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Title: Travels in Alaska

Author: John Muir

Release Date: April 18, 2002 [EBook #7345]
Last updated: December 7, 2019

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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Muir Exhibit for making this eBook available.
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[Illustration]




Travels in Alaska

by John Muir

Contents

 Preface

 Part I. The Trip of 1879
I. Puget Sound and British Columbia
II. Alexander Archipelago and the Home I found in Alaska
III. Wrangell Island and Alaska Summers
IV. The Stickeen River
V. A Cruise in the Cassiar
VI. The Cassiar Trail
VII. Glenora Peak
VIII. Exploration of the Stickeen Glaciers
IX. A Canoe Voyage to Northward
X. The Discovery of Glacier Bay
XI. The Country of the Chilcats
XII. The Return to Fort Wrangell
XIII. Alaska Indians

 Part II. The Trip of 1880
XIV. Sum Dum Bay
XV. From Taku River to Taylor Bay
XVI.

 Glacier Bay

 Part III. The Trip of 1890
XVII. In Camp at Glacier Bay
XVIII. My Sled-Trip on the Muir Glacier
XIX.

 Auroras

 Glossary of Words in the Chinook Jargon

Illustrations

 Alpenglow on Summit of Mt. Muir, Harrison Fiord, Prince William Sound
 Hanging Valley and Waterfall, Fraser Ranch
 Lowe Inlet, British Columbia
 Indian Canoes
 Alaskan Hemlocks and Spruces, Sitka
 Old Chief and Totem Pole, Wrangell
 Admiralty Island
 The Muir Glacier in the Seventies, showing Ice Cliffs and Stranded Iceberg
 Stranded Icebergs, Taku Glacier
 Vegetation at High-Tide Line, Sitka Harbor
 Ruins of Buried Forest, East Side of Muir Glacier
 Floating Iceberg, Taku Inlet



[Illustration: Alpenglow on Summit of Mt. Muir, Harrison Fiord, Prince
William Sound.]




Preface


Forty years ago John Muir wrote to a friend; “I am hopelessly and
forever a mountaineer. . . . Civilization and fever, and all the
morbidness that has been hooted at me, have not dimmed my glacial eyes,
and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s
loveliness.” How gloriously he fulfilled the promise of his early
manhood! Fame, all unbidden, wore a path to his door, but he always
remained a modest, unspoiled mountaineer. Kindred spirits, the greatest
of his time, sought him out, even in his mountain cabin, and felt
honored by his friendship. Ralph Waldo Emerson urged him to visit
Concord and rest awhile from the strain of his solitary studies in the
Sierra Nevada. But nothing could dislodge him from the glacial problems
of the high Sierra; with passionate interest he kept at his task. “The
grandeur of these forces and their glorious results,” he once wrote,
“overpower me and inhabit my whole being. Waking or sleeping, I have no
rest. In dreams I read blurred sheets of glacial writing, or follow
lines of cleavage, or struggle with the difficulties of some
extraordinary rock-form.”

There is a note of pathos, the echo of an unfulfilled hope, in the
record of his later visit to Concord. “It was seventeen years after our
parting on Wawona ridge that I stood beside his [Emerson’s] grave under
a pine tree on the hill above Sleepy Hollow. He had gone to higher
Sierras, and, as I fancied, was again waving his hand in friendly
recognition.” And now John Muir has followed his friend of other days
to the “higher Sierras.” His earthly remains lie among trees planted by
his own hand. To the pine tree of Sleepy Hollow answers a guardian
sequoia in the sunny Alhambra Valley.

In 1879 John Muir went to Alaska for the first time. Its stupendous
living glaciers aroused his unbounded interest, for they enabled him to
verify his theories of glacial action. Again and again he returned to
this continental laboratory of landscapes. The greatest of the
tide-water glaciers appropriately commemorates his name. Upon this book
of Alaska travels, all but finished before his unforeseen departure,
John Muir expended the last months of his life. It was begun soon after
his return from Africa in 1912. His eager leadership of the ill-fated
campaign to save his beloved Hetch-Hetchy Valley from commercial
destruction seriously interrupted his labors. Illness, also, interposed
some checks as he worked with characteristic care and thoroughness
through the great mass of Alaska notes that had accumulated under his
hands for more than thirty years.

The events recorded in this volume end in the middle of the trip of
1890. Muir’s notes on the remainder of the journey have not been found,
and it is idle to speculate how he would have concluded the volume if
he had lived to complete it. But no one will read the fascinating
description of the Northern Lights without feeling a poetical
appropriateness in the fact that his last work ends with a portrayal of
the auroras—one of those phenomena which elsewhere he described as “the
most glorious of all the terrestrial manifestations of God.”

Muir’s manuscripts bear on every page impressive evidence of the pains
he took in his literary work, and the lofty standard he set himself in
his scientific studies. The counterfeiting of a fact or of an
experience was a thing unthinkable in connection with John Muir. He was
tireless in pursuing the meaning of a physiographical fact, and his
extraordinary physical endurance usually enabled him to trail it to its
last hiding-place. Often, when telling the tale of his adventures in
Alaska, his eyes would kindle with youthful enthusiasm, and he would
live over again the red-blooded years that yielded him “shapeless
harvests of revealed glory.”

For a number of months just prior to his death he had the friendly
assistance of Mrs. Marion Randall Parsons. Her familiarity with the
manuscript, and with Mr. Muir’s expressed and penciled intentions of
revision and arrangement, made her the logical person to prepare it in
final form for publication. It was a task to which she brought devotion
as well as ability. The labor involved was the greater in order that
the finished work might exhibit the last touches of Muir’s master-hand,
and yet contain nothing that did not flow from his pen. All readers of
this book will feel grateful for her labor of love.

I add these prefatory lines to the work of my departed friend with
pensive misgiving, knowing that he would have deprecated any discharge
of musketry over his grave. His daughters, Mrs. Thomas Rea Hanna and
Mrs. Buel Alvin Funk, have honored me with the request to transmit the
manuscript for publication, and later to consider with them what
salvage may be made from among their father’s unpublished writings.
They also wish me to express their grateful acknowledgments to Houghton
Mifflin Company, with whom John Muir has always maintained close and
friendly relations.

WILLIAM FREDERIC BADÈ.

Berkeley, California,
_May_, 1915.




Travels in Alaska




Part I
_The Trip of 1879_




Chapter I
Puget Sound and British Columbia


After eleven years of study and exploration in the Sierra Nevada of
California and the mountain-ranges of the Great Basin, studying in
particular their glaciers, forests, and wild life, above all their
ancient glaciers and the influence they exerted in sculpturing the
rocks over which they passed with tremendous pressure, making new
landscapes, scenery, and beauty which so mysteriously influence every
human being, and to some extent all life, I was anxious to gain some
knowledge of the regions to the northward, about Puget Sound and
Alaska. With this grand object in view I left San Francisco in May,
1879, on the steamer Dakota, without any definite plan, as with the
exception of a few of the Oregon peaks and their forests all the wild
north was new to me.

To the mountaineer a sea voyage is a grand, inspiring, restful change.
For forests and plains with their flowers and fruits we have new
scenery, new life of every sort; water hills and dales in eternal
visible motion for rock waves, types of permanence.

It was curious to note how suddenly the eager countenances of the
passengers were darkened as soon as the good ship passed through the
Golden Gate and began to heave on the waves of the open ocean. The
crowded deck was speedily deserted on account of seasickness. It seemed
strange that nearly every one afflicted should be more or less ashamed.

Next morning a strong wind was blowing, and the sea was gray and white,
with long breaking waves, across which the Dakota was racing
half-buried in spray. Very few of the passengers were on deck to enjoy
the wild scenery. Every wave seemed to be making enthusiastic, eager
haste to the shore, with long, irised tresses streaming from its tops,
some of its outer fringes borne away in scud to refresh the wind, all
the rolling, pitching, flying water exulting in the beauty of rainbow
light. Gulls and albatrosses, strong, glad life in the midst of the
stormy beauty, skimmed the waves against the wind, seemingly without
effort, oftentimes flying nearly a mile without a single wing-beat,
gracefully swaying from side to side and tracing the curves of the
briny water hills with the finest precision, now and then just grazing
the highest.

And yonder, glistening amid the irised spray, is still more striking
revelation of warm life in the so-called howling waste,—a half-dozen
whales, their broad backs like glaciated bosses of granite heaving
aloft in near view, spouting lustily, drawing a long breath, and
plunging down home in colossal health and comfort. A merry school of
porpoises, a square mile of them, suddenly appear, tossing themselves
into the air in abounding strength and hilarity, adding foam to the
waves and making all the wilderness wilder. One cannot but feel
sympathy with and be proud of these brave neighbors, fellow citizens in
the commonwealth of the world, making a living like the rest of us. Our
good ship also seemed like a thing of life, its great iron heart
beating on through calm and storm, a truly noble spectacle. But think
of the hearts of these whales, beating warm against the sea, day and
night, through dark and light, on and on for centuries; how the red
blood must rush and gurgle in and out, bucketfuls, barrelfuls at a
beat!

The cloud colors of one of the four sunsets enjoyed on the voyage were
remarkably pure and rich in tone. There was a well-defined range of
cumuli a few degrees above the horizon, and a massive, dark-gray
rain-cloud above it, from which depended long, bent fringes overlapping
the lower cumuli and partially veiling them; and from time to time
sunbeams poured through narrow openings and painted the exposed bosses
and fringes in ripe yellow tones, which, with the reflections on the
water, made magnificent pictures. The scenery of the ocean, however
sublime in vast expanse, seems far less beautiful to us dry-shod
animals than that of the land seen only in comparatively small patches;
but when we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped
and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other
stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe
appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

The California coast-hills and cliffs look bare and uninviting as seen
from the ship, the magnificent forests keeping well back out of sight
beyond the reach of the sea winds; those of Oregon and Washington are
in some places clad with conifers nearly down to the shore; even the
little detached islets, so marked a feature to the northward, are
mostly tree-crowned. Up through the Straits of Juan de Fuca the
forests, sheltered from the ocean gales and favored with abundant
rains, flourish in marvelous luxuriance on the glacier-sculptured
mountains of the Olympic Range.

We arrived in Esquimault Harbor, three miles from Victoria, on the
evening of the fourth day, and drove to the town through a magnificent
forest of Douglas spruce,—with an undergrowth in open spots of oak,
madrone, hazel, dogwood, alder, spiræa, willow, and wild rose,—and
around many an upswelling _moutonné_ rock, freshly glaciated and furred
with yellow mosses and lichens.

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, was in 1879 a small
old-fashioned English town on the south end of Vancouver Island. It was
said to contain about six thousand inhabitants. The government
buildings and some of the business blocks were noticeable, but the
attention of the traveler was more worthily attracted to the neat
cottage homes found here, embowered in the freshest and floweriest
climbing roses and honeysuckles conceivable. Californians may well be
proud of their home roses loading sunny verandas, climbing to the tops
of the roofs and falling over the gables in white and red cascades. But
here, with so much bland fog and dew and gentle laving rain, a still
finer development of some of the commonest garden plants is reached.
English honeysuckle seems to have found here a most congenial home.
Still more beautiful were the wild roses, blooming in wonderful
luxuriance along the woodland paths, with corollas two and three inches
wide. This rose and three species of spiræa fairly filled the air with
fragrance after showers; and how brightly then did the red dogwood
berries shine amid the green leaves beneath trees two hundred and fifty
feet high.

Strange to say, all of this exuberant forest and flower vegetation was
growing upon fresh moraine material scarcely at all moved or in any way
modified by post-glacial agents. In the town gardens and orchards,
peaches and apples fell upon glacier-polished rocks, and the streets
were graded in moraine gravel; and I observed scratched and grooved
rock bosses as unweathered and telling as those of the High Sierra of
California eight thousand feet or more above sea-level. The Victoria
Harbor is plainly glacial in origin, eroded from the solid; and the
rock islets that rise here and there in it are unchanged to any
appreciable extent by all the waves that have broken over them since
first they came to light toward the close of the glacial period. The
shores also of the harbor are strikingly grooved and scratched and in
every way as glacial in all their characteristics as those of new-born
glacial lakes. That the domain of the sea is being slowly extended over
the land by incessant wave-action is well known; but in this freshly
glaciated region the shores have been so short a time exposed to
wave-action that they are scarcely at all wasted. The extension of the
sea affected by its own action in post-glacial times is probably less
than the millionth part of that affected by glacial action during the
last glacier period. The direction of the flow of the ice-sheet to
which all the main features of this wonderful region are due was in
general southward.

From this quiet little English town I made many short excursions—up the
coast to Nanaimo, to Burrard Inlet, now the terminus of the Canadian
Pacific Railroad, to Puget Sound, up Fraser River to New Westminster
and Yale at the head of navigation, charmed everywhere with the wild,
new-born scenery. The most interesting of these and the most difficult
to leave was the Puget Sound region, famous the world over for the
wonderful forests of gigantic trees about its shores. It is an arm and
many-fingered hand of the sea, reaching southward from the Straits of
Juan de Fuca about a hundred miles into the heart of one of the noblest
coniferous forests on the face of the globe. All its scenery is
wonderful—broad river-like reaches sweeping in beautiful curves around
bays and capes and jutting promontories, opening here and there into
smooth, blue, lake-like expanses dotted with islands and feathered with
tall, spiry evergreens, their beauty doubled on the bright
mirror-water.

Sailing from Victoria, the Olympic Mountains are seen right ahead,
rising in bold relief against the sky, with jagged crests and peaks
from six to eight thousand feet high,—small residual glaciers and
ragged snow-fields beneath them in wide amphitheatres opening down
through the forest-filled valleys. These valleys mark the courses of
the Olympic glaciers at the period of their greatest extension, when
they poured their tribute into that portion of the great northern
ice-sheet that overswept Vancouver Island and filled the strait between
it and the mainland.

On the way up to Olympia, then a hopeful little town situated at the
end of one of the longest fingers of the Sound, one is often reminded
of Lake Tahoe, the scenery of the widest expanses is so lake-like in
the clearness and stillness of the water and the luxuriance of the
surrounding forests. Doubling cape after cape, passing uncounted
islands, new combinations break on the view in endless variety,
sufficient to satisfy the lover of wild beauty through a whole life.
When the clouds come down, blotting out everything, one feels as if at
sea; again lifting a little, some islet may be seen standing alone with
the tops of its trees dipping out of sight in gray misty fringes; then
the ranks of spruce and cedar bounding the water’s edge come to view;
and when at length the whole sky is clear the colossal cone of Mt.
Rainier may be seen in spotless white, looking down over the dark woods
from a distance of fifty or sixty miles, but so high and massive and so
sharply outlined, it seems to be just back of a strip of woods only a
few miles wide.

Mt. Rainier, or Tahoma (the Indian name), is the noblest of the
volcanic cones extending from Lassen Butte and Mt. Shasta along the
Cascade Range to Mt. Baker. One of the most telling views of it
hereabouts is obtained near Tacoma. From a bluff back of the town it
was revealed in all its glory, laden with glaciers and snow down to the
forested foothills around its finely curved base. Up to this time
(1879) it had been ascended but once. From observations made on the
summit with a single aneroid barometer, it was estimated to be about
14,500 feet high. Mt. Baker, to the northward, is about 10,700 feet
high, a noble mountain. So also are Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt.
Hood. The latter, overlooking the town of Portland, is perhaps the best
known. Rainier, about the same height as Shasta, surpasses them all in
massive icy grandeur,—the most majestic solitary mountain I had ever
yet beheld. How eagerly I gazed and longed to climb it and study its
history only the mountaineer may know, but I was compelled to turn away
and bide my time.

The species forming the bulk of the woods here is the Douglas spruce
(_Pseudotsuga douglasii_), one of the greatest of the western giants. A
specimen that I measured near Olympia was about three hundred feet in
height and twelve feet in diameter four feet above the ground. It is a
widely distributed tree, extending northward through British Columbia,
southward through Oregon and California, and eastward to the Rocky
Mountains. The timber is used for shipbuilding, spars, piles, and the
framework of houses, bridges, etc. In the California lumber markets it
is known as “Oregon pine.” In Utah, where it is common on the Wahsatch
Mountains, it is called “red pine.” In California, on the western slope
of the Sierra Nevada, it forms, in company with the yellow pine, sugar
pine, and incense cedar, a pretty well-defined belt at a height of from
three to six thousand feet above the sea; but it is only in Oregon and
Washington, especially in this Puget Sound region, that it reaches its
very grandest development,—tall, straight, and strong, growing down
close to tidewater.

All the towns of the Sound had a hopeful, thrifty aspect. Port
Townsend, picturesquely located on a grassy bluff, was the port of
clearance for vessels sailing to foreign parts. Seattle was famed for
its coal-mines, and claimed to be the coming town of the North Pacific
Coast. So also did its rival, Tacoma, which had been selected as the
terminus of the much-talked-of Northern Pacific Railway. Several
coal-veins of astonishing thickness were discovered the winter before
on the Carbon River, to the east of Tacoma, one of them said to be no
less than twenty-one feet, another twenty feet, another fourteen, with
many smaller ones, the aggregate thickness of all the veins being
upwards of a hundred feet. Large deposits of magnetic iron ore and
brown hematite, together with limestone, had been discovered in
advantageous proximity to the coal, making a bright outlook for the
Sound region in general in connection with its railroad hopes, its
unrivaled timber resources, and its far-reaching geographical
relations.

After spending a few weeks in the Puget Sound with a friend from San
Francisco, we engaged passage on the little mail steamer California, at
Portland, Oregon, for Alaska. The sail down the broad lower reaches of
the Columbia and across its foamy bar, around Cape Flattery, and up the
Juan de Fuca Strait, was delightful; and after calling again at
Victoria and Port Townsend we got fairly off for icy Alaska.




Chapter II
Alexander Archipelago and the Home I found in Alaska


To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of the most wonderful
countries in the world. No excursion that I know of may be made into
any other American wilderness where so marvelous an abundance of noble,
newborn scenery is so charmingly brought to view as on the trip through
the Alexander Archipelago to Fort Wrangell and Sitka. Gazing from the
deck of the steamer, one is borne smoothly over calm blue waters,
through the midst of countless forest-clad islands. The ordinary
discomforts of a sea voyage are not felt, for nearly all the whole long
way is on inland waters that are about as waveless as rivers and lakes.
So numerous are the islands that they seem to have been sown broadcast;
long tapering vistas between the largest of them open in every
direction.

Day after day in the fine weather we enjoyed, we seemed to float in
true fairyland, each succeeding view seeming more and more beautiful,
the one we chanced to have before us the most surprisingly beautiful of
all. Never before this had I been embosomed in scenery so hopelessly
beyond description. To sketch picturesque bits, definitely bounded, is
comparatively easy—a lake in the woods, a glacier meadow, or a cascade
in its dell; or even a grand master view of mountains beheld from some
commanding outlook after climbing from height to height above the
forests. These may be attempted, and more or less telling pictures made
of them; but in these coast landscapes there is such indefinite,
on-leading expansiveness, such a multitude of features without apparent
redundance, their lines graduating delicately into one another in
endless succession, while the whole is so fine, so tender, so ethereal,
that all pen-work seems hopelessly unavailing. Tracing shining ways
through fiord and sound, past forests and waterfalls, islands and
mountains and far azure headlands, it seems as if surely we must at
length reach the very paradise of the poets, the abode of the blessed.

[Illustration: Hanging Valley and Waterfall, Fraser Ranch.]

Some idea of the wealth of this scenery may be gained from the fact
that the coast-line of Alaska is about twenty-six thousand miles long,
more than twice as long as all the rest of the United States. The
islands of the Alexander Archipelago, with the straits, channels,
canals, sounds, passages, and fiords, form an intricate web of land and
water embroidery sixty or seventy miles wide, fringing the lofty icy
chain of coast mountains from Puget Sound to Cook Inlet; and, with
infinite variety, the general pattern is harmonious throughout its
whole extent of nearly a thousand miles. Here you glide into a narrow
channel hemmed in by mountain walls, forested down to the water’s edge,
where there is no distant view, and your attention is concentrated on
the objects close about you—the crowded spires of the spruces and
hemlocks rising higher and higher on the steep green slopes; stripes of
paler green where winter avalanches have cleared away the trees,
allowing grasses and willows to spring up; zigzags of cascades
appearing and disappearing among the bushes and trees; short, steep
glens with brawling streams hidden beneath alder and dogwood, seen only
where they emerge on the brown algæ of the shore; and retreating
hollows, with lingering snow-banks marking the fountains of ancient
glaciers. The steamer is often so near the shore that you may
distinctly see the cones clustered on the tops of the trees, and the
ferns and bushes at their feet.

But new scenes are brought to view with magical rapidity. Rounding some
bossy cape, the eye is called away into far-reaching vistas, bounded on
either hand by headlands in charming array, one dipping gracefully
beyond another and growing fainter and more ethereal in the distance.
The tranquil channel stretching river-like between, may be stirred here
and there by the silvery plashing of upspringing salmon, or by flocks
of white gulls floating like water-lilies among the sun spangles; while
mellow, tempered sunshine is streaming over all, blending sky, land,
and water in pale, misty blue. Then, while you are dreamily gazing into
the depths of this leafy ocean lane, the little steamer, seeming hardly
larger than a duck, turning into some passage not visible until the
moment of entering it, glides into a wide expanse—a sound filled with
islands, sprinkled and clustered in forms and compositions such as
nature alone can invent; some of them so small the trees growing on
them seem like single handfuls culled from the neighboring woods and
set in the water to keep them fresh, while here and there at wide
intervals you may notice bare rocks just above the water, mere dots
punctuating grand, outswelling sentences of islands.

The variety we find, both as to the contours and the collocation of the
islands, is due chiefly to differences in the structure and composition
of their rocks, and the unequal glacial denudation different portions
of the coast were subjected to. This influence must have been
especially heavy toward the end of the glacial period, when the main
ice-sheet began to break up into separate glaciers. Moreover, the
mountains of the larger islands nourished local glaciers, some of them
of considerable size, which sculptured their summits and sides, forming
in some cases wide cirques with cañons or valleys leading down from
them into the channels and sounds. These causes have produced much of
the bewildering variety of which nature is so fond, but none the less
will the studious observer see the underlying harmony—the general trend
of the islands in the direction of the flow of the main ice-mantle from
the mountains of the Coast Range, more or less varied by subordinate
foothill ridges and mountains. Furthermore, all the islands, great and
small, as well as the headlands and promontories of the mainland, are
seen to have a rounded, over-rubbed appearance produced by the
over-sweeping ice-flood during the period of greatest glacial
abundance.

The canals, channels, straits, passages, sounds, etc., are subordinate
to the same glacial conditions in their forms, trends, and extent as
those which determined the forms, trends, and distribution of the
land-masses, their basins being the parts of the pre-glacial margin of
the continent, eroded to varying depths below sea-level, and into
which, of course, the ocean waters flowed as the ice was melted out of
them. Had the general glacial denudation been much less, these ocean
ways over which we are sailing would have been valleys and cañons and
lakes; and the islands rounded hills and ridges, landscapes with
undulating features like those found above sea-level wherever the rocks
and glacial conditions are similar. In general, the island-bound
channels are like rivers, not only in separate reaches as seen from the
deck of a vessel, but continuously so for hundreds of miles in the case
of the longest of them. The tide-currents, the fresh driftwood, the
inflowing streams, and the luxuriant foliage of the out-leaning trees
on the shores make this resemblance all the more complete. The largest
islands look like part of the mainland in any view to be had of them
from the ship, but far the greater number are small, and appreciable as
islands, scores of them being less than a mile long. These the eye
easily takes in and revels in their beauty with ever fresh delight. In
their relations to each other the individual members of a group have
evidently been derived from the same general rock-mass, yet they never
seem broken or abridged in any way as to their contour lines, however
abruptly they may dip their sides. Viewed one by one, they seem
detached beauties, like extracts from a poem, while, from the
completeness of their lines and the way that their trees are arranged,
each seems a finished stanza in itself. Contemplating the arrangement
of the trees on these small islands, a distinct impression is produced
of their having been sorted and harmonized as to size like a
well-balanced bouquet. On some of the smaller tufted islets a group of
tapering spruces is planted in the middle, and two smaller groups that
evidently correspond with each other are planted on the ends at about
equal distances from the central group; or the whole appears as one
group with marked fringing trees that match each other spreading around
the sides, like flowers leaning outward against the rim of a vase.
These harmonious tree relations are so constant that they evidently are
the result of design, as much so as the arrangement of the feathers of
birds or the scales of fishes.

Thus perfectly beautiful are these blessed evergreen islands, and their
beauty is the beauty of youth, for though the freshness of their
verdure must be ascribed to the bland moisture with which they are
bathed from warm ocean-currents, the very existence of the islands,
their features, finish, and peculiar distribution, are all immediately
referable to ice-action during the great glacial winter just now
drawing to a close.

[Illustration: Lowe Inlet, British Columbia.]

We arrived at Wrangell July 14, and after a short stop of a few hours
went on to Sitka and returned on the 20th to Wrangell, the most
inhospitable place at first sight I had ever seen. The little steamer
that had been my home in the wonderful trip through the archipelago,
after taking the mail, departed on her return to Portland, and as I
watched her gliding out of sight in the dismal blurring rain, I felt
strangely lonesome. The friend that had accompanied me thus far now
left for his home in San Francisco, with two other interesting
travelers who had made the trip for health and scenery, while my fellow
passengers, the missionaries, went direct to the Presbyterian home in
the old fort. There was nothing like a tavern or lodging-house in the
village, nor could I find any place in the stumpy, rocky, boggy ground
about it that looked dry enough to camp on until I could find a way
into the wilderness to begin my studies. Every place within a mile or
two of the town seemed strangely shelterless and inhospitable, for all
the trees had long ago been felled for building-timber and firewood. At
the worst, I thought, I could build a bark hut on a hill back of the
village, where something like a forest loomed dimly through the
draggled clouds.

I had already seen some of the high glacier-bearing mountains in
distant views from the steamer, and was anxious to reach them. A few
whites of the village, with whom I entered into conversation, warned me
that the Indians were a bad lot, not to be trusted, that the woods were
well-nigh impenetrable, and that I could go nowhere without a canoe. On
the other hand, these natural difficulties made the grand wild country
all the more attractive, and I determined to get into the heart of it
somehow or other with a bag of hardtack, trusting to my usual good
luck. My present difficulty was in finding a first base camp. My only
hope was on the hill. When I was strolling past the old fort I happened
to meet one of the missionaries, who kindly asked me where I was going
to take up my quarters.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I have not been able to find quarters of
any sort. The top of that little hill over there seems the only
possible place.”

He then explained that every room in the mission house was full, but he
thought I might obtain leave to spread my blanket in a carpenter-shop
belonging to the mission. Thanking him, I ran down to the sloppy wharf
for my little bundle of baggage, laid it on the shop floor, and felt
glad and snug among the dry, sweet-smelling shavings.

The carpenter was at work on a new Presbyterian mission building, and
when he came in I explained that Dr. Jackson[1] had suggested that I
might be allowed to sleep on the floor, and after I assured him that I
would not touch his tools or be in his way, he goodnaturedly gave me
the freedom of the shop and also of his small private side room where I
would find a wash-basin.

I was here only one night, however, for Mr. Vanderbilt, a merchant, who
with his family occupied the best house in the fort, hearing that one
of the late arrivals, whose business none seemed to know, was compelled
to sleep in the carpenter-shop, paid me a good-Samaritan visit and
after a few explanatory words on my glacier and forest studies, with
fine hospitality offered me a room and a place at his table. Here I
found a real home, with freedom to go on all sorts of excursions as
opportunity offered. Annie Vanderbilt, a little doctor of divinity two
years old, ruled the household with love sermons and kept it warm.

Mr. Vanderbilt introduced me to prospectors and traders and some of the
most influential of the Indians. I visited the mission school and the
home for Indian girls kept by Mrs. MacFarland, and made short
excursions to the nearby forests and streams, and studied the rate of
growth of the different species of trees and their age, counting the
annual rings on stumps in the large clearings made by the military when
the fort was occupied, causing wondering speculation among the Wrangell
folk, as was reported by Mr. Vanderbilt.

“What can the fellow be up to?” they inquired. “He seems to spend most
of his time among stumps and weeds. I saw him the other day on his
knees, looking at a stump as if he expected to find gold in it. He
seems to have no serious object whatever.”

One night when a heavy rainstorm was blowing I unwittingly caused a lot
of wondering excitement among the whites as well as the superstitious
Indians. Being anxious to see how the Alaska trees behave in storms and
hear the songs they sing, I stole quietly away through the gray
drenching blast to the hill back of the town, without being observed.
Night was falling when I set out and it was pitch dark when I reached
the top. The glad, rejoicing storm in glorious voice was singing
through the woods, noble compensation for mere body discomfort. But I
wanted a fire, a big one, to see as well as hear how the storm and
trees were behaving. After long, patient groping I found a little dry
punk in a hollow trunk and carefully stored it beside my matchbox and
an inch or two of candle in an inside pocket that the rain had not yet
reached; then, wiping some dead twigs and whittling them into thin
shavings, stored them with the punk. I then made a little conical bark
hut about a foot high, and, carefully leaning over it and sheltering it
as much as possible from the driving rain, I wiped and stored a lot of
dead twigs, lighted the candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added
pinches of punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, by the
light of which I gradually added larger shavings, then twigs all set on
end astride the inner flame, making the little hut higher and wider.
Soon I had light enough to enable me to select the best dead branches
and large sections of bark, which were set on end, gradually increasing
the height and corresponding light of the hut fire. A considerable area
was thus well lighted, from which I gathered abundance of wood, and
kept adding to the fire until it had a strong, hot heart and sent up a
pillar of flame thirty or forty feet high, illuminating a wide circle
in spite of the rain, and casting a red glare into the flying clouds.
Of all the thousands of camp-fires I have elsewhere built none was just
like this one, rejoicing in triumphant strength and beauty in the heart
of the rain-laden gale. It was wonderful,—the illumined rain and clouds
mingled together and the trees glowing against the jet background, the
colors of the mossy, lichened trunks with sparkling streams pouring
down the furrows of the bark, and the gray-bearded old patriarchs
bowing low and chanting in passionate worship!

My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark
shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had
nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns and
prayers.

Neither the great white heart of the fire nor the quivering
enthusiastic flames shooting aloft like auroral lances could be seen
from the village on account of the trees in front of it and its being
back a little way over the brow of the hill; but the light in the
clouds made a great show, a portentous sign in the stormy heavens
unlike anything ever before seen or heard of in Wrangell. Some wakeful
Indians, happening to see it about midnight, in great alarm aroused the
Collector of Customs and begged him to go to the missionaries and get
them to pray away the frightful omen, and inquired anxiously whether
white men had ever seen anything like that sky-fire, which instead of
being quenched by the rain was burning brighter and brighter. The
Collector said he had heard of such strange fires, and this one he
thought might perhaps be what the white man called a “volcano, or an
_ignis fatuus_.” When Mr. Young was called from his bed to pray, he,
too, confoundedly astonished and at a loss for any sort of explanation,
confessed that he had never seen anything like it in the sky or
anywhere else in such cold wet weather, but that it was probably some
sort of spontaneous combustion “that the white man called St. Elmo’s
fire, or Will-of-the-wisp.” These explanations, though not convincingly
clear, perhaps served to veil their own astonishment and in some
measure to diminish the superstitious fears of the natives; but from
what I heard, the few whites who happened to see the strange light
wondered about as wildly as the Indians.

I have enjoyed thousands of camp-fires in all sorts of weather and
places, warm-hearted, short-flamed, friendly little beauties glowing in
the dark on open spots in high Sierra gardens, daisies and lilies
circled about them, gazing like enchanted children; and large fires in
silver fir forests, with spires of flame towering like the trees about
them, and sending up multitudes of starry sparks to enrich the sky; and
still greater fires on the mountains in winter, changing camp climate
to summer, and making the frosty snow look like beds of white flowers,
and oftentimes mingling their swarms of swift-flying sparks with
falling snow-crystals when the clouds were in bloom. But this Wrangell
camp-fire, my first in Alaska, I shall always remember for its
triumphant storm-defying grandeur, and the wondrous beauty of the
psalm-singing, lichen-painted trees which it brought to light.

 [1] Dr. Sheldon Jackson, 1834-1909, became Superintendent of
 Presbyterian Missions in Alaska in 1877, and United States General
 Agent of Education in 1885. [W. F. B.]




Chapter III
Wrangell Island and Alaska Summers


Wrangell Island is about fourteen miles long, separated from the
mainland by a narrow channel or fiord, and trending in the direction of
the flow of the ancient ice-sheet. Like all its neighbors, it is
densely forested down to the water’s edge with trees that never seem to
have suffered from thirst or fire or the axe of the lumberman in all
their long century lives. Beneath soft, shady clouds, with abundance of
rain, they flourish in wonderful strength and beauty to a good old age,
while the many warm days, half cloudy, half clear, and the little
groups of pure sun-days enable them to ripen their cones and send
myriads of seeds flying every autumn to insure the permanence of the
forests and feed the multitude of animals.

The Wrangell village was a rough place. No mining hamlet in the placer
gulches of California, nor any backwoods village I ever saw, approached
it in picturesque, devil-may-care _abandon_. It was a lawless draggle
of wooden huts and houses, built in crooked lines, wrangling around the
boggy shore of the island for a mile or so in the general form of the
letter S, without the slightest subordination to the points of the
compass or to building laws of any kind. Stumps and logs, like precious
monuments, adorned its two streets, each stump and log, on account of
the moist climate, moss-grown and tufted with grass and bushes, but
muddy on the sides below the limit of the bog-line. The ground in
general was an oozy, mossy bog on a foundation of jagged rocks, full of
concealed pit-holes. These picturesque rock, bog, and stump
obstructions, however, were not so very much in the way, for there were
no wagons or carriages there. There was not a horse on the island. The
domestic animals were represented by chickens, a lonely cow, a few
sheep, and hogs of a breed well calculated to deepen and complicate the
mud of the streets.

Most of the permanent residents of Wrangell were engaged in trade. Some
little trade was carried on in fish and furs, but most of the
quickening business of the place was derived from the Cassiar
gold-mines, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred miles inland,
by way of the Stickeen River and Dease Lake. Two stern-wheel steamers
plied on the river between Wrangell and Telegraph Creek at the head of
navigation, a hundred and fifty miles from Wrangell, carrying freight
and passengers and connecting with pack-trains for the mines. These
placer mines, on tributaries of the Mackenzie River, were discovered in
the year 1874. About eighteen hundred miners and prospectors were said
to have passed through Wrangell that season of 1879, about half of them
being Chinamen. Nearly a third of this whole number set out from here
in the month of February, traveling on the Stickeen River, which
usually remains safely frozen until toward the end of April. The main
body of the miners, however, went up on the steamers in May and June.
On account of the severe winters they were all compelled to leave the
mines the end of September. Perhaps about two thirds of them passed the
winter in Portland and Victoria and the towns of Puget Sound. The rest
remained here in Wrangell, dozing away the long winter as best they
could.

Indians, mostly of the Stickeen tribe, occupied the two ends of the
town, the whites, of whom there were about forty or fifty, the middle
portion; but there was no determinate line of demarcation, the
dwellings of the Indians being mostly as large and solidly built of
logs and planks as those of the whites. Some of them were adorned with
tall totem poles.

The fort was a quadrangular stockade with a dozen block and frame
buildings located upon rising ground just back of the business part of
the town. It was built by our Government shortly after the purchase of
Alaska, and was abandoned in 1872, reoccupied by the military in 1875,
and finally abandoned and sold to private parties in 1877. In the fort
and about it there were a few good, clean homes, which shone all the
more brightly in their sombre surroundings. The ground occupied by the
fort, by being carefully leveled and drained, was dry, though formerly
a portion of the general swamp, showing how easily the whole town could
have been improved. But in spite of disorder and squalor, shaded with
clouds, washed and wiped by rain and sea winds, it was triumphantly
salubrious through all the seasons. And though the houses seemed to
rest uneasily among the miry rocks and stumps, squirming at all angles
as if they had been tossed and twisted by earthquake shocks, and
showing but little more relation to one another than may be observed
among moraine boulders, Wrangell was a tranquil place. I never heard a
noisy brawl in the streets, or a clap of thunder, and the waves seldom
spoke much above a whisper along the beach. In summer the rain comes
straight down, steamy and tepid. The clouds are usually united, filling
the sky, not racing along in threatening ranks suggesting energy of an
overbearing destructive kind, but forming a bland, mild, laving bath.
The cloudless days are calm, pearl-gray, and brooding in tone,
inclining to rest and peace; the islands seem to drowse and float on
the glassy water, and in the woods scarce a leaf stirs.

The very brightest of Wrangell days are not what Californians would
call bright. The tempered sunshine sifting through the moist atmosphere
makes no dazzling glare, and the town, like the landscape, rests
beneath a hazy, hushing, Indian-summerish spell. On the longest days
the sun rises about three o’clock, but it is daybreak at midnight. The
cocks crowed when they woke, without reference to the dawn, for it is
never quite dark; there were only a few full-grown roosters in
Wrangell, half a dozen or so, to awaken the town and give it a
civilized character. After sunrise a few languid smoke-columns might be
seen, telling the first stir of the people. Soon an Indian or two might
be noticed here and there at the doors of their barnlike cabins, and a
merchant getting ready for trade; but scarcely a sound was heard, only
a dull, muffled stir gradually deepening. There were only two white
babies in the town, so far as I saw, and as for Indian babies, they
woke and ate and made no crying sound. Later you might hear the
croaking of ravens, and the strokes of an axe on firewood. About eight
or nine o’clock the town was awake. Indians, mostly women and children,
began to gather on the front platforms of the half-dozen stores,
sitting carelessly on their blankets, every other face hideously
blackened, a naked circle around the eyes, and perhaps a spot on the
cheek-bone and the nose where the smut has been rubbed off. Some of the
little children were also blackened, and none were over-clad, their
light and airy costume consisting of a calico shirt reaching only to
the waist. Boys eight or ten years old sometimes had an additional
garment,—a pair of castaway miner’s overalls wide enough and ragged
enough for extravagant ventilation. The larger girls and young women
were arrayed in showy calico, and wore jaunty straw hats, gorgeously
ribboned, and glowed among the blackened and blanketed old crones like
scarlet tanagers in a flock of blackbirds. The women, seated on the
steps and platform of the traders’ shops, could hardly be called
loafers, for they had berries to sell, basketfuls of huckleberries,
large yellow salmon-berries, and bog raspberries that looked wondrous
fresh and clean amid the surrounding squalor. After patiently waiting
for purchasers until hungry, they ate what they could not sell, and
went away to gather more.

Yonder you see a canoe gliding out from the shore, containing perhaps a
man, a woman, and a child or two, all paddling together in natural,
easy rhythm. They are going to catch a fish, no difficult matter, and
when this is done their day’s work is done. Another party puts out to
capture bits of driftwood, for it is easier to procure fuel in this way
than to drag it down from the outskirts of the woods through rocks and
bushes. As the day advances, a fleet of canoes may be seen along the
shore, all fashioned alike, high and long beak-like prows and sterns,
with lines as fine as those of the breast of a duck. What the mustang
is to the Mexican _vaquero_, the canoe is to these coast Indians. They
skim along the shores to fish and hunt and trade, or merely to visit
their neighbors, for they are sociable, and have family pride
remarkably well developed, meeting often to inquire after each other’s
health, attend potlatches and dances, and gossip concerning coming
marriages, births, deaths, etc. Others seem to sail for the pure
pleasure of the thing, their canoes decorated with handfuls of the tall
purple epilobium.

[Illustration: Indian Canoes.]

Yonder goes a whole family, grandparents and all, making a direct
course for some favorite stream and camp-ground. They are going to
gather berries, as the baskets tell. Never before in all my travels,
north or south, had I found so lavish an abundance of berries as here.
The woods and meadows are full of them, both on the lowlands and
mountains—huckleberries of many species, salmon-berries, blackberries,
raspberries, with service-berries on dry open places, and cranberries
in the bogs, sufficient for every bird, beast, and human being in the
territory and thousands of tons to spare. The huckleberries are
especially abundant. A species that grows well up on the mountains is
the best and largest, a half-inch and more in diameter and delicious in
flavor. These grow on bushes three or four inches to a foot high. The
berries of the commonest species are smaller and grow almost everywhere
on the low grounds on bushes from three to six or seven feet high. This
is the species on which the Indians depend most for food, gathering
them in large quantities, beating them into a paste, pressing the paste
into cakes about an inch thick, and drying them over a slow fire to
enrich their winter stores. Salmon-berries and service-berries are
preserved in the same way.

A little excursion to one of the best huckleberry fields adjacent to
Wrangell, under the direction of the Collector of Customs, to which I
was invited, I greatly enjoyed. There were nine Indians in the party,
mostly women and children going to gather huckleberries. As soon as we
had arrived at the chosen campground on the bank of a trout stream, all
ran into the bushes and began eating berries before anything in the way
of camp-making was done, laughing and chattering in natural animal
enjoyment. The Collector went up the stream to examine a meadow at its
head with reference to the quantity of hay it might yield for his cow,
fishing by the way. All the Indians except the two eldest boys who
joined the Collector, remained among the berries.

The fishermen had rather poor luck, owing, they said, to the sunny
brightness of the day, a complaint seldom heard in this climate. They
got good exercise, however, jumping from boulder to boulder in the
brawling stream, running along slippery logs and through the bushes
that fringe the bank, casting here and there into swirling pools at the
foot of cascades, imitating the tempting little skips and whirls of
flies so well known to fishing parsons, but perhaps still better known
to Indian boys. At the lake-basin the Collector, after he had surveyed
his hay-meadow, went around it to the inlet of the lake with his brown
pair of attendants to try their luck, while I botanized in the
delightful flora which called to mind the cool sphagnum and carex bogs
of Wisconsin and Canada. Here I found many of my old favorites the
heathworts—kalmia, pyrola, chiogenes, huckleberry, cranberry, etc. On
the margin of the meadow darling linnæa was in its glory; purple
panicled grasses in full flower reached over my head, and some of the
carices and ferns were almost as tall. Here, too, on the edge of the
woods I found the wild apple tree, the first I had seen in Alaska. The
Indians gather the fruit, small and sour as it is, to flavor their fat
salmon. I never saw a richer bog and meadow growth anywhere. The
principal forest-trees are hemlock, spruce, and Nootka cypress, with a
few pines (_P. contorta_) on the margin of the meadow, some of them
nearly a hundred feet high, draped with gray usnea, the bark also gray
with scale lichens.

We met all the berry-pickers at the lake, excepting only a small girl
and the camp-keeper. In their bright colors they made a lively picture
among the quivering bushes, keeping up a low pleasant chanting as if
the day and the place and the berries were according to their own
hearts. The children carried small baskets, holding two or three
quarts; the women two large ones swung over their shoulders. In the
afternoon, when the baskets were full, all started back to the
camp-ground, where the canoe was left. We parted at the lake, I
choosing to follow quietly the stream through the woods. I was the
first to arrive at camp. The rest of the party came in shortly
afterwards, singing and humming like heavy-laden bees. It was
interesting to note how kindly they held out handfuls of the best
berries to the little girl, who welcomed them all in succession with
smiles and merry words that I did not understand. But there was no
mistaking the kindliness and serene good nature.

While I was at Wrangell the chiefs and head men of the Stickeen tribe
got up a grand dinner and entertainment in honor of their distinguished
visitors, three doctors of divinity and their wives, fellow passengers
on the steamer with me, whose object was to organize the Presbyterian
church. To both the dinner and dances I was invited, was adopted by the
Stickeen tribe, and given an Indian name (Ancoutahan) said to mean
adopted chief. I was inclined to regard this honor as being unlikely to
have any practical value, but I was assured by Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr.
Young, and others that it would be a great safeguard while I was on my
travels among the different tribes of the archipelago. For travelers
without an Indian name might be killed and robbed without the offender
being called to account as long as the crime was kept secret from the
whites; but, being adopted by the Stickeens, no one belonging to the
other tribes would dare attack me, knowing that the Stickeens would
hold them responsible.

The dinner-tables were tastefully decorated with flowers, and the food
and general arrangements were in good taste, but there was no trace of
Indian dishes. It was mostly imported canned stuff served Boston
fashion. After the dinner we assembled in Chief Shakes’s large
block-house and were entertained with lively examples of their dances
and amusements, carried on with great spirit, making a very novel
barbarous durbar. The dances seemed to me wonderfully like those of the
American Indians in general, a monotonous stamping accompanied by
hand-clapping, head-jerking, and explosive grunts kept in time to grim
drum-beats. The chief dancer and leader scattered great quantities of
downy feathers like a snowstorm as blessings on everybody, while all
chanted, “Hee-ee-ah-ah, hee-ee-ah-ah,” jumping up and down until all
were bathed in perspiration.

After the dancing excellent imitations were given of the gait,
gestures, and behavior of several animals under different
circumstances—walking, hunting, capturing, and devouring their prey,
etc. While all were quietly seated, waiting to see what next was going
to happen, the door of the big house was suddenly thrown open and in
bounced a bear, so true to life in form and gestures we were all
startled, though it was only a bear-skin nicely fitted on a man who was
intimately acquainted with the animals and knew how to imitate them.
The bear shuffled down into the middle of the floor and made the motion
of jumping into a stream and catching a wooden salmon that was ready
for him, carrying it out on to the bank, throwing his head around to
listen and see if any one was coming, then tearing it to pieces,
jerking his head from side to side, looking and listening in fear of
hunters’ rifles. Besides the bear dance, there were porpoise and deer
dances with one of the party imitating the animals by stuffed specimens
with an Indian inside, and the movements were so accurately imitated
that they seemed the real thing.

These animal plays were followed by serious speeches, interpreted by an
Indian woman: “Dear Brothers and Sisters, this is the way we used to
dance. We liked it long ago when we were blind, we always danced this
way, but now we are not blind. The Good Lord has taken pity upon us and
sent his son, Jesus Christ, to tell us what to do. We have danced
to-day only to show you how blind we were to like to dance in this
foolish way. We will not dance any more.”

Another speech was interpreted as follows: “‘Dear Brothers and
Sisters,’ the chief says, ‘this is else way we used to dance and play.
We do not wish to do so any more. We will give away all the dance
dresses you have seen us wearing, though we value them very highly.’ He
says he feels much honored to have so many white brothers and sisters
at our dinner and plays.”

Several short explanatory remarks were made all through the exercises
by Chief Shakes, presiding with grave dignity. The last of his speeches
concluded thus: “Dear Brothers and Sisters, we have been long, long in
the dark. You have led us into strong guiding light and taught us the
right way to live and the right way to die. I thank you for myself and
all my people, and I give you my heart.”

At the close of the amusements there was a potlatch when robes made of
the skins of deer, wild sheep, marmots, and sables were distributed,
and many of the fantastic head-dresses that had been worn by Shamans.
One of these fell to my share.

The floor of the house was strewn with fresh hemlock boughs, bunches of
showy wild flowers adorned the walls, and the hearth was filled with
huckleberry branches and epilobium. Altogether it was a wonderful show.

I have found southeastern Alaska a good, healthy country to live in.
The climate of the islands and shores of the mainland is remarkably
bland and temperate and free from extremes of either heat or cold
throughout the year. It is rainy, however,—so much so that hay-making
will hardly ever be extensively engaged in here, whatever the future
may show in the way of the development of mines, forests, and
fisheries. This rainy weather, however, is of good quality, the best of
the kind I ever experienced, mild in temperature, mostly gentle in its
fall, filling the fountains of the rivers and keeping the whole land
fresh and fruitful, while anything more delightful than the shining
weather in the midst of the rain, the great round sun-days of July and
August, may hardly be found anywhere, north or south. An Alaska summer
day is a day without night. In the Far North, at Point Barrow, the sun
does not set for weeks, and even here in southeastern Alaska it is only
a few degrees below the horizon at its lowest point, and the topmost
colors of the sunset blend with those of the sunrise, leaving no gap of
darkness between. Midnight is only a low noon, the middle point of the
gloaming. The thin clouds that are almost always present are then
colored yellow and red, making a striking advertisement of the sun’s
progress beneath the horizon. The day opens slowly. The low arc of
light steals around to the northeastward with gradual increase of
height and span and intensity of tone; and when at length the sun
appears, it is without much of that stirring, impressive pomp, of
flashing, awakening, triumphant energy, suggestive of the Bible
imagery, a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing like a
strong man to run a race. The red clouds with yellow edges dissolve in
hazy dimness; the islands, with grayish-white ruffs of mist about them,
cast ill-defined shadows on the glistening waters, and the whole
down-bending firmament becomes pearl-gray. For three or four hours
after sunrise there is nothing especially impressive in the landscape.
The sun, though seemingly unclouded, may almost be looked in the face,
and the islands and mountains, with their wealth of woods and snow and
varied beauty of architecture, seem comparatively sleepy and
uncommunicative.

