BERNARD ROSECRANS HUBBARD a Boy Who Loved the Outdoors, To

BERNARD ROSECRANS HUBBARD 1888 - 1962

-;:..µ'-J¥,.2,,f!-,t-1~#---.... , --1: A boy who loved the outdoors, to run, to jump, to swim, to sit under to ering r dwoods and to fish besi de flowing mountain streams, that v1as young Bernie Hubbard. His boyhood home was by the Pacific at Santa Cruz, California •. Neary his parents were homesteading a hundred orty acr s of up and f own forest slopes by Boul der Cree, twenty m les from the ocean shore. With his old er brother's h lp they were buildi ng a mout}tain home out of saw timber from one reat S mpervi rens redwood on their property. Bernie's parents, George ellonw Hubhard and Catherine Cor nelia Wi lder named him for their f riend of 5ivil War fame , General .s. Rosecrans. Be nnie was an adventuresome but sensibl e boy. At age 7 he would ride alongside the stagecoach dr iver known to all as "Jim" along t he ocean shore roa from Santa ruz ato Pescadero 35 miles up the coast. It was a genuine Calistoga stage on the r egular run, with six horse·s tandem, and the fragrance of oldtime axle grease and har ness soap. Jim always brought the stage into Pesca ero with the horses on a down hill run, t he long tongue of the rawhi e whip snappin l ike pistol shots beside the lead-horses ears. It was an unforgetable experience for Bernie as the lurching vehicle riding on its many laired leather thoroughbraces braked to a grand stop before the waiting onlookers of the hotel stopp. The firsr of Bernie's family of thelong ago was a Norseman in France named Hubba. When Hubba 's descendent3 tired of privateering on the high seas and decided to settle down to more civilized life, ~hey chose northern Maine and lived among its French-Canadian woods men . There the name became "Quabert". A few generations later they 2 .

were teachers and scholars. Bernie's father became pr,ofessor of Latin and Greek at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticutt, after his gra uation there i n 1$75. He married Catherine Wilder through whom Bernie was connected ~ith the Roosevelt and Washi ngton Irving families . But y ung Bernie di not live on the past. He grew from it, and with good i nfl uenc~s developed his wwn self-reliant and re liabl e charac!ter. e was warm, cfriend ly and strong. Of his father he wrote, "It was e wio first i mpl anted in my young mind the ideas of t he love of God a.nd of truth and honesty" . Yong Hub ard fish and hunted an . clim ~d t he Santa Cruz mountains around hi s home and a e seven, acquir ed a one dol lar box camera wh ich he learned to use well. He had been born in San Francisco, and he returned there for his highschool and two years of Colle eat old ct. Ignatius. Eis father m.l!anwh ile t aught Latin and Greek to gai n the family support . A year of college foll owed at Santa Cl ara befo.re Bernard Hub ba.rd committed his life to chri st tian servi e in the Jesuit Order, Sep,,. t ember ?, 190$. Through four years at Los Gatos novi tiate, he used his vacat ion days to photograph the seashore cliffs, caves and mountain scenes. 1921 found him at Innsbruck in Austria preparing for the priest- hood. He was in the midst of the Souther n Alps. He et the Guido M Meier family members of the cast of t he Oberamrnergau Passion Play. They became his :S.nstructors in mou tain clim ing. But itx was short ly after World War I, and t he Tyrolese mountain people in many of the villages were starving •. Bernard Hubbard and his companion, Dani el Bassett, cont acted their friends in the States to obtain food and clothing for whole villages. These Tyrolese found the young American divinity student not only a benefactor but an exceptionally quick l earner on the high slopes. Hi s skill with them on the dangerous J.

