Boudoir-size albumen print by F. Jay Haynes, official photographer of the Northern Pacific Railroad, titled “Ice Peaks on Muir Glacier” and numbered 5042 in his Alaska Views series ca 1891. The dramatic composition presents a close-up of the jagged ice pinnacles of Muir Glacier, their sharply sculpted forms rising in irregular clusters against a backdrop of distant snow-covered peaks. Subtle tonal variations in the ice capture the interplay of light and shadow, emphasizing the glacier’s monumental scale and the intricate textures of its frozen surface.

The printed catalog on the reverse situates this view within Haynes’s extensive photographic record of Alaska, which included coastal landscapes, glaciers, settlements, and Indigenous communities. Muir Glacier, located in Glacier Bay, was a highlight of late 19th-century Alaskan tourism, often visited by steamships whose passengers could disembark for excursions onto the ice.

Haynes’s work combined commercial appeal with documentary value, serving both as a souvenir for travelers and as part of a broader visual archive of the American frontier. This image stands as a striking example of his ability to convey the raw power and beauty of Alaska’s glacial landscapes.