As the day advances toward high noon, the sun-flood streaming through
the damp atmosphere lights the water levels and the sky to glowing
silver. Brightly play the ripples about the bushy edges of the islands
and on the plume-shaped streaks between them, ruffled by gentle passing
wind-currents. The warm air throbs and makes itself felt as a
life-giving, energizing ocean, embracing all the landscape, quickening
the imagination, and bringing to mind the life and motion about us—the
tides, the rivers, the flood of light streaming through the satiny sky;
the marvelous abundance of fishes feeding in the lower ocean; the misty
flocks of insects in the air; wild sheep and goats on a thousand grassy
ridges; beaver and mink far back on many a rushing stream; Indians
floating and basking along the shores; leaves and crystals drinking the
sunbeams; and glaciers on the mountains, making valleys and basins for
new rivers and lakes and fertile beds of soil.

Through the afternoon, all the way down to the sunset, the day grows in
beauty. The light seems to thicken and become yet more generously
fruitful without losing its soft mellow brightness. Everything seems to
settle into conscious repose. The winds breathe gently or are wholly at
rest. The few clouds visible are downy and luminous and combed out fine
on the edges. Gulls here and there, winnowing the air on easy wing, are
brought into striking relief; and every stroke of the paddles of Indian
hunters in their canoes is told by a quick, glancing flash. Bird choirs
in the grove are scarce heard as they sweeten the brooding stillness;
and the sky, land, and water meet and blend in one inseparable scene of
enchantment. Then comes the sunset with its purple and gold, not a
narrow arch on the horizon, but oftentimes filling all the sky. The
level cloud-bars usually present are fired on the edges, and the spaces
of clear sky between them are greenish-yellow or pale amber, while the
orderly flocks of small overlapping clouds, often seen higher up, are
mostly touched with crimson like the out-leaning sprays of maple-groves
in the beginning of an Eastern Indian Summer. Soft, mellow purple
flushes the sky to the zenith and fills the air, fairly steeping and
transfiguring the islands and making all the water look like wine.
After the sun goes down, the glowing gold vanishes, but because it
descends on a curve nearly in the same plane with the horizon, the
glowing portion of the display lasts much longer than in more southern
latitudes, while the upper colors with gradually lessening intensity of
tone sweep around to the north, gradually increase to the eastward, and
unite with those of the morning.

The most extravagantly colored of all the sunsets I have yet seen in
Alaska was one I enjoyed on the voyage from Portland to Wrangell, when
we were in the midst of one of the most thickly islanded parts of the
Alexander Archipelago. The day had been showery, but late in the
afternoon the clouds melted away from the west, all save a few that
settled down in narrow level bars near the horizon. The evening was
calm and the sunset colors came on gradually, increasing in extent and
richness of tone by slow degrees as if requiring more time than usual
to ripen. At a height of about thirty degrees there was a heavy
cloud-bank, deeply reddened on its lower edge and the projecting parts
of its face. Below this were three horizontal belts of purple edged
with gold, while a vividly defined, spreading fan of flame streamed
upward across the purple bars and faded in a feather edge of dull red.
But beautiful and impressive as was this painting on the sky, the most
novel and exciting effect was in the body of the atmosphere itself,
which, laden with moisture, became one mass of color—a fine translucent
purple haze in which the islands with softened outlines seemed to
float, while a dense red ring lay around the base of each of them as a
fitting border. The peaks, too, in the distance, and the snow-fields
and glaciers and fleecy rolls of mist that lay in the hollows, were
flushed with a deep, rosy alpenglow of ineffable loveliness. Everything
near and far, even the ship, was comprehended in the glorious picture
and the general color effect. The mission divines we had aboard seemed
then to be truly divine as they gazed transfigured in the celestial
glory. So also seemed our bluff, storm-fighting old captain, and his
tarry sailors and all.

About one third of the summer days I spent in the Wrangell region were
cloudy with very little or no rain, one third decidedly rainy, and one
third clear. According to a record kept here of a hundred and
forty-seven days beginning May 17 of that year, there were sixty-five
on which rain fell, forty-three cloudy with no rain, and thirty-nine
clear. In June rain fell on eighteen days, in July eight days, in
August fifteen days, in September twenty days. But on some of these
days there was only a few minutes’ rain, light showers scarce enough to
count, while as a general thing the rain fell so gently and the
temperature was so mild, very few of them could be called stormy or
dismal; even the bleakest, most bedraggled of them all usually had a
flush of late or early color to cheer them, or some white illumination
about the noon hours. I never before saw so much rain fall with so
little noise. None of the summer winds make roaring storms, and thunder
is seldom heard. I heard none at all. This wet, misty weather seems
perfectly healthful. There is no mildew in the houses, as far as I have
seen, or any tendency toward mouldiness in nooks hidden from the sun;
and neither among the people nor the plants do we find anything flabby
or dropsical.

In September clear days were rare, more than three fourths of them were
either decidedly cloudy or rainy, and the rains of this month were,
with one wild exception, only moderately heavy, and the clouds between
showers drooped and crawled in a ragged, unsettled way without
betraying hints of violence such as one often sees in the gestures of
mountain storm-clouds.

July was the brightest month of the summer, with fourteen days of
sunshine, six of them in uninterrupted succession, with a temperature
at 7 A.M. of about 60°, at 12 M., 70°. The average 7 A.M. temperature
for June was 54.3°; the average 7 A.M. temperature for July was 55.3°;
at 12 M. the average temperature was 61.45°; the average 7 A.M.
temperature for August was 54.12°; 12 M., 61.48°; the average 7 A.M.
temperature for September was 52.14°; and 12 M., 56.12°.

The highest temperature observed here during the summer was seventy-six
degrees. The most remarkable characteristic of this summer weather,
even the brightest of it, is the velvet softness of the atmosphere. On
the mountains of California, throughout the greater part of the year,
the presence of an atmosphere is hardly recognized, and the thin,
white, bodiless light of the morning comes to the peaks and glaciers as
a pure spiritual essence, the most impressive of all the terrestrial
manifestations of God. The clearest of Alaskan air is always
appreciably substantial, so much so that it would seem as if one might
test its quality by rubbing it between the thumb and finger. I never
before saw summer days so white and so full of subdued lustre.

The winter storms, up to the end of December when I left Wrangell, were
mostly rain at a temperature of thirty-five or forty degrees, with
strong winds which sometimes roughly lash the shores and carry scud far
into the woods. The long nights are then gloomy enough and the value of
snug homes with crackling yellow cedar fires may be finely appreciated.
Snow falls frequently, but never to any great depth or to lie long. It
is said that only once since the settlement of Fort Wrangell has the
ground been covered to a depth of four feet. The mercury seldom falls
more than five or six degrees below the freezing-point, unless the wind
blows steadily from the mainland. Back from the coast, however, beyond
the mountains, the winter months are very cold. On the Stickeen River
at Glenora, less than a thousand feet above the level of the sea, a
temperature of from thirty to forty degrees below zero is not uncommon.




Chapter IV
The Stickeen River


The most interesting of the short excursions we made from Fort Wrangell
was the one up the Stickeen River to the head of steam navigation. From
Mt. St. Elias the coast range extends in a broad, lofty chain beyond
the southern boundary of the territory, gashed by stupendous cañons,
each of which carries a lively river, though most of them are
comparatively short, as their highest sources lie in the icy solitudes
of the range within forty or fifty miles of the coast. A few, however,
of these foaming, roaring streams—the Alsek, Chilcat, Chilcoot, Taku,
Stickeen, and perhaps others—head beyond the range with some of the
southwest branches of the Mackenzie and Yukon.

The largest side branches of the main-trunk cañons of all these
mountain streams are still occupied by glaciers which descend in showy
ranks, their messy, bulging snouts lying back a little distance in the
shadows of the walls, or pushing forward among the cotton-woods that
line the banks of the rivers, or even stretching all the way across the
main cañons, compelling the rivers to find a channel beneath them.

The Stickeen was, perhaps, the best known of the rivers that cross the
Coast Range, because it was the best way to the Mackenzie River Cassiar
gold-mines. It is about three hundred and fifty miles long, and is
navigable for small steamers a hundred and fifty miles to Glenora, and
sometimes to Telegraph Creek, fifteen miles farther. It first pursues a
westerly course through grassy plains darkened here and there with
groves of spruce and pine; then, curving southward and receiving
numerous tributaries from the north, it enters the Coast Range, and
sweeps across it through a magnificent cañon three thousand to five
thousand feet deep, and more than a hundred miles long. The majestic
cliffs and mountains forming the cañon walls display endless variety of
form and sculpture, and are wonderfully adorned and enlivened with
glaciers and waterfalls, while throughout almost its whole extent the
floor is a flowery landscape garden, like Yosemite. The most striking
features are the glaciers, hanging over the cliffs, descending the side
cañons and pushing forward to the river, greatly enhancing the wild
beauty of all the others.

Gliding along the swift-flowing river, the views change with
bewildering rapidity. Wonderful, too, are the changes dependent on the
seasons and the weather. In spring, when the snow is melting fast, you
enjoy the countless rejoicing waterfalls; the gentle breathing of warm
winds; the colors of the young leaves and flowers when the bees are
busy and wafts of fragrance are drifting hither and thither from miles
of wild roses, clover, and honeysuckle; the swaths of birch and willow
on the lower slopes following the melting of the winter avalanche
snow-banks; the bossy cumuli swelling in white and purple piles above
the highest peaks; gray rain-clouds wreathing the outstanding brows and
battlements of the walls; and the breaking-forth of the sun after the
rain; the shining of the leaves and streams and crystal architecture of
the glaciers; the rising of fresh fragrance; the song of the happy
birds; and the serene color-grandeur of the morning and evening sky. In
summer you find the groves and gardens in full dress; glaciers melting
rapidly under sunshine and rain; waterfalls in all their glory; the
river rejoicing in its strength; young birds trying their wings; bears
enjoying salmon and berries; all the life of the cañon brimming full
like the streams. In autumn comes rest, as if the year’s work were
done. The rich hazy sunshine streaming over the cliffs calls forth the
last of the gentians and goldenrods; the groves and thickets and
meadows bloom again as their leaves change to red and yellow petals;
the rocks also, and the glaciers, seem to bloom like the plants in the
mellow golden light. And so goes the song, change succeeding change in
sublime harmony through all the wonderful seasons and weather.

My first trip up the river was made in the spring with the missionary
party soon after our arrival at Wrangell. We left Wrangell in the
afternoon and anchored for the night above the river delta, and started
up the river early next morning when the heights above the “Big
Stickeen” Glacier and the smooth domes and copings and arches of solid
snow along the tops of the cañon walls were glowing in the early beams.
We arrived before noon at the old trading-post called “Buck’s” in front
of the Stickeen Glacier, and remained long enough to allow the few
passengers who wished a nearer view to cross the river to the terminal
moraine. The sunbeams streaming through the ice pinnacles along its
terminal wall produced a wonderful glory of color, and the broad,
sparkling crystal prairie and the distant snowy fountains were
wonderfully attractive and made me pray for opportunity to explore
them.

Of the many glaciers, a hundred or more, that adorn the walls of the
great Stickeen River Cañon, this is the largest. It draws its sources
from snowy mountains within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast, pours
through a comparatively narrow cañon about two miles in width in a
magnificent cascade, and expands in a broad fan five or six miles in
width, separated from the Stickeen River by its broad terminal moraine,
fringed with spruces and willows. Around the beautifully drawn curve of
the moraine the Stickeen River flows, having evidently been shoved by
the glacier out of its direct course. On the opposite side of the cañon
another somewhat smaller glacier, which now terminates four or five
miles from the river, was once united front to front with the greater
glacier, though at first both were tributaries of the main Stickeen
Glacier which once filled the whole grand cañon. After the main trunk
cañon was melted out, its side branches, drawing their sources from a
height of three or four to five or six thousand feet, were cut off, and
of course became separate glaciers, occupying cirques and branch cañons
along the tops and sides of the walls. The Indians have a tradition
that the river used to run through a tunnel under the united fronts of
the two large tributary glaciers mentioned above, which entered the
main cañon from either side; and that on one occasion an Indian,
anxious to get rid of his wife, had her sent adrift in a canoe down
through the ice tunnel, expecting that she would trouble him no more.
But to his surprise she floated through under the ice in safety. All
the evidence connected with the present appearance of these two
glaciers indicates that they were united and formed a dam across the
river after the smaller tributaries had been melted off and had receded
to a greater or lesser height above the valley floor.

The big Stickeen Glacier is hardly out of sight ere you come upon
another that pours a majestic crystal flood through the evergreens,
while almost every hollow and tributary cañon contains a smaller one,
the size, of course, varying with the extent of the area drained. Some
are like mere snow-banks; others, with the blue ice apparent, depend in
massive bulging curves and swells, and graduate into the river-like
forms that maze through the lower forested regions and are so striking
and beautiful that they are admired even by the passing miners with
gold-dust in their eyes.

Thirty-five miles above the Big Stickeen Glacier is the “Dirt Glacier,”
the second in size. Its outlet is a fine stream, abounding in trout. On
the opposite side of the river there is a group of five glaciers, one
of them descending to within a hundred feet of the river.

Near Glenora, on the northeastern flank of the main Coast Range, just
below a narrow gorge called “The Cañon,” terraces first make their
appearance, where great quantities of moraine material have been swept
through the flood-choked gorge and of course outspread and deposited on
the first open levels below. Here, too, occurs a marked change in
climate and consequently in forests and general appearance of the face
of the country. On account of destructive fires the woods are younger
and are composed of smaller trees about a foot to eighteen inches in
diameter and seventy-five feet high, mostly two-leaved pines which hold
their seeds for several years after they are ripe. The woods here are
without a trace of those deep accumulations of mosses, leaves, and
decaying trunks which make so damp and unclearable mass in the coast
forests. Whole mountain-sides are covered with gray moss and lichens
where the forest has been utterly destroyed. The river-bank cottonwoods
are also smaller, and the birch and contorta pines mingle freely with
the coast hemlock and spruce. The birch is common on the lower slopes
and is very effective, its round, leafy, pale-green head contrasting
with the dark, narrow spires of the conifers and giving a striking
character to the forest. The “tamarac pine” or black pine, as the
variety of _P. contorta_ is called here, is yellowish-green, in marked
contrast with the dark lichen-draped spruce which grows above the pine
at a height of about two thousand feet, in groves and belts where it
has escaped fire and snow avalanches. There is another handsome spruce
hereabouts, _Picea alba_, very slender and graceful in habit, drooping
at the top like a mountain hemlock. I saw fine specimens a hundred and
twenty-five feet high on deep bottom land a few miles below Glenora.
The tops of some of them were almost covered with dense clusters of
yellow and brown cones.

We reached the old Hudson’s Bay trading-post at Glenora about one
o’clock, and the captain informed me that he would stop here until the
next morning, when he would make an early start for Wrangell.

At a distance of about seven or eight miles to the northeastward of the
landing, there is an outstanding group of mountains crowning a spur
from the main chain of the Coast Range, whose highest point rises about
eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; and as Glenora is only
a thousand feet above the sea, the height to be overcome in climbing
this peak is about seven thousand feet. Though the time was short I
determined to climb it, because of the advantageous position it
occupied for general views of the peaks and glaciers of the east side
of the great range.

Although it was now twenty minutes past three and the days were getting
short, I thought that by rapid climbing I could reach the summit before
sunset, in time to get a general view and a few pencil sketches, and
make my way back to the steamer in the night. Mr. Young, one of the
missionaries, asked permission to accompany me, saying that he was a
good walker and climber and would not delay me or cause any trouble. I
strongly advised him not to go, explaining that it involved a walk,
coming and going, of fourteen or sixteen miles, and a climb through
brush and boulders of seven thousand feet, a fair day’s work for a
seasoned mountaineer to be done in less than half a day and part of a
night. But he insisted that he was a strong walker, could do a
mountaineer’s day’s work in half a day, and would not hinder me in any
way.

“Well, I have warned you,” I said, “and will not assume responsibility
for any trouble that may arise.”

He proved to be a stout walker, and we made rapid progress across a
brushy timbered flat and up the mountain slopes, open in some places,
and in others thatched with dwarf firs, resting a minute here and there
to refresh ourselves with huckleberries, which grew in abundance in
open spots. About half an hour before sunset, when we were near a
cluster of crumbling pinnacles that formed the summit, I had ceased to
feel anxiety about the mountaineering strength and skill of my
companion, and pushed rapidly on. In passing around the shoulder of the
highest pinnacle, where the rock was rapidly disintegrating and the
danger of slipping was great, I shouted in a warning voice, “Be very
careful here, this is dangerous.”

Mr. Young was perhaps a dozen or two yards behind me, but out of sight.
I afterwards reproached myself for not stopping and lending him a
steadying hand, and showing him the slight footsteps I had made by
kicking out little blocks of the crumbling surface, instead of simply
warning him to be careful. Only a few seconds after giving this
warning, I was startled by a scream for help, and hurrying back, found
the missionary face downward, his arms outstretched, clutching little
crumbling knobs on the brink of a gully that plunges down a thousand
feet or more to a small residual glacier. I managed to get below him,
touched one of his feet, and tried to encourage him by saying, “I am
below you. You are in no danger. You can’t slip past me and I will soon
get you out of this.”

He then told me that both of his arms were dislocated. It was almost
impossible to find available footholds on the treacherous rock, and I
was at my wits’ end to know how to get him rolled or dragged to a place
where I could get about him, find out how much he was hurt, and a way
back down the mountain. After narrowly scanning the cliff and making
footholds, I managed to roll and lift him a few yards to a place where
the slope was less steep, and there I attempted to set his arms. I
found, however, that this was impossible in such a place. I therefore
tied his arms to his sides with my suspenders and necktie, to prevent
as much as possible inflammation from movement. I then left him,
telling him to lie still, that I would be back in a few minutes, and
that he was now safe from slipping. I hastily examined the ground and
saw no way of getting him down except by the steep glacier gully. After
scrambling to an outstanding point that commands a view of it from top
to bottom, to make sure that it was not interrupted by sheer
precipices, I concluded that with great care and the digging of slight
footholds he could be slid down to the glacier, where I could lay him
on his back and perhaps be able to set his arms. Accordingly, I cheered
him up, telling him I had found a way, but that it would require lots
of time and patience. Digging a footstep in the sand or crumbling rock
five or six feet beneath him, I reached up, took hold of him by one of
his feet, and gently slid him down on his back, placed his heels in the
step, then descended another five or six feet, dug heel notches, and
slid him down to them. Thus the whole distance was made by a succession
of narrow steps at very short intervals, and the glacier was reached
perhaps about midnight. Here I took off one of my boots, tied a
handkerchief around his wrist for a good hold, placed my heel in his
arm pit, and succeeded in getting one of his arms into place, but my
utmost strength was insufficient to reduce the dislocation of the
other. I therefore bound it closely to his side, and asked him if in
his exhausted and trembling condition he was still able to walk.

“Yes,” he bravely replied.

So, with a steadying arm around him and many stops for rest, I marched
him slowly down in the starlight on the comparatively smooth, unassured
surface of the little glacier to the terminal moraine, a distance of
perhaps a mile, crossed the moraine, bathed his head at one of the
outlet streams, and after many rests reached a dry place and made a
brush fire. I then went ahead looking for an open way through the
bushes to where larger wood could be had, made a good lasting fire of
resiny silver-fir roots, and a leafy bed beside it. I now told him I
would run down the mountain, hasten back with help from the boat, and
carry him down in comfort. But he would not hear of my leaving him.

“No, no,” he said, “I can walk down. Don’t leave me.”

I reminded him of the roughness of the way, his nerve-shaken condition,
and assured him I would not be gone long. But he insisted on trying,
saying on no account whatever must I leave him. I therefore concluded
to try to get him to the ship by short walks from one fire and
resting-place to another. While he was resting I went ahead, looking
for the best way through the brush and rocks, then returning, got him
on his feet and made him lean on my shoulder while I steadied him to
prevent his falling. This slow, staggering struggle from fire to fire
lasted until long after sunrise. When at last we reached the ship and
stood at the foot of the narrow single plank without side rails that
reached from the bank to the deck at a considerable angle, I briefly
explained to Mr. Young’s companions, who stood looking down at us, that
he had been hurt in an accident, and requested one of them to assist me
in getting him aboard. But strange to say, instead of coming down to
help, they made haste to reproach him for having gone on a “wild-goose
chase” with Muir.

“These foolish adventures are well enough for Mr. Muir,” they said,
“but you, Mr. Young, have a work to do; you have a family; you have a
church, and you have no right to risk your life on treacherous peaks
and precipices.”

The captain, Nat Lane, son of Senator Joseph Lane, had been swearing in
angry impatience for being compelled to make so late a start and thus
encounter a dangerous wind in a narrow gorge, and was threatening to
put the missionaries ashore to seek their lost companion, while he went
on down the river about his business. But when he heard my call for
help, he hastened forward, and elbowed the divines away from the end of
the gangplank, shouting in angry irreverence, “Oh, blank! This is no
time for preaching! Don’t you see the man is hurt?”

He ran down to our help, and while I steadied my trembling companion
from behind, the captain kindly led him up the plank into the saloon,
and made him drink a large glass of brandy. Then, with a man holding
down his shoulders, we succeeded in getting the bone into its socket,
notwithstanding the inflammation and contraction of the muscles and
ligaments. Mr. Young was then put to bed, and he slept all the way back
to Wrangell.

In his mission lectures in the East, Mr. Young oftentimes told this
story. I made no record of it in my notebook and never intended to
write a word about it; but after a miserable, sensational caricature of
the story had appeared in a respectable magazine, I thought it but fair
to my brave companion that it should be told just as it happened.




Chapter V
A Cruise in the Cassiar


Shortly after our return to Wrangell the missionaries planned a grand
mission excursion up the coast of the mainland to the Chilcat country,
which I gladly joined, together with Mr. Vanderbilt, his wife, and a
friend from Oregon. The river steamer Cassiar was chartered, and we had
her all to ourselves, ship and officers at our command to sail and stop
where and when we would, and of course everybody felt important and
hopeful. The main object of the missionaries was to ascertain the
spiritual wants of the warlike Chilcat tribe, with a view to the
establishment of a church and school in their principal village; the
merchant and his party were bent on business and scenery; while my mind
was on the mountains, glaciers, and forests.

This was toward the end of July, in the very brightest and best of
Alaska summer weather, when the icy mountains towering in the pearly
sky were displayed in all their glory, and the islands at their feet
seemed to float and drowse on the shining mirror waters.

After we had passed through the Wrangell Narrows, the mountains of the
mainland came in full view, gloriously arrayed in snow and ice, some of
the largest and most river-like of the glaciers flowing through wide,
high-walled valleys like Yosemite, their sources far back and
concealed, others in plain sight, from their highest fountains to the
level of the sea.

Cares of every kind were quickly forgotten, and though the Cassiar
engines soon began to wheeze and sigh with doleful solemnity,
suggesting coming trouble, we were too happy to mind them. Every face
glowed with natural love of wild beauty. The islands were seen in long
perspective, their forests dark green in the foreground, with varying
tones of blue growing more and more tender in the distance; bays full
of hazy shadows, graduating into open, silvery fields of light, and
lofty headlands with fine arching insteps dipping their feet in the
shining water. But every eye was turned to the mountains. Forgotten now
were the Chilcats and missions while the word of God was being read in
these majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the sky. The earnest,
childish wonderment with which this glorious page of Nature’s Bible was
contemplated was delightful to see. All evinced eager desire to learn.

“Is that a glacier,” they asked, “down in that cañon? And is it all
solid ice?”

“Yes.”

“How deep is it?”

“Perhaps five hundred or a thousand feet.”

“You say it flows. How can hard ice flow?”

“It flows like water, though invisibly slow.”

“And where does it come from?”

“From snow that is heaped up every winter on the mountains.”

“And how, then, is the snow changed into ice?”

“It is welded by the pressure of its own weight.”

“Are these white masses we see in the hollows glaciers also?”

“Yes.”

“Are those bluish draggled masses hanging down from beneath the
snow-fields what you call the snouts of the glaciers?”

“Yes.”

“What made the hollows they are in?”

“The glaciers themselves, just as traveling animals make their own
tracks.”

“How long have they been there?”

“Numberless centuries,” etc. I answered as best I could, keeping up a
running commentary on the subject in general, while busily engaged in
sketching and noting my own observations, preaching glacial gospel in a
rambling way, while the Cassiar, slowly wheezing and creeping along the
shore, shifted our position so that the icy cañons were opened to view
and closed again in regular succession, like the leaves of a book.

About the middle of the afternoon we were directly opposite a noble
group of glaciers some ten in number, flowing from a chain of
crater-like snow fountains, guarded around their summits and well down
their sides by jagged peaks and cols and curving mural ridges. From
each of the larger clusters of fountains, a wide, sheer-walled cañon
opens down to the sea. Three of the trunk glaciers descend to within a
few feet of the sea-level. The largest of the three, probably about
fifteen miles long, terminates in a magnificent valley like Yosemite,
in an imposing wall of ice about two miles long, and from three to five
hundred feet high, forming a barrier across the valley from wall to
wall. It was to this glacier that the ships of the Alaska Ice Company
resorted for the ice they carried to San Francisco and the Sandwich
Islands, and, I believe, also to China and Japan. To load, they had
only to sail up the fiord within a short distance of the front and drop
anchor in the terminal moraine.

Another glacier, a few miles to the south of this one, receives two
large tributaries about equal in size, and then flows down a forested
valley to within a hundred feet or so of sea-level. The third of this
low-descending group is four or five miles farther south, and, though
less imposing than either of the two sketched above, is still a truly
noble object, even as imperfectly seen from the channel, and would of
itself be well worth a visit to Alaska to any lowlander so unfortunate
as never to have seen a glacier.

The boilers of our little steamer were not made for sea water, but it
was hoped that fresh water would be found at available points along our
course where streams leap down the cliffs. In this particular we
failed, however, and were compelled to use salt water an hour or two
before reaching Cape Fanshawe, the supply of fifty tons of fresh water
brought from Wrangell having then given out. To make matters worse, the
captain and engineer were not in accord concerning the working of the
engines. The captain repeatedly called for more steam, which the
engineer refused to furnish, cautiously keeping the pressure low
because the salt water foamed in the boilers and some of it passed over
into the cylinders, causing heavy thumping at the end of each piston
stroke, and threatening to knock out the cylinder-heads. At seven
o’clock in the evening we had made only about seventy miles, which
caused dissatisfaction, especially among the divines, who thereupon
called a meeting in the cabin to consider what had better be done. In
the discussions that followed much indignation and economy were brought
to light. We had chartered the boat for sixty dollars per day, and the
round trip was to have been made in four or five days. But at the
present rate of speed it was found that the cost of the trip for each
passenger would be five or ten dollars above the first estimate.
Therefore, the majority ruled that we must return next day to Wrangell,
the extra dollars outweighing the mountains and missions as if they had
suddenly become dust in the balance.

Soon after the close of this economical meeting, we came to anchor in a
beautiful bay, and as the long northern day had still hours of good
light to offer, I gladly embraced the opportunity to go ashore to see
the rocks and plants. One of the Indians, employed as a deck hand on
the steamer, landed me at the mouth of a stream. The tide was low,
exposing a luxuriant growth of algæ, which sent up a fine, fresh sea
smell. The shingle was composed of slate, quartz, and granite, named in
the order of abundance. The first land plant met was a tall grass, nine
feet high, forming a meadow-like margin in front of the forest. Pushing
my way well back into the forest, I found it composed almost entirely
of spruce and two hemlocks (_Picea sitchensis, Tsuga heterophylla_ and
_T. mertensiana_) with a few specimens of yellow cypress. The ferns
were developed in remarkable beauty and size—aspidiums, one of which is
about six feet high, a woodsia, lomaria, and several species of
polypodium. The underbrush is chiefly alder, rubus, ledum, three
species of vaccinium, and _Echinopanax horrida_, the whole about from
six to eight feet high, and in some places closely intertangled and
hard to penetrate. On the opener spots beneath the trees the ground is
covered to a depth of two or three feet with mosses of indescribable
freshness and beauty, a few dwarf conifers often planted on their rich
furred bosses, together with pyrola, coptis, and Solomon’s-seal. The
tallest of the trees are about a hundred and fifty feet high, with a
diameter of about four or five feet, their branches mingling together
and making a perfect shade. As the twilight began to fall, I sat down
on the mossy instep of a spruce. Not a bush or tree was moving; every
leaf seemed hushed in brooding repose. One bird, a thrush, embroidered
the silence with cheery notes, making the solitude familiar and sweet,
while the solemn monotone of the stream sifting through the woods
seemed like the very voice of God, humanized, terrestrialized, and
entering one’s heart as to a home prepared for it. Go where we will,
all the world over, we seem to have been there before.

The stream was bridged at short intervals with picturesque,
moss-embossed logs, and the trees on its banks, leaning over from side
to side, made high embowering arches. The log bridge I crossed was, I
think, the most beautiful of the kind I ever saw. The massive log is
plushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of three or four
species, their different tones of yellow shading finely into each
other, while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in
exquisite order, inclining outward and down the sides in rich, furred,
clasping sheets overlapping and felted together until the required
thickness is attained. The pedicels and spore-cases give a purplish
tinge, and the whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row of small
seedling trees and currant bushes with colored leaves, every one of
which seems to have been culled from the woods for this special use, so
perfectly do they harmonize in size, shape, and color with the mossy
cover, the width of the span, and the luxuriant, brushy abutments.

Sauntering back to the beach, I found four or five Indian deck hands
getting water, with whom I returned aboard the steamer, thanking the
Lord for so noble an addition to my life as was this one big mountain,
forest, and glacial day.

[Illustration: Alaskan Hemlocks and Spruces, Sitka.]

Next morning most of the company seemed uncomfortably
conscience-stricken, and ready to do anything in the way of
compensation for our broken excursion that would not cost too much. It
was not found difficult, therefore, to convince the captain and
disappointed passengers that instead of creeping back to Wrangell
direct we should make an expiatory branch-excursion to the largest of
the three low-descending glaciers we had passed. The Indian pilot, well
acquainted with this part of the coast, declared himself willing to
guide us. The water in these fiord channels is generally deep and safe,
and though at wide intervals rocks rise abruptly here and there,
lacking only a few feet in height to enable them to take rank as
islands, the flat-bottomed Cassiar drew but little more water than a
duck, so that even the most timid raised no objection on this score.
The cylinder-heads of our engines were the main source of anxiety;
provided they could be kept on all might yet be well. But in this
matter there was evidently some distrust, the engineer having
imprudently informed some of the passengers that in consequence of
using salt water in his frothing boilers the cylinder-heads might fly
off at any moment. To the glacier, however, it was at length decided we
should venture.

Arriving opposite the mouth of its fiord, we steered straight inland
between beautiful wooded shores, and the grand glacier came in sight in
its granite valley, glowing in the early sunshine and extending a noble
invitation to come and see. After we passed between the two mountain
rocks that guard the gate of the fiord, the view that was unfolded
fixed every eye in wondering admiration. No words can convey anything
like an adequate conception of its sublime grandeur—the noble
simplicity and fineness of the sculpture of the walls; their
magnificent proportions; their cascades, gardens, and forest
adornments; the placid fiord between them; the great white and blue ice
wall, and the snow-laden mountains beyond. Still more impotent are
words in telling the peculiar awe one experiences in entering these
mansions of the icy North, notwithstanding it is only the natural
effect of appreciable manifestations of the presence of God.

Standing in the gateway of this glorious temple, and regarding it only
as a picture, its outlines may be easily traced, the water foreground
of a pale-green color, a smooth mirror sheet sweeping back five or six
miles like one of the lower reaches of a great river, bounded at the
head by a beveled barrier wall of blueish-white ice four or five
hundred feet high. A few snowy mountain-tops appear beyond it, and on
either hand rise a series of majestic, pale-gray granite rocks from
three to four thousand feet high, some of them thinly forested and
striped with bushes and flowery grass on narrow shelves, especially
about half way up, others severely sheer and bare and built together
into walls like those of Yosemite, extending far beyond the ice
barrier, one immense brow appearing beyond another with their bases
buried in the glacier. This is a Yosemite Valley in process of
formation, the modeling and sculpture of the walls nearly completed and
well planted, but no groves as yet or gardens or meadows on the raw and
unfinished bottom. It is as if the explorer, in entering the Merced
Yosemite, should find the walls nearly in their present condition,
trees and flowers in the warm nooks and along the sunny portions of the
moraine-covered brows, but the bottom of the valley still covered with
water and beds of gravel and mud, and the grand glacier that formed it
slowly receding but still filling the upper half of the valley.

Sailing directly up to the edge of the low, outspread, water-washed
terminal moraine, scarce noticeable in a general view, we seemed to be
separated from the glacier only by a bed of gravel a hundred yards or
so in width; but on so grand a scale are all the main features of the
valley, we afterwards found the distance to be a mile or more.

The captain ordered the Indian deck hands to get out the canoe, take as
many of us ashore as wished to go, and accompany us to the glacier in
case we should need their help. Only three of the company, in the first
place, availed themselves of this rare opportunity of meeting a glacier
in the flesh,—Mr. Young, one of the doctors, and myself. Paddling to
the nearest and driest-looking part of the moraine flat, we stepped
ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe; for the gray mineral
mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept unstable by the
tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us feet foremost with
becoming glacial deliberation. Our next attempt, made nearer the middle
of the valley, was successful, and we soon found ourselves on firm
gravelly ground, and made haste to the huge ice wall, which seemed to
recede as we advanced. The only difficulty we met was a network of icy
streams, at the largest of which we halted, not willing to get wet in
fording. The Indian attendant promptly carried us over on his back.
When my turn came I told him I would ford, but he bowed his shoulders
in so ludicrously persuasive a manner I thought I would try the queer
mount, the only one of the kind I had enjoyed since boyhood days in
playing leapfrog. Away staggered my perpendicular mule over the
boulders into the brawling torrent, and in spite of top-heavy
predictions to the contrary, crossed without a fall. After being
ferried in this way over several more of these glacial streams, we at
length reached the foot of the glacier wall. The doctor simply played
tag on it, touched it gently as if it were a dangerous wild beast, and
hurried back to the boat, taking the portage Indian with him for
safety, little knowing what he was missing. Mr. Young and I traced the
glorious crystal wall, admiring its wonderful architecture, the play of
light in the rifts and caverns, and the structure of the ice as
displayed in the less fractured sections, finding fresh beauty
everywhere and facts for study. We then tried to climb it, and by dint
of patient zigzagging and doubling among the crevasses, and cutting
steps here and there, we made our way up over the brow and back a mile
or two to a height of about seven hundred feet. The whole front of the
glacier is gashed and sculptured into a maze of shallow caves and
crevasses, and a bewildering variety of novel architectural forms,
clusters of glittering lance-tipped spires, gables, and obelisks, bold
outstanding bastions and plain mural cliffs, adorned along the top with
fretted cornice and battlement, while every gorge and crevasse, groove
and hollow, was filled with light, shimmering and throbbing in
pale-blue tones of ineffable tenderness and beauty. The day was warm,
and back on the broad melting bosom of the glacier beyond the crevassed
front, many streams were rejoicing, gurgling, ringing, singing, in
frictionless channels worn down through the white disintegrated ice of
the surface into the quick and living blue, in which they flowed with a
grace of motion and flashing of light to be found only on the crystal
hillocks and ravines of a glacier.

Along the sides of the glacier we saw the mighty flood grinding against
the granite walls with tremendous pressure, rounding outswelling
bosses, and deepening the retreating hollows into the forms they are
destined to have when, in the fullness of appointed time, the huge ice
tool shall be withdrawn by the sun. Every feature glowed with
intention, reflecting the plans of God. Back a few miles from the
front, the glacier is now probably but little more than a thousand feet
deep; but when we examine the records on the walls, the rounded,
grooved, striated, and polished features so surely glacial, we learn
that in the earlier days of the ice age they were all over-swept, and
that this glacier has flowed at a height of from three to four thousand
feet above its present level, when it was at least a mile deep.

Standing here, with facts so fresh and telling and held up so vividly
before us, every seeing observer, not to say geologist, must readily
apprehend the earth-sculpturing, landscape-making action of flowing
ice. And here, too, one learns that the world, though made, is yet
being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains
long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers,
basins hollowed for lakes; that moraine soil is being ground and
outspread for coming plants,—coarse boulders and gravel for forests,
finer soil for grasses and flowers,—while the finest part of the grist,
seen hastening out to sea in the draining streams, is being stored away
in darkness and builded particle on particle, cementing and
crystallizing, to make the mountains and valleys and plains of other
predestined landscapes, to be followed by still others in endless
rhythm and beauty.

Gladly would we have camped out on this grand old landscape mill to
study its ways and works; but we had no bread and the captain was
keeping the Cassiar whistle screaming for our return. Therefore, in
mean haste, we threaded our way back through the crevasses and down the
blue cliffs, snatched a few flowers from a warm spot on the edge of the
ice, plashed across the moraine streams, and were paddled aboard,
rejoicing in the possession of so blessed a day, and feeling that in
very foundational truth we had been in one of God’s own temples and had
seen Him and heard Him working and preaching like a man.

Steaming solemnly out of the fiord and down the coast, the islands and
mountains were again passed in review; the clouds that so often hide
the mountain-tops even in good weather were now floating high above
them, and the transparent shadows they cast were scarce perceptible on
the white glacier fountains. So abundant and novel are the objects of
interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are pursuing special
studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the same place.
Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the
best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in
any other for those who may not be happy here. The bright hours were
spent in making notes and sketches and getting more of the wonderful
region into memory. In particular a second view of the mountains made
me raise my first estimate of their height. Some of them must be seven
or eight thousand feet at the least. Also the glaciers seemed larger
and more numerous. I counted nearly a hundred, large and small, between
a point ten or fifteen miles to the north of Cape Fanshawe and the
mouth of the Stickeen River. We made no more landings, however, until
we had passed through the Wrangell Narrows and dropped anchor for the
night in a small sequestered bay. This was about sunset, and I eagerly
seized the opportunity to go ashore in the canoe and see what I could
learn. It is here only a step from the marine algæ to terrestrial
vegetation of almost tropical luxuriance. Parting the alders and
huckleberry bushes and the crooked stems of the prickly panax, I made
my way into the woods, and lingered in the twilight doing nothing in
particular, only measuring a few of the trees, listening to learn what
birds and animals might be about, and gazing along the dusky aisles.

In the mean time another excursion was being invented, one of small
size and price. We might have reached Fort Wrangell this evening
instead of anchoring here; but the owners of the Cassiar would then
receive only ten dollars fare from each person, while they had incurred
considerable expense in fitting up the boat for this special trip, and
had treated us well. No, under the circumstances, it would never do to
return to Wrangell so meanly soon.

It was decided, therefore, that the Cassiar Company should have the
benefit of another day’s hire, in visiting the old deserted Stickeen
village fourteen miles to the south of Wrangell.

“We shall have a good time,” one of the most influential of the party
said to me in a semi-apologetic tone, as if dimly recognizing my
disappointment in not going on to Chilcat. “We shall probably find
stone axes and other curiosities. Chief Kadachan is going to guide us,
and the other Indians aboard will dig for us, and there are interesting
old buildings and totem poles to be seen.”

It seemed strange, however, that so important a mission to the most
influential of the Alaskan tribes should end in a deserted village. But
divinity abounded nevertheless; the day was divine and there was plenty
of natural religion in the newborn landscapes that were being baptized
in sunshine, and sermons in the glacial boulders on the beach where we
landed.

The site of the old village is on an outswelling strip of ground about
two hundred yards long and fifty wide, sloping gently to the water with
a strip of gravel and tall grass in front, dark woods back of it, and
charming views over the water among the islands—a delightful place. The
tide was low when we arrived, and I noticed that the exposed boulders
on the beach—granite erratics that had been dropped by the melting ice
toward the close of the glacial period—were piled in parallel rows at
right angles to the shore-line, out of the way of the canoes that had
belonged to the village.

Most of the party sauntered along the shore; for the ruins were
overgrown with tall nettles, elder bushes, and prickly rubus vines
through which it was difficult to force a way. In company with the most
eager of the relic-seekers and two Indians, I pushed back among the
dilapidated dwellings. They were deserted some sixty or seventy years
before, and some of them were at least a hundred years old. So said our
guide, Kadachan, and his word was corroborated by the venerable aspect
of the ruins. Though the damp climate is destructive, many of the house
timbers were still in a good state of preservation, particularly those
hewn from the yellow cypress, or cedar as it is called here. The
magnitude of the ruins and the excellence of the workmanship manifest
in them was astonishing as belonging to Indians. For example, the first
dwelling we visited was about forty feet square, with walls built of
planks two feet wide and six inches thick. The ridgepole of yellow
cypress was two feet in diameter, forty feet long, and as round and
true as if it had been turned in a lathe; and, though lying in the damp
weeds, it was still perfectly sound. The nibble marks of the stone adze
were still visible, though crusted over with scale lichens in most
places. The pillars that had supported the ridgepole were still
standing in some of the ruins. They were all, as far as I observed,
carved into life-size figures of men, women, and children, fishes,
birds, and various other animals, such as the beaver, wolf, or bear.
Each of the wall planks had evidently been hewn out of a whole log, and
must have required sturdy deliberation as well as skill. Their
geometrical truthfulness was admirable. With the same tools not one in
a thousand of our skilled mechanics could do as good work. Compared
with it the bravest work of civilized backwoodsmen is feeble and
bungling. The completeness of form, finish, and proportion of these
timbers suggested skill of a wild and positive kind, like that which
guides the woodpecker in drilling round holes, and the bee in making
its cells.

[Illustration: Old Chief and Totem Pole, Wrangell.]

The carved totem-pole monuments are the most striking of the objects
displayed here. The simplest of them consisted of a smooth, round post
fifteen or twenty feet high and about eighteen inches in diameter, with
the figure of some animal on top—a bear, porpoise, eagle, or raven,
about life-size or larger. These were the totems of the families that
occupied the houses in front of which they stood. Others supported the
figure of a man or woman, life-size or larger, usually in a sitting
posture, said to resemble the dead whose ashes were contained in a
closed cavity in the pole. The largest were thirty or forty feet high,
carved from top to bottom into human and animal totem figures, one
above another, with their limbs grotesquely doubled and folded. Some of
the most imposing were said to commemorate some event of an historical
character. But a telling display of family pride seemed to have been
the prevailing motive. All the figures were more or less rude, and some
were broadly grotesque, but there was never any feebleness or obscurity
in the expression. On the contrary, every feature showed grave force
and decision; while the childish audacity displayed in the designs,
combined with manly strength in their execution, was truly wonderful.

The colored lichens and mosses gave them a venerable air, while the
larger vegetation often found on such as were most decayed produced a
picturesque effect. Here, for example, is a bear five or six feet long,
reposing on top of his lichen-clad pillar, with paws comfortably
folded, a tuft of grass growing in each ear and rubus bushes along his
back. And yonder is an old chief poised on a taller pillar, apparently
gazing out over the landscape in contemplative mood, a tuft of bushes
leaning back with a jaunty air from the top of his weatherbeaten hat,
and downy mosses about his massive lips. But no rudeness or
grotesqueness that may appear, however combined with the decorations
that nature has added, may possibly provoke mirth. The whole work is
serious in aspect and brave and true in execution.

Similar monuments are made by other Thlinkit tribes. The erection of a
totem pole is made a grand affair, and is often talked of for a year or
two beforehand. A feast, to which many are invited, is held, and the
joyous occasion is spent in eating, dancing, and the distribution of
gifts. Some of the larger specimens cost a thousand dollars or more.
From one to two hundred blankets, worth three dollars apiece, are paid
to the genius who carves them, while the presents and feast usually
cost twice as much, so that only the wealthy families can afford them.
I talked with an old Indian who pointed out one of the carvings he had
made in the Wrangell village, for which he told me he had received
forty blankets, a gun, a canoe, and other articles, all together worth
about $170. Mr. Swan, who has contributed much information concerning
the British Columbian and Alaskan tribes, describes a totem pole that
cost $2500. They are always planted firmly in the ground and stand
fast, showing the sturdy erectness of their builders.

While I was busy with my pencil, I heard chopping going on at the north
end of the village, followed by a heavy thud, as if a tree had fallen.
It appeared that after digging about the old hearth in the first
dwelling visited without finding anything of consequence, the
archæological doctor called the steamer deck hands to one of the most
interesting of the totems and directed them to cut it down, saw off the
principal figure,—a woman measuring three feet three inches across the
shoulders,—and convey it aboard the steamer, with a view to taking it
on East to enrich some museum or other. This sacrilege came near
causing trouble and would have cost us dear had the totem not chanced
to belong to the Kadachan family, the representative of which is a
member of the newly organized Wrangell Presbyterian Church. Kadachan
looked very seriously into the face of the reverend doctor and pushed
home the pertinent question: “How would you like to have an Indian go
to a graveyard and break down and carry away a monument belonging to
your family?”

However, the religious relations of the parties and a few trifling
presents embedded in apologies served to hush and mend the matter.

Some time in the afternoon the steam whistle called us together to
finish our memorable trip. There was no trace of decay in the sky; a
glorious sunset gilded the water and cleared away the shadows of our
meditations among the ruins. We landed at the Wrangell wharf at dusk,
pushed our way through a group of inquisitive Indians, across the two
crooked streets, and up to our homes in the fort. We had been away only
three days, but they were so full of novel scenes and impressions the
time seemed indefinitely long, and our broken Chilcat excursion, far
from being a failure as it seemed to some, was one of the most
memorable of my life.




Chapter VI
The Cassiar Trail


I made a second trip up the Stickeen in August and from the head of
navigation pushed inland for general views over dry grassy hills and
plains on the Cassiar trail.

Soon after leaving Telegraph Creek I met a merry trader who
encouragingly assured me that I was going into the most wonderful
region in the world, that “the scenery up the river was full of the
very wildest freaks of nature, surpassing all other sceneries either
natural or artificial, on paper or in nature. And give yourself no
bothering care about provisions, for wild food grows in prodigious
abundance everywhere. A man was lost four days up there, but he feasted
on vegetables and berries and got back to camp in good condition. A
mess of wild parsnips and pepper, for example, will actually do you
good. And here’s my advice—go slow and take the pleasures and sceneries
as you go.”

At the confluence of the first North Fork of the Stickeen I found a
band of Toltan or Stick Indians catching their winter supply of salmon
in willow traps, set where the fish are struggling in swift rapids on
their way to the spawning-grounds. A large supply had already been
secured, and of course the Indians were well fed and merry. They were
camping in large booths made of poles set on end in the ground, with
many binding cross-pieces on which tons of salmon were being dried. The
heads were strung on separate poles and the roes packed in willow
baskets, all being well smoked from fires in the middle of the floor.
The largest of the booths near the bank of the river was about forty
feet square. Beds made of spruce and pine boughs were spread all around
the walls, on which some of the Indians lay asleep; some were braiding
ropes, others sitting and lounging, gossiping and courting, while a
little baby was swinging in a hammock. All seemed to be light-hearted
and jolly, with work enough and wit enough to maintain health and
comfort. In the winter they are said to dwell in substantial huts in
the woods, where game, especially caribou, is abundant. They are pale
copper-colored, have small feet and hands, are not at all negroish in
lips or cheeks like some of the coast tribes, nor so thickset,
short-necked, or heavy-featured in general.

One of the most striking of the geological features of this region are
immense gravel deposits displayed in sections on the walls of the river
gorges. About two miles above the North Fork confluence there is a
bluff of basalt three hundred and fifty feet high, and above this a bed
of gravel four hundred feet thick, while beneath the basalt there is
another bed at least fifty feet thick.

From “Ward’s,” seventeen miles beyond Telegraph, and about fourteen
hundred feet above sea-level, the trail ascends a gravel ridge to a
pine-and-fir-covered plateau twenty-one hundred feet above the sea.
Thence for three miles the trail leads through a forest of short,
closely planted trees to the second North Fork of the Stickeen, where a
still greater deposit of stratified gravel is displayed, a section at
least six hundred feet thick resting on a red jaspery formation.

