1953: Phillips geologist recalls icy camp site

Jen Ransom, PNA staff writer

When Phillips Petroleum Co. first came to Alaska in 1953, the exploration party used an old LST war ship to bring supplies into the Katalla-Yakataga region 50 miles east of Cordova.

Al Schlottman, the exploration party’s associate geologist, told PNA about one particular incident surrounding the glaciers and icebergs during his first Alaska assignment:

“Ah yes, the glaciers,” he said. “I recall a fly camp that we had set up far back in the mountains. The only relatively flat spot that we could find for our tent was out on the ice near the edge of the glacier. And, to our pleasure, not too far away from the tent site there was a very narrow, deep crack in the ice that formed a perfect natural garbage depository and an ideal slit-trench outhouse. Remember, this was before the days of being ‘environmentally correct.’ During the day, we listened to the creaks and groans emanating from the glacier itself and would watch, as the day warmed up, the occasional small icefalls that came down the mountain faces surrounding us, followed soon after by what sounded like distant cannon fire,” Schlottman said.

”We stayed in that camp only a few days, but we did happen to fly back over it again a short time later. Imagine our surprise to see that our ‘flat’ tent site was now completely riddled by huge cracks in the ice. And our ‘outhouse’ crevasse had opened up so that it was now three-or-four-feet wide!

“Talk about good timing...”