital, Juneau attracted a number of visitors. Local residents supported the establishment of a territorial museum in 1921. Others began to offer excursion packages to fishing and hunting sites or to view the area's natural beauty.

Advertisements of excursion trips from Juneau to Taku Glacier appeared in the Alaska Daily Empire in 1919 and 1920. Dynes' Tours of Alaska in 1921 not only extolled the beauty of the glacier, but said: "The Taku Region abounds in large game of all species for the hunter and angler. In an hour he can fill his bucket with large cutthroat trout."Two lodges have been built here by Winter and Pond, photographers of Juneau, who run excursions to this point almost every week in the summer season."

Twin Glacier Camp retains its integrity of location because none of the buildings has been moved. Integrity of design has also been maintained. The contributing buildings have undergone minor modifications but their massing, outline, materials, color, and finishes are still those of the original buildings.

The non-contributing buildings complement the original buildings in the historic district. While their design is compatible with the original ones, the non-contributing buildings do not imitate the older ones.

Integrity of setting has been maintained. The wilderness location is virtually unchanged from the 1920-1930 period. Twin Glacier Camp remains an isolated hunting, fishing, and recreational lodge; not even the trails and paths have been paved. Integrity of materials and workmanship has been kept.

The buildings have been well-maintained, a few, minor changes have been made with appropriate materials to both the contributing and non-contributing buildings. The camp evokes the feelings of a comfortable lodge, where people are free from distractions and can focus on a healthy, outdoor lifestyle. There is little about the camp or its setting to detract from Integrity of feeling or association.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination form

Twin Glacier Camp Photos

Edwin Percy Pond was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Pond was born in California in May 1872, according to the 1900 Juneau Federal Census, although he may have been born in Portland, Oregon and moved to California at an early age.

With his friend Lloyd Winter he operated one of the pioneer businesses of Juneau, Winter and Pond Photographers. Their friendship first began in California where as lads they had met during the pioneer era.

The two young men were in Alaska during the gold rush and established their photography shop in 1893 and the business has operated continuously since that time. Their partnership is considered the oldest in Alaska.

The two partners gathered a rich library of photographs of Alaska’s early history that are priceless historical documents today.

Percy Pond died at St Ann’s Hospital on June 1, 1943 at the age of 71.

Alaska Daily Empire, June 2, 1943

Lloyd Valentine Winter is a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Alaska history buffs who appreciate outstanding archival photography are familiar with the studio name of Winter & Pond.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Lloyd V. Winter (1866-1945) and Edwin Percy Pond (1872-1943) compiled a vast catalog of photographs depicting the people and places of the North, particularly around Southeast Alaska and into the Klondike.

San Francisco artist Lloyd Valentine Winter was the fourth of five children born to Englishman Robert Winter, an artist and "picture dealer," and his wife, Josephine, of Maryland.

The Winters cultivated their children's strengths in art, music, and the trades. Their eldest, Emma, was a music teacher; William worked as a plumber; Charles went to school, as did Lloyd. The youngest child, Henry, was born when Josephine was in her 40s and Robert in his 50s.

In the 1880 federal census of San Francisco, when Lloyd was 14, the Winter family was sharing a home with an Edward Gage, a 40-year-old man who worked in a photograph gallery, which perhaps influenced the youngster in his future career choice.

Winter arrived in Juneau in March 1890, and later was invited to work with photographer George M. Landerkin. Together they established the Landerkin & Winter studio, a partnership that lasted until 1893, when Winter's longtime friend Percy Pond landed in Juneau.

In 1894, Pond bought out Landerkin's interests and the Winter & Pond studio eventually expanded to include sales of Alaska curios as well as special-order photography and other commercial assignments.

Unlike other photographers of their time, many of whom traveled only in the summer months, Winter and Pond stayed in Alaska year-round, photographing diverse subjects, such as Tlingit families arriving for a potlatch, miners pausing on the trail with their laden sleds, workmen laying the Juneau-Skagway Telegraph Cable, and Chilkat dancers in their fine regalia.

The Winter & Pond photograph collection, held at the Alaska State Library in Juneau, also is rich with early scenes of Juneau, its people, local celebrations, the Klondike Gold Rush, and other mining activity.

Winter's ability to speak a Native language was helpful when the duo surreptitiously observed a Haida dance ceremony in 1894. When the men were discovered, the dancers warned them that it was a secret ceremony for Haida eyes only.

In time they were adopted into the tribe, however, and each received a Native name. Winter was given the name Kinda, the word for winter, and Pond was dubbed Kitch-ka, or Crow Man.

Their keen interest in photographing Alaska Natives before, during, and after the great Klondike Gold Rush, in both formal and informal settings, made a significant contribution to Alaska Native cultural studies, and through many years of interaction with Tlingit people, the photographers gained knowledge about certain traditional practices and cultural history.

They published a handful of books on Alaska Native subjects, and anthropologist Edward L. Keithahn, author of a 1945 book about totem poles titled Monuments in Cedar, acknowledged Winter and Pond as a source for information about the early Chilkat people.

Winter followed the Trail of '98 into the Yukon himself in the winter of 1897-98, creating stereographic images for Underwood & Underwood, and providing the nationwide readers of Leslie's Weekly with up-to-date images of Gold Rush activity. Winter & Pond also were named the official Alaska photographers for the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition, held in Seattle in 1909.

Community service in Juneau was important to both men. They served as volunteers in the Juneau Fire Department, Hose Company No. 1. In 1915, Winter accepted the post of Patron in the Order of the Eastern Star, Juneau Chapter No. 7. Pond married a woman named Hattie, who appears in several images in the Winter & Pond collection, and they became parents.

Between 1915 and 1925, the Winter & Pond Company also owned and operated mining claims near Juneau, and a collection of photographs of their mining activity is included in the Alaska State library archives.

The partnership of Winter & Pond ended with Pond's death at age 71 on June 1, 1943. He was buried four days later in the Pioneer section of Juneau's Evergreen Cemetery.

Lloyd V. Winter died in November 1945 at age 79, and was buried on November 13 in the Masonic section of the same cemetery.

Earlier that year, Winter had passed the Winter & Pond Company to Francis Harrison, who continued to operate the business until 1956.

Images from the Winter & Pond Studio may be found on the walls of the Alaska State Capitol building in Juneau, as well as in private and public collections all over the country. The Alaska State Library in Juneau holds the bulk of the Winter & Pond Collection, numbering about 3,000 images dating from 1893 to 1943.

University of Alaska Anchorage, Lite Site Alaska http:///www.litesite.org, by Tricia Brown