Nine hundred feet above the river there is a slightly dimpled plateau
diversified with aspen and willow groves and mossy meadows. At
“Wilson’s,” one and a half miles from the river, the ground is carpeted
with dwarf manzanita and the blessed _Linnæa borealis_, and forested
with small pines, spruces, and aspens, the tallest fifty to sixty feet
high.

From Wilson’s to “Caribou,” fourteen miles, no water was visible,
though the nearly level, mossy ground is swampy-looking. At “Caribou
Camp,” two miles from the river, I saw two fine dogs, a Newfoundland
and a spaniel. Their owner told me that he paid only twenty dollars for
the team and was offered one hundred dollars for one of them a short
time afterwards. The Newfoundland, he said, caught salmon on the
ripples, and could be sent back for miles to fetch horses. The fine
jet-black curly spaniel helped to carry the dishes from the table to
the kitchen, went for water when ordered, took the pail and set it down
at the stream-side, but could not be taught to dip it full. But their
principal work was hauling camp-supplies on sleds up the river in
winter. These two were said to be able to haul a load of a thousand
pounds when the ice was in fairly good condition. They were fed on
dried fish and oatmeal boiled together.

The timber hereabouts is mostly willow or poplar on the low ground,
with here and there pine, birch, and spruce about fifty feet high. None
seen much exceeded a foot in diameter. Thousand-acre patches have been
destroyed by fire. Some of the green trees had been burned off at the
root, the raised roots, packed in dry moss, being readily attacked from
beneath. A range of mountains about five thousand to six thousand feet
high trending nearly north and south for sixty miles is forested to the
summit. Only a few cliff-faces and one of the highest points patched
with snow are treeless. No part of this range as far as I could see is
deeply sculptured, though the general denudation of the country must
have been enormous as the gravel-beds show.

At the top of a smooth, flowery pass about four thousand feet above the
sea, beautiful Dease Lake comes suddenly in sight, shining like a broad
tranquil river between densely forested hills and mountains. It is
about twenty-seven miles long, one to two miles wide, and its waters,
tributary to the Mackenzie, flow into the Arctic Ocean by a very long,
roundabout, romantic way, the exploration of which in 1789 from Great
Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean must have been a glorious task for the
heroic Scotchman, Alexander Mackenzie, whose name it bears.

Dease Creek, a fine rushing stream about forty miles long and forty or
fifty feet wide, enters the lake from the west, drawing its sources
from grassy mountain-ridges. Thibert Creek, about the same size, and
McDames and Defot Creeks, with their many branches, head together in
the same general range of mountains or on moor-like tablelands on the
divide between the Mackenzie and Yukon and Stickeen. All these
Mackenzie streams had proved rich in gold. The wing-dams, flumes, and
sluice-boxes on the lower five or ten miles of their courses showed
wonderful industry, and the quantity of glacial and perhaps pre-glacial
gravel displayed was enormous. Some of the beds were not unlike those
of the so-called Dead Rivers of California. Several ancient
drift-filled channels on Thibert Creek, blue at bed rock, were exposed
and had been worked. A considerable portion of the gold, though mostly
coarse, had no doubt come from considerable distances, as boulders
included in some of the deposits show. The deepest beds, though known
to be rich, had not yet been worked to any great depth on account of
expense. Diggings that yield less than five dollars a day to the man
were considered worthless. Only three of the claims on Defot Creek,
eighteen miles from the mouth of Thibert Creek, were then said to pay.
One of the nuggets from this creek weighed forty pounds.

While wandering about the banks of these gold-besprinkled streams,
looking at the plants and mines and miners, I was so fortunate as to
meet an interesting French Canadian, an old _coureur de bois_, who
after a few minutes’ conversation invited me to accompany him to his
gold-mine on the head of Defot Creek, near the summit of a smooth,
grassy mountain-ridge which he assured me commanded extensive views of
the region at the heads of Stickeen, Taku, Yukon, and Mackenzie
tributaries. Though heavy-laden with flour and bacon, he strode lightly
along the rough trails as if his load was only a natural balanced part
of his body. Our way at first lay along Thibert Creek, now on gravel
benches, now on bed rock, now close down on the bouldery edge of the
stream. Above the mines the stream is clear and flows with a rapid
current. Its banks are embossed with moss and grass and sedge well
mixed with flowers—daisies, larkspurs, solidagos, parnassia,
potentilla, strawberry, etc. Small strips of meadow occur here and
there, and belts of slender arrowy fir and spruce with moss-clad roots
grow close to the water’s edge. The creek is about forty-five miles
long, and the richest of its gold-bearing beds so far discovered were
on the lower four miles of the creek; the higher
four-or-five-dollars-a-day diggings were considered very poor on
account of the high price of provisions and shortness of the season.
After crossing many smaller streams with their strips of trees and
meadows, bogs and bright wild gardens, we arrived at the Le Claire
cabin about the middle of the afternoon. Before entering it he threw
down his burden and made haste to show me his favorite flower, a blue
forget-me-not, a specimen of which he found within a few rods of the
cabin, and proudly handed it to me with the finest respect, and telling
its many charms and lifelong associations, showed in every endearing
look and touch and gesture that the tender little plant of the mountain
wilderness was truly his best-loved darling.

After luncheon we set out for the highest point on the dividing ridge
about a mile above the cabin, and sauntered and gazed until sundown,
admiring the vast expanse of open rolling prairie-like highlands dotted
with groves and lakes, the fountain-heads of countless cool, glad
streams.

Le Claire’s simple, childlike love of nature, preserved undimmed
through a hard wilderness life, was delightful to see. The grand
landscapes with their lakes and streams, plants and animals, all were
dear to him. In particular he was fond of the birds that nested near
his cabin, watched the young, and in stormy weather helped their
parents to feed and shelter them. Some species were so confiding they
learned to perch on his shoulders and take crumbs from his hand.

A little before sunset snow began to fly, driven by a cold wind, and by
the time we reached the cabin, though we had not far to go, everything
looked wintry. At half-past nine we ate supper, while a good fire
crackled cheerily in the ingle and a wintry wind blew hard. The little
log cabin was only ten feet long, eight wide, and just high enough
under the roof peak to allow one to stand upright. The bedstead was not
wide enough for two, so Le Claire spread the blankets on the floor, and
we gladly lay down after our long, happy walk, our heads under the
bedstead, our feet against the opposite wall, and though comfortably
tired, it was long ere we fell asleep, for Le Claire, finding me a good
listener, told many stories of his adventurous life with Indians, bears
and wolves, snow and hunger, and of his many camps in the Canadian
woods, hidden like the nests and dens of wild animals; stories that
have a singular interest to everybody, for they awaken inherited
memories of the lang, lang syne when we were all wild. He had nine
children, he told me, the youngest eight years of age, and several of
his daughters were married. His home was in Victoria.

Next morning was cloudy and windy, snowy and cold, dreary December
weather in August, and I gladly ran out to see what I might learn. A
gray ragged-edged cloud capped the top of the divide, its snowy fringes
drawn out by the wind. The flowers, though most of them were buried or
partly so, were to some extent recognizable, the bluebells bent over,
shining like eyes through the snow, and the gentians, too, with their
corollas twisted shut; cassiope I could recognize under any disguise;
and two species of dwarf willow with their seeds already ripe, one with
comparatively small leaves, were growing in mere cracks and crevices of
rock-ledges where the dry snow could not lie. Snowbirds and ptarmigan
were flying briskly in the cold wind, and on the edge of a grove I saw
a spruce from which a bear had stripped large sections of bark for
food.

About nine o’clock the clouds lifted and I enjoyed another wide view
from the summit of the ridge of the vast grassy fountain region with
smooth rolling features. A few patches of forest broke the monotony of
color, and the many lakes, one of them about five miles long, were
glowing like windows. Only the highest ridges were whitened with snow,
while rifts in the clouds showed beautiful bits of yellow-green sky.
The limit of tree growth is about five thousand feet.

Throughout all this region from Glenora to Cassiar the grasses grow
luxuriantly in openings in the woods and on dry hillsides where the
trees seem to have been destroyed by fire, and over all the broad
prairies above the timber-line. A kind of bunch-grass in particular is
often four or five feet high, and close enough to be mowed for hay. I
never anywhere saw finer or more bountiful wild pasture. Here the
caribou feed and grow fat, braving the intense winter cold, often forty
to sixty degrees below zero. Winter and summer seem to be the only
seasons here. What may fairly be called summer lasts only two or three
months, winter nine or ten, for of pure well-defined spring or autumn
there is scarcely a trace. Were it not for the long severe winters,
this would be a capital stock country, equaling Texas and the prairies
of the old West. From my outlook on the Defot ridge I saw thousands of
square miles of this prairie-like region drained by tributaries of the
Stickeen, Taku, Yukon, and Mackenzie Rivers.

Le Claire told me that the caribou, or reindeer, were very abundant on
this high ground. A flock of fifty or more was seen a short time before
at the head of Defot Creek,—fine, hardy, able animals like their near
relatives the reindeer of the Arctic tundras. The Indians hereabouts,
he said, hunted them with dogs, mostly in the fall and winter. On my
return trip I met several bands of these Indians on the march, going
north to hunt. Some of the men and women were carrying puppies on top
of their heavy loads of dried salmon, while the grown dogs had
saddle-bags filled with odds and ends strapped on their backs. Small
puppies, unable to carry more than five or six pounds, were thus made
useful. I overtook another band going south, heavy laden with furs and
skins to trade. An old woman, with short dress and leggings, was
carrying a big load of furs and skins, on top of which was perched a
little girl about three years old.

A brown, speckled marmot, one of Le Claire’s friends, was getting ready
for winter. The entrance to his burrow was a little to one side of the
cabin door. A well-worn trail led to it through the grass and another
to that of his companion, fifty feet away. He was a most amusing pet,
always on hand at meal times for bread-crumbs and bits of bacon-rind,
came when called, answering in a shrill whistle, moving like a squirrel
with quick, nervous impulses, jerking his short flat tail. His fur
clothing was neat and clean, fairly shining in the wintry light. The
snowy weather that morning must have called winter to mind; for as soon
as he got his breakfast, he ran to a tuft of dry grass, chewed it into
fuzzy mouthfuls, and carried it to his nest, coming and going with
admirable industry, forecast, and confidence. None watching him as we
did could fail to sympathize with him; and I fancy that in practical
weather wisdom no government forecaster with all his advantages
surpasses this little Alaska rodent, every hair and nerve a weather
instrument.

I greatly enjoyed this little inland side trip—the wide views; the
miners along the branches of the great river, busy as moles and
beavers; young men dreaming and hoping to strike it rich and rush home
to marry their girls faithfully waiting; others hoping to clear off
weary farm mortgages, and brighten the lives of the anxious home folk;
but most, I suppose, just struggling blindly for gold enough to make
them indefinitely rich to spend their lives in aimless affluence,
honor, and ease. I enjoyed getting acquainted with the trees,
especially the beautiful spruce and silver fir; the flower gardens and
great grassy caribou pastures; the cheery, able marmot mountaineer; and
above all the friendship and kindness of Mr. Le Claire, whom I shall
never forget. Bidding good bye, I sauntered back to the head of
navigation on the Stickeen, happy and rich without a particle of
obscuring gold-dust care.




Chapter VII
Glenora Peak


On the trail to the steamboat-landing at the foot of Dease Lake, I met
a Douglas squirrel, nearly as red and rusty in color as his Eastern
relative the chickaree. Except in color he differs but little from the
California Douglas squirrel. In voice, language, gestures, temperament,
he is the same fiery, indomitable little king of the woods. Another
darker and probably younger specimen met near the Caribou House,
barked, chirruped, and showed off in fine style on a tree within a few
feet of us.

“What does the little rascal mean?” said my companion, a man I had
fallen in with on the trail. “What is he making such a fuss about? I
cannot frighten him.”

“Never mind,” I replied; “just wait until I whistle ‘Old Hundred’ and
you will see him fly in disgust.” And so he did, just as his California
brethren do. Strange that no squirrel or spermophile I yet have found
ever seemed to have anything like enough of Scotch religion to enjoy
this grand old tune.

The taverns along the Cassiar gold trail were the worst I had ever
seen, rough shacks with dirt floors, dirt roofs, and rough meals. The
meals are all alike—a potato, a slice of something like bacon, some
gray stuff called bread, and a cup of muddy, semi-liquid coffee like
that which the California miners call “slickers” or “slumgullion.” The
bread was terrible and sinful. How the Lord’s good wheat could be made
into stuff so mysteriously bad is past finding out. The very de’il, it
would seem, in wicked anger and ingenuity, had been the baker.

On our walk from Dease Lake to Telegraph Creek we had one of these
rough luncheons at three o’clock in the afternoon of the first day,
then walked on five miles to Ward’s, where we were solemnly assured
that we could not have a single bite of either supper or breakfast, but
as a great favor we might sleep on his best gray bunk. We replied that,
as we had lunched at the lake, supper would not be greatly missed, and
as for breakfast we would start early and walk eight miles to the next
road-house. We set out at half-past four, glad to escape into the fresh
air, and reached the breakfast place at eight o’clock. The landlord was
still abed, and when at length he came to the door, he scowled savagely
at us as if our request for breakfast was preposterous and criminal
beyond anything ever heard of in all goldful Alaska. A good many in
those days were returning from the mines dead broke, and he probably
regarded us as belonging to that disreputable class. Anyhow, we got
nothing and had to tramp on.

As we approached the next house, three miles ahead, we saw the
tavern-keeper keenly surveying us, and, as we afterwards learned,
taking me for a certain judge whom for some cause he wished to avoid,
he hurriedly locked his door and fled. Half a mile farther on we
discovered him in a thicket a little way off the trail, explained our
wants, marched him back to his house, and at length obtained a little
sour bread, sour milk, and old salmon, our only lonely meal between the
Lake and Telegraph Creek.

We arrived at Telegraph Creek, the end of my two-hundred-mile walk,
about noon. After luncheon I went on down the river to Glenora in a
fine canoe owned and manned by Kitty, a stout, intelligent-looking
Indian woman, who charged her passengers a dollar for the fifteen-mile
trip. Her crew was four Indian paddlers. In the rapids she also plied
the paddle, with stout, telling strokes, and a keen-eyed old man,
probably her husband, sat high in the stern and steered. All seemed
exhilarated as we shot down through the narrow gorge on the rushing,
roaring, throttled river, paddling all the more vigorously the faster
the speed of the stream, to hold good steering way. The canoe danced
lightly amid gray surges and spray as if alive and enthusiastically
enjoying the adventure. Some of the passengers were pretty thoroughly
drenched. In unskillful hands the frail dugout would surely have been
wrecked or upset. Most of the season goods for the Cassiar gold camps
were carried from Glenora to Telegraph Creek in canoes, the steamers
not being able to overcome the rapids except during high water. Even
then they had usually to line two of the rapids—that is, take a line
ashore, make it fast to a tree on the bank, and pull up on the capstan.
The freight canoes carried about three or four tons, for which fifteen
dollars per ton was charged. Slow progress was made by poling along the
bank out of the swiftest part of the current. In the rapids a tow line
was taken ashore, only one of the crew remaining aboard to steer. The
trip took a day unless a favoring wind was blowing, which often
happened.

Next morning I set out from Glenora to climb Glenora Peak for the
general view of the great Coast Range that I failed to obtain on my
first ascent on account of the accident that befell Mr. Young when we
were within a minute or two of the top. It is hard to fail in reaching
a mountain-top that one starts for, let the cause be what it may. This
time I had no companion to care for, but the sky was threatening. I was
assured by the local weather-prophets that the day would be rainy or
snowy because the peaks in sight were muffled in clouds that seemed to
be getting ready for work. I determined to go ahead, however, for
storms of any kind are well worth while, and if driven back I could
wait and try again.

With crackers in my pocket and a light rubber coat that a kind Hebrew
passenger on the steamer Gertrude loaned me, I was ready for anything
that might offer, my hopes for the grand view rising and falling as the
clouds rose and fell. Anxiously I watched them as they trailed their
draggled skirts across the glaciers and fountain peaks as if
thoughtfully looking for the places where they could do the most good.
From Glenora there is first a terrace two hundred feet above the river
covered mostly with bushes, yellow apocynum on the open spaces,
together with carpets of dwarf manzanita, bunch-grass, and a few of the
compositæ, galiums, etc. Then comes a flat stretch a mile wide,
extending to the foothills, covered with birch, spruce, fir, and
poplar, now mostly killed by fire and the ground strewn with charred
trunks. From this black forest the mountain rises in rather steep
slopes covered with a luxuriant growth of bushes, grass, flowers, and a
few trees, chiefly spruce and fir, the firs gradually dwarfing into a
beautiful chaparral, the most beautiful, I think, I have ever seen, the
flat fan-shaped plumes thickly foliaged and imbricated by snow
pressure, forming a smooth, handsome thatch which bears cones and
thrives as if this repressed condition were its very best. It extends
up to an elevation of about fifty-five hundred feet. Only a few trees
more than a foot in diameter and more than fifty feet high are found
higher than four thousand feet above the sea. A few poplars and willows
occur on moist places, gradually dwarfing like the conifers. Alder is
the most generally distributed of the chaparral bushes, growing nearly
everywhere; its crinkled stems an inch or two thick form a troublesome
tangle to the mountaineer. The blue geranium, with leaves red and showy
at this time of the year, is perhaps the most telling of the flowering
plants. It grows up to five thousand feet or more. Larkspurs are
common, with epilobium, senecio, erigeron, and a few solidagos. The
harebell appears at about four thousand feet and extends to the summit,
dwarfing in stature but maintaining the size of its handsome bells
until they seem to be lying loose and detached on the ground as if like
snow flowers they had fallen from the sky; and, though
frail and delicate-looking, none of its companions is more enduring or
rings out the praises of beauty-loving Nature in tones more appreciable
to mortals, not forgetting even Cassiope, who also is here, and her
companion, Bryanthus, the loveliest and most widely distributed of the
alpine shrubs. Then come crowberry, and two species of huckleberry, one
of them from about six inches to a foot high with delicious berries,
the other a most lavishly prolific and contented-looking dwarf, few of
the bushes being more than two inches high, counting to the topmost
leaf, yet each bearing from ten to twenty or more large berries.
Perhaps more than half the bulk of the whole plant is fruit, the
largest and finest-flavored of all the huckleberries or blueberries I
ever tasted, spreading fine feasts for the grouse and ptarmigan and
many others of Nature’s mountain people. I noticed three species of
dwarf willows, one with narrow leaves, growing at the very summit of
the mountain in cracks of the rocks, as well as on patches of soil,
another with large, smooth leaves now turning yellow. The third species
grows between the others as to elevation; its leaves, then
orange-colored, are strikingly pitted and reticulated. Another alpine
shrub, a species of sericocarpus, covered with handsome heads of
feathery achenia, beautiful dwarf echiverias with flocks of purple
flowers pricked into their bright grass-green, cushion-like bosses of
moss-like foliage, and a fine forget-me-not reach to the summit. I may
also mention a large mertensia, a fine anemone, a veratrum, six feet
high, a large blue daisy, growing up to three to four thousand feet,
and at the summit a dwarf species, with dusky, hairy involucres, and a
few ferns, aspidium, gymnogramma, and small rock cheilanthes, leaving
scarce a foot of ground bare, though the mountain looks bald and brown
in the distance like those of the desert ranges of the Great Basin in
Utah and Nevada.

Charmed with these plant people, I had almost forgotten to watch the
sky until I reached the top of the highest peak, when one of the
greatest and most impressively sublime of all the mountain views I have
ever enjoyed came full in sight—more than three hundred miles of
closely packed peaks of the great Coast Range, sculptured in the
boldest manner imaginable, their naked tops and dividing ridges dark in
color, their sides and the cañons, gorges, and valleys between them
loaded with glaciers and snow. From this standpoint I counted upwards
of two hundred glaciers, while dark-centred luminous clouds with
fringed edges hovered and crawled over them, now slowly descending,
casting transparent shadows on the ice and snow, now rising high above
them, lingering like loving angels guarding the crystal gifts they had
bestowed. Although the range as seen from this Glenora mountain-top
seems regular in its trend, as if the main axis were simple and
continuous, it is, on the contrary, far from simple. In front of the
highest ranks of peaks are others of the same form with their own
glaciers, and lower peaks before these, and yet lower ones with their
ridges and cañons, valleys and foothills. Alps rise beyond alps as far
as the eye can reach, and clusters of higher peaks here and there
closely crowded together; clusters, too, of needles and pinnacles
innumerable like trees in groves. Everywhere the peaks seem
comparatively slender and closely packed, as if Nature had here been
trying to see how many noble well-dressed mountains could be crowded
into one grand range.

The black rocks, too steep for snow to lie upon, were brought into
sharp relief by white clouds and snow and glaciers, and these again
were outlined and made tellingly plain by the rocks. The glaciers so
grandly displayed are of every form, some crawling through gorge and
valley like monster glittering serpents; others like broad cataracts
pouring over cliffs into shadowy gulfs; others, with their main trunks
winding through narrow cañons, display long, white finger-like
tributaries descending from the summits of pinnacled ridges. Others lie
back in fountain cirques walled in all around save at the lower edge
over which they pour in blue cascades. Snow, too, lay in folds and
patches of every form on blunt, rounded ridges in curves, arrowy lines,
dashes, and narrow ornamental flutings among the summit peaks and in
broad radiating wings on smooth slopes. And on many a bulging headland
and lower ridge there lay heavy, over-curling copings and smooth, white
domes where wind-driven snow was pressed and wreathed and packed into
every form and in every possible place and condition. I never before
had seen so richly sculptured a range or so many awe-inspiring
inaccessible mountains crowded together. If a line were
drawn east and west from the peak on which I stood, and extended both
ways to the horizon, cutting the whole round landscape in two equal
parts, then all of the south half would be bounded by these icy peaks,
which would seem to curve around half the horizon and about twenty
degrees more, though extending in a general straight, or but moderately
curved, line. The deepest and thickest and highest of all this
wilderness of peaks lie to the southwest. They are probably from about
nine to twelve thousand feet high, springing to this elevation from
near the sea-level. The peak on which these observations were made is
somewhere about seven thousand feet high, and from here I estimated the
height of the range. The highest peak of all, or that seemed so to me,
lies to the westward at an estimated distance of about one hundred and
fifty or two hundred miles. Only its solid white summit was visible.
Possibly it may be the topmost peak of St. Elias. Now look northward
around the other half of the horizon, and instead of countless peaks
crowding into the sky, you see a low brown region, heaving and swelling
in gentle curves, apparently scarcely more waved than a rolling
prairie. The so-called cañons of several forks of the upper Stickeen
are visible, but even where best seen in the foreground and middle
ground of the picture, they are like mere sunken gorges, making scarce
perceptible marks on the landscape, while the tops of the highest
mountain-swells show only small patches of snow and no glaciers.

Glenora Peak, on which I stood, is the highest point of a spur that
puts out from the main range in a northerly direction. It seems to have
been a rounded, broad-backed ridge which has been sculptured into its
present irregular form by short residual glaciers, some of which, a
mile or two long, are still at work.

As I lingered, gazing on the vast show, luminous shadowy clouds seemed
to increase in glory of color and motion, now fondling the highest
peaks with infinite tenderness of touch, now hovering above them like
eagles over their nests.

When night was drawing near, I ran down the flowery slopes exhilarated,
thanking God for the gift of this great day. The setting sun fired the
clouds. All the world seemed new-born. Every thing, even the commonest,
was seen in new light and was looked at with new interest as if never
seen before. The plant people seemed glad, as if rejoicing with me, the
little ones as well as the trees, while every feature of the peak and
its traveled boulders seemed to know what I had been about and the
depth of my joy, as if they could read faces.




Chapter VIII
Exploration of the Stickeen Glaciers


Next day I planned an excursion to the so-called Dirt Glacier, the most
interesting to Indians and steamer men of all the Stickeen glaciers
from its mysterious floods. I left the steamer Gertrude for the glacier
delta an hour or two before sunset. The captain kindly loaned me his
canoe and two of his Indian deck hands, who seemed much puzzled to know
what the rare service required of them might mean, and on leaving bade
a merry adieu to their companions. We camped on the west side of the
river opposite the front of the glacier, in a spacious valley
surrounded by snowy mountains. Thirteen small glaciers were in sight
and four waterfalls. It was a fine, serene evening, and the highest
peaks were wearing turbans of flossy, gossamer cloud-stuff. I had my
supper before leaving the steamer, so I had only to make a campfire,
spread my blanket, and lie down. The Indians had their own bedding and
lay beside their own fire.

The Dirt Glacier is noted among the river men as being subject to
violent flood outbursts once or twice a year, usually in the late
summer. The delta of this glacier stream is three or four miles wide
where it fronts the river, and the many rough channels with which it is
guttered and the uprooted trees and huge boulders that roughen its
surface manifest the power of the floods that swept them to their
places; but under ordinary conditions the glacier discharges its
drainage water into the river through only four or five of the
delta-channels.

Our camp was made on the south or lower side of the delta, below all
the draining streams, so that I would not have to ford any of them on
my way to the glacier. The Indians chose a sand-pit to sleep in; I
chose a level spot back of a drift log. I had but little to say to my
companions as they could speak no English, nor I much Thlinkit or
Chinook. In a few minutes after landing they retired to their pit and
were soon asleep and asnore. I lingered by the fire until after ten
o’clock, for the night sky was clear, and the great white mountains in
the starlight seemed nearer than by day and to be looking down like
guardians of the valley, while the waterfalls, and the torrents
escaping from beneath the big glacier, roared in a broad, low monotone,
sounding as if close at hand, though, as it proved next day, the
nearest was three miles away. After wrapping myself in my blankets, I
still gazed into the marvelous sky and made out to sleep only about two
hours. Then, without waking the noisy sleepers, I arose, ate a piece of
bread, and set out in my shirt-sleeves, determined to make the most of
the time at my disposal. The captain was to pick us up about noon at a
woodpile about a mile from here; but if in the mean time the steamer
should run aground and he should need his canoe, a three whistle signal
would be given.

Following a dry channel for about a mile, I came suddenly upon the main
outlet of the glacier, which in the imperfect light seemed as large as
the river, about one hundred and fifty feet wide, and perhaps three or
four feet deep. A little farther up it was only about fifty feet wide
and rushing on with impetuous roaring force in its rocky channel,
sweeping forward sand, gravel, cobblestones, and boulders, the bump and
rumble sounds of the largest of these rolling stones being readily
heard in the midst of the roaring. It was too swift and rough to ford,
and no bridge tree could be found, for the great floods had cleared
everything out of their way. I was therefore compelled to keep on up
the right bank, however difficult the way. Where a strip of bare
boulders lined the margin, the walking was easy, but where the current
swept close along the ragged edge of the forest, progress was difficult
and slow on account of snow-crinkled and interlaced thickets of alder
and willow, reinforced with fallen trees and thorny devil’s-club
(_Echinopanax horridum_), making a jungle all but impenetrable. The
mile of this extravagantly difficult growth through which I struggled,
inch by inch, will not soon be forgotten. At length arriving within a
few hundred yards of the glacier, full of panax barbs, I found that
both the glacier and its unfordable stream were pressing hard against a
shelving cliff, dangerously steep, leaving no margin, and compelling me
to scramble along its face before I could get on to the glacier. But by
sunrise all these cliff, jungle, and torrent troubles were overcome and
I gladly found myself free on the magnificent ice-river.

The curving, out-bulging front of the glacier is about two miles wide,
two hundred feet high, and its surface for a mile or so above the front
is strewn with moraine detritus, giving it a strangely dirty, dusky
look, hence its name, the “Dirt Glacier,” this detritus-laden portion
being all that is seen in passing up the river. A mile or two beyond
the moraine-covered part I was surprised to find alpine plants growing
on the ice, fresh and green, some of them in full flower. These curious
glacier gardens, the first I had seen, were evidently planted by snow
avalanches from the high walls. They were well watered, of course, by
the melting surface of the ice and fairly well nourished by humus still
attached to the roots, and in some places formed beds of considerable
thickness. Seedling trees and bushes also were growing among the
flowers. Admiring these novel floating gardens, I struck out for the
middle of the pure white glacier, where the ice seemed smoother, and
then held straight on for about eight miles, where I reluctantly turned
back to meet the steamer, greatly regretting that I had not brought a
week’s supply of hardtack to allow me to explore the glacier to its
head, and then trust to some passing canoe to take me down to Buck
Station, from which I could explore the Big Stickeen Glacier.

Altogether, I saw about fifteen or sixteen miles of the main trunk. The
grade is almost regular, and the walls on either hand are about from
two to three thousand feet high, sculptured like those of Yosemite
Valley. I found no difficulty of an extraordinary kind. Many a crevasse
had to be crossed, but most of them were narrow and easily jumped,
while the few wide ones that lay in my way were crossed on sliver
bridges or avoided by passing around them. The structure of the glacier
was strikingly revealed on its melting surface. It is made up of thin
vertical or inclined sheets or slabs set on edge and welded together.
They represent, I think, the successive snowfalls from heavy storms on
the tributaries. One of the tributaries on the right side, about three
miles above the front, has been entirely melted off from the trunk and
has receded two or three miles, forming an independent glacier. Across
the mouth of this abandoned part of its channel the main glacier flows,
forming a dam which gives rise to a lake. On the head of the detached
tributary there are some five or six small residual glaciers, the
drainage of which, with that of the snowy mountain slopes above them,
discharges into the lake, whose outlet is through a channel or channels
beneath the damming glacier. Now these sub-channels are occasionally
blocked and the water rises until it flows alongside of the glacier,
but as the dam is a moving one, a grand outburst is sometimes made,
which, draining the large lake, produces a flood of amazing power,
sweeping down immense quantities of moraine material and raising the
river all the way down to its mouth, so that several trips may
occasionally be made by the steamers after the season of low water has
laid them up for the year. The occurrence of these floods are, of
course, well known to the Indians and steamboat men, though they know
nothing of their cause. They simply remark, “The Dirt Glacier has
broken out again.”

I greatly enjoyed my walk up this majestic ice-river, charmed by the
pale-blue, ineffably fine light in the crevasses, moulins, and wells,
and the innumerable azure pools in basins of azure ice, and the network
of surface streams, large and small, gliding, swirling with wonderful
grace of motion in their frictionless channels, calling forth devout
admiration at almost every step and filling the mind with a sense of
Nature’s endless beauty and power. Looking ahead from the middle of the
glacier, you see the broad white flood, though apparently rigid as
iron, sweeping in graceful curves between its high mountain-like walls,
small glaciers hanging in the hollows on either side, and snow in every
form above them, and the great down-plunging granite buttresses and
headlands of the walls marvelous in bold massive sculpture; forests in
side cañons to within fifty feet of the glacier; avalanche pathways
overgrown with alder and willow; innumerable cascades keeping up a
solemn harmony of water sounds blending with those of the glacier
moulins and rills; and as far as the eye can reach, tributary glaciers
at short intervals silently descending from their high, white fountains
to swell the grand central ice-river.

In the angle formed by the main glacier and the lake that gives rise to
the river floods, there is a massive granite dome sparsely feathered
with trees, and just beyond this yosemitic rock is a mountain, perhaps
ten thousand feet high, laden with ice and snow which seemed pure
pearly white in the morning light. Last evening as seen from camp it
was adorned with a cloud streamer, and both the streamer and the peak
were flushed in the alpenglow. A mile or two above this mountain, on
the opposite side of the glacier, there is a rock like the Yosemite
Sentinel; and in general all the wall rocks as far as I saw them are
more or less yosemitic in form and color and streaked with cascades.

But wonderful as this noble ice-river is in size and depth and in power
displayed, far more wonderful was the vastly greater glacier three or
four thousand feet, or perhaps a mile, in depth, whose size and general
history is inscribed on the sides of the walls and over the tops of the
rocks in characters which have not yet been greatly dimmed by the
weather. Comparing its present size with that when it was in its prime,
is like comparing a small rivulet to the same stream when it is a
roaring torrent.

The return trip to the camp past the shelving cliff and through the
weary devil’s-club jungle was made in a few hours. The Indians had gone
off picking berries, but were on the watch for me and hailed me as I
approached. The captain had called for me, and, after waiting three
hours, departed for Wrangell without leaving any food, to make sure, I
suppose, of a quick return of his Indians and canoe. This was no
serious matter, however, for the swift current swept us down to Buck
Station, some thirty-five miles distant, by eight o’clock. Here I
remained to study the “Big Stickeen Glacier,” but the Indians set out
for Wrangell soon after supper, though I invited them to stay till
morning.

The weather that morning, August 27, was dark and rainy, and I tried to
persuade myself that I ought to rest a day before setting out on new
ice work. But just across the river the “Big Glacier” was staring me in
the face, pouring its majestic flood through a broad mountain gateway
and expanding in the spacious river valley to a width of four or five
miles, while dim in the gray distance loomed its high mountain
fountains. So grand an invitation displayed in characters so telling
was of course irresistible, and body-care and weather-care vanished.

Mr. Choquette, the keeper of the station, ferried me across the river,
and I spent the day in getting general views and planning the work that
had been long in mind. I first traced the broad, complicated terminal
moraine to its southern extremity, climbed up the west side along the
lateral moraine three or four miles, making my way now on the glacier,
now on the moraine-covered bank, and now compelled to climb up through
the timber and brush in order to pass some rocky headland, until I
reached a point commanding a good general view of the lower end of the
glacier. Heavy, blotting rain then began to fall, and I retraced my
steps, oftentimes stopping to admire the blue ice-caves into which
glad, rejoicing streams from the mountain-side were hurrying as if
going home, while the glacier seemed to open wide its crystal gateways
to welcome them.

The following morning blotting rain was still falling, but time and
work was too precious to mind it. Kind Mr. Choquette put me across the
river in a canoe, with a lot of biscuits his Indian wife had baked for
me and some dried salmon, a little sugar and tea, a blanket, and a
piece of light sheeting for shelter from rain during the night, all
rolled into one bundle.

“When shall I expect you back?” inquired Choquette, when I bade him
good-bye.

“Oh, any time,” I replied. “I shall see as much as possible of the
glacier, and I know not how long it will hold me.”

“Well, but when will I come to look for you, if anything happens? Where
are you going to try to go? Years ago Russian officers from Sitka went
up the glacier from here and none ever returned. It’s a mighty
dangerous glacier, all full of damn deep holes and cracks. You’ve no
idea what ticklish deceiving traps are scattered over it.”

“Yes, I have,” I said. “I have seen glaciers before, though none so big
as this one. Do not look for me until I make my appearance on the
river-bank. Never mind me. I am used to caring for myself.” And so,
shouldering my bundle, I trudged off through the moraine boulders and
thickets.

My general plan was to trace the terminal moraine to its extreme north
end, pitch my little tent, leave the blanket and most of the hardtack,
and from this main camp go and come as hunger required or allowed.

After examining a cross-section of the broad moraine, roughened by
concentric masses, marking interruptions in the recession of the
glacier of perhaps several centuries, in which the successive moraines
were formed and shoved together in closer or wider order, I traced the
moraine to its northeastern extremity and ascended the glacier for
several miles along the left margin, then crossed it at the grand
cataract and down the right side to the river, and along the moraine to
the point of beginning.

On the older portions of this moraine I discovered several kettles in
process of formation and was pleased to find that they conformed in the
most striking way with the theory I had already been led to make from
observations on the old kettles which form so curious a feature of the
drift covering Wisconsin and Minnesota and some of the larger moraines
of the residual glaciers in the California Sierra. I found a pit eight
or ten feet deep with raw shifting sides countersunk abruptly in the
rough moraine material, and at the bottom, on sliding down by the aid
of a lithe spruce tree that was being undermined, I discovered, after
digging down a foot or two, that the bottom was resting on a block of
solid blue ice which had been buried in the moraine perhaps a century
or more, judging by the age of the tree that had grown above it.
Probably more than another century will be required to complete the
formation of this kettle by the slow melting of the buried ice-block.
The moraine material of course was falling in as the ice melted, and
the sides maintained an angle as steep as the material would lie. All
sorts of theories have been advanced for the formation of these
kettles, so abundant in the drift over a great part of the United
States, and I was glad to be able to set the question at rest, at least
as far as I was concerned.

The glacier and the mountains about it are on so grand a scale and so
generally inaccessible in the ordinary sense, it seemed to matter but
little what course I pursued. Everything was full of interest, even the
weather, though about as unfavorable as possible for wide views, and
scrambling through the moraine jungle brush kept one as wet as if all
the way was beneath a cascade.

I pushed on, with many a rest and halt to admire the bold and
marvelously sculptured ice-front, looking all the grander and more
striking in the gray mist with all the rest of the glacier shut out,
until I came to a lake about two hundred yards wide and two miles long
with scores of small bergs floating in it, some aground, close inshore
against the moraine, the light playing on their angles and shimmering
in their blue caves in ravishing tones. This proved to be the largest
of the series of narrow lakelets that lie in shallow troughs between
the moraine and the glacier, a miniature Arctic Ocean, its ice-cliffs
played upon by whispering, rippling waveless and its small berg floes
drifting in its currents or with the wind, or stranded here and there
along its rocky moraine shore.

Hundreds of small rills and good-sized streams were falling into the
lake from the glacier, singing in low tones, some of them pouring in
sheer falls over blue cliffs from narrow ice-valleys, some spouting
from pipelike channels in the solid front of the glacier, others
gurgling out of arched openings at the base. All these water-streams
were riding on the parent ice-stream, their voices joined in one grand
anthem telling the wonders of their near and far-off fountains. The
lake itself is resting in a basin of ice, and the forested moraine,
though seemingly cut off from the glacier and probably more than a
century old, is in great part resting on buried ice left behind as the
glacier receded, and melting slowly on account of the protection
afforded by the moraine detritus, which keeps shifting and falling on
the inner face long after it is overgrown with lichens, mosses,
grasses, bushes, and even good-sized trees; these changes going on with
marvelous deliberation until in fullness of time the whole moraine
settles down upon its bedrock foundation.

The outlet of the lake is a large stream, almost a river in size, one
of the main draining streams of the glacier. I attempted to ford it
where it begins to break in rapids in passing over the moraine, but
found it too deep and rough on the bottom. I then tried to ford at its
head, where it is wider and glides smoothly out of the lake, bracing
myself against the current with a pole, but found it too deep, and when
the icy water reached my shoulders I cautiously struggled back to the
moraine. I next followed it down through the rocky jungle to a place
where in breaking across the moraine dam it was only about thirty-five
feet wide. Here I found a spruce tree which I felled for a bridge; it
reached across, about ten feet of the top holding in the bank brush.
But the force of the torrent, acting on the submerged branches and the
slender end of the trunk, bent it like a bow and made it very unsteady,
and after testing it by going out about a third of the way over, it
seemed likely to be carried away when bent deeper into the current by
my weight. Fortunately, I discovered another larger tree well situated
a little farther down, which I felled, and though a few feet in the
middle was submerged, it seemed perfectly safe.

As it was now getting late, I started back to the lakeside where I had
left my bundle, and in trying to hold a direct course found the
interlaced jungle still more difficult than it was along the bank of
the torrent. For over an hour I had to creep and struggle close to the
rocky ground like a fly in a spider-web without being able to obtain a
single glimpse of any guiding feature of the landscape. Finding a
little willow taller than the surrounding alders, I climbed it, caught
sight of the glacier-front, took a compass bearing, and sunk again into
the dripping, blinding maze of brush, and at length emerged on the
lake-shore seven hours after leaving it, all this time as wet as though
I had been swimming, thus completing a trying day’s work. But
everything was deliciously fresh, and I found new and old plant
friends, and lessons on Nature’s Alaska moraine landscape-gardening
that made everything bright and light.

It was now near dark, and I made haste to make up my flimsy little
tent. The ground was desperately rocky. I made out, however, to level
down a strip large enough to lie on, and by means of slim alder stems
bent over it and tied together soon had a home. While thus busily
engaged I was startled by a thundering roar across the lake. Running to
the top of the moraine, I discovered that the tremendous noise was only
the outcry of a newborn berg about fifty or sixty feet in diameter,
rocking and wallowing in the waves it had raised as if enjoying its
freedom after its long grinding work as part of the glacier. After this
fine last lesson I managed to make a small fire out of wet twigs, got a
cup of tea, stripped off my dripping clothing, wrapped myself in a
blanket and lay brooding on the gains of the day and plans for the
morrow, glad, rich, and almost comfortable.

It was raining hard when I awoke, but I made up my mind to disregard
the weather, put on my dripping clothing, glad to know it was fresh and
clean; ate biscuits and a piece of dried salmon without attempting to
make a tea fire; filled a bag with hardtack, slung it over my shoulder,
and with my indispensable ice-axe plunged once more into the dripping
jungle. I found my bridge holding bravely in place against the swollen
torrent, crossed it and beat my way around pools and logs and through
two hours of tangle back to the moraine on the north side of the
outlet,—a wet, weary battle but not without enjoyment. The smell of the
washed ground and vegetation made every breath a pleasure, and I found
_Calypso borealis_, the first I had seen on this side of the continent,
one of my darlings, worth any amount of hardship; and I saw one of my
Douglas squirrels on the margin of a grassy pool. The drip of the rain
on the various leaves was pleasant to hear. More especially marked were
the flat low-toned bumps and splashes of large drops from the trees on
the broad horizontal leaves of _Echinopanax horridum_, like the
drumming of thundershower drops on veratrum and palm leaves, while the
mosses were indescribably beautiful, so fresh, so bright, so cheerily
green, and all so low and calm and silent, however heavy and wild the
wind and the rain blowing and pouring above them. Surely never a
particle of dust has touched leaf or crown of all these blessed mosses;
and how bright were the red rims of the cladonia cups beside them, and
the fruit of the dwarf cornel! And the wet berries, Nature’s precious
jewelry, how beautiful they were!—huckleberries with pale bloom and a
crystal drop on each; red and yellow salmon-berries, with clusters of
smaller drops; and the glittering, berry-like raindrops adorning the
interlacing arches of bent grasses and sedges around the edges of the
pools, every drop a mirror with all the landscape in it. A’ that and a’
that and twice as muckle’s a’ that in this glorious Alaska day,
recalling, however different, George Herbert’s “Sweet day, so cool, so
calm, so bright.”

In the gardens and forests of this wonderful moraine one might spend a
whole joyful life.

When I at last reached the end of the great moraine and the front of
the mountain that forms the north side of the glacier basin, I tried to
make my way along its side, but, finding the climbing tedious and
difficult, took to the glacier and fared well, though a good deal of
step-cutting was required on its ragged, crevassed margin. When night
was drawing nigh, I scanned the steep mountainside in search of an
accessible bench, however narrow, where a bed and a fire might be
gathered for a camp. About dark great was my delight to find a little
shelf with a few small mountain hemlocks growing in cleavage joints.
Projecting knobs below it enabled me to build a platform for a
fireplace and a bed, and by industrious creeping from one fissure to
another, cutting bushes and small trees and sliding them down to within
reach of my rock-shelf, I made out to collect wood enough to last
through the night. In an hour or two I had a cheery fire, and spent the
night in turning from side to side, steaming and drying after being wet
two days and a night. Fortunately this night it did not rain, but it
was very cold.

Pushing on next day, I climbed to the top of the glacier by ice-steps
and along its side to the grand cataract two miles wide where the whole
majestic flood of the glacier pours like a mighty surging river down a
steep declivity in its channel. After gazing a long time on the
glorious show, I discovered a place beneath the edge of the cataract
where it flows over a hard, resisting granite rib, into which I crawled
and enjoyed the novel and instructive view of a glacier pouring over my
head, showing not only its grinding, polishing action, but how it
breaks off large angular boulder-masses—a most telling lesson in
earth-sculpture, confirming many I had already learned in the glacier
basins of the High Sierra of California. I then crossed to the south
side, noting the forms of the huge blocks into which the glacier was
broken in passing over the brow of the cataract, and how they were
welded.

The weather was now clear, opening views according to my own heart far
into the high snowy fountains. I saw what seemed the farthest
mountains, perhaps thirty miles from the front, everywhere
winter-bound, but thick forested, however steep, for a distance of at
least fifteen miles from the front, the trees, hemlock and spruce,
clinging to the rock by root-holds among cleavage joints. The greatest
discovery was in methods of denudation displayed beneath the glacier.

After a few more days of exhilarating study I returned to the
river-bank opposite Choquette’s landing. Promptly at sight of the
signal I made, the kind Frenchman came across for me in his canoe. At
his house I enjoyed a rest while writing out notes; then examined the
smaller glacier fronting the one I had been exploring, until a passing
canoe bound for Fort Wrangell took me aboard.




Chapter IX
A Canoe Voyage to Northward


I arrived at Wrangell in a canoe with a party of Cassiar miners in
October while the icy regions to the northward still burned in my mind.
I had met several prospectors who had been as far as Chilcat at the
head of Lynn Canal, who told wonderful stories about the great glaciers
they had seen there. All the high mountains up there, they said, seemed
to be made of ice, and if glaciers “are what you are after, that’s the
place for you,” and to get there “all you have to do is to hire a good
canoe and Indians who know the way.”

But it now seemed too late to set out on so long a voyage. The days
were growing short and winter was drawing nigh when all the land would
be buried in snow. On the other hand, though this wilderness was new to
me, I was familiar with storms and enjoyed them. The main channels
extending along the coast remain open all winter, and, their shores
being well forested, I knew that it would be easy to keep warm in camp,
while abundance of food could be carried. I determined, therefore, to
go ahead as far north as possible, to see and learn what I could,
especially with reference to future work. When I made known my plans to
Mr. Young, he offered to go with me, and, being acquainted with the
Indians, procured a good canoe and crew, and with a large stock of
provisions and blankets, we left Wrangell October 14, eager to welcome
weather of every sort, as long as food lasted.

I was anxious to make an early start, but it was half-past two in the
afternoon before I could get my Indians together—Toyatte, a grand old
Stickeen nobleman, who was made captain, not only because he owned the
canoe, but for his skill in woodcraft and seamanship; Kadachan, the son
of a Chilcat chief; John, a Stickeen, who acted as interpreter; and
Sitka Charley. Mr. Young, my companion, was an adventurous evangelist,
and it was the opportunities the trip might afford to meet the Indians
of the different tribes on our route with reference to future
missionary work, that induced him to join us.

When at last all were aboard and we were about to cast loose from the
wharf, Kadachan’s mother, a woman of great natural dignity and force of
character, came down the steps alongside the canoe oppressed with
anxious fears for the safety of her son. Standing silent for a few
moments, she held the missionary with her dark, bodeful eyes, and with
great solemnity of speech and gesture accused him of using undue
influence in gaining her son’s consent to go on a dangerous voyage
among unfriendly tribes; and like an ancient sibyl foretold a long
train of bad luck from storms and enemies, and finished by saying, “If
my son comes not back, on you will be his blood, and you shall pay. I
say it.”

Mr. Young tried in vain to calm her fears, promising Heaven’s care as
well as his own for her precious son, assuring her that he would
faithfully share every danger that he encountered, and if need be die
in his defense.

“We shall see whether or not you die,” she said, and turned away.

Toyatte also encountered domestic difficulties. When he stepped into
the canoe I noticed a cloud of anxiety on his grand old face, as if his
doom now drawing near was already beginning to overshadow him. When he
took leave of his wife, she refused to shake hands with him, wept
bitterly, and said that his enemies, the Chilcat chiefs, would be sure
to kill him in case he reached their village. But it was not on this
trip that the old hero was to meet his fate, and when we were fairly
free in the wilderness and a gentle breeze pressed us joyfully over the
shining waters these gloomy forebodings vanished.

We first pursued a westerly course, through Sumner Strait, between
Kupreanof and Prince of Wales Islands, then, turning northward, sailed
up the Kiku Strait through the midst of innumerable picturesque islets,
across Prince Frederick’s Sound, up Chatham Strait, thence
northwestward through Icy Strait and around the then uncharted Glacier
Bay. Thence returning through Icy Strait, we sailed up the beautiful
Lynn Canal to the Davidson Glacier and the lower village of the Chilcat
tribe and returned to Wrangell along the coast of the mainland,
visiting the icy Sum Dum Bay and the Wrangell Glacier on our route.
Thus we made a journey more than eight hundred miles long, and though
hardships and perhaps dangers were encountered, the great wonderland
made compensation beyond our most extravagant hopes. Neither rain nor
snow stopped us, but when the wind was too wild, Kadachan and the old
captain stayed on guard in the camp and John and Charley went into the
woods deer-hunting, while I examined the adjacent rocks and woods. Most
of our camp-grounds were in sheltered nooks where good firewood was
abundant, and where the precious canoe could be safely drawn up beyond
reach of the waves. After supper we sat long around the fire, listening
to the Indian’s stories about the wild animals, their
hunting-adventures, wars, traditions, religion, and customs. Every
Indian party we met we interviewed, and visited every village we came
to.

