Shown here operating an RCA recorder is Father Bernard R. Hubbard, “the Glacier Priest.” Hubbard was an American Jesuit Priest, ordained in Austria in 1923. Upon his return to America, he was a college lecturer in German, geology, and theology. He found, however, that his heart wasn’t completely in academia. He therefore undertook regular expeditions to Alaska to study geology and volcanology. By the late 1930s however, his interests turned to anthropology, and he began to study the culture and language of native Alaskans.

He was a compelling lecturer, and at one point was the world’s highest paid member of the lecture circuit, earning up to $2000 per talk. He donated the money to Jesuit missions in Alaska.

He’s shown here on the cover of National Radio News, April-May 1940, recording chants by these native Alaskans.