glacier ice won from them his name of Glacier Priest. It was to stick. Back again at Santa Clara University he was appointed to teach the subjects he loved so well and soon found among his students a number eager to join him for an Alaska exploring ex pedition. In 1928 he made his f irst vist to Alaska' s glaciers and volcanoes. In 1929, qtudents Ken and "Red" Chisholm, Charles Bartlett and Frank Glatt accompanied h · m. In t his trip he learned the hard way of the huge ice areas beyon~ the face of t he Mendenhall glacier. Tith his companions he became lost for three days and night in hunger and cold . t they ·r1nally foun their way down the Taku glacier to tell of unexplored hundr eds of squar e miles of mount tain and glacial hinterlan north from Juneau. A serious knee injury ba fair to end the explorer' s career. A skilled surgeon pperat ed and Bernard Hu bar d wa s ~oon up and able to join a Coast and Ce oderic S r vey party t hat cam to erect tri angulation stations in the Tau River area he had traversed. Boyhood · ca mera work now reach d its full fruition when the motion picture and still films fr m neveral s , .ers ' wor were shown by Father Hubbard to ent h siastic l ecture audience s in the States. So i mportant had his wor. become by 1930 that he vas released from teachi ng at SCU to i ve full time t o writing, lecturing and further exploration. His experiences and observations began to publish in magazine and ne spa er articles, and then in his two books, Mush You Malamutes, and Cradle of the Storms. In Alaska, F4ther Hubbard had een trained in handling the wonderful 1alamute sled dogs by his former companion xaa.cimr at Santa Clara, teacher turned mission ary, Rev . Joseph McElmeel,S.J. From him he learned when to rid~ the rear runners, and when to walk or run behind the sled full of his cameras, tripods, guns, ammunition, fresh film and provisions. 4.

On the field trips, Father Hubbard never asked of others what he would not attempt himself. When the sled wasleft behind, he packed into the wilderness his ninety pounds of equipment which always included his missal and supplies for religious ser vice at glacier camps or in volcanoo craters. The expeditions o 1932 and after soon made the volcanic ash covered glaciers of Mt . Katmai- and the stea ing fissures of the craters or the fiery fumaroles on the mountain sides about "The Valley of Ten Thousan Smokes" househol talk in the States,where Father Hubbard now made lecture tours throughout the chief Ameri can cities. He showed movies of his work and companions, and talked of the wonders of the great Alas an peninsula. The publicity he spread through lectures and publications in some way at least prepared the merican paqple for acceptance of laskan Statehood, even though he himself felt the population should be larger be fore that step. The conquest of volcanoes and snowy peaks brought experiences of rim sides in the craters where copper instruments plunged into beds of hot askes lost their melted points. rhe Katmai trek was esapecially difficult. It was a twelve-day push through two bliz zards and endless fatigue to master the dan erous mountain. A yellowed newspaper clip rom t he Rochester American under a San Francisco dateline,April 20, 1932 aeads: Forced to eat their dogs to avert starvation Father bernard Hubbard, "Padre of the Glaciers" a and his in omitable party· ve 10n a victory over death. ' ord of t heir terrif ic battle in Al aska to survive lizzards, moving ice blocks and shortage of food was received in a telegram to Mrs . R. A. Cbi:1.sholm o San Francisco, mother of Ken Chisholm ••• member of the priest's party. Jack Norton of Fairbanks, Alaska, was the third in the group. The message read: Successfully climbed Katmai through blizza,rd. Rivers broke suddenly and we struggled back to Shelliko f Straits over moving ice blocks and through chilling water. Boat t wo wee ks overdue. Food gone we were forced to eat our dogs . Hard ships worst y t but w..., are alive and happy. No ~ headi ng for Unimak Islan . A odern Hlysses f or exploration, Be rnard Hubbard with his companions went from Unimak Island by airplane 300 miles to the Aniakchak volcano where the pilot landed them on a mountainside l ake within the huge er ter. He allm·red Father Hubbard and companions to ~xplore t he bottom of the crater as close as possi ple to the erupting ar as. But finding xhis gasoline running low, he called them aboard. Using his skill and familiarity with v~l cano updrafts he flew to the nearest wall of the volano where he knew the thermal would lift the plane like an elevator. Then wheelin his pl ne he brought it above another eruption area that was creating heated rafts. These shot the plane still higher and pushed i t over the mas"'ive ri 1. The Hubbard party next ascaaded to the rim of erupting Mt./ Shishaldin, but only after twenty-one hours and two blizzards. The trip to the bas~ of this volcano was made with a sled equipped with motorcycle ,1heels u d ra.wn by ogs.!nother objective was Bogoslof, the disappe ring isl and. Bernie Hubbar combine in his character utter fearlessness with sensible caution ,, manly endurance with the wannest of hearts and a ost likeable per sonality. H loved his does t oo, and only f or the sake of his comp nions life andhis own did he llow the sacrifice of one . Several of his best dogs he brought a long to his lectures i n the States, and his two favorites, olfe and