Our first camp was made at a place called the Island of the Standing
Stone, on the shore of a shallow bay. The weather was fine. The
mountains of the mainland were unclouded, excepting one, which had a
horizontal ruff of dull slate color, but its icy summit covered with
fresh snow towered above the cloud, flushed like its neighbors in the
alpenglow. All the large islands in sight were densely forested, while
many small rock islets in front of our camp were treeless or nearly so.
Some of them were distinctly glaciated even belong the tide-line, the
effects of wave washing and general weathering being scarce appreciable
as yet. Some of the larger islets had a few trees, others only grass.
One looked in the distance like a two-masted ship flying before the
wind under press of sail.

Next morning the mountains were arrayed in fresh snow that had fallen
during the night down to within a hundred feet of the sea-level. We
made a grand fire, and after an early breakfast pushed merrily on all
day along beautiful forested shores embroidered with autumn-colored
bushes. I noticed some pitchy trees that had been deeply hacked for
kindling-wood and torches, precious conveniences to belated voyagers on
stormy nights. Before sundown we camped in a beautiful nook of Deer
Bay, shut in from every wind by gray-bearded trees and fringed with
rose bushes, rubus, potentilla, asters, etc. Some of the lichen tresses
depending from the branches were six feet in length.

A dozen rods or so from our camp we discovered a family of Kake Indians
snugly sheltered in a portable bark hut, a stout middle-aged man with
his wife, son, and daughter, and his son’s wife. After our tent was set
and fire made, the head of the family paid us a visit and presented us
with a fine salmon, a pair of mallard ducks, and a mess of potatoes. We
paid a return visit with gifts of rice and tobacco, etc. Mr. Young
spoke briefly on mission affairs and inquired whether their tribe would
be likely to welcome a teacher or missionary. But they seemed unwilling
to offer an opinion on so important a subject. The following words from
the head of the family was the only reply:—

“We have not much to say to you fellows. We always do to Boston men as
we have done to you, give a little of whatever we have, treat everybody
well and never quarrel. This is all we have to say.”

Our Kake neighbors set out for Fort Wrangell next morning, and we
pushed gladly on toward Chilcat. We passed an island that had lost all
its trees in a storm, but a hopeful crop of young ones was springing up
to take their places. I found no trace of fire in these woods. The
ground was covered with leaves, branches, and fallen trunks perhaps a
dozen generations deep, slowly decaying, forming a grand mossy mass of
ruins, kept fresh and beautiful. All that is repulsive about death was
here hidden beneath abounding life. Some rocks along the shore were
completely covered with crimson-leafed huckleberry bushes; one species
still in fruit might well be called the winter huckleberry. In a short
walk I found vetches eight feet high leaning on raspberry bushes, and
tall ferns and _Smilacina unifolia_ with leaves six inches wide growing
on yellow-green moss, producing a beautiful effect.

Our Indians seemed to be enjoying a quick and merry reaction from the
doleful domestic dumps in which the voyage was begun. Old and young
behaved this afternoon like a lot of truant boys on a lark. When we
came to a pond fenced off from the main channel by a moraine dam, John
went ashore to seek a shot at ducks. Creeping up behind the dam, he
killed a mallard fifty or sixty feet from the shore and attempted to
wave it within reach by throwing stones back of it. Charley and
Kadachan went to his help, enjoying the sport, especially enjoying
their own blunders in throwing in front of it and thus driving the duck
farther out. To expedite the business John then tried to throw a rope
across it, but failed after repeated trials, and so did each in turn,
all laughing merrily at their awkward bungling. Next they tied a stone
to the end of the rope to carry it further and with better aim, but the
result was no better. Then majestic old Toyatte tried his hand at the
game. He tied the rope to one of the canoe-poles, and taking aim threw
it, harpoon fashion, beyond the duck, and the general merriment was
redoubled when the pole got loose and floated out to the middle of the
pond. At length John stripped, swam to the duck, threw it ashore, and
brought in the pole in his teeth, his companions meanwhile making merry
at his expense by splashing the water in front of him and making the
dead duck go through the motions of fighting and biting him in the face
as he landed.

The morning after this delightful day was dark and threatening. A high
wind was rushing down the strait dead against us, and just as we were
about ready to start, determined to fight our way by creeping close
inshore, pelting rain began to fly. We concluded therefore to wait for
better weather. The hunters went out for deer and I to see the forests.
The rain brought out the fragrance of the drenched trees, and the wind
made wild melody in their tops, while every brown bole was embroidered
by a network of rain rills. Perhaps the most delightful part of my
ramble was along a stream that flowed through a leafy arch beneath
overleaping trees which met at the top. The water was almost black in
the deep pools and fine clear amber in the shallows. It was the pure,
rich wine of the woods with a pleasant taste, bringing spicy spruce
groves and widespread bog and beaver meadows to mind. On this amber
stream I discovered an interesting fall. It is only a few feet high,
but remarkably fine in the curve of its brow and blending shades of
color, while the mossy, bushy pool into which it plunges is inky black,
but wonderfully brightened by foam bells larger than common that drift
in clusters on the smooth water around the rim, each of them carrying a
picture of the overlooking trees leaning together at the tips like the
teeth of moss capsules before they rise.

I found most of the trees here fairly loaded with mosses. Some broadly
palmated branches had beds of yellow moss so wide and deep that when
wet they must weigh a hundred pounds or even more. Upon these moss-beds
ferns and grasses and even good-sized seedling trees grow, making
beautiful hanging gardens in which the curious spectacle is presented
of old trees holding hundreds of their own children in their arms,
nourished by rain and dew and the decaying leaves showered down to them
by their parents. The branches upon which these beds of mossy soil rest
become flat and irregular like weathered roots or the antlers of deer,
and at length die; and when the whole tree has thus been killed it
seems to be standing on its head with roots in the air. A striking
example of this sort stood near the camp and I called the missionary’s
attention to it.

“Come, Mr. Young,” I shouted. “Here’s something wonderful, the most
wonderful tree you ever saw; it is standing on its head.”

“How in the world,” said he in astonishment, “could that tree have been
plucked up by the roots, carried high in the air, and dropped down head
foremost into the ground. It must have been the work of a tornado.”

Toward evening the hunters brought in a deer. They had seen four
others, and at the camp-fire talk said that deer abounded on all the
islands of considerable size and along the shores of the mainland. But
few were to be found in the interior on account of wolves that ran them
down where they could not readily take refuge in the water. The
Indians, they said, hunted them on the islands with trained dogs which
went into the woods and drove them out, while the hunters lay in wait
in canoes at the points where they were likely to take to the water.
Beaver and black bear also abounded on this large island. I saw but few
birds there, only ravens, jays, and wrens. Ducks, gulls, bald eagles,
and jays are the commonest birds hereabouts. A flock of swans flew
past, sounding their startling human-like cry which seemed yet more
striking in this lonely wilderness. The Indians said that geese, swans,
cranes, etc., making their long journeys in regular order thus called
aloud to encourage each other and enable them to keep stroke and time
like men in rowing or marching (a sort of “Row, brothers, row,” or
“Hip, hip” of marching soldiers).

October 18 was about half sunshine, half rain and wet snow, but we
paddled on through the midst of the innumerable islands in more than
half comfort, enjoying the changing effects of the weather on the
dripping wilderness. Strolling a little way back into the woods when we
went ashore for luncheon, I found fine specimens of cedar, and here and
there a birch, and small thickets of wild apple. A hemlock, felled by
Indians for bread-bark, was only twenty inches thick at the butt, a
hundred and twenty feet long, and about five hundred and forty years
old at the time it was felled. The first hundred of its rings measured
only four inches, showing that for a century it had grown in the shade
of taller trees and at the age of one hundred years was yet only a
sapling in size. On the mossy trunk of an old prostrate spruce about a
hundred feet in length thousands of seedlings were growing. I counted
seven hundred on a length of eight feet, so favorable is this climate
for the development of tree seeds and so fully do these trees obey the
command to multiply and replenish the earth. No wonder these islands
are densely clothed with trees. They grow on solid rocks and logs as
well as on fertile soil. The surface is first covered with a plush of
mosses in which the seeds germinate; then the interlacing roots form a
sod, fallen leaves soon cover their feet, and the young trees, closely
crowded together, support each other, and the soil becomes deeper and
richer from year to year.

I greatly enjoyed the Indian’s camp-fire talk this evening on their
ancient customs, how they were taught by their parents ere the whites
came among them, their religion, ideas connected with the next world,
the stars, plants, the behavior and language of animals under different
circumstances, manner of getting a living, etc. When our talk was
interrupted by the howling of a wolf on the opposite side of the
strait, Kadachan puzzled the minister with the question, “Have wolves
souls?” The Indians believe that they have, giving as foundation for
their belief that they are wise creatures who know how to catch seals
and salmon by swimming slyly upon them with their heads hidden in a
mouthful of grass, hunt deer in company, and always bring forth their
young at the same and most favorable time of the year. I inquired how
it was that with enemies so wise and powerful the deer were not all
killed. Kadachan replied that wolves knew better than to kill them all
and thus cut off their most important food-supply. He said they were
numerous on all the large islands, more so than on the mainland, that
Indian hunters were afraid of them and never ventured far into the
woods alone, for these large gray and black wolves attacked man whether
they were hungry or not. When attacked, the Indian hunter, he said,
climbed a tree or stood with his back against a tree or rock as a wolf
never attacks face to face. Wolves, and not bears, Indians regard as
masters of the woods, for they sometimes attack and kill bears, but the
wolverine they never attack, “for,” said John, “wolves and wolverines
are companions in sin and equally wicked and cunning.”

On one of the small islands we found a stockade, sixty by thirty-five
feet, built, our Indians said, by the Kake tribe during one of their
many warlike quarrels. Toyatte and Kadachan said these forts were
common throughout the canoe waters, showing that in this foodful,
kindly wilderness, as in all the world beside, man may be man’s worst
enemy.

We discovered small bits of cultivation here and there, patches of
potatoes and turnips, planted mostly on the cleared sites of deserted
villages. In spring the most industrious families sailed to their
little farms of perhaps a quarter of an acre or less, and ten or
fifteen miles from their villages. After preparing the ground, and
planting it, they visited it again in summer to pull the weeds and
speculate on the size of the crop they were likely to have to eat with
their fat salmon. The Kakes were then busy digging their potatoes,
which they complained were this year injured by early frosts.

We arrived at Klugh-Quan, one of the Kupreanof Kake villages, just as a
funeral party was breaking up. The body had been burned and gifts were
being distributed—bits of calico, handkerchiefs, blankets, etc.,
according to the rank and wealth of the deceased. The death ceremonies
of chiefs and head men, Mr. Young told me, are very weird and imposing,
with wild feasting, dancing, and singing. At this little place there
are some eight totem poles of bold and intricate design, well executed,
but smaller than those of the Stickeens. As elsewhere throughout the
archipelago, the bear, raven, eagle, salmon, and porpoise are the chief
figures. Some of the poles have square cavities, mortised into the
back, which are said to contain the ashes of members of the family.
These recesses are closed by a plug. I noticed one that was caulked
with a rag where the joint was imperfect.

Strolling about the village, looking at the tangled vegetation,
sketching the totems, etc., I found a lot of human bones scattered on
the surface of the ground or partly covered. In answer to my inquiries,
one of our crew said they probably belonged to Sitka Indians, slain in
war. These Kakes are shrewd, industrious, and rather good-looking
people. It was at their largest village that an American schooner was
seized and all the crew except one man murdered. A gunboat sent to
punish them burned the village. I saw the anchor of the ill-fated
vessel lying near the shore.

Though all the Thlinkit tribes believe in witchcraft, they are less
superstitious in some respects than many of the lower classes of
whites. Chief Yana Taowk seemed to take pleasure in kicking the Sitka
bones that lay in his way, and neither old nor young showed the
slightest trace of superstitious fear of the dead at any time.

It was at the northmost of the Kupreanof Kake villages that Mr. Young
held his first missionary meeting, singing hymns, praying, and
preaching, and trying to learn the number of the inhabitants and their
readiness to receive instruction. Neither here nor in any of the other
villages of the different tribes that we visited was there anything
like a distinct refusal to receive school-teachers or ministers. On the
contrary, with but one or two exceptions, all with apparent good faith
declared their willingness to receive them, and many seemed heartily
delighted at the prospect of gaining light on subjects so important and
so dark to them. All had heard ere this of the wonderful work of the
Reverend Mr. Duncan at Metlakatla, and even those chiefs who were not
at all inclined to anything like piety were yet anxious to procure
schools and churches that their people should not miss the temporal
advantages of knowledge, which with their natural shrewdness they were
not slow to recognize. “We are all children,” they said, “groping in
the dark. Give us this light and we will do as you bid us.”

The chief of the first Kupreanof Kake village we came to was a
venerable-looking man, perhaps seventy years old, with massive head and
strongly marked features, a bold Roman nose, deep, tranquil eyes,
shaggy eyebrows, a strong face set in a halo of long gray hair. He
seemed delighted at the prospect of receiving a teacher for his people.
“This is just what I want,” he said. “I am ready to bid him welcome.”

“This,” said Yana Taowk, chief of the larger north village, “is a good
word you bring us. We will be glad to come out of our darkness into
your light. You Boston men must be favorites of the Great Father. You
know all about God, and ships and guns and the growing of things to
eat. We will sit quiet and listen to the words of any teacher you send
us.”

While Mr. Young was preaching, some of the congregation smoked, talked
to each other, and answered the shouts of their companions outside,
greatly to the disgust of Toyatte and Kadachan, who regarded the Kakes
as mannerless barbarians. A little girl, frightened at the strange
exercises, began to cry and was turned out of doors. She cried in a
strange, low, wild tone, quite unlike the screech crying of the
children of civilization.

[Illustration: Admiralty Island.]

The following morning we crossed Prince Frederick Sound to the west
coast of Admiralty Island. Our frail shell of a canoe was tossed like a
bubble on the swells coming in from the ocean. Still, I suppose, the
danger was not so great as it seemed. In a good canoe, skillfully
handled, you may safely sail from Victoria to Chilcat, a thousand-mile
voyage frequently made by Indians in their trading operations before
the coming of the whites. Our Indians, however, dreaded this crossing
so late in the season. They spoke of it repeatedly before we reached it
as the one great danger of our voyage.

John said to me just as we left the shore, “You and Mr. Young will be
scared to death on this broad water.”

“Never mind us, John,” we merrily replied, “perhaps some of you brave
Indian sailors may be the first to show fear.”

Toyatte said he had not slept well a single night thinking of it, and
after we rounded Cape Gardner and entered the comparatively smooth
Chatham Strait, they all rejoiced, laughing and chatting like
frolicsome children.

We arrived at the first of the Hootsenoo villages on Admiralty Island
shortly after noon and were welcomed by everybody. Men, women, and
children made haste to the beach to meet us, the children staring as if
they had never before seen a Boston man. The chief, a remarkably
good-looking and intelligent fellow, stepped forward, shook hands with
us Boston fashion, and invited us to his house. Some of the curious
children crowded in after us and stood around the fire staring like
half-frightened wild animals. Two old women drove them out of the
house, making hideous gestures, but taking good care not to hurt them.
The merry throng poured through the round door, laughing and enjoying
the harsh gestures and threats of the women as all a joke, indicating
mild parental government in general. Indeed, in all my travels I never
saw a child, old or young, receive a blow or even a harsh word. When
our cook began to prepare luncheon our host said through his
interpreter that he was sorry we could not eat Indian food, as he was
anxious to entertain us. We thanked him, of course, and expressed our
sense of his kindness. His brother, in the mean time, brought a dozen
turnips, which he peeled and sliced and served in a clean dish. These
we ate raw as dessert, reminding me of turnip-field feasts when I was a
boy in Scotland. Then a box was brought from some corner and opened. It
seemed to be full of tallow or butter. A sharp stick was thrust into
it, and a lump of something five or six inches long, three or four
wide, and an inch thick was dug up, which proved to be a section of the
back fat of a deer, preserved in fish oil and seasoned with boiled
spruce and other spicy roots. After stripping off the lard-like oil, it
was cut into small pieces and passed round. It seemed white and
wholesome, but I was unable to taste it even for manner’s sake. This
disgust, however, was not noticed, as the rest of the company did full
justice to the precious tallow and smacked their lips over it as a
great delicacy. A lot of potatoes about the size of walnuts, boiled and
peeled and added to a potful of salmon, made a savory stew that all
seemed to relish. An old, cross-looking, wrinkled crone presided at the
steaming chowder-pot, and as she peeled the potatoes with her fingers
she, at short intervals, quickly thrust one of the best into the mouth
of a little wild-eyed girl that crouched beside her, a spark of natural
love which charmed her withered face and made all the big gloomy house
shine. In honor of our visit, our host put on a genuine white shirt.
His wife also dressed in her best and put a pair of dainty trousers on
her two-year-old boy, who seemed to be the pet and favorite of the
large family and indeed of the whole village. Toward evening messengers
were sent through the village to call everybody to a meeting. Mr. Young
delivered the usual missionary sermon and I also was called on to say
something. Then the chief arose and made an eloquent reply, thanking us
for our good words and for the hopes we had inspired of obtaining a
teacher for their children. In particular, he said, he wanted to hear
all we could tell him about God.

This village was an offshoot of a larger one, ten miles to the north,
called Killisnoo. Under the prevailing patriarchal form of government
each tribe is divided into comparatively few families; and because of
quarrels, the chief of this branch moved his people to this little bay,
where the beach offered a good landing for canoes. A stream which
enters it yields abundance of salmon, while in the adjacent woods and
mountains berries, deer, and wild goats abound.

“Here,” he said, “we enjoy peace and plenty; all we lack is a church
and a school, particularly a school for the children.” His dwelling so
much with benevolent aspect on the children of the tribe showed, I
think, that he truly loved them and had a right intelligent insight
concerning their welfare. We spent the night under his roof, the first
we had ever spent with Indians, and I never felt more at home. The
loving kindness bestowed on the little ones made the house glow.

Next morning, with the hearty good wishes of our Hootsenoo friends, and
encouraged by the gentle weather, we sailed gladly up the coast, hoping
soon to see the Chilcat glaciers in their glory. The rock hereabouts is
mostly a beautiful blue marble, waveworn into a multitude of small
coves and ledges. Fine sections were thus revealed along the shore,
which with their colors, brightened with showers and late-blooming
leaves and flowers, beguiled the weariness of the way. The shingle in
front of these marble cliffs is also mostly marble, well polished and
rounded and mixed with a small percentage of glacier-borne slate and
granite erratics.

We arrived at the upper village about half-past one o’clock. Here we
saw Hootsenoo Indians in a very different light from that which
illumined the lower village. While we were yet half a mile or more
away, we heard sounds I had never before heard—a storm of strange
howls, yells, and screams rising from a base of gasping, bellowing
grunts and groans. Had I been alone, I should have fled as from a pack
of fiends, but our Indians quietly recognized this awful sound, if such
stuff could be called sound, simply as the “whiskey howl” and pushed
quietly on. As we approached the landing, the demoniac howling so
greatly increased I tried to dissuade Mr. Young from attempting to say
a single word in the village, and as for preaching one might as well
try to preach in Tophet. The whole village was afire with bad whiskey.
This was the first time in my life that I learned the meaning of the
phrase “a howling drunk.” Even our Indians hesitated to venture ashore,
notwithstanding whiskey storms were far from novel to them. Mr. Young,
however, hoped that in this Indian Sodom at least one man might be
found so righteous as to be in his right mind and able to give
trustworthy information. Therefore I was at length prevailed on to
yield consent to land. Our canoe was drawn up on the beach and one of
the crew left to guard it. Cautiously we strolled up the hill to the
main row of houses, now a chain of alcoholic volcanoes. The largest
house, just opposite the landing, was about forty feet square, built of
immense planks, each hewn from a whole log, and, as usual, the only
opening was a mere hole about two and a half feet in diameter, closed
by a massive hinged plug like the breach of a cannon. At the dark
door-hole a few black faces appeared and were suddenly withdrawn. Not a
single person was to be seen on the street. At length a couple of old,
crouching men, hideously blackened, ventured out and stared at us,
then, calling to their companions, other black and burning heads
appeared, and we began to fear that like the Alloway Kirk witches the
whole legion was about to sally forth. But, instead, those outside
suddenly crawled and tumbled in again. We were thus allowed to take a
general view of the place and return to our canoe unmolested. But ere
we could get away, three old women came swaggering and grinning down to
the beach, and Toyatte was discovered by a man with whom he had once
had a business misunderstanding, who, burning for revenge, was now
jumping and howling and threatening as only a drunken Indian may, while
our heroic old captain, in severe icy majesty, stood erect and
motionless, uttering never a word. Kadachan, on the contrary, was well
nigh smothered with the drunken caresses of one of his father’s
_tillicums_ (friends), who insisted on his going back with him into the
house. But reversing the words of St. Paul in his account of his
shipwreck, it came to pass that we all at length got safe to sea and by
hard rowing managed to reach a fine harbor before dark, fifteen sweet,
serene miles from the howlers.

Our camp this evening was made at the head of a narrow bay bordered by
spruce and hemlock woods. We made our beds beneath a grand old Sitka
spruce five feet in diameter, whose broad, winglike branches were
outspread immediately above our heads. The night picture as I stood
back to see it in the firelight was this one great tree, relieved
against the gloom of the woods back of it, the light on the low
branches revealing the shining needles, the brown, sturdy trunk
grasping an outswelling mossy bank, and a fringe of illuminated bushes
within a few feet of the tree with the firelight on the tips of the
sprays.

Next morning, soon after we left our harbor, we were caught in a
violent gust of wind and dragged over the seething water in a
passionate hurry, though our sail was close-reefed, flying past the
gray headlands in most exhilarating style, until fear of being capsized
made us drop our sail and run into the first little nook we came to for
shelter. Captain Toyatte remarked that in this kind of wind no Indian
would dream of traveling, but since Mr. Young and I were with him he
was willing to go on, because he was sure that the Lord loved us and
would not allow us to perish.

We were now within a day or two of Chilcat. We had only to hold a
direct course up the beautiful Lynn Canal to reach the large Davidson
and other glaciers at its head in the cañons of the Chilcat and
Chilcoot Rivers. But rumors of trouble among the Indians there now
reached us. We found a party taking shelter from the stormy wind in a
little cove, who confirmed the bad news that the Chilcats were drinking
and fighting, that Kadachan’s father had been shot, and that it would
be far from safe to venture among them until blood-money had been paid
and the quarrels settled. I decided, therefore, in the mean time, to
turn westward and go in search of the wonderful “ice-mountains” that
Sitka Charley had been telling us about. Charley, the youngest of my
crew, noticing my interest in glaciers, said that when he was a boy he
had gone with his father to hunt seals in a large bay full of ice, and
that though it was long since he had been there, he thought he could
find his way to it. Accordingly, we pushed eagerly on across Chatham
Strait to the north end of Icy Strait, toward the new and promising
ice-field.

On the south side of Icy Strait we ran into a picturesque bay to visit
the main village of the Hoona tribe. Rounding a point on the north
shore of the bay, the charmingly located village came in sight, with a
group of the inhabitants gazing at us as we approached. They evidently
recognized us as strangers or visitors from the shape and style of our
canoe, and perhaps even determining that white men were aboard, for
these Indians have wonderful eyes. While we were yet half a mile off,
we saw a flag unfurled on a tall mast in front of the chief’s house.
Toyatte hoisted his United States flag in reply, and thus arrayed we
made for the landing. Here we were met and received by the chief,
Kashoto, who stood close to the water’s edge, barefooted and
bareheaded, but wearing so fine a robe and standing so grave, erect,
and serene, his dignity was complete. No white man could have
maintained sound dignity under circumstances so disadvantageous. After
the usual formal salutations, the chief, still standing as erect and
motionless as a tree, said that he was not much acquainted with our
people and feared that his house was too mean for visitors so
distinguished as we were. We hastened of course to assure him that we
were not proud of heart, and would be glad to have the honor of his
hospitality and friendship. With a smile of relief he then led us into
his large fort house to the seat of honor prepared for us. After we had
been allowed to rest unnoticed and unquestioned for fifteen minutes or
so, in accordance with good Indian manners in case we should be weary
or embarrassed, our cook began to prepare luncheon; and the chief
expressed great concern at his not being able to entertain us in Boston
fashion.

Luncheon over, Mr. Young as usual requested him to call his people to a
meeting. Most of them were away at outlying camps gathering winter
stores. Some ten or twelve men, however, about the same number of
women, and a crowd of wondering boys and girls were gathered in, to
whom Mr. Young preached the usual gospel sermon. Toyatte prayed in
Thlinkit, and the other members of the crew joined in the hymn-singing.
At the close of the mission exercises the chief arose and said that he
would now like to hear what the other white chief had to say. I
directed John to reply that I was not a missionary, that I came only to
pay a friendly visit and see the forests and mountains of their
beautiful country. To this he replied, as others had done in the same
circumstances, that he would like to hear me on the subject of their
country and themselves; so I had to get on my feet and make some sort
of a speech, dwelling principally on the brotherhood of all races of
people, assuring them that God loved them and that some of their white
brethren were beginning to know them and become interested in their
welfare; that I seemed this evening to be among old friends with whom I
had long been acquainted, though I had never been here before; that I
would always remember them and the kind reception they had given us;
advised them to heed the instructions of sincere self-denying mission
men who wished only to do them good and desired nothing but their
friendship and welfare in return. I told them that in some far-off
countries, instead of receiving the missionaries with glad and thankful
hearts, the Indians killed and ate them; but I hoped, and indeed felt
sure, that his people would find a better use for missionaries than
putting them, like salmon, in pots for food. They seemed greatly
interested, looking into each other’s faces with emphatic nods and
a-ahs and smiles.

The chief then slowly arose and, after standing silent a minute or two,
told us how glad he was to see us; that he felt as if his heart had
enjoyed a good meal; that we were the first to come humbly to his
little out-of-the-way village to tell his people about God; that they
were all like children groping in darkness, but eager for light; that
they would gladly welcome a missionary and teacher and use them well;
that he could easily believe that whites and Indians were the children
of one Father just as I had told them in my speech; that they differed
little and resembled each other a great deal, calling attention to the
similarity of hands, eyes, legs, etc., making telling gestures in the
most natural style of eloquence and dignified composure. “Oftentimes,”
he said, “when I was on the high mountains in the fall, hunting wild
sheep for meat, and for wool to make blankets, I have been caught in
snowstorms and held in camp until there was nothing to eat, but when I
reached my home and got warm, and had a good meal, then my body felt
good. For a long time my heart has been hungry and cold, but to-night
your words have warmed my heart, and given it a good meal, and now my
heart feels good.”

The most striking characteristic of these people is their serene
dignity in circumstances that to us would be novel and embarrassing.
Even the little children behave with natural dignity, come to the white
men when called, and restrain their wonder at the strange prayers,
hymn-singing, etc. This evening an old woman fell asleep in the meeting
and began to snore; and though both old and young were shaken with
suppressed mirth, they evidently took great pains to conceal it. It
seems wonderful to me that these so-called savages can make one feel at
home in their families. In good breeding, intelligence, and skill in
accomplishing whatever they try to do with tools they seem to me to
rank above most of our uneducated white laborers. I have never yet seen
a child ill-used, even to the extent of an angry word. Scolding, so
common a curse in civilization, is not known here at all. On the
contrary the young are fondly indulged without being spoiled. Crying is
very rarely heard.

In the house of this Hoona chief a pet marmot (Parry’s) was a great
favorite with old and young. It was therefore delightfully confiding
and playful and human. Cats were petted, and the confidence with which
these cautious, thoughtful animals met strangers showed that they were
kindly treated.

There were some ten or a dozen houses, all told, in the village. The
count made by the chief for Mr. Young showed some seven hundred and
twenty-five persons in the tribe.




Chapter X
The Discovery of Glacier Bay


From here, on October 24, we set sail for Guide Charley’s
ice-mountains. The handle of our heaviest axe was cracked, and as
Charley declared that there was no firewood to be had in the big
ice-mountain bay, we would have to load the canoe with a store for
cooking at an island out in the Strait a few miles from the village. We
were therefore anxious to buy or trade for a good sound axe in exchange
for our broken one. Good axes are rare in rocky Alaska. Soon or late an
unlucky stroke on a stone concealed in moss spoils the edge. Finally
one in almost perfect condition was offered by a young Hoona for our
broken-handled one and a half-dollar to boot; but when the broken axe
and money were given he promptly demanded an additional twenty-five
cents’ worth of tobacco. The tobacco was given him, then he required a
half-dollar’s worth more of tobacco, which was also given; but when he
still demanded something more, Charley’s patience gave way and we
sailed in the same condition as to axes as when we arrived. This was
the only contemptible commercial affair we encountered among these
Alaskan Indians.

We reached the wooded island about one o’clock, made coffee, took on a
store of wood, and set sail direct for the icy country, finding it very
hard indeed to believe the woodless part of Charley’s description of
the Icy Bay, so heavily and uniformly are all the shores forested
wherever we had been. In this view we were joined by John, Kadachan,
and Toyatte, none of them on all their lifelong canoe travels having
ever seen a woodless country.

We held a northwesterly course until long after dark, when we reached a
small inlet that sets in near the mouth of Glacier Bay, on the west
side. Here we made a cold camp on a desolate snow-covered beach in
stormy sleet and darkness. At daybreak I looked eagerly in every
direction to learn what kind of place we were in; but gloomy
rain-clouds covered the mountains, and I could see nothing that would
give me a clue, while Vancouver’s chart, hitherto a faithful guide,
here failed us altogether. Nevertheless, we made haste to be off; and
fortunately, for just as we were leaving the shore, a faint smoke was
seen across the inlet, toward which Charley, who now seemed lost,
gladly steered. Our sudden appearance so early that gray morning had
evidently alarmed our neighbors, for as soon as we were within hailing
distance an Indian with his face blackened fired a shot over our heads,
and in a blunt, bellowing voice roared, “Who are you?”

Our interpreter shouted, “Friends and the Fort Wrangell missionary.”

Then men, women, and children swarmed out of the hut, and awaited our
approach on the beach. One of the hunters having brought his gun with
him, Kadachan sternly rebuked him, asking with superb indignation
whether he was not ashamed to meet a missionary with a gun in his
hands. Friendly relations, however, were speedily established, and as a
cold rain was falling, they invited us to enter their hut. It seemed
very small and was jammed full of oily boxes and bundles; nevertheless,
twenty-one persons managed to find shelter in it about a smoky fire.
Our hosts proved to be Hoona seal-hunters laying in their winter stores
of meat and skins. The packed hut was passably well ventilated, but its
heavy, meaty smells were not the same to our noses as those we were
accustomed to in the sprucy nooks of the evergreen woods. The circle of
black eyes peering at us through a fog of reek and smoke made a novel
picture. We were glad, however, to get within reach of information, and
of course asked many questions concerning the ice-mountains and the
strange bay, to most of which our inquisitive Hoona friends replied
with counter-questions as to our object in coming to such a place,
especially so late in the year. They had heard of Mr. Young and his
work at Fort Wrangell, but could not understand what a missionary could
be doing in such a place as this. Was he going to preach to the seals
and gulls, they asked, or to the ice-mountains? And could they take his
word? Then John explained that only the friend of the missionary was
seeking ice mountains, that Mr. Young had already preached many good
words in the villages we had visited, their own among the others, that
our hearts were good and every Indian was our friend. Then we gave them
a little rice, sugar, tea, and tobacco, after which they began to gain
confidence and to speak freely. They told us that the big bay was
called by them Sit-a-da-kay, or Ice Bay; that there were many large
ice-mountains in it, but no gold-mines; and that the ice-mountain they
knew best was at the head of the bay, where most of the seals were
found.

Notwithstanding the rain, I was anxious to push on and grope our way
beneath the clouds as best we could, in case worse weather should come;
but Charley was ill at ease, and wanted one of the seal-hunters to go
with us, for the place was much changed. I promised to pay well for a
guide, and in order to lighten the canoe proposed to leave most of our
heavy stores in the hut until our return. After a long consultation one
of them consented to go. His wife got ready his blanket and a piece of
cedar matting for his bed, and some provisions—mostly dried salmon, and
seal sausage made of strips of lean meat plaited around a core of fat.
She followed us to the beach, and just as we were pushing off said with
a pretty smile, “It is my husband that you are taking away. See that
you bring him back.”

We got under way about 10 A.M. The wind was in our favor, but a cold
rain pelted us, and we could see but little of the dreary, treeless
wilderness which we had now fairly entered. The bitter blast, however,
gave us good speed; our bedraggled canoe rose and fell on the waves as
solemnly as a big ship. Our course was northwestward, up the southwest
side of the bay, near the shore of what seemed to be the mainland,
smooth marble islands being on our right. About noon we discovered the
first of the great glaciers, the one I afterward named for James
Geikie, the noted Scotch geologist. Its lofty blue cliffs, looming
through the draggled skirts of the clouds, gave a tremendous impression
of savage power, while the roar of the newborn icebergs thickened and
emphasized the general roar of the storm. An hour and a half beyond the
Geikie Glacier we ran into a slight harbor where the shore is low,
dragged the canoe beyond the reach of drifting icebergs, and, much
against my desire to push ahead, encamped, the guide insisting that the
big ice-mountain at the head of the bay could not be reached before
dark, that the landing there was dangerous even in daylight, and that
this was the only safe harbor on the way to it. While camp was being
made. I strolled along the shore to examine the rocks and the fossil
timber that abounds here. All the rocks are freshly glaciated, even
below the sea-level, nor have the waves as yet worn off the surface
polish, much less the heavy scratches and grooves and lines of glacial
contour.

The next day being Sunday, the minister wished to stay in camp; and so,
on account of the weather, did the Indians. I therefore set out on an
excursion, and spent the day alone on the mountain-slopes above the
camp, and northward, to see what I might learn. Pushing on through rain
and mud and sludgy snow, crossing many brown, boulder-choked torrents,
wading, jumping, and wallowing in snow up to my shoulders was
mountaineering of the most trying kind. After crouching cramped and
benumbed in the canoe, poulticed in wet or damp clothing night and day,
my limbs had been asleep. This day they were awakened and in the hour
of trial proved that they had not lost the cunning learned on many a
mountain peak of the High Sierra. I reached a height of fifteen hundred
feet, on the ridge that bounds the second of the great glaciers. All
the landscape was smothered in clouds and I began to fear that as far
as wide views were concerned I had climbed in vain. But at length the
clouds lifted a little, and beneath their gray fringes I saw the
berg-filled expanse of the bay, and the feet of the mountains that
stand about it, and the imposing fronts of five huge glaciers, the
nearest being immediately beneath me. This was my first general view of
Glacier Bay, a solitude of ice and snow and newborn rocks, dim, dreary,
mysterious. I held the ground I had so dearly won for an hour or two,
sheltering myself from the blast as best I could, while with benumbed
fingers I sketched what I could see of the landscape, and wrote a few
lines in my notebook. Then, breasting the snow again, crossing the
shifting avalanche slopes and torrents, I reached camp about dark, wet
and weary and glad.

While I was getting some coffee and hardtack, Mr. Young told me that
the Indians were discouraged, and had been talking about turning back,
fearing that I would be lost, the canoe broken, or in some other
mysterious way the expedition would come to grief if I persisted in
going farther. They had been asking him what possible motive I could
have in climbing mountains when storms were blowing; and when he
replied that I was only seeking knowledge, Toyatte said, “Muir must be
a witch to seek knowledge in such a place as this and in such miserable
weather.”

After supper, crouching about a dull fire of fossil wood, they became
still more doleful, and talked in tones that accorded well with the
wind and waters and growling torrents about us, telling sad old stories
of crushed canoes, drowned Indians, and hunters frozen in snowstorms.
Even brave old Toyatte, dreading the treeless, forlorn appearance of
the region, said that his heart was not strong, and that he feared his
canoe, on the safety of which our lives depended, might be entering a
skookum-house (jail) of ice, from which there might be no escape; while
the Hoona guide said bluntly that if I was so fond of danger, and meant
to go close up to the noses of the ice-mountains, he would not consent
to go any farther; for we should all be lost, as many of his tribe had
been, by the sudden rising of bergs from the bottom. They seemed to be
losing heart with every howl of the wind, and, fearing that they might
fail me now that I was in the midst of so grand a congregation of
glaciers, I made haste to reassure them, telling them that for ten
years I had wandered alone among mountains and storms, and good luck
always followed me; that with me, therefore, they need fear nothing.
The storm would soon cease and the sun would shine to show us the way
we should go, for God cares for us and guides us as long as we are
trustful and brave, therefore all childish fear must be put away. This
little speech did good. Kadachan, with some show of enthusiasm, said he
liked to travel with good-luck people; and dignified old Toyatte
declared that now his heart was strong again, and he would venture on
with me as far as I liked for my “wawa” was “delait” (my talk was very
good). The old warrior even became a little sentimental, and said that
even if the canoe was broken he would not greatly care, because on the
way to the other world he would have good companions.

Next morning it was still raining and snowing, but the south wind swept
us bravely forward and swept the bergs from our course. In about an
hour we reached the second of the big glaciers, which I afterwards
named for Hugh Miller. We rowed up its fiord and landed to make a
slight examination of its grand frontal wall. The berg-producing
portion we found to be about a mile and a half wide, and broken into an
imposing array of jagged spires and pyramids, and flat-topped towers
and battlements, of many shades of blue, from pale, shimmering, limpid
tones in the crevasses and hollows, to the most startling, chilling,
almost shrieking vitriol blue on the plain mural spaces from which
bergs had just been discharged. Back from the front for a few miles the
glacier rises in a series of wide steps, as if this portion of the
glacier had sunk in successive sections as it reached deep water, and
the sea had found its way beneath it. Beyond this it extends
indefinitely in a gently rising prairie-like expanse, and branches
along the slopes and cañons of the Fairweather Range.

From here a run of two hours brought us to the head of the bay, and to
the mouth of the northwest fiord, at the head of which lie the Hoona
sealing-grounds, and the great glacier now called the Pacific, and
another called the Hoona. The fiord is about five miles long, and two
miles wide at the mouth. Here our Hoona guide had a store of dry wood,
which we took aboard. Then, setting sail, we were driven wildly up the
fiord, as if the storm-wind were saying, “Go, then, if you will, into
my icy chamber; but you shall stay in until I am ready to let you out.”
All this time sleety rain was falling on the bay, and snow on the
mountains; but soon after we landed the sky began to open. The camp was
made on a rocky bench near the front of the Pacific Glacier, and the
canoe was carried beyond the reach of the bergs and berg-waves. The
bergs were now crowded in a dense pack against the discharging front,
as if the storm-wind had determined to make the glacier take back her
crystal offspring and keep them at home.

While camp affairs were being attended to, I set out to climb a
mountain for comprehensive views; and before I had reached a height of
a thousand feet the rain ceased, and the clouds began to rise from the
lower altitudes, slowly lifting their white skirts, and lingering in
majestic, wing-shaped masses about the mountains that rise out of the
broad, icy sea, the highest of all the white mountains, and the
greatest of all the glaciers I had yet seen. Climbing higher for a
still broader outlook, I made notes and sketched, improving the
precious time while sunshine streamed through the luminous fringes of
the clouds and fell on the green waters of the fiord, the glittering
bergs, the crystal bluffs of the vast glacier, the intensely white,
far-spreading fields of ice, and the ineffably chaste and spiritual
heights of the Fairweather Range, which were now hidden, now partly
revealed, the whole making a picture of icy wildness unspeakably pure
and sublime.

Looking southward, a broad ice-sheet was seen extending in a gently
undulating plain from the Pacific Fiord in the foreground to the
horizon, dotted and ridged here and there with mountains which were as
white as the snow-covered ice in which they were half, or more than
half, submerged. Several of the great glaciers of the bay flow from
this one grand fountain. It is an instructive example of a general
glacier covering the hills and dales of a country that is not yet ready
to be brought to the light of day—not only covering but creating a
landscape with the features it is destined to have when, in the
fullness of time, the fashioning ice-sheet shall be lifted by the sun,
and the land become warm and fruitful. The view to the westward is
bounded and almost filled by the glorious Fairweather Mountains, the
highest among them springing aloft in sublime beauty to a height of
nearly sixteen thousand feet, while from base to summit every peak and
spire and dividing ridge of all the mighty host was spotless white, as
if painted. It would seem that snow could never be made to lie on the
steepest slopes and precipices unless plastered on when wet, and then
frozen. But this snow could not have been wet. It must have been fixed
by being driven and set in small particles like the storm-dust of
drifts, which, when in this condition, is fixed not only on sheer
cliffs, but in massive, overcurling cornices. Along the base of this
majestic range sweeps the Pacific Glacier, fed by innumerable cascading
tributaries, and discharging into the head of its fiord by two mouths
only partly separated by the brow of an island rock about one thousand
feet high, each nearly a mile wide.

Dancing down the mountain to camp, my mind glowing like the sunbeaten
glaciers, I found the Indians seated around a good fire, entirely happy
now that the farthest point of the journey was safely reached and the
long, dark storm was cleared away. How hopefully, peacefully bright
that night were the stars in the frosty sky, and how impressive was the
thunder of the icebergs, rolling, swelling, reverberating through the
solemn stillness! I was too happy to sleep.

About daylight next morning we crossed the fiord and landed on the
south side of the rock that divides the wall of the great glacier. The
whiskered faces of seals dotted the open spaces between the bergs, and
I could not prevent John and Charley and Kadachan from shooting at
them. Fortunately, few, if any, were hurt. Leaving the Indians in
charge of the canoe, I managed to climb to the top of the wall by a
good deal of step-cutting between the ice and dividing rock, and gained
a good general view of the glacier. At one favorable place I descended
about fifty feet below the side of the glacier, where its denuding,
fashioning action was clearly shown. Pushing back from here, I found
the surface crevassed and sunken in steps, like the Hugh Miller
Glacier, as if it were being undermined by the action of tide-waters.
For a distance of fifteen or twenty miles the river-like ice-flood is
nearly level, and when it recedes, the ocean water will follow it, and
thus form a long extension of the fiord, with features essentially the
same as those now extending into the continent farther south, where
many great glaciers once poured into the sea, though scarce a vestige
of them now exists. Thus the domain of the sea has been, and is being,
extended in these ice-sculptured lands, and the scenery of their shores
enriched. The brow of the dividing rock is about a thousand feet high,
and is hard beset by the glacier. A short time ago it was at least two
thousand feet below the surface of the over-sweeping ice; and under
present climatic conditions it will soon take its place as a
glacier-polished island in the middle of the fiord, like a thousand
others in the magnificent archipelago. Emerging from its icy sepulchre,
it gives a most telling illustration of the birth of a marked feature
of a landscape. In this instance it is not the mountain, but the
glacier, that is in labor, and the mountain itself is being brought
forth.

The Hoona Glacier enters the fiord on the south side, a short distance
below the Pacific, displaying a broad and far-reaching expanse, over
which many lofty peaks are seen; but the front wall, thrust into the
fiord, is not nearly so interesting as that of the Pacific, and I did
not observe any bergs discharged from it.

In the evening, after witnessing the unveiling of the majestic peaks
and glaciers and their baptism in the down-pouring sunbeams, it seemed
inconceivable that nature could have anything finer to show us.
Nevertheless, compared with what was to come the next morning, all that
was as nothing. The calm dawn gave no promise of anything uncommon. Its
most impressive features were the frosty clearness of the sky and a
deep, brooding stillness made all the more striking by the thunder of
the newborn bergs. The sunrise we did not see at all, for we were
beneath the shadows of the fiord cliffs; but in the midst of our
studies, while the Indians were getting ready to sail, we were startled
by the sudden appearance of a red light burning with a strange
unearthly splendor on the topmost peak of the Fairweather Mountains.
Instead of vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared, it spread and
spread until the whole range down to the level of the glaciers was
filled with the celestial fire. In color it was at first a vivid
crimson, with a thick, furred appearance, as fine as the alpenglow, yet
indescribably rich and deep—not in the least like a garment or mere
external flush or bloom through which one might expect to see the rocks
or snow, but every mountain apparently was glowing from the heart like
molten metal fresh from a furnace. Beneath the frosty shadows of the
fiord we stood hushed and awe-stricken, gazing at the holy vision; and
had we seen the heavens opened and God made manifest, our attention
could not have been more tremendously strained. When the highest peak
began to burn, it did not seem to be steeped in sunshine, however
glorious, but rather as if it had been thrust into the body of the sun
itself. Then the supernal fire slowly descended, with a sharp line of
demarcation separating it from the cold, shaded region beneath; peak
after peak, with their spires and ridges and cascading glaciers, caught
the heavenly glow, until all the mighty host stood transfigured,
hushed, and thoughtful, as if awaiting the coming of the Lord. The
white, rayless light of morning, seen when I was alone amid the peaks
of the California Sierra, had always seemed to me the most telling of
all the terrestrial manifestations of God. But here the mountains
themselves were made divine, and declared His glory in terms still more
impressive. How long we gazed I never knew. The glorious vision passed
away in a gradual, fading change through a thousand tones of color to
pale yellow and white, and then the work of the ice-world went on again
in everyday beauty. The green waters of the fiord were filled with
sun-spangles; the fleet of icebergs set forth on their voyages with the
upspringing breeze; and on the innumerable mirrors and prisms of these
bergs, and on those of the shattered crystal walls of the glaciers,
common white light and rainbow light began to burn, while the mountains
shone in their frosty jewelry, and loomed again in the thin azure in
serene terrestrial majesty. We turned and sailed away, joining the
outgoing bergs, while “Gloria in excelsis” still seemed to be sounding
over all the white landscape, and our burning hearts were ready for any
fate, feeling that, whatever the future might have in store, the
treasures we had gained this glorious morning would enrich our lives
forever.

When we arrived at the mouth of the fiord, and rounded the massive
granite headland that stands guard at the entrance on the north side,
another large glacier, now named the Reid, was discovered at the head
of one of the northern branches of the bay. Pushing ahead into this new
fiord, we found that it was not only packed with bergs, but that the
spaces between the bergs were crusted with new ice, compelling us to
turn back while we were yet several miles from the discharging frontal
wall. But though we were not then allowed to set foot on this
magnificent glacier, we obtained a fine view of it, and I made the
Indians cease rowing while I sketched its principal features. Thence,
after steering northeastward a few miles, we discovered still another
large glacier, now named the Carroll. But the fiord into which this
glacier flows was, like the last, utterly inaccessible on account of
ice, and we had to be content with a general view and sketch of it,
gained as we rowed slowly past at a distance of three or four miles.
The mountains back of it and on each side of its inlet are sculptured
in a singularly rich and striking style of architecture, in which
subordinate peaks and gables appear in wonderful profusion, and an
imposing conical mountain with a wide, smooth base stands out in the
main current of the glacier, a mile or two back from the discharging
ice-wall.

We now turned southward down the eastern shore of the bay, and in an
hour or two discovered a glacier of the second class, at the head of a
comparatively short fiord that winter had not yet closed. Here we
landed, and climbed across a mile or so of rough boulder-beds, and back
upon the wildly broken, receding front of the glacier, which, though it
descends to the level of the sea, no longer sends off bergs. Many large
masses, detached from the wasting front by irregular melting, were
partly buried beneath mud, sand, gravel, and boulders of the terminal
moraine. Thus protected, these fossil icebergs remain unmelted for many
years, some of them for a century or more, as shown by the age of trees
growing above them, though there are no trees here as yet. At length
melting, a pit with sloping sides is formed by the falling in of the
overlying moraine material into the space at first occupied by the
buried ice. In this way are formed the curious depressions in
drift-covered regions called kettles or sinks. On these decaying
glaciers we may also find many interesting lessons on the formation of
boulders and boulder-beds, which in all glaciated countries exert a
marked influence on scenery, health, and fruitfulness.

