Hubbard, Bernard R. (Bernard Rosecrans), 1888-1962

Born in 1888, Bernard Hubbard demonstrated a love of exploration as a youth. He attended St. Ignatius College and Santa Clara University, and entered the Jesuit order in 1908. In 1926 Hubbard returned to Santa Clara as a professor of Greek, German, and geology. He began exploring the Alaskan wilderness in 1927, financing his trips with proceeds from lectures describing his adventures. His exploits were written up in such publications as National Geographic, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Literary Digest. The "Glacier Priest," as Hubbard was called, wrote popular accounts of his travels, and shot numerous photographs and thousands of feet of film, providing a valuable record of Alaska in the 1930s.

From the description of Hubbard film collection, 1927-1962 [videorecording]. (Santa Clara University). WorldCat record id: 45194149

A member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) from 1908, Father Hubbard, or the "Glacier Priest," came to Alaska in 1926. Over the next 30 years he led Alaska research expeditions and studied, among other things, glaciers, volcanoes and anthropology. Hubbard also spent one year on King Island studying Arctic Eskimos. During World War II he served as chaplain to the Seabees on Attu Island and lectured to the Armed Forces in Europe. Father Hubbard was world-renowned for his popular lectures and films and also wrote about his experiences in Alaska, including the books, "Mush You Malamutes!" and "Cradle of the Storms." Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard was born November 24, 1888, in San Francisco, California. He was educated in the United States and Austria, and was a faculty member at the University of Santa Clara, California, for over 40 years. He died there at the age of 73 on May 28, 1962.

From the description of Father Bernard R. Hubbard photograph collection [graphic], 1891-1962. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 55979156

Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard (1888-1962) entered the Jesuit Order in September 1908 and was ordained a priest in July 1923. In 1927, Father Hubbard attended a retreat in Alaska and for the next thirty years he traveled and photographed Alaska, though his King Island photographs were considered a most important achievement. Father Hubbard's King Island expedition took place in 1937-1938. Father Hubbard also published books, articles, press releases and even travelogues for Fox Movietone about Alaska.

From the description of Alaskan Shepherd collection: Bernard R. Hubbard, S.J., King Island (Alaska) photographs, 1930s. (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). WorldCat record id: 607578869

Biographical Note

Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., (1888-1962), known as the "Glacier Priest," was an explorer, photographer, and popular lecturer. He was born 24 November 1888 in San Francisco, son of George M. Hubbard (d. 1914) and Catherine Wilder Hubbard (d. 1910). He had a brother John, a mining engineer, and a sister, Mary Hubbard Stanley.

Hubbard grew up in Santa Cruz, California, and lived for a time in a house built by his brother John in the Santa Cruz mountains near Ben Lomond. The site, now owned by Lockheed Corporation, is marked by a memorial plaque. It is from this period in his life that Hubbard dated the beginning of his interests in photography and nature.

Hubbard attended Santa Clara College from 1906 to 1908. He entered the Jesuit order on 7 Sept. 1908, and spent the years 1908-1910 at the Jesuit Novitiate in Los Gatos, California. He served his regency at Los Angeles College from 1913-1918. Hubbard studied philosophy at Mt.St. Michael's, a Jesuit seminary in Spokane, Washington, receiving an M.A. degree through Gonzaga University in 1921.

Prior to his ordination as a priest, Hubbard studied theology at Innsbruck, Austria, in 1921-22. While at Innsbruck, he received the name "Der Gletscher Pfarrer," or "Glacier Priest," because of his liking for climbing in the Alps. During his stay in Austria, he became friendly with some of the actors in the Oberammergau Passion Play,including Anton Lang. Hubbard was ordained a priest in Austria in 1923. He returned to Santa Clara, where he taught German, geology, and religion. He received honorary doctorates from Marquette University in 1937 and Trinity College in 1941.

Hubbard first went to Alaska in 1927. His summer expeditions of exploration and photography became an annual event. During the winters, he traveled around the United States giving lectures and showing his films, with the proceeds going to support the Jesuit missions in Alaska. "Half the year the highest paid lecturer in the worldd, the other half a wanderer among treacherous craters and glaciers": thus The Literary Digest described him in 1937. Hubbard's best know expeditions were perhaps that of 1931, during which he completed both a 1600-mile mush down the Yukon River, visiting missions, and a expedition into the erupting Aniakchak crater, and his expedition of 1936 to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes.

During and after World War II, Hubbard became involved with the U.S. military, both as an adviser on Alaska and as lecturer/chaplain to the troops. In 1945, he traveled around the world, photographing damaged and destroyed Jesuit institutions as part of a fund-raising campaign. In his later years, Hubbard returned to Santa Clara, where he established the Hubbard Educational Films, also called Hubbard Laboratories, an educational film production and distribution service based on the University campus.

In 1955 Hubbard had a stroke in Hartford, Connecticut, during a lecture tour. He had to curtail some of his activity, although he returned to Alaska a few more times. Accounts of the last years of his life describe him as writing his autobiography and cataloguing his photographs, neither of which he finished. Hubbard died 28 May 1962 in Donohoe Infirmary at the University of Santa Clara.

From the guide to the Inventory of Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, S.J., Papers, (Santa Clara University Archives)