Mage ik are mounted today. Tremendous 1 olfe was all of three quarters timber wolfe with the huge paws for strong going on rough ice or snow. 1ageik, with a ntrain of Samoyed and blue eyes 6.

was the more affectionate. Father Hubbard raised the thick woolly haired Samoye s f rom puppies to train them for t heir mating with the wolfe strains. Their offspring ecame the Malamutes that run with their bushy tails hi gh as the pull the heavy-loaded sleds. The Eskimo of King Isl n t oo ~ the exploring priests with them in their open 061:niak boat lo ded to the gunwales with sup plies an , t hirty men and wo en. € The tvo-thousand mile roundtrip coasted t he shores of th Artie past Point Barro s o the explorer cold heck t he l a gua l ects that he f o nd understood y all t he distant Eskimo groups . Hi s ski o coat •as a e for him of moosehide b the nati e chil r e of St . Ann ' s School at Holy Cross, Al aska . The girls spent more -han i hundr ed winter hours embroider:f.ng t he garment with bea ed igloos and wa lrus hunting. He was love, an acquaint ance t ol of hi m. by all t he I ndi a. child

ren of the Yukon t win mi s ions which he helped by hi s l!ctures to

support. Especially d ~ vot d ~ 1ere t he ski , o of Ki g I sl and who carve walrus ivory statues of Crist for hi m• wile the little 8skimos welcomed hi m also for t he goo ·ies tat he a b ays provided. • Father Hubbard 1 s bright and .-lin.'ling personality made his ex plorations easi er. The offi c rs of the U•• Coast Guard and of The u.s. Air Force always made hi . welcome and cooper ated in get ting him into the Alaskan wil ernesses. In 1931~ Fat her Hubb r was unof ficial chaplain to t he SeaBee s on \ttue I sl an . An Air Force plane unde command o Oapt i Bor delon some years later enabled him to photograph t he 49 volcanoes of the Aleutian ch in. 'lhen necessary. the wings w re tilte to l et Father Hubbard photo graph the seeting red 1 v io activ craters. In World War II he had opportunity to enter Vienna with Gen eral George Patton and the u.s. troops. There he photogr phed the famed Lipzanner horses of t he panish Ri ing School that Patton protected for the future of Europe and the wor l d . A letter under headt ine of Patton' s U. S. 31rd Army Headquarters d~clares over the general' s signat1re t hat the Hubbard t al ks t o the sol d iers ha b~en more popular than any tother entertainment.

If a man i s koowr b 1 th company he keeps - and usua l ly it is so - Father Hubbar number-::d among hi s sincere friends such mi l itary men us G~neral s . ~edemeyer, Dean, Patton; Wood, together wiL.h l eader s of i ndustry, Fran H. Fol so , Hers ch"l Br Brown of Lockheed, G. Allan Hancock , . Y. ~ck er ger of Ans co, William

Jonas of Johnson 170tors, s piritu!:! l leaders such as Cardinal Cushin of Poston, and t he less .for tunate such as the br ve ex-Empress Zita of Austria. Outdoor men swore by him and i ncluded the lat" Supervisor Ed Levin o.f Sant a Clara Cointy, Tiger Ol s on o.f Taku Inlet, all men who ppreci a .. ed a peer i n unaffected, warm- ,. hearted, and indotnita l e· Father ernie Hubbard. A massive strok ,, of araly. is l ai t he Gl cier Priest low in 1955 . It occurre ear Newa rk, New Jersey. At the hospital the doctor, studyin.g hi m, said to t he attendin Siste r, "I' m afraid he won ' t be here L1 t he morning". Bernard Hu bard overheard and managed to murmur, ':Yes I will,Docl " . He had indomitabl e determi n attion to accomplish the worthwhile and the right. He did indeed recover sufficiently visit Al aska several times again, and holding his movit'! came ra i n his pa r1;1ally paralyzed left hand and arm, he a ain photographed its blue-ice glaciers and the invi t ing wat ers of TAku inl et. But early on May 28; 1962, when he t r ied to rise i n t he SCU Infirmary to go to the altar for morning servi ce , hesuddenl y sank back on his bed and murmured to the assisting nurse "I can't make i t". Within fifteen minutes he was dead. The crowds at his funeral showed that he ha conquer ed not onl y gl aciers and volcanoes, but thousands of human hearts 'a. s ~: well.