Three or four miles farther down the bay, we came to another fiord, up
which we sailed in quest of more glaciers, discovering one in each of
the two branches into which the fiord divides. Neither of these
glaciers quite reaches tide-water. Notwithstanding the apparent
fruitfulness of their fountains, they are in the first stage of
decadence, the waste from melting and evaporation being greater now
than the supply of new ice from their snowy fountains. We reached the
one in the north branch, climbed over its wrinkled brow, and gained a
good view of the trunk and some of the tributaries, and also of the
sublime gray cliffs of its channel.

Then we sailed up the south branch of the inlet, but failed to reach
the glacier there, on account of a thin sheet of new ice. With the
tent-poles we broke a lane for the canoe for a little distance; but it
was slow work, and we soon saw that we could not reach the glacier
before dark. Nevertheless, we gained a fair view of it as it came
sweeping down through its gigantic gateway of massive Yosemite rocks
three or four thousand feet high. Here we lingered until sundown,
gazing and sketching; then turned back, and encamped on a bed of
cobblestones between the forks of the fiord.

We gathered a lot of fossil wood and after supper made a big fire, and
as we sat around it the brightness of the sky brought on a long talk
with the Indians about the stars; and their eager, childlike attention
was refreshing to see as compared with the deathlike apathy of weary
town-dwellers, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and
care and poor shallow comfort.

After sleeping a few hours, I stole quietly out of the camp, and
climbed the mountain that stands between the two glaciers. The ground
was frozen, making the climbing difficult in the steepest places; but
the views over the icy bay, sparkling beneath the stars, were
enchanting. It seemed then a sad thing that any part of so precious a
night had been lost in sleep. The starlight was so full that I
distinctly saw not only the berg-filled bay, but most of the lower
portions of the glaciers, lying pale and spirit-like amid the
mountains. The nearest glacier in particular was so distinct that it
seemed to be glowing with light that came from within itself. Not even
in dark nights have I ever found any difficulty in seeing large
glaciers; but on this mountain-top, amid so much ice, in the heart of
so clear and frosty a night, everything was more or less luminous, and
I seemed to be poised in a vast hollow between two skies of almost
equal brightness. This exhilarating scramble made me glad and strong
and I rejoiced that my studies called me before the glorious night
succeeding so glorious a morning had been spent!

I got back to camp in time for an early breakfast, and by daylight we
had everything packed and were again under way. The fiord was frozen
nearly to its mouth, and though the ice was so thin it gave us but
little trouble in breaking a way for the canoe, yet it showed us that
the season for exploration in these waters was well-nigh over. We were
in danger of being imprisoned in a jam of icebergs, for the
water-spaces between them freeze rapidly, binding the floes into one
mass. Across such floes it would be almost impossible to drag a canoe,
however industriously we might ply the axe, as our Hoona guide took
great pains to warn us. I would have kept straight down the bay from
here, but the guide had to be taken home, and the provisions we left at
the bark hut had to be got on board. We therefore crossed over to our
Sunday storm-camp, cautiously boring a way through the bergs. We found
the shore lavishly adorned with a fresh arrival of assorted bergs that
had been left stranded at high tide. They were arranged in a curving
row, looking intensely clear and pure on the gray sand, and, with the
sunbeams pouring through them, suggested the jewel-paved streets of the
New Jerusalem.

On our way down the coast, after examining the front of the beautiful
Geikie Glacier, we obtained our first broad view of the great glacier
afterwards named the Muir, the last of all the grand company to be
seen, the stormy weather having hidden it when we first entered the
bay. It was now perfectly clear, and the spacious, prairie-like
glacier, with its many tributaries extending far back into the snowy
recesses of its fountains, made a magnificent display of its wealth,
and I was strongly tempted to go and explore it at all hazards. But
winter had come, and the freezing of its fiords was an insurmountable
obstacle. I had, therefore, to be content for the present with
sketching and studying its main features at a distance.

[Illustration: The Muir Glacier in the Seventies, showing Ice Cliffs
and Stranded Icebergs.]

When we arrived at the Hoona hunting-camp, men, women, and children
came swarming out to welcome us. In the neighborhood of this camp I
carefully noted the lines of demarkation between the forested and
deforested regions. Several mountains here are only in part deforested,
and the lines separating the bare and the forested portions are well
defined. The soil, as well as the trees, had slid off the steep slopes,
leaving the edge of the woods raw-looking and rugged.

At the mouth of the bay a series of moraine islands show that the trunk
glacier that occupied the bay halted here for some time and deposited
this island material as a terminal moraine; that more of the bay was
not filled in shows that, after lingering here, it receded
comparatively fast. All the level portions of trunks of glaciers
occupying ocean fiords, instead of melting back gradually in times of
general shrinking and recession, as inland glaciers with sloping
channels do, melt almost uniformly over all the surface until they
become thin enough to float. Then, of course, with each rise and fall
of the tide, the sea water, with a temperature usually considerably
above the freezing-point, rushes in and out beneath them, causing rapid
waste of the nether surface, while the upper is being wasted by the
weather, until at length the fiord portions of these great glaciers
become comparatively thin and weak and are broken up and vanish almost
simultaneously.

Glacier Bay is undoubtedly young as yet. Vancouver’s chart, made only a
century ago, shows no trace of it, though found admirably faithful in
general. It seems probable, therefore, that even then the entire bay
was occupied by a glacier of which all those described above, great
though they are, were only tributaries. Nearly as great a change has
taken place in Sum Dum Bay since Vancouver’s visit, the main trunk
glacier there having receded from eighteen to twenty five miles from
the line marked on his chart. Charley, who was here when a boy, said
that the place had so changed that he hardly recognized it, so many new
islands had been born in the mean time and so much ice had vanished. As
we have seen, this Icy Bay is being still farther extended by the
recession of the glaciers. That this whole system of fiords and
channels was added to the domain of the sea by glacial action is to my
mind certain.

We reached the island from which we had obtained our store of fuel
about half-past six and camped here for the night, having spent only
five days in Sitadaka, sailing round it, visiting and sketching all the
six glaciers excepting the largest, though I landed only on three of
them,—the Geikie, Hugh Miller, and Grand Pacific,—the freezing of the
fiords in front of the others rendering them inaccessible at this late
season.




Chapter XI
The Country of the Chilcats


On October 30 we visited a camp of Hoonas at the mouth of a
salmon-chuck. We had seen some of them before, and they received us
kindly. Here we learned that peace reigned in Chilcat. The reports that
we had previously heard were, as usual in such cases, wildly
exaggerated. The little camp hut of these Indians was crowded with the
food-supplies they had gathered—chiefly salmon, dried and tied in
bunches of convenient size for handling and transporting to their
villages, bags of salmon-roe, boxes of fish-oil, a lot of mountain-goat
mutton, and a few porcupines. They presented us with some dried salmon
and potatoes, for which we gave them tobacco and rice. About 3 P.M. we
reached their village, and in the best house, that of a chief, we found
the family busily engaged in making whiskey. The still and mash were
speedily removed and hidden away with apparent shame as soon as we came
in sight. When we entered and passed the regular greetings, the usual
apologies as to being unable to furnish Boston food for us and
inquiries whether we could eat Indian food were gravely made. Toward
six or seven o’clock Mr. Young explained the object of his visit and
held a short service. The chief replied with grave deliberation, saying
that he would be heartily glad to have a teacher sent to his poor
ignorant people, upon whom he now hoped the light of a better day was
beginning to break. Hereafter he would gladly do whatever the white
teachers told him to do and would have no will of his own. This under
the whiskey circumstances seemed too good to be quite true. He thanked
us over and over again for coming so far to see him, and complained
that Port Simpson Indians, sent out on a missionary tour by Mr. Crosby,
after making a good-luck board for him and nailing it over his door,
now wanted to take it away. Mr. Young promised to make him a new one,
should this threat be executed, and remarked that since he had offered
to do his bidding he hoped he would make no more whiskey. To this the
chief replied with fresh complaints concerning the threatened loss of
his precious board, saying that he thought the Port Simpson Indians
were very mean in seeking to take it away, but that now he would tell
them to take it as soon as they liked for he was going to get a better
one at Wrangell. But no effort of the missionary could bring him to
notice or discuss the whiskey business. The luck board nailed over the
door was about two feet long and had the following inscription: “The
Lord will bless those who do his will. When you rise in the morning,
and when you retire at night, give him thanks. Heccla Hockla Popla.”

This chief promised to pray like a white man every morning, and to bury
the dead as the whites do. “I often wondered,” he said, “where the dead
went to. Now I am glad to know”; and at last acknowledged the whiskey,
saying he was sorry to have been caught making the bad stuff. The
behavior of all, even the little ones circled around the fire, was very
good. There was no laughter when the strange singing commenced. They
only gazed like curious, intelligent animals. A little daughter of the
chief with the glow of the firelight on her eyes made an interesting
picture, head held aslant. Another in the group, with upturned eyes,
seeming to half understand the strange words about God, might have
passed for one of Raphael’s angels.

The chief’s house was about forty feet square, of the ordinary fort
kind, but better built and cleaner than usual. The side-room doors were
neatly paneled, though all the lumber had been nibbled into shape with
a small narrow Indian adze. We had our tent pitched on a grassy spot
near the beach, being afraid of wee beasties; which greatly offended
Kadachan and old Toyatte, who said, “If this is the way you are to do
up at Chilcat, we will be ashamed of you.” We promised them to eat
Indian food and in every way behave like good Chilcats.

We set out direct for Chilcat in the morning against a brisk head wind.
By keeping close inshore and working hard, we made about ten miles by
two or three o’clock, when, the tide having turned against us, we could
make scarce any headway, and therefore landed in a sheltered cove a few
miles up the west side of Lynn Canal. Here I discovered a fine growth
of yellow cedar, but none of the trees were very large, the tallest
only seventy-five to one hundred feet high. The flat, drooping,
plume-like branchlets hang edgewise, giving the trees a thin, open,
airy look. Nearly every tree that I saw in a long walk was more or less
marked by the knives and axes of the Indians, who use the bark for
matting, for covering house-roofs, and making temporary portable huts.
For this last purpose sections five or six feet long and two or three
wide are pressed flat and secured from warping or splitting by binding
them with thin strips of wood at the end. These they carry about with
them in their canoes, and in a few minutes they can be put together
against slim poles and made into a rainproof hut. Every paddle that I
have seen along the coast is made of the light, tough, handsome yellow
wood of this tree. It is a tree of moderately rapid growth and usually
chooses ground that is rather boggy and mossy. Whether its network of
roots makes the bog or not, I am unable as yet to say.

Three glaciers on the opposite side of the canal were in sight,
descending nearly to sea-level, and many smaller ones that melt a
little below timber-line. While I was sketching these, a canoe hove in
sight, coming on at a flying rate of speed before the wind. The owners,
eager for news, paid us a visit. They proved to be Hoonas, a man, his
wife, and four children, on their way home from Chilcat. The man was
sitting in the stern steering and holding a sleeping child in his arms.
Another lay asleep at his feet. He told us that Sitka Jack had gone up
to the main Chilcat village the day before he left, intending to hold a
grand feast and potlatch, and that whiskey up there was flowing like
water. The news was rather depressing to Mr. Young and myself, for we
feared the effect of the poison on Toyatte’s old enemies. At 8.30 P.M.
we set out again on the turn of the tide, though the crew did not
relish this night work. Naturally enough, they liked to stay in camp
when wind and tide were against us, but didn’t care to make up lost
time after dark however wooingly wind and tide might flow and blow.
Kadachan, John, and Charley rowed, and Toyatte steered and paddled,
assisted now and then by me. The wind moderated and almost died away,
so that we made about fifteen miles in six hours, when the tide turned
and snow began to fall. We ran into a bay nearly opposite Berner’s Bay,
where three or four families of Chilcats were camped who shouted when
they heard us landing and demanded our names. Our men ran to the huts
for news before making camp. The Indians proved to be hunters, who said
there were plenty of wild sheep on the mountains back a few miles from
the head of the bay. This interview was held at three o’clock in the
morning, a rather early hour. But Indians never resent any such
disturbance provided there is anything worth while to be said or done.
By four o’clock we had our tents set, a fire made and some coffee,
while the snow was falling fast. Toyatte was out of humor with this
night business. He wanted to land an hour or two before we did, and
then, when the snow began to fall and we all wanted to find a
camping-ground as soon as possible, he steered out into the middle of
the canal, saying grimly that the tide was good. He turned, however, at
our orders, but read us a lecture at the first opportunity, telling us
to start early if we were in a hurry, but not to travel in the night
like thieves.

After a few hours’ sleep, we set off again, with the wind still against
us and the sea rough. We were all tired after making only about twelve
miles, and camped in a rocky nook where we found a family of Hoonas in
their bark hut beside their canoe. They presented us with potatoes and
salmon and a big bucketful of berries, salmon-roe, and grease of some
sort, probably fish-oil, which the crew consumed with wonderful relish.

A fine breeze was blowing next morning from the south, which would take
us to Chilcat in a few hours, but unluckily the day was Sunday and the
good wind was refused. Sunday, it seemed to me, could be kept as well
by sitting in the canoe and letting the Lord’s wind waft us quietly on
our way. The day was rainy and the clouds hung low. The trees here are
remarkably well developed, tall and straight. I observed three or four
hemlocks which had been struck by lightning,—the first I noticed in
Alaska. Some of the species on windy outjutting rocks become very
picturesque, almost as much so as old oaks, the foliage becoming dense
and the branchlets tufted in heavy plume-shaped horizontal masses.

Monday was a fine clear day, but the wind was dead ahead, making hard,
dull work with paddles and oars. We passed a long stretch of beautiful
marble cliffs enlivened with small merry waterfalls, and toward noon
came in sight of the front of the famous Chilcat or Davidson Glacier, a
broad white flood reaching out two or three miles into the canal with
wonderful effect. I wanted to camp beside it but the head wind tired us
out before we got within six or eight miles of it. We camped on the
west side of a small rocky island in a narrow cove. When I was looking
among the rocks and bushes for a smooth spot for a bed, I found a human
skeleton. My Indians seemed not in the least shocked or surprised,
explaining that it was only the remains of a Chilcat slave. Indians
never bury or burn the bodies of slaves, but just cast them away
anywhere. Kind Nature was covering the poor bones with moss and leaves,
and I helped in the pitiful work.

The wind was fair and joyful in the morning, and away we glided to the
famous glacier. In an hour or so we were directly in front of it and
beheld it in all its crystal glory descending from its white mountain
fountains and spreading out in an immense fan three or four miles wide
against its tree-fringed terminal moraine. But, large as it is, it long
ago ceased to discharge bergs.

The Chilcats are the most influential of all the Thlinkit tribes.
Whenever on our journey I spoke of the interesting characteristics of
other tribes we had visited, my crew would invariably say, “Oh, yes,
these are pretty good Indians, but wait till you have seen the
Chilcats.” We were now only five or six miles distant from their lower
village, and my crew requested time to prepare themselves to meet their
great rivals. Going ashore on the moraine with their boxes that had not
been opened since we left Fort Wrangell, they sat on boulders and cut
each other’s hair, carefully washed and perfumed themselves and made a
complete change in their clothing, even to white shirts, new boots, new
hats, and bright neckties. Meanwhile, I scrambled across the broad,
brushy, forested moraine, and on my return scarcely recognized my crew
in their dress suits. Mr. Young also made some changes in his clothing,
while I, having nothing dressy in my bag, adorned my cap with an
eagle’s feather I found on the moraine, and thus arrayed we set forth
to meet the noble Thlinkits.

We were discovered while we were several miles from the village, and as
we entered the mouth of the river we were hailed by a messenger from
the chief, sent to find out who we were and the objects of our
extraordinary visit.

“Who are you?” he shouted in a heavy, far-reaching voice. “What are
your names? What do you want? What have you come for?”

On receiving replies, he shouted the information to another messenger,
who was posted on the river-bank at a distance of a quarter of a mile
or so, and he to another and another in succession, and by this living
telephone the news was delivered to the chief as he sat by his
fireside. A salute was then fired to welcome us, and a swarm of
musket-bullets, flying scarce high enough for comfort, pinged over our
heads. As soon as we reached the landing at the village, a dignified
young man stepped forward and thus addressed us:—

“My chief sent me to meet you, and to ask if you would do him the honor
to lodge in his house during your stay in our village?”

We replied, of course, that we would consider it a great honor to be
entertained by so distinguished a chief.

The messenger then ordered a number of slaves, who stood behind him, to
draw our canoe out of the water, carry our provisions and bedding into
the chief’s house, and then carry the canoe back from the river where
it would be beyond the reach of floating ice. While we waited, a lot of
boys and girls were playing on a meadow near the landing—running races,
shooting arrows, and wading in the icy river without showing any
knowledge of our presence beyond quick stolen glances. After all was
made secure, he conducted us to the house, where we found seats of
honor prepared for us.

The old chief sat barefooted by the fireside, clad in a calico shirt
and blanket, looking down, and though we shook hands as we passed him
he did not look up. After we were seated, he still gazed into the fire
without taking the slightest notice of us for about ten or fifteen
minutes. The various members of the chief’s family, also,—men, women,
and children,—went about their usual employment and play as if entirely
unconscious that strangers were in the house, it being considered
impolite to look at visitors or speak to them before time had been
allowed them to collect their thoughts and prepare any message they
might have to deliver.

At length, after the politeness period had passed, the chief slowly
raised his head and glanced at his visitors, looked down again, and at
last said, through our interpreter:—

“I am troubled. It is customary when strangers visit us to offer them
food in case they might be hungry, and I was about to do so, when I
remembered that the food of you honorable white chiefs is so much
better than mine that I am ashamed to offer it.”

We, of course, replied that we would consider it a great honor to enjoy
the hospitality of so distinguished a chief as he was.

Hearing this, he looked up, saying, “I feel relieved”; or, in John the
interpreter’s words, “He feels good now, he says he feels good.”

He then ordered one of his family to see that the visitors were fed.
The young man who was to act as steward took up his position in a
corner of the house commanding a view of all that was going on, and
ordered the slaves to make haste to prepare a good meal; one to bring a
lot of the best potatoes from the cellar and wash them well; another to
go out and pick a basketful of fresh berries; another to broil a
salmon; while others made a suitable fire, pouring oil on the wet wood
to make it blaze. Speedily the feast was prepared and passed around.
The first course was potatoes, the second fish-oil and salmon, next
berries and rose-hips; then the steward shouted the important news, in
a loud voice like a herald addressing an army, “That’s all!” and left
his post.

Then followed all sorts of questions from the old chief. He wanted to
know what Professor Davidson had been trying to do a year or two ago on
a mountain-top back of the village, with many strange things looking at
the sun when it grew dark in the daytime; and we had to try to explain
eclipses. He asked us if we could tell him what made the water rise and
fall twice a day, and we tried to explain that the sun and moon
attracted the sea by showing how a magnet attracted iron.

Mr. Young, as usual, explained the object of his visit and requested
that the people might be called together in the evening to hear his
message. Accordingly all were told to wash, put on their best clothing,
and come at a certain hour. There was an audience of about two hundred
and fifty, to whom Mr. Young I preached. Toyatte led in prayer, while
Kadachan and John joined in the singing of several hymns. At the
conclusion of the religious exercises the chief made a short address of
thanks, and finished with a request for the message of the other chief.
I again tried in vain to avoid a speech by telling the interpreter to
explain that I was only traveling to see the country, the glaciers, and
mountains and forests, etc., but these subjects, strange to say, seemed
to be about as interesting as the gospel, and I had to delivery sort of
lecture on the fine foodful country God had given them and the
brotherhood of man, along the same general lines I had followed at
other villages. Some five similar meetings were held here, two of them
in the daytime, and we began to feel quite at home in the big
block-house with our hospitable and warlike friends.

At the last meeting an old white-haired shaman of grave and venerable
aspect, with a high wrinkled forehead, big, strong Roman nose and
light-colored skin, slowly and with great dignity arose and spoke for
the first time.

“I am an old man,” he said, “but I am glad to listen to those strange
things you tell, and they may well be true, for what is more wonderful
than the flight of birds in the air? I remember the first white man I
ever saw. Since that long, long-ago time I have seen many, but never
until now have I ever truly known and felt a white man’s heart. All the
white men I have heretofore met wanted to get something from us. They
wanted furs and they wished to pay for them as small a price as
possible. They all seemed to be seeking their own good—not our good. I
might say that through all my long life I have never until now heard a
white man speak. It has always seemed to me while trying to speak to
traders and those seeking gold-mines that it was like speaking to a
person across a broad stream that was running fast over stones and
making so loud a noise that scarce a single word could be heard. But
now, for the first time, the Indian and the white man are on the same
side of the river, eye to eye, heart to heart. I have always loved my
people. I have taught them and ministered to them as well as I could.
Hereafter, I will keep silent and listen to the good words of the
missionaries, who know God and the places we go to when we die so much
better than I do.”

At the close of the exercises, after the last sermon had been preached
and the last speech of the Indian chief and headmen had been made, a
number of the sub-chiefs were talking informally together. Mr. Young,
anxious to know what impression he had made on the tribe with reference
to mission work, requested John to listen and tell him what was being
said.

“They are talking about Mr. Muir’s speech,” he reported. “They say he
knows how to talk and beats the preacher far.” Toyatte also, with a
teasing smile, said: “Mr. Young, mika tillicum hi yu tola wawa” (your
friend leads you far in speaking).

Later, when the sending of a missionary and teacher was being
considered, the chief said they wanted me, and, as an inducement,
promised that if I would come to them they would always do as I
directed, follow my councils, give me as many wives as I liked, build a
church and school, and pick all the stones out of the paths and make
them smooth for my feet.

They were about to set out on an expedition to the Hootsenoos to
collect blankets as indemnity or blood-money for the death of a Chilcat
woman from drinking whiskey furnished by one of the Hootsenoo tribe. In
case of their refusal to pay, there would be fighting, and one of the
chiefs begged that we would pray them good luck, so that no one would
be killed. This he asked as a favor, after begging that we would grant
permission to go on this expedition, promising that they would avoid
bloodshed if possible. He spoke in a very natural and easy tone and
manner always serene and so much of a polished diplomat that all polish
was hidden. The younger chief stood while speaking, the elder sat on
the floor. None of the congregation had a word to say, though they gave
approving nods and shrugs.

The house was packed at every meeting, two a day. Some climbed on the
roof to listen around the smoke opening. I tried in vain to avoid
speechmaking, but, as usual, I had to say something at every meeting. I
made five speeches here, all of which seemed to be gladly heard,
particularly what I said on the different kinds of white men and their
motives, and their own kindness and good manners in making strangers
feel at home in their houses.

The chief had a slave, a young and good-looking girl, who waited on
him, cooked his food, lighted his pipe for him, etc. Her servitude
seemed by no means galling. In the morning, just before we left on the
return trip, interpreter John overheard him telling her that after the
teacher came from Wrangell, he was going to dress her well and send her
to school and use her in every way as if she were his own daughter.
Slaves are still owned by the richest of the Thlinkits. Formerly, many
of them were sacrificed on great occasions, such as the opening of a
new house or the erection of a totem pole. Kadachan ordered John to
take a pair of white blankets out of his trunk and wrap them about the
chief’s shoulders, as he sat by the fire. This gift was presented
without ceremony or saying a single word. The chief scarcely noticed
the blankets, only taking a corner in his hand, as if testing the
quality of the wool. Toyatte had been an inveterate enemy and fighter
of the Chilcats, but now, having joined the church, he wished to forget
the past and bury all the hard feuds and be universally friendly and
peaceful. It was evident, however, that he mistrusted the proud and
warlike Chilcats and doubted the acceptance of his friendly advances,
and as we approached their village became more and more thoughtful.

“My wife said that my old enemies would be sure to kill me. Well, never
mind. I am an old man and may as well die as not.” He was troubled with
palpitation, and oftentimes, while he suffered, he put his hand over
his heart and said, “I hope the Chilcats will shoot me here.”

Before venturing up the river to the principal village, located some
ten miles up the river, we sent Sitka Charley and one of the young
Chilcats as messengers to announce our arrival and inquire whether we
would be welcome to visit them, informing the chief that both Kadachan
and Toyatte were Mr. Young’s friends and mine, that we were “all one
meat” and any harm done them would also be done to us.

While our messengers were away, I climbed a pure-white, dome-crowned
mountain about fifty-five hundred feet high and gained noble telling
views to the northward of the main Chilcat glaciers and the multitude
of mighty peaks from which they draw their sources. At a height of
three thousand feet I found a mountain hemlock, considerably dwarfed,
in company with Sitka spruce and the common hemlock, the tallest about
twenty feet high, sixteen inches in diameter. A few stragglers grew
considerably higher, say at about four thousand feet. Birch and
two-leaf pine were common.

The messengers returned next day, bringing back word that we would all
be heartily welcomed excepting Toyatte; that the guns were loaded and
ready to be fired to welcome us, but that Toyatte, having insulted a
Chilcat chief not long ago in Wrangell, must not come. They also
informed us in their message that they were very busy merrymaking with
other visitors, Sitka Jack and his friends, but that if we could get up
to the village through the running ice on the river, they would all be
glad to see us; they had been drinking and Kadachan’s father, one of
the principal chiefs, said plainly that he had just waked up out of a
ten days’ sleep. We were anxious to make this visit, but, taking the
difficulties and untoward circumstances into account, the danger of
being frozen in at so late a time, while Kadachan would not be able to
walk back on account of a shot in his foot, the danger also from
whiskey, the awakening of old feuds on account of Toyatte’s presence,
etc., we reluctantly concluded to start back on the home journey at
once. This was on Friday and a fair wind was blowing, but our crew, who
loved dearly to rest and eat in these big hospitable houses, all said
that Monday would be _hyas klosh_ for the starting-day. I insisted,
however, on starting Saturday morning, and succeeded in getting away
from our friends at ten o’clock. Just as we were leaving, the chief who
had entertained us so handsomely requested a written document to show
that he had not killed us, so in case we were lost on the way home he
could not be held accountable in any way for our death.




Chapter XII
The Return to Fort Wrangell


The day of our start for Wrangell was bright and the Hoon, the north
wind, strong. We passed around the east side of the larger island which
lies near the south extremity of the point of land between the Chilcat
and the Chilcoot channels and thence held a direct course down the east
shore of the canal. At sunset we encamped in a small bay at the head of
a beautiful harbor three or four miles south of Berner’s Bay, and the
next day, being Sunday, we remained in camp as usual, though the wind
was fair and it is not a sin to go home. The Indians spent most of the
day in washing, mending, eating, and singing hymns with Mr. Young, who
also gave them a Bible lesson, while I wrote notes and sketched.
Charley made a sweathouse and all the crew got good baths. This is one
of the most delightful little bays we have thus far enjoyed, girdled
with tall trees whose branches almost meet, and with views of
pure-white mountains across the broad, river-like canal.

Seeing smoke back in the dense woods, we went ashore to seek it and
discovered a Hootsenoo whiskey-factory in full blast. The Indians said
that an old man, a friend of theirs, was about to die and they were
making whiskey for his funeral.

Our Indians were already out of oily flesh, which they regard as a
necessity and consume in enormous quantities. The bacon was nearly gone
and they eagerly inquired for flesh at every camp we passed. Here we
found skinned carcasses of porcupines and a heap of wild mutton lying
on the confused hut floor. Our cook boiled the porcupines in a big pot
with a lot of potatoes we obtained at the same hut, and although the
potatoes were protected by their skins, the awfully wild penetrating
porcupine flavor found a way through the skins and flavored them to the
very heart. Bread and beans and dried fruit we had in abundance, and
none of these rank aboriginal dainties ever came nigh any meal of mine.
The Indians eat the hips of wild roses entire like berries, and I was
laughed at for eating only the outside of this fruit and rejecting the
seeds.

When we were approaching the village of the Auk tribe, venerable
Toyatte seemed to be unusually pensive, as if weighed down by some
melancholy thought. This was so unusual that I waited attentively to
find out the cause of his trouble.

When at last he broke silence it was to say, “Mr. Young, Mr. Young,”—he
usually repeated the name,—“I hope you will not stop at the Auk
village.”

“Why, Toyatte?” asked Mr. Young.

“Because they are a bad lot, and preaching to them can do no good.”

“Toyatte,” said Mr. Young, “have you forgotten what Christ said to his
disciples when he charged them to go forth and preach the gospel to
everybody; and that we should love our enemies and do good to those who
use us badly?”

“Well,” replied Toyatte, “if you preach to them, you must not call on
me to pray, because I cannot pray for Auks.”

“But the Bible says we should pray for all men, however bad they may
be.”

“Oh, yes, I know that, Mr. Young; I know it very well. But Auks are not
men, good or bad,—they are dogs.”

It was now nearly dark and quite so ere we found a harbor, not far from
the fine Auk Glacier which descends into the narrow channel that
separates Douglas Island from the mainland. Two of the Auks followed us
to our camp after eight o’clock and inquired into our object in
visiting them, that they might carry the news to their chief. One of
the chief’s houses is opposite our camp a mile or two distant, and we
concluded to call on him next morning.

I wanted to examine the Auk Glacier in the morning, but tried to be
satisfied with a general view and sketch as we sailed around its wide
fan-shaped front. It is one of the most beautiful of all the coast
glaciers that are in the first stage of decadence. We called on the Auk
chief at daylight, when he was yet in bed, but he arose goodnaturedly,
put on a calico shirt, drew a blanket around his legs, and comfortably
seated himself beside a small fire that gave light enough to show his
features and those of his children and the three women that one by one
came out of the shadows. All listened attentively to Mr. Young’s
message of goodwill. The chief was a serious, sharp-featured,
dark-complexioned man, sensible-looking and with good manners. He was
very sorry, he said, that his people had been drinking in his absence
and had used us so ill; he would like to hear us talk and would call
his people together if we would return to the village. This offer we
had to decline. We gave him good words and tobacco and bade him
good-bye.

The scenery all through the channel is magnificent, something like
Yosemite Valley in its lofty avalanche-swept wall cliffs, especially on
the mainland side, which are so steep few trees can find footing. The
lower island side walls are mostly forested. The trees are heavily
draped with lichens, giving the woods a remarkably gray, ancient look.
I noticed a good many two-leafed pines in boggy spots. The water was
smooth, and the reflections of the lofty walls striped with cascades
were charmingly distinct.

It was not easy to keep my crew full of wild flesh. We called at an
Indian summer camp on the mainland about noon, where there were three
very squalid huts crowded and jammed full of flesh of many colors and
smells, among which we discovered a lot of bright fresh trout, lovely
creatures about fifteen inches long, their sides adorned with vivid red
spots. We purchased five of them and a couple of salmon for a box of
gun-caps and a little tobacco. About the middle of the afternoon we
passed through a fleet of icebergs, their number increasing as we
neared the mouth of the Taku Fiord, where we camped, hoping to explore
the fiord and see the glaciers where the bergs, the first we had seen
since leaving Icy Bay, are derived.

[Illustration: Stranded Icebergs, Taku Glacier.]

We left camp at six o’clock, nearly an hour before daybreak. My Indians
were glad to find the fiord barred by a violent wind, against which we
failed to make any headway; and as it was too late in the season to
wait for better weather, I reluctantly gave up this promising work for
another year, and directed the crew to go straight ahead down the
coast. We sailed across the mouth of the happy inlet at fine speed,
keeping a man at the bow to look out for the smallest of the bergs, not
easily seen in the dim light, and another bailing the canoe as the tops
of some of the white caps broke over us. About two o’clock we passed a
large bay or fiord, out of which a violent wind was blowing, though the
main Stephens Passage was calm. About dusk, when we were all tired and
anxious to get into camp, we reached the mouth of Sum Dum Bay, but
nothing like a safe landing could we find. Our experienced captain was
indignant, as well he might be, because we did not see fit to stop
early in the afternoon at a good camp-ground he had chosen. He seemed
determined to give us enough of night sailing as a punishment to last
us for the rest of the voyage. Accordingly, though the night was dark
and rainy and the bay full of icebergs, he pushed grimly on, saying
that we must try to reach an Indian village on the other side of the
bay or an old Indian fort on an island in the middle of it. We made
slow, weary, anxious progress while Toyatte, who was well acquainted
with every feature of this part of the coast and could find his way in
the dark, only laughed at our misery. After a mile or two of this
dismal night work we struck across toward the island, now invisible,
and came near being wrecked on a rock which showed a smooth round back
over which the waves were breaking. In the hurried Indian shouts that
followed and while we were close against the rock, Mr. Young shouted,
as he leaned over against me, “It’s a whale, a whale!” evidently
fearing its tail, several specimens of these animals, which were
probably still on his mind, having been seen in the forenoon. While we
were passing along the east shore of the island we saw a light on the
opposite shore, a joyful sight, which Toyatte took for a fire in the
Indian village, and steered for it. John stood in the bow, as guide
through the bergs. Suddenly, we ran aground on a sand bar. Clearing
this, and running back half a mile or so, we again stood for the light,
which now shone brightly. I thought it strange that Indians should have
so large a fire. A broad white mass dimly visible back of the fire Mr.
Young took for the glow of the fire on the clouds. This proved to be
the front of a glacier. After we had effected a landing and stumbled up
toward the fire over a ledge of slippery, algæ-covered rocks, and
through the ordinary tangle of shore grass, we were astonished to find
white men instead of Indians, the first we had seen for a month. They
proved to be a party of seven gold-seekers from Fort Wrangell. It was
now about eight o’clock and they were in bed, but a jolly Irishman got
up to make coffee for us and find out who we were, where we had come
from, where going, and the objects of our travels. We unrolled our
chart and asked for information as to the extent and features of the
bay. But our benevolent friend took great pains to pull wool over our
eyes, and made haste to say that if “ice and sceneries” were what we
were looking for, this was a very poor, dull place. There were “big
rocks, gulches, and sceneries” of a far better quality down the coast
on the way to Wrangell. He and his party were prospecting, he said, but
thus far they had found only a few colors and they proposed going over
to Admiralty Island in the morning to try their luck.

In the morning, however, when the prospectors were to have gone over to
the island, we noticed a smoke half a mile back on a large stream, the
outlet of the glacier we had seen the night before, and an Indian told
us that the white men were building a big log house up there. It
appeared that they had found a promising placer mine in the moraine and
feared we might find it and spread the news. Daylight revealed a
magnificent fiord that brought Glacier Bay to mind. Miles of bergs lay
stranded on the shores, and the waters of the branch fiords, not on
Vancouver’s chart, were crowded with them as far as the eye could
reach. After breakfast we set out to explore an arm of the bay that
trends southeastward, and managed to force a way through the bergs
about ten miles. Farther we could not go. The pack was so close no open
water was in sight, and, convinced at last that this part of my work
would have to be left for another year, we struggled across to the west
side of the fiord and camped.

I climbed a mountain next morning, hoping to gain a view of the great
fruitful glaciers at the head of the fiord or, at least, of their snowy
fountains. But in this also I failed; for at a distance of about
sixteen miles from the mouth of the fiord a change to the northward in
its general trend cut off all its upper course from sight.

Returning to camp baffled and weary, I ordered all hands to pack up and
get out of the ice as soon as possible. And how gladly was that order
obeyed! Toyatte’s grand countenance glowed like a sun-filled glacier,
as he joyfully and teasingly remarked that “the big Sum Dum
ice-mountain had hidden his face from me and refused to let me pay him
a visit.” All the crew worked hard boring a way down the west side of
the fiord, and early in the afternoon we reached comparatively open
water near the mouth of the bay. Resting a few minutes among the
drifting bergs, taking last lingering looks at the wonderful place I
might never see again, and feeling sad over my weary failure to explore
it, I was cheered by a friend I little expected to meet here. Suddenly,
I heard the familiar whir of an ousel’s wings, and, looking up, saw my
little comforter coming straight from the shore. In a second or two he
was with me, and flew three times around my head with a happy salute,
as if saying, “Cheer up, old friend, you see I am here and all’s well.”
He then flew back to the shore, alighted on the topmost jag of a
stranded iceberg, and began to nod and bow as though he were on one of
his favorite rocks in the middle of a sunny California mountain
cataract.

Mr. Young regretted not meeting the Indians here, but mission work also
had to be left until next season. Our happy crew hoisted sail to a fair
wind, shouted “Good-bye, Sum Dum!” and soon after dark reached a harbor
a few miles north of Hobart Point.

We made an early start the next day, a fine, calm morning, glided
smoothly down the coast, admiring the magnificent mountains arrayed in
their winter robes, and early in the afternoon reached a lovely harbor
on an island five or six miles north of Cape Fanshawe. Toyatte
predicted a heavy winter storm, though only a mild rain was falling as
yet. Everybody was tired and hungry, and as the voyage was nearing the
end, I consented to stop here. While the shelter tents were being set
up and our blankets stowed under cover, John went out to hunt and
killed a deer within two hundred yards of the camp. When we were at the
camp-fire in Sum Dum Bay, one of the prospectors, replying to Mr.
Young’s complaint that they were oftentimes out of meat, asked Toyatte
why he and his men did not shoot plenty of ducks for the minister.
“Because the duck’s friend would not let us,” said Toyatte; “when we
want to shoot, Mr. Muir always shakes the canoe.”

Just as we were passing the south headland of Port Houghton Bay, we
heard a shout, and a few minutes later saw four Indians in a canoe
paddling rapidly after us. In about an hour they overtook us. They were
an Indian, his son, and two women with a load of fish-oil and dried
salmon to sell and trade at Fort Wrangell. They camped within a dozen
yards of us; with their sheets of cedar bark and poles they speedily
made a hut, spread spruce boughs in it for a carpet, unloaded the
canoe, and stored their goods under cover. Toward evening the old man
came smiling with a gift for Toyatte,—a large fresh salmon, which was
promptly boiled and eaten by our captain and crew as if it were only a
light refreshment like a biscuit between meals. A few minutes after the
big salmon had vanished, our generous neighbor came to Toyatte with a
second gift of dried salmon, which after being toasted a few minutes
tranquilly followed the fresh one as though it were a mere mouthful.
Then, from the same generous hands, came a third gift,—a large
milk-panful of huckleberries and grease boiled together,—and, strange
to say, this wonderful mess went smoothly down to rest on the broad and
deep salmon foundation. Thus refreshed, and appetite sharpened, my
sturdy crew made haste to begin on the buck, beans, bread, etc., and,
boiling and roasting, managed to get comfortably full on but little
more than half of it by sundown, making a good deal of sport of my pity
for the deer and refusing to eat any of it and nicknaming me the ice
_ancou_ and the deer and duck’s _tillicum_.

Sunday was a wild, driving, windy day with but little rain but big
promise of more. I took a walk back in the woods. The timber here is
very fine, about as large as any I have seen in Alaska, much better
than farther north. The Sitka spruce and the common hemlock, one
hundred and fifty and two hundred feet high, are slender and handsome.
The Sitka spruce makes good firewood even when green, the hemlock very
poor. Back a little way from the sea, there was a good deal of yellow
cedar, the best I had yet seen. The largest specimen that I saw and
measured on the trip was five feet three inches in diameter and about
one hundred and forty feet high. In the evening Mr. Young gave the
Indians a lesson, calling in our Indian neighbors. He told them the
story of Christ coming to save the world. The Indians wanted to know
why the Jews had killed him. The lesson was listened to with very
marked attention. Toyatte’s generous friend caught a devil-fish about
three feet in diameter to add to his stores of food. It would be very
good, he said, when boiled in berry and colicon-oil soup. Each arm of
this savage animal with its double row of button-like suction discs
closed upon any object brought within reach with a grip nothing could
escape. The Indians tell me that devil-fish live mostly on crabs,
mussels, and clams, the shells of which they easily crunch with their
strong, parrot-like beaks. That was a wild, stormy, rainy night. How
the rain soaked us in our tents!

“Just feel that,” said the minister in the night, as he took my hand
and plunged it into a pool about three inches deep in which he was
lying.

“Never mind,” I said, “it is only water. Everything is wet now. It will
soon be morning and we will dry at the fire.”

Our Indian neighbors were, if possible, still wetter. Their hut had
been blown down several times during the night. Our tent leaked badly,
and we were lying in a mossy bog, but around the big camp-fire we were
soon warm and half dry. We had expected to reach Wrangell by this time.
Toyatte said the storm might last several days longer. We were out of
tea and coffee, much to Mr. Young’s distress. On my return from a walk
I brought in a good big bunch of glandular ledum and boiled it in the
teapot. The result of this experiment was a bright, clear
amber-colored, rank-smelling liquor which I did not taste, but my
suffering companion drank the whole potful and praised it. The rain was
so heavy we decided not to attempt to leave camp until the storm
somewhat abated, as we were assured by Toyatte that we would not be
able to round Cape Fanshawe, a sheer, outjutting headland, the nose as
he called it, past which the wind sweeps with great violence in these
southeastern storms. With what grateful enthusiasm the trees welcomed
the life-giving rain! Strong, towering spruces, hemlocks, and cedars
tossed their arms, bowing, waving, in every leap, quivering and
rejoicing together in the gray, roaring storm. John and Charley put on
their gun-coats and went hunting for another deer, but returned later
in the afternoon with clean hands, having fortunately failed to shed
any more blood. The wind still held in the south, and Toyatte, grimly
trying to comfort us, told us that we might be held here a week or
more, which we should not have minded much, for we had abundance of
provisions. Mr. Young and I shifted our tent and tried to dry blankets.
The wind moderated considerably, and at 7 A.M. we started but met a
rough sea and so stiff a wind we barely succeeded in rounding the cape
by all hands pulling their best. Thence we struggled down the coast,
creeping close to the shore and taking advantage of the shelter of
protecting rocks, making slow, hard-won progress until about the middle
of the afternoon, when the sky opened and the blessed sun shone out
over the beautiful waters and forests with rich amber light; and the
high, glacier-laden mountains, adorned with fresh snow, slowly came to
view in all their grandeur, the bluish-gray clouds crawling and
lingering and dissolving until every vestige of them vanished. The
sunlight made the upper snow-fields pale creamy yellow, like that seen
on the Chilcat mountains the first day of our return trip. Shortly
after the sky cleared, the wind abated and changed around to the north,
so that we ventured to hoist our sail, and then the weary Indians had
rest. It was interesting to note how speedily the heavy swell that had
been rolling for the last two or three days was subdued by the
comparatively light breeze from the opposite direction. In a few
minutes the sound was smooth and no trace of the storm was left, save
the fresh snow and the discoloration of the water. All the water of the
sound as far as I noticed was pale coffee-color like that of the
streams in boggy woods. How much of this color was due to the inflow of
the flooded streams many times increased in size and number by the
rain, and how much to the beating of the waves along the shore stirring
up vegetable matter in shallow bays, I cannot determine. The effect,
however, was very marked.

About four o’clock we saw smoke on the shore and ran in for news. We
found a company of Taku Indians, who were on their way to Fort
Wrangell, some six men and about the same number of women. The men were
sitting in a bark hut, handsomely reinforced and embowered with fresh
spruce boughs. The women were out at the side of a stream, washing
their many bits of calico. A little girl, six or seven years old, was
sitting on the gravelly beach, building a playhouse of white quartz
pebbles, scarcely caring to stop her work to gaze at us. Toyatte found
a friend among the men, and wished to encamp beside them for the night,
assuring us that this was the only safe harbor to be found within a
good many miles. But we resolved to push on a little farther and make
use of the smooth weather after being stormbound so long, much to
Toyatte and his companion’s disgust. We rowed about a couple of miles
and ran into a cozy cove where wood and water were close at hand. How
beautiful and homelike it was! plushy moss for mattresses decked with
red corner berries, noble spruce standing guard about us and spreading
kindly protecting arms. A few ferns, aspidiums, polypodiums, with
dewberry vines, coptis, pyrola, leafless huckleberry bushes, and ledum
grow beneath the trees. We retired at eight o’clock, and just then
Toyatte, who had been attentively studying the sky, presaged rain and
another southeaster for the morrow.

The sky was a little cloudy next morning, but the air was still and the
water smooth. We all hoped that Toyatte, the old weather prophet, had
misread the sky signs. But before reaching Point Vanderpeut the rain
began to fall and the dreaded southeast wind to blow, which soon
increased to a stiff breeze, next thing to a gale, that lashed the
sound into ragged white caps. Cape Vanderpeut is part of the terminal
of an ancient glacier that once extended six or eight miles out from
the base of the mountains. Three large glaciers that once were
tributaries still descend nearly to the sea-level, though their fronts
are back in narrow fiords, eight or ten miles from the sound. A similar
point juts out into the sound five or six miles to the south, while the
missing portion is submerged and forms a shoal.

All the cape is forested save a narrow strip about a mile long,
composed of large boulders against which the waves beat with loud
roaring. A bar of foam a mile or so farther out showed where the waves
were breaking on a submerged part of the moraine, and I supposed that
we would be compelled to pass around it in deep water, but Toyatte,
usually so cautious, determined to cross it, and after giving
particular directions, with an encouraging shout every oar and paddle
was strained to shoot through a narrow gap. Just at the most critical
point a big wave heaved us aloft and dropped us between two huge
rounded boulders, where, had the canoe been a foot or two closer to
either of them, it must have been smashed. Though I had offered no
objection to our experienced pilot’s plan, it looked dangerous, and I
took the precaution to untie my shoes so they could be quickly shaken
off for swimming. But after crossing the bar we were not yet out of
danger, for we had to struggle hard to keep from being driven ashore
while the waves were beating us broadside on. At length we discovered a
little inlet, into which we gladly escaped. A pure-white iceberg,
weathered to the form of a cross, stood amid drifts of kelp and the
black rocks of the wave-beaten shore in sign of safety and welcome. A
good fire soon warmed and dried us into common comfort. Our narrow
escape was the burden of conversation as we sat around the fire.
Captain Toyatte told us of two similar adventures while he was a strong
young man. In both of them his canoe was smashed and he swam ashore out
of the surge with a gun in his teeth. He says that if we had struck the
rocks he and Mr. Young would have been drowned, all the rest of us
probably would have been saved. Then, turning to me, he asked me if I
could have made a fire in such a case without matches, and found a way
to Wrangell without canoe or food.

We started about daybreak from our blessed white cross harbor, and,
after rounding a bluff cape opposite the mouth of Wrangell Narrows, a
fleet of icebergs came in sight, and of course I was eager to trace
them to their source. Toyatte naturally enough was greatly excited
about the safety of his canoe and begged that we should not venture to
force a way through the bergs, risking the loss of the canoe and our
lives now that we were so near the end of our long voyage.

“Oh, never fear, Toyatte,” I replied. “You know we are always lucky—the
weather is good. I only want to see the Thunder Glacier for a few
minutes, and should the bergs be packed dangerously close, I promise to
turn back and wait until next summer.”

Thus assured, he pushed rapidly on until we entered the fiord, where we
had to go cautiously slow. The bergs were close packed almost
throughout the whole extent of the fiord, but we managed to reach a
point about two miles from the head—commanding a good view of the
down-plunging lower end of the glacier and blue, jagged ice-wall. This
was one of the most imposing of the first-class glaciers I had as yet
seen, and with its magnificent fiord formed a fine triumphant close for
our season’s ice work. I made a few notes and sketches and turned back
in time to escape from the thickest packs of bergs before dark. Then
Kadachan was stationed in the bow to guide through the open portion of
the mouth of the fiord and across Soutchoi Strait. It was not until
several hours after dark that we were finally free from ice. We
occasionally encountered stranded packs on the delta, which in the
starlight seemed to extend indefinitely in every direction. Our danger
lay in breaking the canoe on small bergs hard to see and in getting too
near the larger ones that might split or roll over.

“Oh, when will we escape from this ice?” moaned much-enduring old
Toyatte.

We ran aground in several places in crossing the Stickeen delta, but
finally succeeded in groping our way over muddy shallows before the
tide fell, and encamped on the boggy shore of a small island, where we
discovered a spot dry enough to sleep on, after tumbling about in a
tangle of bushes and mossy logs.

We left our last camp November 21 at daybreak. The weather was calm and
bright. Wrangell Island came into view beneath a lovely rosy sky, all
the forest down to the water’s edge silvery gray with a dusting of
snow. John and Charley seemed to be seriously distressed to find
themselves at the end of their journey while a portion of the stock of
provisions remained uneaten. “What is to be done about it?” they asked,
more than half in earnest. The fine, strong, and specious deliberation
of Indians was well illustrated on this eventful trip. It was fresh
every morning. They all behaved well, however, exerted themselves under
tedious hardships without flinching for days or weeks at a time; never
seemed in the least nonplussed; were prompt to act in every exigency;
good as servants, fellow travelers, and even friends.

We landed on an island in sight of Wrangell and built a big smoky
signal fire for friends in town, then set sail, unfurled our flag, and
about noon completed our long journey of seven or eight hundred miles.
As we approached the town, a large canoeful of friendly Indians came
flying out to meet us, cheering and handshaking in lusty Boston
fashion. The friends of Mr. Young had intended to come out in a body to
welcome him back, but had not had time to complete their arrangements
before we landed. Mr. Young was eager for news. I told him there could
be no news of importance about a town. We only had real news, drawn
from the wilderness. The mail steamer had left Wrangell eight days
before, and Mr. Vanderbilt and family had sailed on her to Portland. I
had to wait a month for the next steamer, and though I would have liked
to go again to Nature, the mountains were locked for the winter and
canoe excursions no longer safe.

So I shut myself up in a good garret alone to wait and work. I was
invited to live with Mr. Young but concluded to prepare my own food and
enjoy quiet work. How grandly long the nights were and short the days!
At noon the sun seemed to be about an hour high, the clouds colored
like sunset. The weather was rather stormy. North winds prevailed for a
week at a time, sending down the temperature to near zero and chilling
the vapor of the bay into white reek, presenting a curious appearance
as it streamed forward on the wind, like combed wool. At Sitka the
minimum was eight degrees plus; at Wrangell, near the storm-throat of
the Stickeen, zero. This is said to be the coldest weather ever
experienced in southeastern Alaska.




Chapter XIII
Alaska Indians


Looking back on my Alaska travels, I have always been glad that good
luck gave me Mr. Young as a companion, for he brought me into confiding
contact with the Thlinkit tribes, so that I learned their customs, what
manner of men they were, how they lived and loved, fought and played,
their morals, religion, hopes and fears, and superstitions, how they
resembled and differed in their characteristics from our own and other
races. It was easy to see that they differed greatly from the typical
American Indian of the interior of this continent. They were doubtless
derived from the Mongol stock. Their down-slanting oval eyes, wide
cheek-bones, and rather thick, outstanding upper lips at once suggest
their connection with the Chinese or Japanese. I have not seen a single
specimen that looks in the least like the best of the Sioux, or indeed
of any of the tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains. They also
differ from other North American Indians in being willing to work, when
free from the contamination of bad whites. They manage to feed
themselves well, build good substantial houses, bravely fight their
enemies, love their wives and children and friends, and cherish a quick
sense of honor. The best of them prefer death to dishonor, and
sympathize with their neighbors in their misfortunes and sorrows. Thus
when a family loses a child by death, neighbors visit them to cheer and
console. They gather around the fire and smoke, talk kindly and
naturally, telling the sorrowing parents not to grieve too much,
reminding them of the better lot of their child in another world and of
the troubles and trials the little ones escape by dying young, all this
in a perfectly natural, straightforward way, wholly unlike the vacant,
silent, hesitating behavior of most civilized friends, who oftentimes
in such cases seem nonplussed, awkward, and afraid to speak, however
sympathetic.

The Thlinkits are fond and indulgent parents. In all my travels I never
heard a cross, fault-finding word, or anything like scolding inflicted
on an Indian child, or ever witnessed a single case of spanking, so
common in civilized communities. They consider the want of a son to
bear their name and keep it alive the saddest and most deplorable
ill-fortune imaginable.

The Thlinkit tribes give a hearty welcome to Christian missionaries. In
particular they are quick to accept the doctrine of the atonement,
because they themselves practice it, although to many of the civilized
whites it is a stumbling-block and rock of offense. As an example of
their own doctrine of atonement they told Mr. Young and me one evening
that twenty or thirty years ago there was a bitter war between their
own and the Sitka tribe, great fighters, and pretty evenly matched.
After fighting all summer in a desultory, squabbling way, fighting now
under cover, now in the open, watching for every chance for a shot,
none of the women dared venture to the salmon-streams or berry-fields
to procure their winter stock of food. At this crisis one of the
Stickeen chiefs came out of his block-house fort into an open space
midway between their fortified camps, and shouted that he wished to
speak to the leader of the Sitkas.

When the Sitka chief appeared he said:—

“My people are hungry. They dare not go to the salmon-streams or
berry-fields for winter supplies, and if this war goes on much longer
most of my people will die of hunger. We have fought long enough; let
us make peace. You brave Sitka warriors go home, and we will go home,
and we will all set out to dry salmon and berries before it is too
late.”

The Sitka chief replied:—

“You may well say let us stop fighting, when you have had the best of
it. You have killed ten more of my tribe than we have killed of yours.
Give us ten Stickeen men to balance our blood-account; then, and not
till then, will we make peace and go home.”

“Very well,” replied the Stickeen chief, “you know my rank. You know
that I am worth ten common men and more. Take me and make peace.”

This noble offer was promptly accepted; the Stickeen chief stepped
forward and was shot down in sight of the fighting bands. Peace was
thus established, and all made haste to their homes and ordinary work.
That chief literally gave himself a sacrifice for his people. He died
that they might live. Therefore, when missionaries preached the
doctrine of atonement, explaining that when all mankind had gone
astray, had broken God’s laws and deserved to die, God’s son came
forward, and, like the Stickeen chief, offered himself as a sacrifice
to heal the cause of God’s wrath and set all the people of the world
free, the doctrine was readily accepted.

“Yes, your words are good,” they said. “The Son of God, the Chief of
chiefs, the Maker of all the world, must be worth more than all mankind
put together; therefore, when His blood was shed, the salvation of the
world was made sure.”

A telling illustration of the ready acceptance of this doctrine was
displayed by Shakes, head chief of the Stickeens at Fort Wrangell. A
few years before my first visit to the Territory, when the first
missionary arrived, he requested Shakes to call his people together to
hear the good word he had brought them. Shakes accordingly sent out
messengers throughout the village, telling his people to wash their
faces, put on their best clothing, and come to his block-house to hear
what their visitor had to say. When all were assembled, the missionary
preached a Christian sermon on the fall of man and the atonement
whereby Christ, the Son of God, the Chief of chiefs, had redeemed all
mankind, provided that this redemption was voluntarily accepted with
repentance of their sins and the keeping of his commandments.

When the missionary had finished his sermon, Chief Shakes slowly arose,
and, after thanking the missionary for coming so far to bring them good
tidings and taking so much unselfish interest in the welfare of his
tribe, he advised his people to accept the new religion, for he felt
satisfied that because the white man knew so much more than the Indian,
the white man’s religion was likely to be better than theirs.

“The white man,” said he, “makes great ships. We, like children, can
only make canoes. He makes his big ships go with the wind, and he also
makes them go with fire. We chop down trees with stone axes; the Boston
man with iron axes, which are far better. In everything the ways of the
white man seem to be better than ours. Compared with the white man we
are only blind children, knowing not how best to live either here or in
the country we go to after we die. So I wish you to learn this new
religion and teach it to your children, that you may all go when you
die into that good heaven country of the white man and be happy. But I
am too old to learn a new religion, and besides, many of my people who
have died were bad and foolish people, and if this word the missionary
has brought us is true, and I think it is, many of my people must be in
that bad country the missionary calls ‘Hell,’ and I must go there also,
for a Stickeen chief never deserts his people in time of trouble. To
that bad country, therefore, I will go, and try to cheer my people and
help them as best I can to endure their misery.”

Toyatte was a famous orator. I was present at the meeting at Fort
Wrangell at which he was examined and admitted as a member of the
Presbyterian Church. When called upon to answer the questions as to his
ideas of God, and the principal doctrines of Christianity, he slowly
arose in the crowded audience, while the missionary said, “Toyatte, you
do not need to rise. You can answer the questions seated.”

To this he paid no attention, but stood several minutes without
speaking a word, never for a moment thinking of sitting down like a
tired woman while making the most important of all the speeches of his
life. He then explained in detail what his mother had taught him as to
the character of God, the great Maker of the world; also what the
shamans had taught him; the thoughts that often came to his mind when
he was alone on hunting expeditions, and what he first thought of the
religion which the missionaries had brought them. In all his gestures,
and in the language in which he expressed himself, there was a noble
simplicity and earnestness and majestic bearing which made the sermons
and behavior of the three distinguished divinity doctors present seem
commonplace in comparison.

Soon after our return to Fort Wrangell this grand old man was killed in
a quarrel in which he had taken no other part than that of peacemaker.
A number of the Taku tribe came to Fort Wrangell, camped near the
Stickeen village, and made merry, manufacturing and drinking
_hootchenoo_, a vile liquor distilled from a mash made of flour, dried
apples, sugar, and molasses, and drunk hot from the still. The
manufacture of _hootchenoo_ being illegal, and several of Toyatte’s
tribe having been appointed deputy constables to prevent it, they went
to the Taku camp and destroyed as much of the liquor as they could
find. The Takus resisted, and during the quarrel one of the Stickeens
struck a Taku in the face—an unpardonable offense. The next day
messengers from the Taku camp gave notice to the Stickeens that they
must make atonement for that blow, or fight with guns. Mr. Young, of
course, was eager to stop the quarrel and so was Toyatte. They advised
the Stickeen who had struck the Taku to return to their camp and submit
to an equal blow in the face from the Taku. He did so; went to the
camp, said he was ready to make atonement, and invited the person whom
he had struck to strike him. This the Taku did with so much force that
the balance of justice was again disturbed. The attention of the Takus
was called to the fact that this atoning blow was far harder than the
one to be atoned for, and immediately a sort of general free fist-fight
began, and the quarrel was thus increased in bitterness rather than
diminished.

Next day the Takus sent word to the Stickeens to get their guns ready,
for to-morrow they would come up and fight them, thus boldly declaring
war. The Stickeens in great excitement assembled and loaded their guns
for the coming strife. Mr. Young ran hither and thither amongst the men
of his congregation, forbidding them to fight, reminding them that
Christ told them when they were struck to offer the other cheek instead
of giving a blow in return, doing everything in his power to still the
storm, but all in vain. Toyatte stood outside one of the big
blockhouses with his men about him, awaiting the onset of the Takus.
Mr. Young tried hard to get him away to a place of safety, reminding
him that he belonged to his church and no longer had any right to
fight. Toyatte calmly replied:—

“Mr. Young, Mr. Young, I am not going to fight. You see I have no gun
in my hand; but I cannot go inside of the fort to a place of safety
like women and children while my young men are exposed to the bullets
of their enemies. I must stay with them and share their dangers, but I
will not fight. But you, Mr. Young, _you_ must go away; you are a
minister and you are an important man. It would not do for you to be
exposed to bullets. Go to your home in the fort; pretty soon ‘hi yu
poogh’” (much shooting).

At the first fire Toyatte fell, shot through the breast. Thus died for
his people the noblest old Roman of them all.

On this first Alaska excursion I saw Toyatte under all
circumstances,—in rain and snow, landing at night in dark storms,
making fires, building shelters, exposed to all kinds of discomfort,
but never under any circumstances did I ever see him do anything, or
make a single gesture, that was not dignified, or hear him say a word
that might not be uttered anywhere. He often deplored the fact that he
had no son to take his name at his death, and expressed himself as very
grateful when I told him that his name would not be forgotten,—that I
had named one of the Stickeen glaciers for him.




Part II
_The Trip of 1880_




Chapter XIV
Sum Dum Bay


I arrived early on the morning of the eighth of August on the steamer
California to continue my explorations of the fiords to the northward
which were closed by winter the previous November. The noise of our
cannon and whistle was barely sufficient to awaken the sleepy town. The
morning shout of one good rooster was the only evidence of life and
health in all the place. Everything seemed kindly and familiar—the
glassy water; evergreen islands; the Indians with their canoes and
baskets and blankets and berries; the jet ravens, prying and flying
about the streets and spruce trees; and the bland, hushed atmosphere
brooding tenderly over all.

How delightful it is, and how it makes one’s pulses bound to get back
into this reviving northland wilderness! How truly wild it is, and how
joyously one’s heart responds to the welcome it gives, its waters and
mountains shining and glowing like enthusiastic human faces! Gliding
along the shores of its network of channels, we may travel thousands of
miles without seeing any mark of man, save at long intervals some
little Indian village or the faint smoke of a camp-fire. Even these are
confined to the shore. Back a few yards from the beach the forests are
as trackless as the sky, while the mountains, wrapped in their snow and
ice and clouds, seem never before to have been even looked at.

For those who really care to get into hearty contact with the coast
region, travel by canoe is by far the better way. The larger canoes
carry from one to three tons, rise lightly over any waves likely to be
met on the inland channels, go well under sail, and are easily paddled
alongshore in calm weather or against moderate winds, while snug
harbors where they may ride at anchor or be pulled up on a smooth beach
are to be found almost everywhere. With plenty of provisions packed in
boxes, and blankets and warm clothing in rubber or canvas bags, you may
be truly independent, and enter into partnership with Nature; to be
carried with the winds and currents, accept the noble invitations
offered all along your way to enter the mountain fiords, the homes of
the waterfalls and glaciers, and encamp almost every night beneath
hospitable trees.

I left Fort Wrangell the 16th of August, accompanied by Mr. Young, in a
canoe about twenty-five feet long and five wide, carrying two small
square sails and manned by two Stickeen Indians—Captain Tyeen and
Hunter Joe—and a half-breed named Smart Billy. The day was calm, and
bright, fleecy, clouds hung about the lowest of the mountain-brows,
while far above the clouds the peaks were seen stretching grandly away
to the northward with their ice and snow shining in as calm a light as
that which was falling on the glassy waters. Our Indians welcomed the
work that lay before them, dipping their oars in exact time with hearty
good will as we glided past island after island across the delta of the
Stickeen into Soutchoi Channel.

By noon we came in sight of a fleet of icebergs from Hutli Bay. The
Indian name of this icy fiord is Hutli, or Thunder Bay, from the sound
made by the bergs in falling and rising from the front of the inflowing
glacier.

As we floated happily on over the shining waters, the beautiful
islands, in ever-changing pictures, were an unfailing source of
enjoyment; but chiefly our attention was turned upon the mountains.
Bold granite headlands with their feet in the channel, or some
broad-shouldered peak of surpassing grandeur, would fix the eye, or
some one of the larger glaciers, with far-reaching tributaries clasping
entire groups of peaks and its great crystal river pouring down through
the forest between gray ridges and domes. In these grand picture
lessons the day was spent, and we spread our blankets beneath a Menzies
spruce on moss two feet deep.

Next morning we sailed around an outcurving bank of boulders and sand
ten miles long, the terminal moraine of a grand old glacier on which
last November we met a perilous adventure. It is located just opposite
three large converging glaciers which formerly united to form the
vanished trunk of the glacier to which the submerged moraine belonged.
A few centuries ago it must have been the grandest feature of this part
of the coast, and, so well preserved are the monuments of its
greatness, the noble old ice-river may be seen again in imagination
about as vividly as if present in the flesh, with snow-clouds crawling
about its fountains, sunshine sparkling on its broad flood, and its
ten-mile ice-wall planted in the deep waters of the channel and sending
off its bergs with loud resounding thunder.

About noon we rounded Cape Fanshawe, scudding swiftly before a fine
breeze, to the delight of our Indians, who had now only to steer and
chat. Here we overtook two Hoona Indians and their families on their
way home from Fort Wrangell. They had exchanged five sea-otter furs,
worth about a hundred dollars apiece, and a considerable number of
fur-seal, land-otter, marten, beaver, and other furs and skins, some
$800 worth, for a new canoe valued at eighty dollars, some flour,
tobacco, blankets, and a few barrels of molasses for the manufacture of
whiskey. The blankets were not to wear, but to keep as money, for the
almighty dollar of these tribes is a Hudson’s Bay blanket. The wind
died away soon after we met, and as the two canoes glided slowly side
by side, the Hoonas made minute inquiries as to who we were and what we
were doing so far north. Mr. Young’s object in meeting the Indians as a
missionary they could in part understand, but mine in searching for
rocks and glaciers seemed past comprehension, and they asked our
Indians whether gold-mines might not be the main object. They
remembered, however, that I had visited their Glacier Bay ice-mountains
a year ago, and seemed to think there might be, after all, some
mysterious interest about them of which they were ignorant. Toward the
middle of the afternoon they engaged our crew in a race. We pushed a
little way ahead for a time, but, though possessing a considerable
advantage, as it would seem, in our long oars, they at length overtook
us and kept up until after dark, when we camped together in the rain on
the bank of a salmon-stream among dripping grass and bushes some
twenty-five miles beyond Cape Fanshawe.

These cold northern waters are at times about as brilliantly
phosphorescent as those of the warm South, and so they were this
evening in the rain and darkness, with the temperature of the water at
forty-nine degrees, the air fifty-one. Every stroke of the oar made a
vivid surge of white light, and the canoes left shining tracks.

As we neared the mouth of the well-known salmon-stream where we
intended making our camp, we noticed jets and flashes of silvery light
caused by the startled movement of the salmon that were on their way to
their spawning-grounds. These became more and more numerous and
exciting, and our Indians shouted joyfully, “Hi yu salmon! Hi yu
muck-a-muck!” while the water about the canoe and beneath the canoe was
churned by thousands of fins into silver fire. After landing two of our
men to commence camp-work, Mr. Young and I went up the stream with
Tyeen to the foot of a rapid, to see him catch a few salmon for supper.
The stream ways so filled with them there seemed to be more fish than
water in it, and we appeared to be sailing in boiling, seething silver
light marvelously relieved in the jet darkness. In the midst of the
general auroral glow and the specially vivid flashes made by the
frightened fish darting ahead and to right and left of the canoe, our
attention was suddenly fixed by a long, steady, comet-like blaze that
seemed to be made by some frightful monster that was pursuing us. But
when the portentous object reached the canoe, it proved to be only our
little dog, Stickeen.

After getting the canoe into a side eddy at the foot of the rapids,
Tyeen caught half a dozen salmon in a few minutes by means of a large
hook fastened to the end of a pole. They were so abundant that he
simply groped for them in a random way, or aimed at them by the light
they themselves furnished. That food to last a month or two may thus be
procured in less than an hour is a striking illustration of the
fruitfulness of these Alaskan waters.

[Illustration: Vegetation at High-Tide Line, Sitka Harbor.]

Our Hoona neighbors were asleep in the morning at sunrise, lying in a
row, wet and limp like dead salmon. A little boy about six years old,
with no other covering than a remnant of a shirt, was lying peacefully
on his back, like Tam o’ Shanter, despising wind and rain and fire. He
is up now, looking happy and fresh, with no clothes to dry and no need
of washing while this weather lasts. The two babies are firmly strapped
on boards, leaving only their heads and hands free. Their mothers are
nursing them, holding the boards on end, while they sit on the ground
with their breasts level with the little prisoners’ mouths.

This morning we found out how beautiful a nook we had got into. Besides
the charming picturesqueness of its lines, the colors about it,
brightened by the rain, made a fine study. Viewed from the shore, there
was first a margin of dark-brown algæ, then a bar of yellowish-brown,
next a dark bar on the rugged rocks marking the highest tides, then a
bar of granite boulders with grasses in the seams, and above this a
thick, bossy, overleaning fringe of bushes colored red and yellow and
green. A wall of spruces and hemlocks draped and tufted with gray and
yellow lichens and mosses embowered the campground and overarched the
little river, while the camp-fire smoke, like a stranded cloud, lay
motionless in their branches. Down on the beach ducks and sandpipers in
flocks of hundreds were getting their breakfasts, bald eagles were seen
perched on dead spars along the edge of the woods, heavy-looking and
overfed, gazing stupidly like gorged vultures, and porpoises were
blowing and plunging outside.

As for the salmon, as seen this morning urging their way up the swift
current,—tens of thousands of them, side by side, with their backs out
of the water in shallow places now that the tide was low,—nothing that
I could write might possibly give anything like a fair conception of
the extravagance of their numbers. There was more salmon apparently,
bulk for bulk, than water in the stream. The struggling multitudes,
crowding one against another, could not get out of our way when we
waded into the midst of them. One of our men amused himself by seizing
them above the tail and swinging them over his head. Thousands could
thus be taken by hand at low tide, while they were making their way
over the shallows among the stones.

Whatever may be said of other resources of the Territory, it is hardly
possible to exaggerate the importance of the fisheries. Not to mention
cod, herring, halibut, etc., there are probably not less than a
thousand salmon-streams in southeastern Alaska as large or larger than
this one (about forty feet wide) crowded with salmon several times a
year. The first run commenced that year in July, while the king salmon,
one of the five species recognized by the Indians, was in the Chilcat
River about the middle of the November before.

From this wonderful salmon-camp we sailed joyfully up the coast to
explore icy Sum Dum Bay, beginning my studies where I left off the
previous November. We started about six o’clock, and pulled merrily on
through fog and rain, the beautiful wooded shore on our right, passing
bergs here and there, the largest of which, though not over two hundred
feet long, seemed many times larger as they loomed gray and indistinct
through the fog. For the first five hours the sailing was open and
easy, nor was there anything very exciting to be seen or heard, save
now and then the thunder of a falling berg rolling and echoing from
cliff to cliff, and the sustained roar of cataracts.

About eleven o’clock we reached a point where the fiord was packed with
ice all the way across, and we ran ashore to fit a block of wood on the
cutwater of our canoe to prevent its being battered or broken. While
Captain Tyeen, who had had considerable experience among berg ice, was
at work on the canoe, Hunter Joe and Smart Billy prepared a warm lunch.

The sheltered hollow where we landed seems to be a favorite
camping-ground for the Sum Dum seal-hunters. The pole-frames of tents,
tied with cedar bark, stood on level spots strewn with seal bones, bits
of salmon, and spruce bark.

We found the work of pushing through the ice rather tiresome. An
opening of twenty or thirty yards would be found here and there, then a
close pack that had to be opened by pushing the smaller bergs aside
with poles. I enjoyed the labor, however, for the fine lessons I got,
and in an hour or two we found zigzag lanes of water, through which we
paddled with but little interruption, and had leisure to study the
wonderful variety of forms the bergs presented as we glided past them.
The largest we saw did not greatly exceed two hundred feet in length,
or twenty-five or thirty feet in height above the water. Such bergs
would draw from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet of water. All
those that have floated long undisturbed have a projecting base at the
water-line, caused by the more rapid melting of the immersed portion.
When a portion of the berg breaks off, another base line is formed, and
the old one, sharply cut, may be seen rising at all angles, giving it a
marked character. Many of the oldest bergs are beautifully ridged by
the melting out of narrow furrows strictly parallel throughout the
mass, revealing the bedded structure of the ice, acquired perhaps
centuries ago, on the mountain snow fountains. A berg suddenly going to
pieces is a grand sight, especially when the water is calm and no
motion is visible save perchance the slow drift of the tide-current.
The prolonged roar of its fall comes with startling effect, and heavy
swells are raised that haste away in every direction to tell what has
taken place, and tens of thousands of its neighbors rock and swash in
sympathy, repeating the news over and over again. We were too near
several large ones that fell apart as we passed them, and our canoe had
narrow escapes. The seal-hunters, Tyeen says, are frequently lost in
these sudden berg accidents.

In the afternoon, while we were admiring the scenery, which, as we
approached the head of the fiord, became more and more sublime, one of
our Indians called attention to a flock of wild goats on a mountain
overhead, and soon afterwards we saw two other flocks, at a height of
about fifteen hundred feet, relieved against the mountains as white
spots. They are abundant here and throughout the Alaskan Alps in
general, feeding on the grassy slopes above the timber-line. Their
long, yellowish hair is shed at this time of year and they were snowy
white. None of nature’s cattle are better fed or better protected from
the cold. Tyeen told us that before the introduction of guns they used
to hunt them with spears, chasing them with their wolf-dogs, and thus
bringing them to bay among the rocks, where they were easily approached
and killed.

The upper half of the fiord is about from a mile to a mile and a half
wide, and shut in by sublime Yosemite cliffs, nobly sculptured, and
adorned with waterfalls and fringes of trees, bushes, and patches of
flowers; but amid so crowded a display of novel beauty it was not easy
to concentrate the attention long enough on any portion of it without
giving more days and years than our lives could afford. I was
determined to see at least the grand fountain of all this ice. As we
passed headland after headland, hoping as each was rounded we should
obtain a view of it, it still remained hidden.

“Ice-mountain hi yu kumtux hide,”—glaciers know how to hide extremely
well,—said Tyeen, as he rested for a moment after rounding a huge
granite shoulder of the wall whence we expected to gain a view of the
extreme head of the fiord. The bergs, however, were less closely packed
and we made good progress, and at half-past eight o’clock, fourteen and
a half hours after setting out, the great glacier came in sight at the
head of a branch of the fiord that comes in from the northeast.

The discharging front of this fertile, fast-flowing glacier is about
three quarters of a mile wide, and probably eight or nine hundred feet
deep, about one hundred and fifty feet of its depth rising above the
water as a grand blue barrier wall. It is much wider a few miles
farther back, the front being jammed between sheer granite walls from
thirty-five hundred to four thousand feet high. It shows grandly from
where it broke on our sight, sweeping boldly forward and downward in
its majestic channel, swaying from side to side in graceful fluent
lines around stern unflinching rocks. While I stood in the canoe making
a sketch of it, several bergs came off with tremendous dashing and
thunder, raising a cloud of ice-dust and spray to a height of a hundred
feet or more.

“The ice-mountain is well disposed toward you,” said Tyeen. “He is
firing his big guns to welcome you.”

After completing my sketch and entering a few notes, I directed the
crew to pull around a lofty burnished rock on the west side of the
channel, where, as I knew from the trend of the cañon, a large glacier
once came in; and what was my delight to discover that the glacier was
still there and still pouring its ice into a branch of the fiord. Even
the Indians shared my joy and shouted with me. I expected only one
first-class glacier here, and found two. They are only about two miles
apart. How glorious a mansion that precious pair dwell in! After sunset
we made haste to seek a camp-ground. I would fain have shared these
upper chambers with the two glaciers, but there was no landing-place in
sight, and we had to make our way back a few miles in the twilight to
the mouth of a side cañon where we had seen timber on the way up. There
seemed to be a good landing as we approached the shore, but, coming
nearer, we found that the granite fell directly into deep water without
leading any level margin, though the slope a short distance back was
not very steep.

After narrowly scanning the various seams and steps that roughened the
granite, we concluded to attempt a landing rather than grope our way
farther down the fiord through the ice. And what a time we had climbing
on hands and knees up the slippery glacier-polished rocks to a shelf
some two hundred feet above the water and dragging provisions and
blankets after us! But it proved to be a glorious place, the very best
camp-ground of all the trip,—a perfect garden, ripe berries nodding
from a fringe of bushes around its edges charmingly displayed in the
light of our big fire. Close alongside there was a lofty mountain
capped with ice, and from the blue edge of that ice-cap there were
sixteen silvery cascades in a row, falling about four thousand feet,
each one of the sixteen large enough to be heard at least two miles.

How beautiful was the firelight on the nearest larkspurs and geraniums
and daisies of our garden! How hearty the wave greeting on the rocks
below brought to us from the two glaciers! And how glorious a song the
sixteen cascades sang!

The cascade songs made us sleep all the sounder, and we were so happy
as to find in the morning that the berg waves had spared our canoe. We
set off in high spirits down the fiord and across to the right side to
explore a remarkably deep and narrow branch of the main fiord that I
had noted on the way up, and that, from the magnitude of the glacial
characters on the two colossal rocks that guard the entrance, promised
a rich reward for our pains.

After we had sailed about three miles up this side fiord, we came to
what seemed to be its head, for trees and rocks swept in a curve around
from one side to the other without showing any opening, although the
walls of the cañon were seen extending back indefinitely, one majestic
brow beyond the other.

When we were tracing this curve, however, in a leisurely way, in search
of a good landing, we were startled by Captain Tyeen shouting, “Skookum
chuck! Skookum chuck!” (strong water, strong water), and found our
canoe was being swept sideways by a powerful current, the roar of which
we had mistaken for a waterfall. We barely escaped being carried over a
rocky bar on the boiling flood, which, as we afterwards learned, would
have been only a happy shove on our way. After we had made a landing a
little distance back from the brow of the bar, we climbed the highest
rock near the shore to seek a view of the channel beyond the inflowing
tide rapids, to find out whether or no we could safely venture in. Up
over rolling, mossy, bushy, burnished rock waves we scrambled for an
hour or two, which resulted in a fair view of the deep-blue waters of
the fiord stretching on and on along the feet of the most majestic
Yosemite rocks we had yet seen. This determined our plan of shooting
the rapids and exploring it to its farthest recesses. This novel
interruption of the channel is a bar of exceedingly hard resisting
granite, over which the great glacier that once occupied it swept,
without degrading it to the general level, and over which tide-waters
now rush in and out with the violence of a mountain torrent.

Returning to the canoe, we pushed off, and in a few moments were racing
over the bar with lightning speed through hurrahing waves and eddies
and sheets of foam, our little shell of a boat tossing lightly as a
bubble. Then, rowing across a belt of back-flowing water, we found
ourselves on a smooth mirror reach between granite walls of the very
wildest and most exciting description, surpassing in some ways those of
the far-famed Yosemite Valley.

As we drifted silent and awe-stricken beneath the shadows of the mighty
cliffs, which, in their tremendous height and abruptness, seemed to
overhang at the top, the Indians gazing intently, as if they, too, were
impressed with the strange, awe-inspiring grandeur that shut them in,
one of them at length broke the silence by saying, “This must be a good
place for woodchucks; I hear them calling.”

When I asked them, further on, how they thought this gorge was made,
they gave up the question, but offered an opinion as to the formation
of rain and soil. The rain, they said, was produced by the rapid
whirling of the earth by a stout mythical being called Yek. The water
of the ocean was thus thrown up, to descend again in showers, just as
it is thrown off a wet grindstone. They did not, however, understand
why the ocean water should be salt, while the rain from it is fresh.
The soil, they said, for the plants to grow on is formed by the washing
of the rain on the rocks and gradually accumulating. The grinding
action of ice in this connection they had not recognized.

Gliding on and on, the scenery seemed at every turn to become more
lavishly fruitful in forms as well as more sublime in dimensions—snowy
falls booming in splendid dress; colossal domes and battle meets and
sculptured arches of a fine neutral-gray tint, their bases raved by the
blue fiord water; green ferny dells; bits of flower-bloom on ledges;
fringes of willow and birch; and glaciers above all. But when we
approached the base of a majestic rock like the Yosemite Half Dome at
the head of the fiord, where two short branches put out, and came in
sight of another glacier of the first order sending off bergs, our joy
was complete. I had a most glorious view of it, sweeping in grand
majesty from high mountain fountains, swaying around one mighty bastion
after another, until it fell into the fiord in shattered overleaning
fragments. When we had feasted awhile on this unhoped-for treasure, I
directed the Indians to pull to the head of the left fork of the fiord,
where we found a large cascade with a volume of water great enough to
be called a river, doubtless the outlet of a receding glacier not in
sight from the fiord.

This is in form and origin a typical Yosemite valley, though as yet its
floor is covered with ice and water,—ice above and beneath, a noble
mansion in which to spend a winter and a summer! It is about ten miles
long, and from three quarters of a mile to one mile wide. It contains
ten large falls and cascades, the finest one on the left side near the
head. After coming in an admirable rush over a granite brow where it is
first seen at a height of nine hundred or a thousand feet, it leaps a
sheer precipice of about two hundred and fifty feet, then divides and
reaches the tide-water in broken rapids over boulders. Another about a
thousand feet high drops at once on to the margin of the glacier two
miles back from the front. Several of the others are upwards of three
thousand feet high, descending through narrow gorges as richly
feathered with ferns as any channel that water ever flowed in, though
tremendously abrupt and deep. A grander array of rocks and waterfalls I
have never yet beheld in Alaska.

The amount of timber on the walls is about the same as that on the
Yosemite walls, but owing to greater moisture, there is more small
vegetation,—bushes, ferns, mosses, grasses, etc.; though by far the
greater portion of the area of the wall-surface is bare and shining
with the polish it received when occupied by the glacier that formed
the fiord. The deep-green patches seen on the mountains back of the
walls at the limits of vegetation are grass, where the wild goats, or
chamois rather, roam and feed. The still greener and more luxuriant
patches farther down in gullies and on slopes where the declivity is
not excessive, are made up mostly of willows, birch, and huckleberry
bushes, with a varying amount of prickly ribes and rubus and
echinopanax. This growth, when approached, especially on the lower
slopes near the level of the sea at the jaws of the great side cañons,
is found to be the most impenetrable and tedious and toilsome
combination of fighting bushes that the weary explorer ever fell into,
incomparably more punishing than the buckthorn and manzanita tangles of
the Sierra.

The cliff gardens of this hidden Yosemite are exceedingly rich in
color. On almost every rift and bench, however small, as well as on the
wider table-rocks where a little soil has lodged, we found gay
multitudes of flowers, far more brilliantly colored than would be
looked for in so cool and beclouded a region,—larkspurs, geraniums,
painted-cups, bluebells, gentians, saxifrages, epilobiums, violets,
parnassia, veratrum, spiranthes and other orchids, fritillaria, smilax,
asters, daisies, bryanthus, cassiope, linnæa, and a great variety of
flowering ribes and rubus and heathworts. Many of the above, though
with soft stems and leaves, are yet as brightly painted as those of the
warm sunlands of the south. The heathworts in particular are very
abundant and beautiful, both in flower and fruit, making delicate green
carpets for the rocks, flushed with pink bells, or dotted with red and
blue berries. The tallest of the grasses have ribbon leaves well
tempered and arched, and with no lack of bristly spikes and nodding
purple panicles. The alpine grasses of the Sierra, making close carpets
on the glacier meadows, I have not yet seen in Alaska.

The ferns are less numerous in species than in California, but about
equal in the number of fronds. I have seen three aspidiums, two
woodsias, a lomaria, polypodium, cheilanthes, and several species of
pteris.

In this eastern arm of Sum Dum Bay and its Yosemite branch, I counted
from my canoe, on my way up and down, thirty small glaciers back of the
walls, and we saw three of the first order; also thirty-seven cascades
and falls, counting only those large enough to make themselves heard
several miles. The whole bay, with its rocks and woods and ice,
reverberates with their roar. How many glaciers may be disclosed in the
other great arm that I have not seen as yet, I cannot say, but, judging
from the bergs it sends down, I guess not less than a hundred pour
their turbid streams into the fiord, making about as many joyful,
bouncing cataracts.

About noon we began to retrace our way back into the main fiord, and
arrived at the gold-mine camp after dark, rich and weary.

On the morning of August 21 I set out with my three Indians to explore
the right arm of this noble bay, Mr. Young having decided, on account
of mission work, to remain at the gold-mine. So here is another fine
lot of Sum Dum ice,—thirty-five or forty square miles of bergs, one
great glacier of the first class descending into the fiord at the head,
the fountain whence all these bergs were derived, and thirty-one
smaller glaciers that do not reach tidewater; also nine cascades and
falls, large size, and two rows of Yosemite rocks from three to four
thousand feet high, each row about eighteen or twenty miles long,
burnished and sculptured in the most telling glacier style, and well
trimmed with spruce groves and flower gardens; a’ that and more of a
kind that cannot here be catalogued.

For the first five or six miles there is nothing excepting the icebergs
that is very striking in the scenery as compared with that of the
smooth unencumbered outside channels, where all is so evenly beautiful.
The mountain-wall on the right as you go up is more precipitous than
usual, and a series of small glaciers is seen along the top of it,
extending their blue-crevassed fronts over the rims of pure-white snow
fountains, and from the end of each front a hearty stream coming in a
succession of falls and rapids over the terminal moraines, through
patches of dwarf willows, and then through the spruce woods into the
bay, singing and dancing all the way down. On the opposite side of the
bay from here there is a small side bay about three miles deep, with a
showy group of glacier-bearing mountains back of it. Everywhere else
the view is bounded by comparatively low mountains densely forested to
the very top.

After sailing about six miles from the mine, the experienced
mountaineer could see some evidence of an opening from this wide lower
portion, and on reaching it, it proved to be the continuation of the
main west arm, contracted between stupendous walls of gray granite, and
crowded with bergs from shore to shore, which seem to bar the way
against everything but wings. Headland after headland, in most imposing
array, was seen plunging sheer and bare from dizzy heights, and
planting its feet in the ice-encumbered water without leaving a spot on
which one could land from a boat, while no part of the great glacier
that pours all these miles of ice into the fiord was visible. Pushing
our way slowly through the packed bergs, and passing headland after
headland, looking eagerly forward, the glacier and its fountain
mountains were still beyond sight, cut off by other projecting headland
capes, toward which I urged my way, enjoying the extraordinary grandeur
of the wild unfinished Yosemite. Domes swell against the sky in fine
lines as lofty and as perfect in form as those of the California
valley, and rock-fronts stand forward, as sheer and as nobly
sculptured. No ice-work that I have ever seen surpasses this, either in
the magnitude of the features or effectiveness of composition.

On some of the narrow benches and tables of the walls rows of spruce
trees and two-leaved pines were growing, and patches of considerable
size were found on the spreading bases of those mountains that stand
back inside the cañons, where the continuity of the walls is broken.
Some of these side cañons are cut down to the level of the water and
reach far back, opening views into groups of glacier fountains that
give rise to many a noble stream; while all along the tops of the walls
on both sides small glaciers are seen, still busily engaged in the work
of completing their sculpture. I counted twenty-five from the canoe.
Probably the drainage of fifty or more pours into this fiord. The
average elevation at which they melt is about eighteen hundred feet
above sea-level, and all of them are residual branches of the grand
trunk that filled the fiord and overflowed its walls when there was
only one Sum Dum glacier.

The afternoon was wearing away as we pushed on and on through the
drifting bergs without our having obtained a single glimpse of the
great glacier. A Sum Dum seal-hunter, whom we met groping his way
deftly through the ice in a very small, unsplitable cottonwood canoe,
told us that the ice-mountain was yet fifteen miles away. This was
toward the middle of the afternoon, and I gave up sketching and making
notes and worked hard with the Indians to reach it before dark. About
seven o’clock we approached what seemed to be the extreme head of the
fiord, and still no great glacier in sight—only a small one, three or
four miles long, melting a thousand feet above the sea. Presently, a
narrow side opening appeared between tremendous cliffs sheer to a
height of four thousand feet or more, trending nearly at right angles
to the general trend of the fiord, and apparently terminated by a
cliff, scarcely less abrupt or high, at a distance of a mile or two. Up
this bend we toiled against wind and tide, creeping closely along the
wall on the right side, which, as we looked upward, seemed to be
leaning over, while the waves beating against the bergs and rocks made
a discouraging kind of music. At length, toward nine o’clock, just
before the gray darkness of evening fell, a long, triumphant shout told
that the glacier, so deeply and desperately hidden, was at last hunted
back to its benmost bore. A short distance around a second bend in the
cañon, I reached a point where I obtained a good view of it as it pours
its deep, broad flood into the fiord in a majestic course from between
the noble mountains, its tributaries, each of which would be regarded
elsewhere as a grand glacier, converging from right and left from a
fountain set far in the silent fastnesses of the mountains.

“There is your lost friend,” said the Indians laughing; “he says,
‘Sagh-a-ya’” (how do you do)? And while berg after berg was being born
with thundering uproar, Tyeen said, “Your friend has klosh tumtum (good
heart). Hear! Like the other big-hearted one he is firing his guns in
your honor.”

I stayed only long enough to make an outline sketch, and then urged the
Indians to hasten back some six miles to the mouth of a side cañon I
had noted on the way up as a place where we might camp in case we
should not find a better. After dark we had to move with great caution
through the ice. One of the Indians was stationed in the bow with a
pole to push aside the smaller fragments and look out for the most
promising openings, through which he guided us, shouting, “Friday!
Tucktay!” (shoreward, seaward) about ten times a minute. We reached
this landing-place after ten o’clock, guided in the darkness by the
roar of a glacier torrent. The ground was all boulders and it was hard
to find a place among them, however small, to lie on. The Indians
anchored the canoe well out from the shore and passed the night in it
to guard against berg-waves and drifting waves, after assisting me to
set my tent in some sort of way among the stones well back beyond the
reach of the tide. I asked them as they were returning to the canoe if
they were not going to eat something. They answered promptly:—

“We will sleep now, if your ice friend will let us. We will eat
to-morrow, but we can find some bread for you if you want it.”

“No,” I said, “go to rest. I, too, will sleep now and eat to-morrow.”
Nothing was attempted in the way of light or fire. Camping that night
was simply lying down. The boulders seemed to make a fair bed after
finding the best place to take their pressure.

During the night I was awakened by the beating of the spent ends of
berg-waves against the side of my tent, though I had fancied myself
well beyond their reach. These special waves are not raised by wind or
tide, but by the fall of large bergs from the snout of the glacier, or
sometimes by the overturning or breaking of large bergs that may have
long floated in perfect poise. The highest berg-waves oftentimes travel
half a dozen miles or farther before they are much spent, producing a
singularly impressive uproar in the far recesses of the mountains on
calm dark nights when all beside is still. Far and near they tell the
news that a berg is born, repeating their story again and again,
compelling attention and reminding us of earthquake-waves that roll on
for thousands of miles, taking their story from continent to continent.

When the Indians came ashore in the morning and saw the condition of my
tent they laughed heartily and said, “Your friend [meaning the big
glacier] sent you a good word last night, and his servant knocked at
your tent and said, ‘Sagh-a-ya, are you sleeping well?’”

I had fasted too long to be in very good order for hard work, but while
the Indians were cooking, I made out to push my way up the cañon before
breakfast to seek the glacier that once came into the fiord, knowing
from the size and muddiness of the stream that drains it that it must
be quite large and not far off. I came in sight of it after a hard
scramble of two hours through thorny chaparral and across steep
avalanche taluses of rocks and snow. The front reaches across the cañon
from wall to wall, covered with rocky detritus, and looked dark and
forbidding in the shadow cast by the cliffs, while from a low, cavelike
hollow its draining stream breaks forth, a river in size, with a
reverberating roar that stirs all the cañon. Beyond, in a cloudless
blaze of sunshine, I saw many tributaries, pure and white as new-fallen
snow, drawing their sources from clusters of peaks and sweeping down
waving slopes to unite their crystal currents with the trunk glacier in
the central cañon. This fine glacier reaches to within two hundred and
fifty feet of the level of the sea, and would even yet reach the fiord
and send off bergs but for the waste it suffers in flowing slowly
through the trunk cañon, the declivity of which is very slight.

Returning, I reached camp and breakfast at ten o’clock; then had
everything packed into the canoe, and set off leisurely across the
fiord to the mouth of another wide and low cañon, whose lofty outer
cliffs, facing the fiord, are telling glacial advertisements. Gladly I
should have explored it all, traced its streams of water and streams of
ice, and entered its highest chambers, the homes and fountains of the
snow. But I had to wait. I only stopped an hour or two, and climbed to
the top of a rock through the common underbrush, whence I had a good
general view. The front of the main glacier is not far distant from the
fiord, and sends off small bergs into a lake. The walls of its
tributary cañons are remarkably jagged and high, cut in a red
variegated rock, probably slate. On the way back to the canoe I
gathered ripe salmon-berries an inch and a half in diameter, ripe
huckleberries, too, in great abundance, and several interesting plants
I had not before met in the territory.

About noon, when the tide was in our favor, we set out on the return
trip to the gold-mine camp. The sun shone free and warm. No wind
stirred. The water spaces between the bergs were as smooth as glass,
reflecting the unclouded sky, and doubling the ravishing beauty of the
bergs as the sunlight streamed through their innumerable angles in
rainbow colors.

Soon a light breeze sprang up, and dancing lily spangles on the water
mingled their glory of light with that burning on the angles of the
ice.

On days like this, true sun-days, some of the bergs show a purplish
tinge, though most are white from the disintegrating of their weathered
surfaces. Now and then a new-born one is met that is pure blue crystal
throughout, freshly broken from the fountain or recently exposed to the
air by turning over. But in all of them, old and new, there are azure
caves and rifts of ineffable beauty, in which the purest tones of light
pulse and shimmer, lovely and untainted as anything on earth or in the
sky.

As we were passing the Indian village I presented a little tobacco to
the headmen as an expression of regard, while they gave us a few smoked
salmon, after putting many questions concerning my exploration of their
bay and bluntly declaring their disbelief in the ice business.

About nine o’clock we arrived at the gold camp, where we found Mr.
Young ready to go on with us the next morning, and thus ended two of
the brightest and best of all my Alaska days.




Chapter XV
From Taku River to Taylor Bay


I never saw Alaska looking better than it did when we bade farewell to
Sum Dum on August 22 and pushed on northward up the coast toward Taku.
The morning was clear, calm, bright—not a cloud in all the purple sky,
nor wind, however gentle, to shake the slender spires of the spruces or
dew-laden grass around the shores. Over the mountains and over the
broad white bosoms of the glaciers the sunbeams poured, rosy as ever
fell on fields of ripening wheat, drenching the forests and kindling
the glassy waters and icebergs into a perfect blaze of colored light.
Every living thing seemed joyful, and nature’s work was going on in
glowing enthusiasm, not less appreciable in the deep repose that
brooded over every feature of the landscape, suggesting the coming
fruitfulness of the icy land and showing the advance that has already
been made from glacial winter to summer. The care-laden commercial
lives we lead close our eyes to the operations of God as a workman,
though openly carried on that all who will look may see. The scarred
rocks here and the moraines make a vivid showing of the old winter-time
of the glacial period, and mark the bounds of the _mer-de-glace_ that
once filled the bay and covered the surrounding mountains. Already that
sea of ice is replaced by water, in which multitudes of fishes are fed,
while the hundred glaciers lingering about the bay and the streams that
pour from them are busy night and day bringing in sand and mud and
stones, at the rate of tons every minute, to fill it up. Then, as the
seasons grow warmer, there will be fields here for the plough.

Our Indians, exhilarated by the sunshine, were garrulous as the gulls
and plovers, and pulled heartily at their oars, evidently glad to get
out of the ice with a whole boat.

“Now for Taku,” they said, as we glided over the shining water.
“Good-bye, Ice-Mountains; good-bye, Sum Dum.” Soon a light breeze came,
and they unfurled the sail and laid away their oars and began, as usual
in such free times, to put their goods in order, unpacking and sunning
provisions, guns, ropes, clothing, etc. Joe has an old flintlock musket
suggestive of Hudson’s Bay times, which he wished to discharge and
reload. So, stepping in front of the sail, he fired at a gull that was
flying past before I could prevent him, and it fell slowly with
outspread wings alongside the canoe, with blood dripping from its bill.
I asked him why he had killed the bird, and followed the question by a
severe reprimand for his stupid cruelty, to which he could offer no
other excuse than that he had learned from the whites to be careless
about taking life. Captain Tyeen denounced the deed as likely to bring
bad luck.

Before the whites came most of the Thlinkits held, with Agassiz, that
animals have souls, and that it was wrong and unlucky to even speak
disrespectfully of the fishes or any of the animals that supplied them
with food. A case illustrating their superstitious beliefs in this
connection occurred at Fort Wrangell while I was there the year before.
One of the sub-chiefs of the Stickeens had a little son five or six
years old, to whom he was very much attached, always taking him with
him in his short canoe-trips, and leading him by the hand while going
about town. Last summer the boy was taken sick, and gradually grew weak
and thin, whereupon his father became alarmed, and feared, as is usual
in such obscure cases, that the boy had been bewitched. He first
applied in his trouble to Dr. Carliss, one of the missionaries, who
gave medicine, without effecting the immediate cure that the fond
father demanded. He was, to some extent, a believer in the powers of
missionaries, both as to material and spiritual affairs, but in so
serious an exigency it was natural that he should go back to the faith
of his fathers. Accordingly, he sent for one of the shamans, or
medicine-men, of his tribe, and submitted the case to him, who, after
going through the customary incantations, declared that he had
discovered the cause of the difficulty.

“Your boy,” he said, “has lost his soul, and this is the way it
happened. He was playing among the stones down on the beach when he saw
a crawfish in the water, and made fun of it, pointing his finger at it
and saying, ‘Oh, you crooked legs! Oh, you crooked legs! You can’t walk
straight; you go sidewise,’ which made the crab so angry that he
reached out his long nippers, seized the lad’s soul, pulled it out of
him and made off with it into deep water. And,” continued the
medicine-man, “unless his stolen soul is restored to him and put back
in its place he will die. Your boy is really dead already; it is only
his lonely, empty body that is living now, and though it may continue
to live in this way for a year or two, the boy will never be of any
account, not strong, nor wise, nor brave.”

The father then inquired whether anything could be done about it; was
the soul still in possession of the crab, and if so, could it be
recovered and re-installed in his forlorn son? Yes, the doctor rather
thought it might be charmed back and re-united, but the job would be a
difficult one, and would probably cost about fifteen blankets.

After we were fairly out of the bay into Stephens Passage, the wind
died away, and the Indians had to take to their oars again, which ended
our talk. On we sped over the silvery level, close alongshore. The dark
forests extending far and near, planted like a field of wheat, might
seem monotonous in general views, but the appreciative observer,
looking closely, will find no lack of interesting variety, however far
he may go. The steep slopes on which they grow allow almost every
individual tree, with its peculiarities of form and color, to be seen
like an audience on seats rising above one another—the blue-green,
sharply tapered spires of the Menzies spruce, the warm yellow-green
Mertens spruce with their finger-like tops all pointing in the same
direction, or drooping gracefully like leaves of grass, and the airy,
feathery, brownish-green Alaska cedar. The outer fringe of bushes along
the shore and hanging over the brows of the cliffs, the white mountains
above, the shining water beneath, the changing sky over all, form
pictures of divine beauty in which no healthy eye may ever grow weary.

Toward evening at the head of a picturesque bay we came to a village
belonging to the Taku tribe. We found it silent and deserted. Not a
single shaman or policeman had been left to keep it. These people are
so happily rich as to have but little of a perishable kind to keep,
nothing worth fretting about. They were away catching salmon, our
Indians said. All the Indian villages hereabout are thus abandoned at
regular periods every year, just as a tent is left for a day, while
they repair to fishing, berrying, and hunting stations, occupying each
in succession for a week or two at a time, coming and going from the
main, substantially built villages. Then, after their summer’s work is
done, the winter supply of salmon dried and packed, fish-oil and
seal-oil stored in boxes, berries and spruce bark pressed into cakes,
their trading-trips completed, and the year’s stock of quarrels with
the neighboring tribe patched up in some way, they devote themselves to
feasting, dancing, and hootchenoo drinking. The Takus, once a powerful
and warlike tribe, were at this time, like most of the neighboring
tribes, whiskied nearly out of existence. They had a larger village on
the Taku River, but, according to the census taken that year by the
missionaries, they numbered only 269 in all,—109 men, 79 women, and 81
children, figures that show the vanishing condition of the tribe at a
glance.

Our Indians wanted to camp for the night in one of the deserted houses,
but I urged them on into the clean wilderness until dark, when we
landed on a rocky beach fringed with devil’s-clubs, greatly to the
disgust of our crew. We had to make the best of it, however, as it was
too dark to seek farther. After supper was accomplished among the
boulders, they retired to the canoe, which they anchored a little way
out, beyond low tide, while Mr. Young and I at the expense of a good
deal of scrambling and panax stinging, discovered a spot on which we
managed to sleep.

The next morning, about two hours after leaving our thorny camp, we
rounded a great mountain rock nearly a mile in height and entered the
Taku fiord. It is about eighteen miles long and from three to five
miles wide, and extends directly back into the heart of the mountains,
draining hundreds of glaciers and streams. The ancient glacier that
formed it was far too deep and broad and too little concentrated to
erode one of those narrow cañons, usually so impressive in sculpture
and architecture, but it is all the more interesting on this account
when the grandeur of the ice work accomplished is recognized. This
fiord, more than any other I have examined, explains the formation of
the wonderful system of channels extending along the coast from Puget
Sound to about latitude 59 degrees, for it is a marked portion of the
system,—a branch of Stephens Passage. Its trends and general sculpture
are as distinctly glacial as those of the narrowest fiord, while the
largest tributaries of the great glacier that occupied it are still in
existence. I counted some forty-five altogether, big and little, in
sight from the canoe in sailing up the middle of the fiord. Three of
them, drawing their sources from magnificent groups of snowy mountains,
came down to the level of the sea and formed a glorious spectacle. The
middle one of the three belongs to the first class, pouring its
majestic flood, shattered and crevassed, directly into the fiord, and
crowding about twenty-five square miles of it with bergs. The next
below it also sends off bergs occasionally, though a narrow strip of
glacial detritus separates it from the tidewater. That forenoon a large
mass fell from it, damming its draining stream, which at length broke
the dam, and the resulting flood swept forward thousands of small bergs
across the mud-flat into the fiord. In a short time all was quiet
again; the flood-waters receded, leaving only a large blue scar on the
front of the glacier and stranded bergs on the moraine flat to tell the
tale.

These two glaciers are about equal in size—two miles wide—and their
fronts are only about a mile and a half apart. While I sat sketching
them from a point among the drifting icebergs where I could see far
back into the heart of their distant fountains, two Taku seal-hunters,
father and son, came gliding toward us in an extremely small canoe.
Coming alongside with a goodnatured “Sagh-a-ya,” they inquired who we
were, our objects, etc., and gave us information about the river, their
village, and two other large glaciers that descend nearly to the
sea-level a few miles up the river cañon. Crouching in their little
shell of a boat among the great bergs, with paddle and barbed spear,
they formed a picture as arctic and remote from anything to be found in
civilization as ever was sketched for us by the explorers of the Far
North.

Making our way through the crowded bergs to the extreme head of the
fiord, we entered the mouth of the river, but were soon compelled to
turn back on account of the strength of the current. The Taku River is
a large stream, nearly a mile wide at the mouth, and, like the
Stickeen, Chilcat, and Chilcoot, draws its sources from far inland,
crossing the mountain-chain from the interior through a majestic cañon,
and draining a multitude of glaciers on its way.

The Taku Indians, like the Chilcats, with a keen appreciation of the
advantages of their position for trade, hold possession of the river
and compel the Indians of the interior to accept their services as
middle-men, instead of allowing them to trade directly with the whites.

When we were baffled in our attempt to ascend the river, the day was
nearly done, and we began to seek a camp-ground. After sailing two or
three miles along the left side of the fiord, we were so fortunate as
to find a small nook described by the two Indians, where firewood was
abundant, and where we could drag our canoe up the bank beyond reach of
the berg-waves. Here we were safe, with a fine outlook across the fiord
to the great glaciers and near enough to see the birth of the icebergs
and the wonderful commotion they make, and hear their wild, roaring
rejoicing. The sunset sky seemed to have been painted for this one
mountain mansion, fitting it like a ceiling. After the fiord was in
shadow the level sunbeams continued to pour through the miles of bergs
with ravishing beauty, reflecting and refracting the purple light like
cut crystal. Then all save the tips of the highest became dead white.
These, too, were speedily quenched, the glowing points vanishing like
stars sinking beneath the horizon. And after the shadows had crept
higher, submerging the glaciers and the ridges between them, the divine
alpenglow still lingered on their highest fountain peaks as they stood
transfigured in glorious array. Now the last of the twilight purple has
vanished, the stars begin to shine, and all trace of the day is gone.
Looking across the fiord the water seems perfectly black, and the two
great glaciers are seen stretching dim and ghostly into the shadowy
mountains now darkly massed against the starry sky.

Next morning it was raining hard, everything looked dismal, and on the
way down the fiord a growling head wind battered the rain in our faces,
but we held doggedly on and by 10 A.M. got out of the fiord into
Stephens Passage. A breeze sprung up in our favor that swept us bravely
on across the passage and around the end of Admiralty Island by dark.
We camped in a boggy hollow on a bluff among scraggy, usnea-bearded
spruces. The rain, bitterly cold and driven by a stormy wind, thrashed
us well while we floundered in the stumpy bog trying to make a fire and
supper.

When daylight came we found our camp-ground a very savage place. How we
reached it and established ourselves in the thick darkness it would be
difficult to tell. We crept along the shore a few miles against strong
head winds, then hoisted sail and steered straight across Lynn Canal to
the mainland, which we followed without great difficulty, the wind
having moderated toward evening. Near the entrance to Icy Strait we met
a Hoona who had seen us last year and who seemed glad to see us. He
gave us two salmon, and we made him happy with tobacco and then pushed
on and camped near Sitka Jack’s deserted village.

Though the wind was still ahead next morning, we made about twenty
miles before sundown and camped on the west end of Farewell Island. We
bumped against a hidden rock and sprung a small leak that was easily
stopped with resin. The salmon-berries were ripe. While climbing a
bluff for a view of our course, I discovered moneses, one of my
favorites, and saw many well-traveled deer-trails, though the island is
cut off from the mainland and other islands by at least five or six
miles of icy, berg-encumbered water.

We got under way early next day,—a gray, cloudy morning with rain and
wind. Fair and head winds were about evenly balanced throughout the
day. Tides run fast here, like great rivers. We rowed and paddled
around Point Wimbledon against both wind and tide, creeping close to
the feet of the huge, bold rocks of the north wall of Cross Sound,
which here were very steep and awe-inspiring as the heavy swells from
the open sea coming in past Cape Spencer dashed white against them,
tossing our frail canoe up and down lightly as a feather. The point
reached by vegetation shows that the surf dashes up to a height of
about seventy-five or a hundred feet. We were awe-stricken and began to
fear that we might be upset should the ocean waves rise still higher.
But little Stickeen seemed to enjoy the storm, and gazed at the
foam-wreathed cliffs like a dreamy, comfortable tourist admiring a
sunset. We reached the mouth of Taylor Bay about two or three o’clock
in the afternoon, when we had a view of the open ocean before we
entered the bay. Many large bergs from Glacier Bay were seen drifting
out to sea past Cape Spencer. We reached the head of the fiord now
called Taylor Bay at five o’clock and camped near an immense glacier
with a front about three miles wide stretching across from wall to
wall. No icebergs are discharged from it, as it is separated from the
water of the fiord at high tide by a low, smooth mass of outspread,
overswept moraine material, netted with torrents and small shallow
rills from the glacier-front, with here and there a lakelet, and
patches of yellow mosses and garden spots bright with epilobium,
saxifrage, grass-tufts, sedges, and creeping willows on the higher
ground. But only the mosses were sufficiently abundant to make
conspicuous masses of color to relieve the dull slaty gray of the
glacial mud and gravel. The front of the glacier, like all those which
do not discharge icebergs, is rounded like a brow, smooth-looking in
general views, but cleft and furrowed, nevertheless, with chasms and
grooves in which the light glows and shimmers in glorious beauty. The
granite walls of the fiord, though very high, are not deeply
sculptured. Only a few deep side cañons with trees, bushes, grassy and
flowery spots interrupt their massive simplicity, leaving but few of
the cliffs absolutely sheer and bare like those of Yosemite, Sum Dum,
or Taku. One of the side cañons is on the left side of the fiord, the
other on the right, the tributaries of the former leading over by a
narrow tide-channel to the bay next to the eastward, and by a short
portage over into a lake into which pours a branch glacier from the
great glacier. Still another branch from the main glacier turns to the
right. Counting all three of these separate fronts, the width of this
great Taylor Bay Glacier must be about seven or eight miles.

While camp was being made, Hunter Joe climbed the eastern wall in
search of wild mutton, but found none. He fell in with a brown bear,
however, and got a shot at it, but nothing more. Mr. Young and I
crossed the moraine slope, splashing through pools and streams up to
the ice-wall, and made the interesting discovery that the glacier had
been advancing of late years, ploughing up and shoving forward moraine
soil that had been deposited long ago, and overwhelming and grinding
and carrying away the forests on the sides and front of the glacier.
Though not now sending off icebergs, the front is probably far below
sea-level at the bottom, thrust forward beneath its wave-washed
moraine.

Along the base of the mountain-wall we found abundance of
salmon-berries, the largest measuring an inch and a half in diameter.
Strawberries, too, are found hereabouts. Some which visiting Indians
brought us were as fine in size and color and flavor as any I ever saw
anywhere. After wandering and wondering an hour or two, admiring the
magnificent rock and crystal scenery about us, we returned to camp at
sundown, planning a grand excursion for the morrow.

I set off early the morning of August 30 before any one else in camp
had stirred, not waiting for breakfast, but only eating a piece of
bread. I had intended getting a cup of coffee, but a wild storm was
blowing and calling, and I could not wait. Running out against the
rain-laden gale and turning to catch my breath, I saw that the
minister’s little dog had left his bed in the tent and was coming
boring through the storm, evidently determined to follow me. I told him
to go back, that such a day as this had nothing for him.

“Go back,” I shouted, “and get your breakfast.” But he simply stood
with his head down, and when I began to urge my way again, looking
around, I saw he was still following me. So I at last told him to come
on if he must and gave him a piece of the bread I had in my pocket.

Instead of falling, the rain, mixed with misty shreds of clouds, was
flying in level sheets, and the wind was roaring as I had never heard
wind roar before. Over the icy levels and over the woods, on the
mountains, over the jagged rocks and spires and chasms of the glacier
it boomed and moaned and roared, filling the fiord in even, gray,
structureless gloom, inspiring and awful. I first struggled up in the
face of the blast to the east end of the ice-wall, where a patch of
forest had been carried away by the glacier when it was advancing. I
noticed a few stumps well out on the moraine flat, showing that its
present bare, raw condition was not the condition of fifty or a hundred
years ago. In front of this part of the glacier there is a small
moraine lake about half a mile in length, around the margin of which
are a considerable number of trees standing knee-deep, and of course
dead. This also is a result of the recent advance of the ice.

Pushing up through the ragged edge of the woods on the left margin of
the glacier, the storm seemed to increase in violence, so that it was
difficult to draw breath in facing it; therefore I took shelter back of
a tree to enjoy it and wait, hoping that it would at last somewhat
abate. Here the glacier, descending over an abrupt rock, falls forward
in grand cascades, while a stream swollen by the rain was now a
torrent,—wind, rain, ice-torrent, and water-torrent in one grand
symphony.

At length the storm seemed to abate somewhat, and I took off my heavy
rubber boots, with which I had waded the glacial streams on the flat,
and laid them with my overcoat on a log, where I might find them on my
way back, knowing I would be drenched anyhow, and firmly tied my
mountain shoes, tightened my belt, shouldered my ice-axe, and, thus
free and ready for rough work, pushed on, regardless as possible of
mere rain. Making my way up a steep granite slope, its projecting
polished bosses encumbered here and there by boulders and the ground
and bruised ruins of the ragged edge of the forest that had been
uprooted by the glacier during its recent advance, I traced the side of
the glacier for two or three miles, finding everywhere evidence of its
having encroached on the woods, which here run back along its edge for
fifteen or twenty miles. Under the projecting edge of this vast
ice-river I could see down beneath it to a depth of fifty feet or so in
some places, where logs and branches were being crushed to pulp, some
of it almost fine enough for paper, though most of it stringy and
coarse.

After thus tracing the margin of the glacier for three or four miles, I
chopped steps and climbed to the top, and as far as the eye could
reach, the nearly level glacier stretched indefinitely away in the gray
cloudy sky, a prairie of ice. The wind was now almost moderate, though
rain continued to fall, which I did not mind, but a tendency to mist in
the drooping draggled clouds made me hesitate about attempting to cross
to the opposite shore. Although the distance was only six or seven
miles, no traces at this time could be seen of the mountains on the
other side, and in case the sky should grow darker, as it seemed
inclined to do, I feared that when I got out of sight of land and
perhaps into a maze of crevasses I might find difficulty in winning a
way back.

Lingering a while and sauntering about in sight of the shore, I found
this eastern side of the glacier remarkably free from large crevasses.
Nearly all I met were so narrow I could step across them almost
anywhere, while the few wide ones were easily avoided by going up or
down along their sides to where they narrowed. The dismal cloud ceiling
showed rifts here and there, and, thus encouraged, I struck out for the
west shore, aiming to strike it five or six miles above the front wall,
cautiously taking compass bearings at short intervals to enable me to
find my way back should the weather darken again with mist or rain or
snow. The structure lines of the glacier itself were, however, my main
guide. All went well. I came to a deeply furrowed section about two
miles in width where I had to zigzag in long, tedious tacks and make
narrow doublings, tracing the edges of wide longitudinal furrows and
chasms until I could find a bridge connecting their sides, oftentimes
making the direct distance ten times over. The walking was good of its
kind, however, and by dint of patient doubling and axe-work on
dangerous places, I gained the opposite shore in about three hours, the
width of the glacier at this point being about seven miles.
Occasionally, while making my way, the clouds lifted a little,
revealing a few bald, rough mountains sunk to the throat in the broad,
icy sea which encompassed them on all sides, sweeping on forever and
forever as we count time, wearing them away, giving them the shape they
are destined to take when in the fullness of time they shall be parts
of new landscapes.

Ere I lost sight of the east-side mountains, those on the west came in
sight, so that holding my course was easy, and, though making haste, I
halted for a moment to gaze down into the beautiful pure blue crevasses
and to drink at the lovely blue wells, the most beautiful of all
Nature’s water-basins, or at the rills and streams outspread over the
ice-land prairie, never ceasing to admire their lovely color and music
as they glided and swirled in their blue crystal channels and potholes,
and the rumbling of the moulins, or mills, where streams poured into
blue-walled pits of unknown depth, some of them as regularly circular
as if bored with augers. Interesting, too, were the cascades over blue
cliffs, where streams fell into crevasses or slid almost noiselessly
down slopes so smooth and frictionless their motion was concealed. The
round or oval wells, however, from one to ten feet wide, and from one
to twenty or thirty feet deep, were perhaps the most beautiful of all,
the water so pure as to be almost invisible. My widest views did not
probably exceed fifteen miles, the rain and mist making distances seem
greater.

On reaching the farther shore and tracing it a few miles to northward,
I found a large portion of the glacier-current sweeping out westward in
a bold and beautiful curve around the shoulder of a mountain as if
going direct to the open sea. Leaving the main trunk, it breaks into a
magnificent uproar of pinnacles and spires and up-heaving, splashing
wave-shaped masses, a crystal cataract incomparably greater and wilder
than a score of Niagaras.

Tracing its channel three or four miles, I found that it fell into a
lake, which it fills with bergs. The front of this branch of the
glacier is about three miles wide. I first took the lake to be the head
of an arm of the sea, but, going down to its shore and tasting it, I
found it fresh, and by my aneroid perhaps less than a hundred feet
above sea-level. It is probably separated from the sea only by a
moraine dam. I had not time to go around its shores, as it was now near
five o’clock and I was about fifteen miles from camp, and I had to make
haste to recross the glacier before dark, which would come on about
eight o’clock. I therefore made haste up to the main glacier, and,
shaping my course by compass and the structure lines of the ice, set
off from the land out on to the grand crystal prairie again. All was so
silent and so concentred, owing to the low dragging mist, the beauty
close about me was all the more keenly felt, though tinged with a dim
sense of danger, as if coming events were casting shadows. I was soon
out of sight of land, and the evening dusk that on cloudy days precedes
the real night gloom came stealing on and only ice was in sight, and
the only sounds, save the low rumbling of the mills and the rattle of
falling stones at long intervals, were the low, terribly earnest
moanings of the wind or distant waterfalls coming through the
thickening gloom. After two hours of hard work I came to a maze of
crevasses of appalling depth and width which could not be passed
apparently either up or down. I traced them with firm nerve developed
by the danger, making wide jumps, poising cautiously on dizzy edges
after cutting footholds, taking wide crevasses at a grand leap at once
frightful and inspiring. Many a mile was thus traveled, mostly up and
down the glacier, making but little real headway, running much of the
time as the danger of having to pass the night on the ice became more
and more imminent. This I could do, though with the weather and my
rain-soaked condition it would be trying at best. In treading the mazes
of this crevassed section I had frequently to cross bridges that were
only knife-edges for twenty or thirty feet, cutting off the sharp tops
and leaving them flat so that little Stickeen could follow me. These I
had to straddle, cutting off the top as I progressed and hitching
gradually ahead like a boy riding a rail fence. All this time the
little dog followed me bravely, never hesitating on the brink of any
crevasse that I had jumped, but now that it was becoming dark and the
crevasses became more troublesome, he followed close at my heels
instead of scampering far and wide, where the ice was at all smooth, as
he had in the forenoon. No land was now in sight. The mist fell lower
and darker and snow began to fly. I could not see far enough up and
down the glacier to judge how best to work out of the bewildering
labyrinth, and how hard I tried while there was yet hope of reaching
camp that night! a hope which was fast growing dim like the sky. After
dark, on such ground, to keep from freezing, I could only jump up and
down until morning on a piece of flat ice between the crevasses, dance
to the boding music of the winds and waters, and as I was already tired
and hungry I would be in bad condition for such ice work. Many times I
was put to my mettle, but with a firm-braced nerve, all the more
unflinching as the dangers thickened, I worked out of that terrible
ice-web, and with blood fairly up Stickeen and I ran over common danger
without fatigue. Our very hardest trial was in getting across the very
last of the sliver bridges. After examining the first of the two widest
crevasses, I followed its edge half a mile or so up and down and
discovered that its narrowest spot was about eight feet wide, which was
the limit of what I was able to jump. Moreover, the side I was on—that
is, the west side—was about a foot higher than the other, and I feared
that in case I should be stopped by a still wider impassable crevasse
ahead that I would hardly be able to take back that jump from its lower
side. The ice beyond, however, as far as I could see it, looked
temptingly smooth. Therefore, after carefully making a socket for my
foot on the rounded brink, I jumped, but found that I had nothing to
spare and more than ever dreaded having to retrace my way. Little
Stickeen jumped this, however, without apparently taking a second look
at it, and we ran ahead joyfully over smooth, level ice, hoping we were
now leaving all danger behind us. But hardly had we gone a hundred or
two yards when to our dismay we found ourselves on the very widest of
all the longitudinal crevasses we had yet encountered. It was about
forty feet wide. I ran anxiously up the side of it to northward,
eagerly hoping that I could get around its head, but my worst fears
were realized when at a distance of about a mile or less it ran into
the crevasse that I had just jumped. I then ran down the edge for a
mile or more below the point where I had first met it, and found that
its lower end also united with the crevasse I had jumped, showing
dismally that we were on an island two or three hundred yards wide and
about two miles long and the only way of escape from this island was by
turning back and jumping again that crevasse which I dreaded, or
venturing ahead across the giant crevasse by the very worst of the
sliver bridges I had ever seen. It was so badly weathered and melted
down that it formed a knife-edge, and extended across from side to side
in a low, drooping curve like that made by a loose rope attached at
each end at the same height. But the worst difficulty was that the ends
of the down-curving sliver were attached to the sides at a depth of
about eight or ten feet below the surface of the glacier. Getting down
to the end of the bridge, and then after crossing it getting up the
other side, seemed hardly possible. However, I decided to dare the
dangers of the fearful sliver rather than to attempt to retrace my
steps. Accordingly I dug a low groove in the rounded edge for my knees
to rest in and, leaning over, began to cut a narrow foothold on the
steep, smooth side. When I was doing this, Stickeen came up behind me,
pushed his head over my shoulder, looked into the crevasses and along
the narrow knife-edge, then turned and looked in my face, muttering and
whining as if trying to say, “Surely you are not going down there.” I
said, “Yes, Stickeen, this is the only way.” He then began to cry and
ran wildly along the rim of the crevasse, searching for a better way,
then, returning baffled, of course, he came behind me and lay down and
cried louder and louder.

After getting down one step I cautiously stooped and cut another and
another in succession until I reached the point where the sliver was
attached to the wall. There, cautiously balancing, I chipped down the
upcurved end of the bridge until I had formed a small level platform
about a foot wide, then, bending forward, got astride of the end of the
sliver, steadied myself with my knees, then cut off the top of the
sliver, hitching myself forward an inch or two at a time, leaving it
about four inches wide for Stickeen. Arrived at the farther end of the
sliver, which was about seventy-five feet long, I chipped another
little platform on its upcurved end, cautiously rose to my feet, and
with infinite pains cut narrow notch steps and finger-holds in the wall
and finally got safely across. All this dreadful time poor little
Stickeen was crying as if his heart was broken, and when I called to
him in as reassuring a voice as I could muster, he only cried the
louder, as if trying to say that he never, never could get down
there—the only time that the brave little fellow appeared to know what
danger was. After going away as if I was leaving him, he still howled
and cried without venturing to try to follow me. Returning to the edge
of the crevasse, I told him that I must go, that he could come if he
only tried, and finally in despair he hushed his cries, slid his little
feet slowly down into my footsteps out on the big sliver, walked slowly
and cautiously along the sliver as if holding his breath, while the
snow was falling and the wind was moaning and threatening to blow him
off. When he arrived at the foot of the slope below me, I was kneeling
on the brink ready to assist him in case he should be unable to reach
the top. He looked up along the row of notched steps I had made, as if
fixing them in his mind, then with a nervous spring he whizzed up and
passed me out on to the level ice, and ran and cried and barked and
rolled about fairly hysterical in the sudden revulsion from the depth
of despair to triumphant joy. I tried to catch him and pet him and tell
him how good and brave he was, but he would not be caught. He ran round
and round, swirling like autumn leaves in an eddy, lay down and rolled
head over heels. I told him we still had far to go and that we must now
stop all nonsense and get off the ice before dark. I knew by the
ice-lines that every step was now taking me nearer the shore and soon
it came in sight. The head-land four or five miles back from the front,
covered with spruce trees, loomed faintly but surely through the mist
and light fall of snow not more than two miles away. The ice now proved
good all the way across, and we reached the lateral moraine just at
dusk, then with trembling limbs, now that the danger was over, we
staggered and stumbled down the bouldery edge of the glacier and got
over the dangerous rocks by the cascades while yet a faint light
lingered. We were safe, and then, too, came limp weariness such as no
ordinary work ever produces, however hard it may be. Wearily we
stumbled down through the woods, over logs and brush and roots,
devil’s-clubs pricking us at every faint blundering tumble. At last we
got out on the smooth mud slope with only a mile of slow but sure
dragging of weary limbs to camp. The Indians had been firing guns to
guide me and had a fine supper and fire ready, though fearing they
would be compelled to seek us in the morning, a care not often applied
to me. Stickeen and I were too tired to eat much, and, strange to say,
too tired to sleep. Both of us, springing up in the night again and
again, fancied we were still on that dreadful ice bridge in the shadow
of death.

Nevertheless, we arose next morning in newness of life. Never before
had rocks and ice and trees seemed so beautiful and wonderful, even the
cold, biting rainstorm that was blowing seemed full of loving-kindness,
wonderful compensation for all that we had endured, and we sailed down
the bay through the gray, driving rain rejoicing.




Chapter XVI
Glacier Bay


While Stickeen and I were away, a Hoona, one of the head men of the
tribe, paid Mr. Young a visit, and presented him with porpoise-meat and
berries and much interesting information. He naturally expected a
return visit, and when we called at his house, a mile or two down the
fiord, he said his wives were out in the rain gathering fresh berries
to complete a feast prepared for us. We remained, however, only a few
minutes, for I was not aware of this arrangement or of Mr. Young’s
promise until after leaving the house. Anxiety to get around Cape
Wimbledon was the cause of my haste, fearing the storm might increase.
On account of this ignorance, no apologies were offered him, and the
upshot was that the good Hoona became very angry. We succeeded,
however, in the evening of the same day, in explaining our haste, and
by sincere apologies and presents made peace.

After a hard struggle we got around stormy Wimbledon and into the next
fiord to the northward (Klunastucksana—Dundas Bay). A cold, drenching
rain was falling, darkening but not altogether hiding its extraordinary
beauty, made up of lovely reaches and side fiords, feathery headlands
and islands, beautiful every one and charmingly collocated. But how it
rained, and how cold it was, and how weary we were pulling most of the
time against the wind! The branches of this bay are so deep and so
numerous that, with the rain and low clouds concealing the mountain
landmarks, we could hardly make out the main trends. While groping and
gazing among the islands through the misty rain and clouds, we
discovered wisps of smoke at the foot of a sheltering rock in front of
a mountain, where a choir of cascades were chanting their rain songs.
Gladly we made for this camp, which proved to belong to a rare old
Hoona sub-chief, so tall and wide and dignified in demeanor he looked
grand even in the sloppy weather, and every inch a chief in spite of
his bare legs and the old shirt and draggled, ragged blanket in which
he was dressed. He was given to much handshaking, gripping hard,
holding on and looking you gravely in the face while most emphatically
speaking in Thlinkit, not a word of which we understood until
interpreter John came to our help. He turned from one to the other of
us, declaring, as John interpreted, that our presence did him good like
food and fire, that he would welcome white men, especially teachers,
and that he and all his people compared to ourselves were only
children. When Mr. Young informed him that a missionary was about to be
sent to his people, he said he would call them all together four times
and explain that a teacher and preacher were coming and that they
therefore must put away all foolishness and prepare their hearts to
receive them and their words. He then introduced his three children,
one a naked lad five or six years old who, as he fondly assured us,
would soon be a chief, and later to his wife, an intelligent-looking
woman of whom he seemed proud. When we arrived she was out at the foot
of the cascade mountain gathering salmon-berries. She came in dripping
and loaded. A few of the fine berries saved for the children she
presented, proudly and fondly beginning with the youngest, whose only
clothing was a nose-ring and a string of beads. She was lightly
appareled in a cotton gown and bit of blanket, thoroughly bedraggled,
but after unloading her berries she retired with a dry calico gown
around the corner of a rock and soon returned fresh as a daisy and with
becoming dignity took her place by the fireside. Soon two other
berry-laden women came in, seemingly enjoying the rain like the bushes
and trees. They put on little clothing so that they may be the more
easily dried, and as for the children, a thin shirt of sheeting is the
most they encumber themselves with, and get wet and half dry without
seeming to notice it while we shiver with two or three dry coats. They
seem to prefer being naked. The men also wear but little in wet
weather. When they go out for all day they put on a single blanket, but
in choring around camp, getting firewood, cooking, or looking after
their precious canvas, they seldom wear anything, braving wind and rain
in utter nakedness to avoid the bother of drying clothes. It is a rare
sight to see the children bringing in big chunks of firewood on their
shoulders, balancing in crossing boulders with firmly set bow-legs and
bulging back muscles.

We gave Ka-hood-oo-shough, the old chief, some tobacco and rice and
coffee, and pitched our tent near his hut among tall grass. Soon after
our arrival the Taylor Bay sub-chief came in from the opposite
direction from ours, telling us that he came through a cut-off passage
not on our chart. As stated above, we took pains to conciliate him and
soothe his hurt feelings. Our words and gifts, he said, had warmed his
sore heart and made him glad and comfortable.

The view down the bay among the islands was, I thought, the finest of
this kind of scenery that I had yet observed.

The weather continued cold and rainy. Nevertheless Mr. Young and I and
our crew, together with one of the Hoonas, an old man who acted as
guide, left camp to explore one of the upper arms of the bay, where we
were told there was a large glacier. We managed to push the canoe
several miles up the stream that drains the glacier to a point where
the swift current was divided among rocks and the banks were overhung
with alders and willows. I left the canoe and pushed up the right bank
past a magnificent waterfall some twelve hundred feet high, and over
the shoulder of a mountain, until I secured a good view of the lower
part of the glacier. It is probably a lobe of the Taylor Bay or Brady
Glacier.

On our return to camp, thoroughly drenched and cold, the old chief came
to visit us, apparently as wet and cold as ourselves.

“I have been thinking of you all day,” he said, “and pitying you,
knowing how miserable you were, and as soon as I saw your canoe coming
back I was ashamed to think that I had been sitting warm and dry at my
fire while you were out in the storm; therefore I made haste to strip
off my dry clothing and put on these wet rags to share your misery and
show how much I love you.”

I had another long talk with Ka-hood-oo-shough the next day.

“I am not able,” he said, “to tell you how much good your words have
done me. Your words are good, and they are strong words. Some of my
people are foolish, and when they make their salmon-traps they do not
take care to tie the poles firmly together, and when the big
rain-floods come the traps break and are washed away because the people
who made them are foolish people. But your words are strong words and
when storms come to try them they will stand the storms.”

There was much hand shaking as we took our leave and assurances of
eternal friendship. The grand old man stood on the shore watching us
and waving farewell until we were out of sight.

We now steered for the Muir Glacier and arrived at the front on the
east side the evening of the third, and camped on the end of the
moraine, where there was a small stream. Captain Tyeen was inclined to
keep at a safe distance from the tremendous threatening cliffs of the
discharging wall. After a good deal of urging he ventured within half a
mile of them, on the east side of the fiord, where with Mr. Young I
went ashore to seek a camp-ground on the moraine, leaving the Indians
in the canoe. In a few minutes after we landed a huge berg sprung aloft
with awful commotion, and the frightened Indians incontinently fled
down the fiord, plying their paddles with admirable energy in the
tossing waves until a safe harbor was reached around the south end of
the moraine. I found a good place for a camp in a slight hollow where a
few spruce stumps afforded firewood. But all efforts to get Tyeen out
of his harbor failed. “Nobody knew,” he said, “how far the angry ice
mountain could throw waves to break his canoe.” Therefore I had my
bedding and some provisions carried to my stump camp, where I could
watch the bergs as they were discharged and get night views of the brow
of the glacier and its sheer jagged face all the way across from side
to side of the channel. One night the water was luminous and the surge
from discharging icebergs churned the water into silver fire, a
glorious sight in the darkness. I also went back up the east side of
the glacier five or six miles and ascended a mountain between its first
two eastern tributaries, which, though covered with grass near the top,
was exceedingly steep and difficult. A bulging ridge near the top I
discovered was formed of ice, a remnant of the glacier when it stood at
this elevation which had been preserved by moraine material and later
by a thatch of dwarf bushes and grass.

Next morning at daybreak I pushed eagerly back over the comparatively
smooth eastern margin of the glacier to see as much as possible of the
upper fountain region. About five miles back from the front I climbed a
mountain twenty-five hundred feet high, from the flowery summit of
which, the day being clear, the vast glacier and its principal branches
were displayed in one magnificent view. Instead of a stream of ice
winding down a mountain-walled valley like the largest of the Swiss
glaciers, the Muir looks like a broad undulating prairie streaked with
medial moraines and gashed with crevasses, surrounded by numberless
mountains from which flow its many tributary glaciers. There are seven
main tributaries from ten to twenty miles long and from two to six
miles wide where they enter the trunk, each of them fed by many
secondary tributaries; so that the whole number of branches, great and
small, pouring from the mountain fountains perhaps number upward of two
hundred, not counting the smallest. The area drained by this one grand
glacier can hardly be less than seven or eight hundred miles, and
probably contains as much ice as all the eleven hundred Swiss glaciers
combined. Its length from the frontal wall back to the head of its
farthest fountain seemed to be about forty or fifty miles, and the
width just below the confluence of the main tributaries about
twenty-five miles. Though apparently motionless as the mountains, it
flows on forever, the speed varying in every part with the seasons, but
mostly with the depth of the current, and the declivity, smoothness and
directness of the different portions of the basin. The flow of the
central cascading portion near the front, as determined by Professor
Reid, is at the rate of from two and a half to five inches an hour, or
from five to ten feet a day. A strip of the main trunk about a mile in
width, extending along the eastern margin about fourteen miles to a
lake filled with bergs, has so little motion and is so little
interrupted by crevasses, a hundred horsemen might ride abreast over it
without encountering very much difficulty.

But far the greater portion of the vast expanse looking smooth in the
distance is torn and crumpled into a bewildering network of hummocky
ridges and blades, separated by yawning gulfs and crevasses, so that
the explorer, crossing it from shore to shore, must always have a hard
time. In hollow spots here and there in the heart of the icy wilderness
are small lakelets fed by swift-glancing streams that flow without
friction in blue shining channels, making delightful melody, singing
and ringing in silvery tones of peculiar sweetness, radiant crystals
like flowers ineffably fine growing in dazzling beauty along their
banks. Few, however, will be likely to enjoy them. Fortunately to most
travelers the thundering ice-wall, while comfortably accessible, is
also the most strikingly interesting portion of the glacier.

The mountains about the great glacier were also seen from this
standpoint in exceedingly grand and telling views, ranged and grouped
in glorious array. Along the valleys of the main tributaries to the
northwestward I saw far into their shadowy depths, one noble peak in
its snowy robes appearing beyond another in fine perspective. One of
the most remarkable of them, fashioned like a superb crown with
delicately fluted sides, stands in the middle of the second main
tributary, counting from left to right. To the westward the magnificent
Fairweather Range is displayed in all its glory, lifting its peaks and
glaciers into the blue sky. Mt. Fairweather, though not the highest, is
the noblest and most majestic in port and architecture of all the
sky-dwelling company. La Pérouse, at the south end of the range, is
also a magnificent mountain, symmetrically peaked and sculptured, and
wears its robes of snow and glaciers in noble style. Lituya, as seen
from here, is an immense tower, severely plain and massive. It makes a
fine and terrible and lonely impression. Crillon, though the loftiest
of all (being nearly sixteen thousand feet high), presents no
well-marked features. Its ponderous glaciers have ground it away into
long, curling ridges until, from this point of view, it resembles a
huge twisted shell. The lower summits about the Muir Glacier, like this
one, the first that I climbed, are richly adorned and enlivened with
flowers, though they make but a faint show in general views. Lines and
dashes of bright green appear on the lower slopes as one approaches
them from the glacier, and a fainter green tinge may be noticed on the
subordinate summits at a height of two thousand or three thousand feet.
The lower are mostly alder bushes and the topmost a lavish profusion of
flowering plants, chiefly cassiope, vaccinium, pyrola, erigeron,
gentiana, campanula, anemone, larkspur, and columbine, with a few
grasses and ferns. Of these cassiope is at once the commonest and the
most beautiful and influential. In some places its delicate stems make
mattresses more than a foot thick over several acres, while the bloom
is so abundant that a single handful plucked at random contains
hundreds of its pale pink bells. The very thought of this Alaska garden
is a joyful exhilaration. Though the storm-beaten ground it is growing
on is nearly half a mile high, the glacier centuries ago flowed over it
as a river flows over a boulder; but out of all the cold darkness and
glacial crushing and grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and
life to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call
destruction is creation finer and finer.

When night was approaching I scrambled down out of my blessed garden to
the glacier, and returned to my lonely camp, and, getting some coffee
and bread, again went up the moraine to the east end of the great
ice-wall. It is about three miles long, but the length of the jagged,
berg-producing portion that stretches across the fiord from side to
side like a huge green-and-blue barrier is only about two miles and
rises above the water to a height of from two hundred and fifty to
three hundred feet. Soundings made by Captain Carroll show that seven
hundred and twenty feet of the wall is below the surface, and a third
unmeasured portion is buried beneath the moraine detritus deposited at
the foot of it. Therefore, were the water and rocky detritus cleared
away, a sheer precipice of ice would be presented nearly two miles long
and more than a thousand feet high. Seen from a distance, as you come
up the fiord, it seems comparatively regular in form, but it is far
otherwise; bold, jagged capes jut forward into the fiord, alternating
with deep reentering angles and craggy hollows with plain bastions,
while the top is roughened with innumerable spires and pyramids and
sharp hacked blades leaning and toppling or cutting straight into the
sky.

The number of bergs given off varies somewhat with the weather and the
tides, the average being about one every five or six minutes, counting
only those that roar loud enough to make themselves heard at a distance
of two or three miles. The very largest, however, may under favorable
conditions be heard ten miles or even farther. When a large mass sinks
from the upper fissured portion of the wall, there is first a keen,
prolonged, thundering roar, which slowly subsides into a low muttering
growl, followed by numerous smaller grating clashing sounds from the
agitated bergs that dance in the waves about the newcomer as if in
welcome; and these again are followed by the swash and roar of the
waves that are raised and hurled up the beach against the moraines. But
the largest and most beautiful of the bergs, instead of thus falling
from the upper weathered portion of the wall, rise from the submerged
portion with a still grander commotion, springing with tremendous voice
and gestures nearly to the top of the wall, tons of water streaming
like hair down their sides, plunging and rising again and again before
they finally settle in perfect poise, free at last, after having formed
part of the slow-crawling glacier for centuries. And as we contemplate
their history, as they sail calmly away down the fiord to the sea, how
wonderful it seems that ice formed from pressed snow on the far-off
mountains two or three hundred years ago should still be pure and
lovely in color after all its travel and toil in the rough mountain
quarries, grinding and fashioning the features of predestined
landscapes.

When sunshine is sifting through the midst of the multitude of icebergs
that fill the fiord and through the jets of radiant spray ever rising
from the tremendous dashing and splashing of the falling and
upspringing bergs, the effect is indescribably glorious. Glorious, too,
are the shows they make in the night when the moon and stars are
shining. The berg-thunder seems far louder than by day, and the
projecting buttresses seem higher as they stand forward in the pale
light, relieved by gloomy hollows, while the new-born bergs are dimly
seen, crowned with faint lunar rainbows in the up-dashing spray. But it
is in the darkest nights when storms are blowing and the waves are
phosphorescent that the most impressive displays are made. Then the
long range of ice-bluffs is plainly seen stretching through the gloom
in weird, unearthly splendor, luminous wave foam dashing against every
bluff and drifting berg; and ever and anon amid all this wild auroral
splendor some huge new-born berg dashes the living water into yet
brighter foam, and the streaming torrents pouring from its sides are
worn as robes of light, while they roar in awful accord with the winds
and waves, deep calling unto deep, glacier to glacier, from fiord to
fiord over all the wonderful bay.

After spending a few days here, we struck across to the main Hoona
village on the south side of Icy Strait, thence by a long cut-off with
one short portage to Chatham Strait, and thence down through Peril
Strait, sailing all night, hoping to catch the mail steamer at Sitka.
We arrived at the head of the strait about daybreak. The tide was
falling, and rushing down with the swift current as if descending a
majestic cataract was a memorable experience. We reached Sitka the same
night, and there I paid and discharged my crew, making allowance for a
couple of days or so for the journey back home to Fort Wrangell, while
I boarded the steamer for Portland and thus ended my explorations for
this season.




Part III
_The Trip of 1890_




Chapter XVII
In Camp at Glacier Bay


I left San Francisco for Glacier Bay on the steamer City of Pueblo,
June 14, 1890, at 10 A.M., this being my third trip to southeastern
Alaska and fourth to Alaska, including northern and western Alaska as
far as Unalaska and Pt. Barrow and the northeastern coast of Siberia.
The bar at the Golden Gate was smooth, the weather cool and pleasant.
The redwoods in sheltered coves approach the shore closely, their
dwarfed and shorn tops appearing here and there in ravines along the
coast up to Oregon. The wind-swept hills, beaten with scud, are of
course bare of trees. Along the Oregon and Washington coast the trees
get nearer the sea, for spruce and contorted pine endure the briny
winds better than the redwoods. We took the inside passage between the
shore and Race Rocks, a long range of islets on which many a good ship
has been wrecked. The breakers from the deep Pacific, driven by the
gale, made a glorious display of foam on the bald islet rocks, sending
spray over the tops of some of them a hundred feet high or more in
sublime, curving, jagged-edged and flame-shaped sheets. The gestures of
these upspringing, purple-tinged waves as they dashed and broke were
sublime and serene, combining displays of graceful beauty of motion and
form with tremendous power—a truly glorious show. I noticed several
small villages on the green slopes between the timbered mountains and
the shore. Long Beach made quite a display of new houses along the
beach, north of the mouth of the Columbia.

I had pleasant company on the Pueblo and sat at the chief engineer’s
table, who was a good and merry talker. An old San Francisco lawyer,
rather stiff and dignified, knew my father-in-law, Dr. Strentzel. Three
ladies, opposed to the pitching of the ship, were absent from table the
greater part of the way. My best talker was an old Scandinavian
sea-captain, who was having a new bark built at Port Blakely,—an
interesting old salt, every sentence of his conversation flavored with
sea-brine, bluff and hearty as a sea-wave, keen-eyed, courageous,
self-reliant, and so stubbornly skeptical he refused to believe even in
glaciers.

“After you see your bark,” I said, “and find everything being done to
your mind, you had better go on to Alaska and see the glaciers.”

“Oh, I haf seen many glaciers already.”

“But are you sure that you know what a glacier is?” I asked.

“Vell, a glacier is a big mountain all covered up vith ice.”

“Then a river,” said I, “must be a big mountain all covered with
water.”

I explained what a glacier was and succeeded in exciting his interest.
I told him he must reform, for a man who neither believed in God nor
glaciers must be very bad, indeed the worst of all unbelievers.

At Port Townsend I met Mr. Loomis, who had agreed to go with me as far
as the Muir Glacier. We sailed from here on the steamer Queen. We
touched again at Victoria, and I took a short walk into the adjacent
woods and gardens and found the flowery vegetation in its glory,
especially the large wild rose for which the region is famous, and the
spiræa and English honeysuckle of the gardens.

_June 18_. We sailed from Victoria on the Queen at 10.30 A.M. The
weather all the way to Fort Wrangell was cloudy and rainy, but the
scenery is delightful even in the dullest weather. The marvelous wealth
of forests, islands, and waterfalls, the cloud-wreathed heights, the
many avalanche slopes and slips, the pearl-gray tones of the sky, the
browns of the woods, their purple flower edges and mist fringes, the
endless combinations of water and land and ever-shifting clouds—none of
these greatly interest the tourists. I noticed one of the small whales
that frequent these channels and mentioned the fact, then called
attention to a charming group of islands, but they turned their eyes
from the islands, saying, “Yes, yes, they are very fine, but where did
you see the whale?”

The timber is larger and apparently better every way as you go north
from Victoria, that is on the islands, perhaps on account of fires from
less rain to the southward. All the islands have been overswept by the
ice-sheet and are but little changed as yet, save a few of the highest
summits which have been sculptured by local residual glaciers. All have
approximately the form of greatest strength with reference to the
overflow of an ice-sheet, excepting those mentioned above, which have
been more or less eroded by local residual glaciers. Every channel also
has the form of greatest strength with reference to ice-action.
Islands, as we have seen, are still being born in Glacier Bay and
elsewhere to the northward.

I found many pleasant people aboard, but strangely ignorant on the
subject of earth-sculpture and landscape-making. Professor Niles, of
the Boston Institute of Technology, is aboard; also Mr. Russell and Mr.
Kerr of the Geological Survey, who are now on their way to Mt. St.
Elias, hoping to reach the summit; and a granddaughter of Peter
Burnett, the first governor of California.

We arrived at Wrangell in the rain at 10.30 P.M. There was a grand rush
on shore to buy curiosities and see totem poles. The shops were jammed
and mobbed, high prices paid for shabby stuff manufactured expressly
for tourist trade. Silver bracelets hammered out of dollars and half
dollars by Indian smiths are the most popular articles, then baskets,
yellow cedar toy canoes, paddles, etc. Most people who travel look only
at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the
guidebook-maker, however ignorant. I inquired for my old friends Tyeen
and Shakes, who were both absent.

_June 20_. We left Wrangell early this morning and passed through the
Wrangell Narrows at high tide. I noticed a few bergs near Cape Fanshawe
from Wrangell Glacier. The water ten miles from Wrangell is colored
with particles derived mostly from the Stickeen River glaciers and Le
Conte Glacier. All the waters of the channels north of Wrangell are
green or yellowish from glacier erosion. We had a good view of the
glaciers all the way to Juneau, but not of their high, cloud-veiled
fountains. The stranded bergs on the moraine bar at the mouth of Sum
Dum Bay looked just as they did when I first saw them ten years ago.

Before reaching Juneau, the Queen proceeded up the Taku Inlet that the
passengers might see the fine glacier at its head, and ventured to
within half a mile of the berg-discharging front, which is about three
quarters of a mile wide. Bergs fell but seldom, perhaps one in half an
hour. The glacier makes a rapid descent near the front. The inlet,
therefore, will not be much extended beyond its present limit by the
recession of the glacier. The grand rocks on either side of its channel
show ice-action in telling style. The Norris Glacier, about two miles
below the Taku is a good example of a glacier in the first stage of
decadence. The Taku River enters the head of the inlet a little to the
east of the glaciers, coming from beyond the main coast range. All the
tourists are delighted at seeing a grand glacier in the flesh. The
scenery is very fine here and in the channel at Juneau. On Douglas
Island there is a large mill of 240 stamps, all run by one small
water-wheel, which, however, is acted on by water at enormous pressure.
The forests around the mill are being rapidly nibbled away. Wind is
here said to be very violent at times, blowing away people and houses
and sweeping scud far up the mountain-side. Winter snow is seldom more
than a foot or two deep.

_June 21_. We arrived at Douglas Island at five in the afternoon and
went sight-seeing through the mill. Six hundred tons of low-grade
quartz are crushed per day. Juneau, on the mainland opposite the
Douglas Island mills, is quite a village, well supplied with stores,
churches, etc. A dance-house in which Indians are supposed to show
native dances of all sorts is perhaps the best-patronized of all the
places of amusement. A Mr. Brooks, who prints a paper here, gave us
some information on Mt. St. Elias, Mt. Wrangell, and the Cook Inlet and
Prince William Sound region. He told Russell that he would never reach
the summit of St. Elias, that it was inaccessible. He saw no glaciers
that discharged bergs into the sea at Cook Inlet, but many in Prince
William Sound.

_June 22_. Leaving Juneau at noon, we had a good view of the Auk
Glacier at the mouth of the channel between Douglas Island and the
mainland, and of Eagle Glacier a few miles north of the Auk on the east
side of Lynn Canal. Then the Davidson Glacier came in sight, finely
curved, striped with medial moraines, and girdled in front by its
magnificent tree-fringed terminal moraine; and besides these many
others of every size and pattern on the mountains bounding Lynn Canal,
most of them comparatively small, completing their sculpture. The
mountains on either hand and at the head of the canal are strikingly
beautiful at any time of the year. The sky to-day is mostly clear, with
just clouds enough hovering about the mountains to show them to best
advantage as they stretch onward in sustained grandeur like two
separate and distinct ranges, each mountain with its glaciers and
clouds and fine sculpture glowing bright in smooth, graded light. Only
a few of them exceed five thousand feet in height; but as one naturally
associates great height with ice-and-snow-laden mountains and with
glacial sculpture so pronounced, they seem much higher. There are now
two canneries at the head of Lynn Canal. The Indians furnish some of
the salmon at ten cents each. Everybody sits up to see the midnight
sky. At this time of the year there is no night here, though the sun
drops a degree or two below the horizon. One may read at twelve o’clock
San Francisco time.

_June 23_. Early this morning we arrived in Glacier Bay. We passed
through crowds of bergs at the mouth of the bay, though, owing to wind
and tide, there were but few at the front of Muir Glacier. A fine,
bright day, the last of a group of a week or two, as shown by the
dryness of the sand along the shore and on the moraine—rare weather
hereabouts. Most of the passengers went ashore and climbed the morame
on the east side to get a view of the glacier from a point a little
higher than the top of the front wall. A few ventured on a mile or two
farther. The day was delightful, and our one hundred and eighty
passengers were happy, gazing at the beautiful blue of the bergs and
the shattered pinnacled crystal wall, awed by the thunder and commotion
of the falling and rising ice bergs, which ever and anon sent spray
flying several hundred feet into the air and raised swells that set all
the fleet of bergs in motion and roared up the beach, telling the story
of the birth of every iceberg far and near. The number discharged
varies much, influenced in part no doubt by the tides and weather and
seasons, sometimes one every five minutes for half a day at a time on
the average, though intervals of twenty or thirty minutes may occur
without any considerable fall, then three or four immense discharges
will take place in as many minutes. The sound they make is like heavy
thunder, with a prolonged roar after deep thudding sounds—a perpetual
thunderstorm easily heard three or four miles away. The roar in our
tent and the shaking of the ground one or two miles distant from points
of discharge seems startlingly near.

I had to look after camp-supplies and left the ship late this morning,
going with a crowd to the glacier; then, taking advantage of the fine
weather, I pushed off alone into the silent icy prairie to the east, to
Nunatak Island, about five hundred feet above the ice. I discovered a
small lake on the larger of the two islands, and many battered and
ground fragments of fossil wood, large and small. They seem to have
come from trees that grew on the island perhaps centuries ago. I mean
to use this island as a station in setting out stakes to measure the
glacial flow. The top of Mt. Fairweather is in sight at a distance of
perhaps thirty miles, the ice all smooth on the eastern border, wildly
broken in the central portion. I reached the ship at 2.30 P.M. I had
intended getting back at noon and sending letters and bidding friends
good-bye, but could not resist this glacier saunter. The ship moved off
as soon as I was seen on the moraine bluff, and Loomis and I waved our
hats in farewell to the many wavings of handkerchiefs of acquaintances
we had made on the trip.

Our goods—blankets, provisions, tent, etc.—lay in a rocky moraine
hollow within a mile of the great terminal wall of the glacier, and the
discharge of the rising and falling icebergs kept up an almost
continuous thundering and echoing, while a few gulls flew about on easy
wing or stood like specks of foam on the shore. These were our
neighbors.

After my twelve-mile walk, I ate a cracker and planned the camp. I
found that one of my boxes had been left on the steamer, but still we
have more than enough of everything. We obtained two cords of dry wood
at Juneau which Captain Carroll kindly had his men carry up the moraine
to our camp-ground. We piled the wood as a wind-break, then laid a
floor of lumber brought from Seattle for a square tent, nine feet by
nine. We set the tent, stored our provisions in it, and made our beds.
This work was done by 11.30 P.M., good daylight lasting to this time.
We slept well in our roomy cotton house, dreaming of California home
nests in the wilderness of ice.

_June 25._ A rainy day. For a few hours I kept count of the number of
bergs discharged, then sauntered along the beach to the end of the
crystal wall. A portion of the way is dangerous, the moraine bluff
being capped by an overlying lobe of the glacier, which as it melts
sends down boulders and fragments of ice, while the strip of sandy
shore at high tide is only a few rods wide, leaving but little room to
escape from the falling moraine material and the berg-waves. The view
of the ice-cliffs, pinnacles, spires and ridges was very telling, a
magnificent picture of nature’s power and industry and love of beauty.
About a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet from the shore a large
stream issues from an arched, tunnel-like channel in the wall of the
glacier, the blue of the ice hall being of an exquisite tone,
contrasting with the strange, sooty, smoky, brown-colored stream. The
front wall of the Muir Glacier is about two and a half or three miles
wide. Only the central portion about two miles wide discharges
icebergs. The two wings advanced over the washed and stratified moraine
deposits have little or no motion, melting and receding as fast, or
perhaps faster, than it advances. They have been advanced at least a
mile over the old re-formed moraines, as is shown by the overlying,
angular, recent moraine deposits, now being laid down, which are
continuous with the medial moraines of the glacier.

In the old stratified moraine banks, trunks and branches of trees
showing but little sign of decay occur at a height of about a hundred
feet above tide-water. I have not yet compared this fossil wood with
that of the opposite shore deposits. That the glacier was once
withdrawn considerably back of its present limit seems plain. Immense
torrents of water had filled in the inlet with stratified
moraine-material, and for centuries favorable climatic conditions
allowed forests to grow upon it. At length the glacier advanced,
probably three or four miles, uprooting and burying the trees which had
grown undisturbed for centuries. Then came a great thaw, which produced
the flood that deposited the uprooted trees. Also the trees which grew
around the shores above reach of floods were shed off, perhaps by the
thawing of the soil that was resting on the buried margin of the
glacier, left on its retreat and protected by a covering of
moraine-material from melting as fast as the exposed surface of the
glacier. What appear to be remnants of the margin of the glacier when
it stood at a much higher level still exist on the left side and
probably all along its banks on both sides just below its present
terminus.

_June 26_. We fixed a mark on the left wing to measure the motion if
any. It rained all day, but I had a grand tramp over mud, ice, and rock
to the east wall of the inlet. Brown metamorphic slate, close-grained
in places, dips away from the inlet, presenting edges to ice-action,
which has given rise to a singularly beautiful and striking surface,
polished and grooved and fluted.

All the next day it rained. The mountains were smothered in
dull-colored mist and fog, the great glacier looming through the gloomy
gray fog fringes with wonderful effect. The thunder of bergs booms and
rumbles through the foggy atmosphere. It is bad weather for exploring
but delightful nevertheless, making all the strange, mysterious region
yet stranger and more mysterious.

_June 28_. A light rain. We were visited by two parties of Indians. A
man from each canoe came ashore, leaving the women in the canoe to
guard against the berg-waves. I tried my Chinook and made out to say
that I wanted to hire two of them in a few days to go a little way back
on the glacier and around the bay. They are seal-hunters and promised
to come again with “Charley,” who “hi yu kumtux wawa Boston”—knew well
how to speak English.

I saw three huge bergs born. Spray rose about two hundred feet. Lovely
reflections showed of the pale-blue tones of the ice-wall and mountains
in the calm water. Mirages are common, making the stranded bergs along
the shore look like the sheer frontal wall of the glacier from which
they were discharged.

I am watching the ice-wall, berg life and behavior, etc. Yesterday and
to-day a solitary small flycatcher was feeding about camp. A sandpiper
on the shore, loons, ducks, gulls, and crows, a few of each, and a bald
eagle are all the birds I have noticed thus far. The glacier is
thundering gloriously.

_June 30_. Clearing clouds and sunshine. In less than a minute I saw
three large bergs born. First there is usually a preliminary thundering
of comparatively small masses as the large mass begins to fall, then
the grand crash and boom and reverberating roaring. Oftentimes three or
four heavy main throbbing thuds and booming explosions are heard as the
main mass falls in several pieces, and also secondary thuds and
thunderings as the mass or masses plunge and rise again and again ere
they come to rest. Seldom, if ever, do the towers, battlements, and
pinnacles into which the front of the glacier is broken fall forward
headlong from their bases like falling trees at the water-level or
above or below it. They mostly sink vertically or nearly so, as if
undermined by the melting action of the water of the inlet,
occasionally maintaining their upright position after sinking far below
the level of the water, and rising again a hundred feet or more into
the air with water streaming like hair down their sides from their
crowns, then launch forward and fall flat with yet another thundering
report, raising spray in magnificent, flamelike, radiating jets and
sheets, occasionally to the very top of the front wall. Illumined by
the sun, the spray and angular crystal masses are indescribably
beautiful. Some of the discharges pour in fragments from clefts in the
wall like waterfalls, white and mealy-looking, even dusty with minute
swirling ice-particles, followed by a rushing succession of
thunder-tones combining into a huge, blunt, solemn roar. Most of these
crumbling discharges are from the excessively shattered central part of
the ice-wall; the solid deep-blue masses from the ends of the wall
forming the large bergs rise from the bottom of the glacier.

Many lesser reports are heard at a distance of a mile or more from the
fall of pinnacles into crevasses or from the opening of new crevasses.
The berg discharges are very irregular, from three to twenty-two an
hour. On one rising tide, six hours, there were sixty bergs discharged,
large enough to thunder and be heard at distances of from three
quarters to one and a half miles; and on one succeeding falling tide,
six hours, sixty-nine were discharged.

_July 1_. We were awakened at four o’clock this morning by the whistle
of the steamer George W. Elder. I went out on the moraine and waved my
hand in salute and was answered by a toot from the whistle. Soon a
party came ashore and asked if I was Professor Muir. The leader,
Professor Harry Fielding Reid of Cleveland, Ohio, introduced himself
and his companion, Mr. Cushing, also of Cleveland, and six or eight
young students who had come well provided with instruments to study the
glacier. They landed seven or eight tons of freight and pitched camp
beside ours. I am delighted to have companions so congenial—we have now
a village.

As I set out to climb the second mountain, three thousand feet high, on
the east side of the glacier, I met many tourists returning from a walk
on the smooth east margin of the glacier, and had to answer many
questions. I had a hard climb, but wonderful views were developed and I
sketched the glacier from this high point and most of its upper
fountains.

Many fine alpine plants grew here, an anemone on the summit, two
species of cassiope in shaggy mats, three or four dwarf willows, large
blue hairy lupines eighteen inches high, parnassia, phlox, solidago,
dandelion, white-flowered bryanthus, daisy, pedicularis, epilobium,
etc., with grasses, sedges, mosses, and lichens, forming a delightful
deep spongy sod. Woodchucks stood erect and piped dolefully for an hour
“Chee-chee!” with jaws absurdly stretched to emit so thin a
note—rusty-looking, seedy fellows, also a smaller striped species which
stood erect and cheeped and whistled like a Douglas squirrel. I saw
three or four species of birds. A finch flew from her nest at my feet;
and I almost stepped on a family of young ptarmigan ere they scattered,
little bunches of downy brown silk, small but able to run well. They
scattered along a snow-bank, over boulders, through willows, grass, and
flowers, while the mother, very lame, tumbled and sprawled at my feet.
I stood still until the little ones began to peep; the mother answered
“Too-too-too” and showed admirable judgment and devotion. She was in
brown plumage with white on the wing primaries. She had fine grounds on
which to lead and feed her young.

Not a cloud in the sky to-day; a faint film to the north vanished by
noon, leaving all the sky full of soft, hazy light. The magnificent
mountains around the widespread tributaries of the glacier; the great,
gently undulating, prairie-like expanse of the main trunk, bluish on
the east, pure white on the west and north; its trains of moraines in
magnificent curving lines and many colors—black, gray, red, and brown;
the stormy, cataract-like, crevassed sections; the hundred fountains;
the lofty, pure white Fairweather Range; the thunder of the plunging
bergs; the fleet of bergs sailing tranquilly in the inlet—formed a
glowing picture of nature’s beauty and power.

_July 2_. I crossed the inlet with Mr. Reid and Mr. Adams to-day. The
stratified drift on the west side all the way from top to base contains
fossil wood. On the east side, as far as I have seen it, the wood
occurs only in one stratum at a height of about a hundred and twenty
feet in sand and clay. Some in a bank of the west side are rooted in
clay soil. I noticed a large grove of stumps in a washed-out channel
near the glacier-front but had no time to examine closely. Evidently a
flood carrying great quantities of sand and gravel had overwhelmed and
broken off these trees, leaving high stumps. The deposit, about a
hundred feet or more above them, had been recently washed out by one of
the draining streams of the glacier, exposing a part of the old forest
floor certainly two or three centuries old.

I climbed along the right bank of the lowest of the tributaries and set
a signal flag on a ridge fourteen hundred feet high. This tributary is
about one and a fourth or one and a half miles wide and has four
secondary tributaries. It reaches tide-water but gives off no bergs.
Later I climbed the large Nunatak Island, seven thousand feet high,
near the west margin of the glacier. It is composed of crumbling
granite draggled with washed boulders, but has some enduring bosses
which on sides and top are polished and scored rigidly, showing that it
had been heavily overswept by the glacier when it was thousands of feet
deeper than now, like a submerged boulder in a river-channel. This
island is very irregular in form, owing to the variations in the
structure joints of the granite. It has several small lakelets and has
been loaded with glacial drift, but by the melting of the ice about its
flanks is shedding it off, together with some of its own crumbling
surface. I descended a deep rock gully on the north side, the rawest,
dirtiest, dustiest, most dangerous that I have seen hereabouts. There
is also a large quantity of fossil wood scattered on this island,
especially on the north side, that on the south side having been
cleared off and carried away by the first tributary glacier, which,
being lower and melting earlier, has allowed the soil of the moraine
material to fall, together with its forest, and be carried off. That on
the north side is now being carried off or buried. The last of the main
ice foundation is melting and the moraine material re-formed over and
over again, and the fallen tree-trunks, decayed or half decayed or in a
fair state of preservation, are also unburied and buried again or
carried off to the terminal or lateral moraine.

I found three small seedling Sitka spruces, feeble beginnings of a new
forest. The circumference of the island is about seven miles. I arrived
at camp about midnight, tired and cold. Sailing across the inlet in a
cranky rotten boat through the midst of icebergs was dangerous, and I
was glad to get ashore.

_July 4_. I climbed the east wall to the summit, about thirty-one
hundred feet or so, by the northernmost ravine next to the yellow
ridge, finding about a mile of snow in the upper portion of the ravine
and patches on the summit. A few of the patches probably lie all the
year, the ground beneath them is so plantless. On the edge of some of
the snow-banks I noticed cassiope. The thin, green, mosslike patches
seen from camp are composed of a rich, shaggy growth of cassiope,
white-flowered bryanthus, dwarf vaccinium with bright pink flowers,
saxifrages, anemones, bluebells, gentians, small erigeron, pedicularis,
dwarf-willow and a few species of grasses. Of these, _Cassiope
tetragona_ is far the most influential and beautiful. Here it forms
mats a foot thick and an acre or more in area, the sections being
measured by the size and drainage of the soil-patches. I saw a few
plants anchored in the less crumbling parts of the steep-faced bosses
and steps—parnassia, potentilla, hedysarum, lutkea, etc. The lower,
rough-looking patches half way up the mountain are mostly alder bushes
ten or fifteen feet high. I had a fine view of the top of the
mountain-mass which forms the boundary wall of the upper portion of the
inlet on the west side, and of several glaciers, tributary to the first
of the eastern tributaries of the main Muir Glacier. Five or six of
these tributaries were seen, most of them now melted off from the trunk
and independent. The highest peak to the eastward has an elevation of
about five thousand feet or a little less. I also had glorious views of
the Fairweather Range, La Pérouse, Crillon, Lituya, and Fairweather.
Mt. Fairweather is the most beautiful of all the giants that stand
guard about Glacier Bay. When the sun is shining on it from the east or
south its magnificent glaciers and colors are brought out in most
telling display. In the late afternoon its features become less
distinct. The atmosphere seems pale and hazy, though around to the
north and northeastward of Fairweather innumerable white peaks are
displayed, the highest fountain-heads of the Muir Glacier crowded
together in bewildering array, most exciting and inviting to the
mountaineer. Altogether I have had a delightful day, a truly glorious
celebration of the fourth.

_July 6_. I sailed three or four miles down the east coast of the inlet
with the Reid party’s cook, who is supposed to be an experienced camper
and prospector, and landed at a stratified moraine-bank. It was here
that I camped in 1880, a point at that time less than half a mile from
the front of the glacier, now one and a half miles. I found my Indian’s
old camp made just ten years ago, and Professor Wright’s of five years
ago. Their alder-bough beds and fireplace were still marked and but
little decayed. I found thirty-three species of plants in flower, not
counting willows—a showy garden on the shore only a few feet above high
tide, watered by a fine stream. Lutkea, hedysarum, parnassia,
epilobium, bluebell, solidago, habenaria, strawberry with fruit half
grown, arctostaphylos, mertensia, erigeron, willows, tall grasses and
alder are the principal species. There are many butterflies in this
garden. Gulls are breeding near here. I saw young in the water to-day.

On my way back to camp I discovered a group of monumental stumps in a
washed-out valley of the moraine and went ashore to observe them. They
are in the dry course of a flood-channel about eighty feet above mean
tide and four or five hundred yards back from the shore, where they
have been pounded and battered by boulders rolling against them and
over them, making them look like gigantic shaving-brushes. The largest
is about three feet in diameter and probably three hundred years old. I
mean to return and examine them at leisure. A smaller stump, still
firmly rooted, is standing astride of an old crumbling trunk, showing
that at least two generations of trees flourished here undisturbed by
the advance or retreat of the glacier or by its draining stream-floods.
They are Sitka spruces and the wood is mostly in a good state of
preservation. How these trees were broken off without being uprooted is
dark to me at present. Perhaps most of their companions were up rooted
and carried away.

[Illustration: Ruins of Buried Forest, East Side of Muir Glacier.]

_July 7_. Another fine day; scarce a cloud in the sky. The icebergs in
the bay are miraged in the distance to look like the frontal wall of a
great glacier. I am writing letters in anticipation of the next
steamer, the Queen.

She arrived about 2.30 P.M. with two hundred and thirty tourists. What
a show they made with their ribbons and kodaks! All seemed happy and
enthusiastic, though it was curious to see how promptly all of them
ceased gazing when the dinner-bell rang, and how many turned from the
great thundering crystal world of ice to look curiously at the Indians
that came alongside to sell trinkets, and how our little camp and
kitchen arrangements excited so many to loiter and waste their precious
time prying into our poor hut.

_July 8_. A fine clear day. I went up the glacier to observe stakes and
found that a marked point near the middle of the current had flowed
about a hundred feet in eight days. On the medial moraine one mile from
the front there was no measureable displacement. I found a raven
devouring a tom-cod that was alive on a shallow at the mouth of the
creek. It had probably been wounded by a seal or eagle.

_July 10_. I have been getting acquainted with the main features of the
glacier and its fountain mountains with reference to an exploration of
its main tributaries and the upper part of its prairie-like trunk, a
trip I have long had in mind. I have been building a sled and must now
get fully ready to start without reference to the weather. Yesterday
evening I saw a large blue berg just as it was detached sliding down
from the front. Two of Professor Reid’s party rowed out to it as it
sailed past the camp, estimating it to be two hundred and forty feet in
length and one hundred feet high.




Chapter XVIII
My Sled-Trip on the Muir Glacier


I started off the morning of July 11 on my memorable sled-trip to
obtain general views of the main upper part of the Muir Glacier and its
seven principal tributaries, feeling sure that I would learn something
and at the same time get rid of a severe bronchial cough that followed
an attack of the grippe and had troubled me for three months. I
intended to camp on the glacier every night, and did so, and my throat
grew better every day until it was well, for no lowland microbe could
stand such a trip. My sled was about three feet long and made as light
as possible. A sack of hardtack, a little tea and sugar, and a
sleeping-bag were firmly lashed on it so that nothing could drop off
however much it might be jarred and dangled in crossing crevasses.

Two Indians carried the baggage over the rocky moraine to the clear
glacier at the side of one of the eastern Nunatak Islands. Mr. Loomis
accompanied me to this first camp and assisted in dragging the empty
sled over the moraine. We arrived at the middle Nunatak Island about
nine o’clock. Here I sent back my Indian carriers, and Mr. Loomis
assisted me the first day in hauling the loaded sled to my second camp
at the foot of Hemlock Mountain, returning the next morning.

_July 13_. I skirted the mountain to eastward a few miles and was
delighted to discover a group of trees high up on its ragged rocky
side, the first trees I had seen on the shores of Glacier Bay or on
those of any of its glaciers. I left my sled on the ice and climbed the
mountain to see what I might learn. I found that all the trees were
mountain hemlock (_Tsuga mertensiana_), and were evidently the remnant
of an old well-established forest, standing on the only ground that was
stable, all the rest of the forest below it having been sloughed off
with the soil from the disintegrating slate bed rock. The lowest of the
trees stood at an elevation of about two thousand feet above the sea,
the highest at about three thousand feet or a little higher. Nothing
could be more striking than the contrast between the raw, crumbling,
deforested portions of the mountain, looking like a quarry that was
being worked, and the forested part with its rich, shaggy beds of
cassiope and bryanthus in full bloom, and its sumptuous cushions of
flower-enameled mosses. These garden-patches are full of gay colors of
gentian, erigeron, anemone, larkspur, and columbine, and are enlivened
with happy birds and bees and marmots. Climbing to an elevation of
twenty-five hundred feet, which is about fifteen hundred feet above the
level of the glacier at this point, I saw and heard a few marmots, and
three ptarmigans that were as tame as barnyard fowls. The sod is
sloughing off on the edges, keeping it ragged. The trees are storm-bent
from the southeast. A few are standing at an elevation of nearly three
thousand feet; at twenty-five hundred feet, pyrola, veratrum,
vaccinium, fine grasses, sedges, willows, mountain-ash, buttercups, and
acres of the most luxuriant cassiope are in bloom.

A lake encumbered with icebergs lies at the end of Divide Glacier. A
spacious, level-floored valley beyond it, eight or ten miles long, with
forested mountains on its west side, perhaps discharges to the
southeastward into Lynn Canal. The divide of the glacier is about
opposite the third of the eastern tributaries. Another berg-dotted lake
into which the drainage of the Braided Glacier flows, lies a few miles
to the westward and is one and a half miles long. Berg Lake is next the
remarkable Girdled Glacier to the southeastward.

When the ice-period was in its prime, much of the Muir Glacier that now
flows northward into Howling Valley flowed southward into Glacier Bay
as a tributary of the Muir. All the rock contours show this, and so do
the medial moraines. Berg Lake is crowded with bergs because they have
no outlet and melt slowly. I heard none discharged. I had a hard time
crossing the Divide Glacier, on which I camped. Half a mile back from
the lake I gleaned a little fossil wood and made a fire on moraine
boulders for tea. I slept fairly well on the sled. I heard the roar of
four cascades on a shaggy green mountain on the west side of Howling
Valley and saw three wild goats fifteen hundred feet up in the steep
grassy pastures.

_July 14_. I rose at four o’clock this cloudy and dismal morning and
looked for my goats, but saw only one. I thought there must be wolves
where there were goats, and in a few minutes heard their low, dismal,
far-reaching howling. One of them sounded very near and came nearer
until it seemed to be less than a quarter of a mile away on the edge of
the glacier. They had evidently seen me, and one or more had come down
to observe me, but I was unable to catch sight of any of them. About
half an hour later, while I was eating breakfast, they began howling
again, so near I began to fear they had a mind to attack me, and I made
haste to the shelter of a big square boulder, where, though I had no
gun, I might be able to defend myself from a front attack with my
alpenstock. After waiting half an hour or so to see what these wild
dogs meant to do, I ventured to proceed on my journey to the foot of
Snow Dome, where I camped for the night.

There are six tributaries on the northwest side of Divide arm, counting
to the Gray Glacier, next after Granite Cañon Glacier going northwest.
Next is Dirt Glacier, which is dead. I saw bergs on the edge of the
main glacier a mile back from here which seem to have been left by the
draining of a pool in a sunken hollow. A circling rim of driftwood,
back twenty rods on the glacier, marks the edge of the lakelet shore
where the bergs lie scattered and stranded. It is now half past ten
o’clock and getting dusk as I sit by my little fossil-wood fire writing
these notes. A strange bird is calling and complaining. A stream is
rushing into a glacier well on the edge of which I am camped, back a
few yards from the base of the mountain for fear of falling stones. A
few small ones are rattling down the steep slope. I must go to bed.

_July 15_. I climbed the dome to plan a way, scan the glacier, and take
bearings, etc., in case of storms. The main divide is about fifteen
hundred feet; the second divide, about fifteen hundred also, is about
one and one half miles southeastward. The flow of water on the glacier
noticeably diminished last night though there was no frost. It is now
already increasing. Stones begin to roll into the crevasses and into
new positions, sliding against each other, half turning over or falling
on moraine ridges. Mud pellets with small pebbles slip and roll slowly
from ice-hummocks again and again. How often and by how many ways are
boulders finished and finally brought to anything like permanent form
and place in beds for farms and fields, forests and gardens. Into
crevasses and out again, into moraines, shifted and reinforced and
reformed by avalanches, melting from pedestals, etc. Rain, frost, and
dew help in the work; they are swept in rills, caught and ground in
pot-hole mills. Moraines of washed pebbles, like those on glacier
margins, are formed by snow avalanches deposited in crevasses, then
weathered out and projected on the ice as shallow raised moraines.
There is one such at this camp.

A ptarmigan is on a rock twenty yards distant, as if on show. It has
red over the eye, a white line, not conspicuous, over the red, belly
white, white markings over the upper parts on ground of brown and black
wings, mostly white as seen when flying, but the coverts the same as
the rest of the body. Only about three inches of the folded primaries
show white. The breast seems to have golden iridescent colors, white
under the wings. It allowed me to approach within twenty feet. It
walked down a sixty degree slope of the rock, took flight with a few
whirring wing-beats, then sailed with wings perfectly motionless four
hundred yards down a gentle grade, and vanished over the brow of a
cliff. Ten days ago Loomis told me that he found a nest with nine eggs.
On the way down to my sled I saw four more ptarmigans. They utter harsh
notes when alarmed. “Crack, chuck, crack,” with the _r_ rolled and
prolonged. I also saw fresh and old goat-tracks and some bones that
suggest wolves.

There is a pass through the mountains at the head of the third glacier.
Fine mountains stand at the head on each side. The one on the northeast
side is the higher and finer every way. It has three glaciers,
tributary to the third. The third glacier has altogether ten
tributaries, five on each side. The mountain on the left side of White
Glacier is about six thousand feet high. The moraines of Girdled
Glacier seem scarce to run anywhere. Only a little material is carried
to Berg Lake. Most of it seems to be at rest as a terminal on the main
glacier-field, which here has little motion. The curves of these last
as seen from this mountain-top are very beautiful.

It has been a glorious day, all pure sunshine. An hour or more before
sunset the distant mountains, a vast host, seemed more softly ethereal
than ever, pale blue, ineffably fine, all angles and harshness melted
off in the soft evening light. Even the snow and the grinding,
cascading glaciers became divinely tender and fine in this celestial
amethystine light. I got back to camp at 7.15, not tired. After my
hardtack supper I could have climbed the mountain again and got back
before sunrise, but dragging the sled tires me. I have been out on the
glacier examining a moraine-like mass about a third of a mile from
camp. It is perhaps a mile long, a hundred yards wide, and is thickly
strewn with wood. I think that it has been brought down the mountain by
a heavy snow avalanche, loaded on the ice, then carried away from the
shore in the direction of the flow of the glacier. This explains
detached moraine-masses. This one seems to have been derived from a big
roomy cirque or amphitheatre on the northwest side of this Snow Dome
Mountain.

To shorten the return journey I was tempted to glissade down what
appeared to be a snow-filled ravine, which was very steep. All went
well until I reached a bluish spot which proved to be ice, on which I
lost control of myself and rolled into a gravel talus at the foot
without a scratch. Just as I got up and was getting myself orientated,
I heard a loud fierce scream, uttered in an exulting, diabolical tone
of voice which startled me, as if an enemy, having seen me fall, was
glorying in my death. Then suddenly two ravens came swooping from the
sky and alighted on the jag of a rock within a few feet of me,
evidently hoping that I had been maimed and that they were going to
have a feast. But as they stared at me, studying my condition,
impatiently waiting for bone-picking time, I saw what they were up to
and shouted, “Not yet, not yet!”

_July 16_. At 7 A.M. I left camp to cross the main glacier. Six ravens
came to the camp as soon as I left. What wonderful eyes they must have!
Nothing that moves in all this icy wilderness escapes the eyes of these
brave birds. This is one of the loveliest mornings I ever saw in
Alaska; not a cloud or faintest hint of one in all the wide sky. There
is a yellowish haze in the east, white in the west, mild and mellow as
a Wisconsin Indian Summer, but finer, more ethereal, God’s holy light
making all divine.

In an hour or so I came to the confluence of the first of the seven
grand tributaries of the main Muir Glacier and had a glorious view of
it as it comes sweeping down in wild cascades from its magnificent,
pure white, mountain-girt basin to join the main crystal sea, its many
fountain peaks, clustered and crowded, all pouring forth their tribute
to swell its grand current. I crossed its front a little below its
confluence, where its shattered current, about two or three miles wide,
is reunited, and many rills and good-sized brooks glide gurgling and
ringing in pure blue channels, giving delightful animation to the icy
solitude.

Most of the ice-surface crossed to-day has been very uneven, and
hauling the sled and finding a way over hummocks has been fatiguing. At
times I had to lift the sled bodily and to cross many narrow,
nerve-trying, ice-sliver bridges, balancing astride of them, and
cautiously shoving the sled ahead of me with tremendous chasms on
either side. I had made perhaps not more than six or eight miles in a
straight line by six o’clock this evening when I reached ice so
hummocky and tedious I concluded to camp and not try to take the sled
any farther. I intend to leave it here in the middle of the basin and
carry my sleeping-bag and provisions the rest of the way across to the
west side. I am cozy and comfortable here resting in the midst of
glorious icy scenery, though very tired. I made out to get a cup of tea
by means of a few shavings and splinters whittled from the bottom board
of my sled, and made a fire in a little can, a small campfire, the
smallest I ever made or saw, yet it answered well enough as far as tea
was concerned. I crept into my sack before eight o’clock as the wind
was cold and my feet wet. One of my shoes is about worn out. I may have
to put on a wooden sole. This day has been cloudless throughout, with
lovely sunshine, a purple evening and morning. The circumference of
mountains beheld from the midst of this world of ice is marvelous, the
vast plain reposing in such soft tender light, the fountain mountains
so clearly cut, holding themselves aloft with their loads of ice in
supreme strength and beauty of architecture. I found a skull and most
of the other bones of a goat on the glacier about two miles from the
nearest land. It had probably been chased out of its mountain home by
wolves and devoured here. I carried its horns with me. I saw many
considerable depressions in the glacial surface, also a pitlike hole,
irregular, not like the ordinary wells along the slope of the many
small dirt-clad hillocks, faced to the south. Now the sun is down and
the sky is saffron yellow, blending and fading into purple around to
the south and north. It is a curious experience to be lying in bed
writing these notes, hummock waves rising in every direction, their
edges marking a multitude of crevasses and pits, while all around the
horizon rise peaks innumerable of most intricate style of architecture.
Solemnly growling and grinding moulins contrast with the sweet
low-voiced whispering and warbling of a network of rills, singing like
water-ouzels, glinting, gliding with indescribable softness and
sweetness of voice. They are all around, one within a few feet of my
hard sled bed.

_July 17_. Another glorious cloudless day is dawning in yellow and
purple and soon the sun over the eastern peak will blot out the blue
peak shadows and make all the vast white ice prairie sparkle. I slept
well last night in the middle of the icy sea. The wind was cold but my
sleeping-bag enabled me to lie neither warm nor intolerably cold. My
three-months cough is gone. Strange that with such work and exposure
one should know nothing of sore throats and of what are called colds.
My heavy, thick-soled shoes, resoled just before starting on the trip
six days ago, are about worn out and my feet have been wet every night.
But no harm comes of it, nothing but good. I succeeded in getting a
warm breakfast in bed. I reached over the edge of my sled, got hold of
a small cedar stick that I had been carrying, whittled a lot of thin
shavings from it, stored them on my breast, then set fire to a piece of
paper in a shallow tin can, added a pinch of shavings, held the cup of
water that always stood at my bedside over the tiny blaze with one
hand, and fed the fire by adding little pinches of shavings until the
water boiled, then pulling my bread sack within reach, made a good warm
breakfast, cooked and eaten in bed. Thus refreshed, I surveyed the
wilderness of crevassed, hummocky ice and concluded to try to drag my
little sled a mile or two farther, then, finding encouragement,
persevered, getting it across innumerable crevasses and streams and
around several lakes and over and through the midst of hummocks, and at
length reached the western shore between five and six o’clock this
evening, extremely fatigued. This I consider a hard job well done,
crossing so wildly broken a glacier, fifteen miles of it from Snow Dome
Mountain, in two days with a sled weighing altogether not less than a
hundred pounds. I found innumerable crevasses, some of them brimful of
water. I crossed in most places just where the ice was close pressed
and welded after descending cascades and was being shoved over an
upward slope, thus closing the crevasses at the bottom, leaving only
the upper sun-melted beveled portion open for water to collect in.

Vast must be the drainage from this great basin. The waste in sunshine
must be enormous, while in dark weather rains and winds also melt the
ice and add to the volume produced by the rain itself. The winds also,
though in temperature they may be only a degree or two above
freezing-point, dissolve the ice as fast, or perhaps faster, than clear
sunshine. Much of the water caught in tight crevasses doubtless freezes
during the winter and gives rise to many of the irregular veins seen in
the structure of the glacier. Saturated snow also freezes at times and
is incorporated with the ice, as only from the lower part of the
glacier is the snow melted during the summer. I have noticed many
traces of this action. One of the most beautiful things to be seen on
the glacier is the myriads of minute and intensely brilliant radiant
lights burning in rows on the banks of streams and pools and lakelets
from the tips of crystals melting in the sun, making them look as if
bordered with diamonds. These gems are rayed like stars and twinkle; no
diamond radiates keener or more brilliant light. It was perfectly
glorious to think of this divine light burning over all this vast
crystal sea in such ineffably fine effulgence, and over how many other
of icy Alaska’s glaciers where nobody sees it. To produce these effects
I fancy the ice must be melting rapidly, as it was being melted to-day.
The ice in these pools does not melt with anything like an even
surface, but in long branches and leaves, making fairy forests of
points, while minute bubbles of air are constantly being set free. I am
camped to-night on what I call Quarry Mountain from its raw, loose,
plantless condition, seven or eight miles above the front of the
glacier. I found enough fossil wood for tea. Glorious is the view to
the eastward from this camp. The sun has set, a few clouds appear, and
a torrent rushing down a gully and under the edge of the glacier is
making a solemn roaring. No tinkling, whistling rills this night. Ever
and anon I hear a falling boulder. I have had a glorious and
instructive day, but am excessively weary and to bed I go.

_July 18_. I felt tired this morning and meant to rest to-day. But
after breakfast at 8 A.M. I felt I must be up and doing, climbing,
sketching new views up the great tributaries from the top of Quarry
Mountain. Weariness vanished and I could have climbed, I think, five
thousand feet. Anything seems easy after sled-dragging over hummocks
and crevasses, and the constant nerve-strain in jumping crevasses so as
not to slip in making the spring. Quarry Mountain is the barest I have
seen, a raw quarry with infinite abundance of loose decaying granite
all on the go. Its slopes are excessively steep. A few patches of
epilobium make gay purple spots of color. Its seeds fly everywhere
seeking homes. Quarry Mountain is cut across into a series of parallel
ridges by oversweeping ice. It is still overswept in three places by
glacial flows a half to three quarters of a mile wide, finely arched at
the top of the divides. I have been sketching, though my eyes are much
inflamed and I can scarce see. All the lines I make appear double. I
fear I shall not be able to make the few more sketches I want
to-morrow, but must try. The day has been gloriously sunful, the
glacier pale yellow toward five o’clock. The hazy air, white with a
yellow tinge, gives an Indian-summerish effect. Now the blue evening
shadows are creeping out over the icy plain, some ten miles long, with
sunny yellow belts between them. Boulders fall now and again with dull,
blunt booming, and the gravel pebbles rattle.

_July 19_. Nearly blind. The light is intolerable and I fear I may be
long unfitted for work. I have been lying on my back all day with a
snow poultice bound over my eyes. Every object I try to look at seems
double; even the distant mountain-ranges are doubled, the upper an
exact copy of the lower, though somewhat faint. This is the first time
in Alaska that I have had too much sunshine. About four o’clock this
afternoon, when I was waiting for the evening shadows to enable me to
get nearer the main camp, where I could be more easily found in case my
eyes should become still more inflamed and I should be unable to
travel, thin clouds cast a grateful shade over all the glowing
landscape. I gladly took advantage of these kindly clouds to make an
effort to cross the few miles of the glacier that lay between me and
the shore of the inlet. I made a pair of goggles but am afraid to wear
them. Fortunately the ice here is but little broken, therefore I pulled
my cap well down and set off about five o’clock. I got on pretty well
and camped on the glacier in sight of the main camp, which from here in
a straight line is only five or six miles away. I went ashore on
Granite Island and gleaned a little fossil wood with which I made tea
on the ice.

_July 20_. I kept wet bandages on my eyes last night as long as I
could, and feel better this morning, but all the mountains still seem
to have double summits, giving a curiously unreal aspect to the
landscape. I packed everything on the sled and moved three miles
farther down the glacier, where I want to make measurements. Twice
to-day I was visited on the ice by a hummingbird, attracted by the red
lining of the bear-skin sleeping-bag.

I have gained some light on the formation of gravel-beds along the
inlet. The material is mostly sifted and sorted by successive railings
and washings along the margins of the glacier-tributaries, where the
supply is abundant beyond anything I ever saw elsewhere. The lowering
of the surface of a glacier when its walls are not too steep leaves a
part of the margin dead and buried and protected from the wasting
sunshine beneath the lateral moraines. Thus a marginal valley is
formed, clear ice on one side, or nearly so, buried ice on the other.
As melting goes on, the marginal trough, or valley, grows deeper and
wider, since both sides are being melted, the land side slower. The
dead, protected ice in melting first sheds off the large boulders, as
they are not able to lie on slopes where smaller ones can. Then the
next larger ones are rolled off, and pebbles and sand in succession.
Meanwhile this material is subjected to torrent-action, as if it were
cast into a trough. When floods come it is carried forward and
stratified, according to the force of the current, sand, mud, or larger
material. This exposes fresh surfaces of ice and melting goes on again,
until enough material has been undermined to form a veil in front; then
follows another washing and carrying-away and depositing where the
current is allowed to spread. In melting, protected margin terraces are
oftentimes formed. Perhaps these terraces mark successive heights of
the glacial surface. From terrace to terrace the grist of stone is
rolled and sifted. Some, meeting only feeble streams, have only the
fine particles carried away and deposited in smooth beds; others,
coarser, from swifter streams, overspread the fine beds, while many of
the large boulders no doubt roll back upon the glacier to go on their
travels again.

It has been cloudy mostly to-day, though sunny in the afternoon, and my
eyes are getting better. The steamer Queen is expected in a day or two,
so I must try to get down to the inlet to-morrow and make signal to
have some of the Reid party ferry me over. I must hear from home, write
letters, get rest and more to eat.

Near the front of the glacier the ice was perfectly free, apparently,
of anything like a crevasse, and in walking almost carelessly down it I
stopped opposite the large granite Nunatak Island, thinking that I
would there be partly sheltered from the wind. I had not gone a dozen
steps toward the island when I suddenly dropped into a concealed
water-filled crevasse, which on the surface showed not the slightest
sign of its existence. This crevasse like many others was being used as
the channel of a stream, and at some narrow point the small cubical
masses of ice into which the glacier surface disintegrates were jammed
and extended back farther and farther till they completely covered and
concealed the water. Into this I suddenly plunged, after crossing
thousands of really dangerous crevasses, but never before had I
encountered a danger so completely concealed. Down I plunged over head
and ears, but of course bobbed up again, and after a hard struggle
succeeded in dragging myself out over the farther side. Then I pulled
my sled over close to Nunatak cliff, made haste to strip off my
clothing, threw it in a sloppy heap and crept into my sleeping-bag to
shiver away the night as best I could.

_July 21_. Dressing this rainy morning was a miserable job, but might
have been worse. After wringing my sloppy underclothing, getting it on
was far from pleasant. My eyes are better and I feel no bad effect from
my icy bath. The last trace of my three months’ cough is gone. No
lowland grippe microbe could survive such experiences.

I have had a fine telling day examining the ruins of the old forest of
Sitka spruce that no great time ago grew in a shallow mud-filled basin
near the southwest corner of the glacier. The trees were protected by a
spur of the mountain that puts out here, and when the glacier advanced
they were simply flooded with fine sand and overborne. Stumps by the
hundred, three to fifteen feet high, rooted in a stream of fine blue
mud on cobbles, still have their bark on. A stratum of decomposed bark,
leaves, cones, and old trunks is still in place. Some of the stumps are
on rocky ridges of gravelly soil about one hundred and twenty-five feet
above the sea. The valley has been washed out by the stream now
occupying it, one of the glacier’s draining streams a mile long or more
and an eighth of a mile wide.

I got supper early and was just going to bed, when I was startled by
seeing a man coming across the moraine, Professor Reid, who had seen me
from the main camp and who came with Mr. Loomis and the cook in their
boat to ferry me over. I had not intended making signals for them until
to-morrow but was glad to go. I had been seen also by Mr. Case and one
of his companions, who were on the western mountain-side above the
fossil forest, shooting ptarmigans. I had a good rest and sleep and
leisure to find out how rich I was in new facts and pictures and how
tired and hungry I was.




Chapter XIX
Auroras


A few days later I set out with Professor Reid’s party to visit some of
the other large glaciers that flow into the bay, to observe what
changes have taken place in them since October, 1879, when I first
visited and sketched them. We found the upper half of the bay closely
choked with bergs, through which it was exceedingly difficult to force
a way. After slowly struggling a few miles up the east side, we dragged
the whale-boat and canoe over rough rocks into a fine garden and
comfortably camped for the night.

[Illustration: Floating Iceberg, Taku Inlet.]

The next day was spent in cautiously picking a way across to the west
side of the bay; and as the strangely scanty stock of provisions was
already about done, and the ice-jam to the northward seemed
impenetrable, the party decided to return to the main camp by a
comparatively open, roundabout way to the southward, while with the
canoe and a handful of food-scraps I pushed on northward. After a hard,
anxious struggle, I reached the mouth of the Hugh Miller fiord about
sundown, and tried to find a camp-spot on its steep, boulder-bound
shore. But no landing-place where it seemed possible to drag the canoe
above high-tide mark was discovered after examining a mile or more of
this dreary, forbidding barrier, and as night was closing down, I
decided to try to grope my way across the mouth of the fiord in the
starlight to an open sandy spot on which I had camped in October, 1879,
a distance of about three or four miles.

With the utmost caution I picked my way through the sparkling bergs,
and after an hour or two of this nerve-trying work, when I was perhaps
less than halfway across and dreading the loss of the frail canoe which
would include the loss of myself, I came to a pack of very large bergs
which loomed threateningly, offering no visible thoroughfare. Paddling
and pushing to right and left, I at last discovered a sheer-walled
opening about four feet wide and perhaps two hundred feet long, formed
apparently by the splitting of a huge iceberg. I hesitated to enter
this passage, fearing that the slightest change in the tide-current
might close it, but ventured nevertheless, judging that the dangers
ahead might not be greater than those I had already passed. When I had
got about a third of the way in, I suddenly discovered that the
smooth-walled ice-lane was growing narrower, and with desperate haste
backed out. Just as the bow of the canoe cleared the sheer walls they
came together with a growling crunch. Terror-stricken, I turned back,
and in an anxious hour or two gladly reached the rock-bound shore that
had at first repelled me, determined to stay on guard all night in the
canoe or find some place where with the strength that comes in a fight
for life I could drag it up the boulder wall beyond ice danger. This at
last was happily done about midnight, and with no thought of sleep I
went to bed rejoicing.

My bed was two boulders, and as I lay wedged and bent on their
up-bulging sides, beguiling the hard, cold time in gazing into the
starry sky and across the sparkling bay, magnificent upright bars of
light in bright prismatic colors suddenly appeared, marching swiftly in
close succession along the northern horizon from west to east as if in
diligent haste, an auroral display very different from any I had ever
before beheld. Once long ago in Wisconsin I saw the heavens draped in
rich purple auroral clouds fringed and folded in most magnificent
forms; but in this glory of light, so pure, so bright, so enthusiastic
in motion, there was nothing in the least cloud-like. The short
color-bars, apparently about two degrees in height, though blending,
seemed to be as well defined as those of the solar spectrum.

How long these glad, eager soldiers of light held on their way I cannot
tell; for sense of time was charmed out of mind and the blessed night
circled away in measureless rejoicing enthusiasm.

In the early morning after so inspiring a night I launched my canoe
feeling able for anything, crossed the mouth of the Hugh Miller fiord,
and forced a way three or four miles along the shore of the bay, hoping
to reach the Grand Pacific Glacier in front of Mt. Fairweather. But the
farther I went, the ice-pack, instead of showing inviting little open
streaks here and there, became so much harder jammed that on some parts
of the shore the bergs, drifting south with the tide, were shoving one
another out of the water beyond high-tide line. Farther progress to
northward was thus rigidly stopped, and now I had to fight for a way
back to my cabin, hoping that by good tide luck I might reach it before
dark. But at sundown I was less than half-way home, and though very
hungry was glad to land on a little rock island with a smooth beach for
the canoe and a thicket of alder bushes for fire and bed and a little
sleep. But shortly after sundown, while these arrangements were being
made, lo and behold another aurora enriching the heavens! and though it
proved to be one of the ordinary almost colorless kind, thrusting long,
quivering lances toward the zenith from a dark cloudlike base, after
last night’s wonderful display one’s expectations might well be
extravagant and I lay wide awake watching.

On the third night I reached my cabin and food. Professor Reid and his
party came in to talk over the results of our excursions, and just as
the last one of the visitors opened the door after bidding good-night,
he shouted, “Muir, come look here. Here’s something fine.”

I ran out in auroral excitement, and sure enough here was another
aurora, as novel and wonderful as the marching rainbow-colored
columns—a glowing silver bow spanning the Muir Inlet in a magnificent
arch right under the zenith, or a little to the south of it, the ends
resting on the top of the mountain-walls. And though colorless and
steadfast, its intense, solid, white splendor, noble proportions, and
fineness of finish excited boundless admiration. In form and proportion
it was like a rainbow, a bridge of one span five miles wide; and so
brilliant, so fine and solid and homogeneous in every part, I fancy
that if all the stars were raked together into one windrow, fused and
welded and run through some celestial rolling-mill, all would be
required to make this one glowing white colossal bridge.

After my last visitor went to bed, I lay down on the moraine in front
of the cabin and gazed and watched. Hour after hour the wonderful arch
stood perfectly motionless, sharply defined and substantial-looking as
if it were a permanent addition to the furniture of the sky. At length
while it yet spanned the inlet in serene unchanging splendor, a band of
fluffy, pale gray, quivering ringlets came suddenly all in a row over
the eastern mountain-top, glided in nervous haste up and down the under
side of the bow and over the western mountain-wall. They were about one
and a half times the apparent diameter of the bow in length, maintained
a vertical posture all the way across, and slipped swiftly along as if
they were suspended like a curtain on rings. Had these lively auroral
fairies marched across the fiord on the top of the bow instead of
shuffling along the under side of it, one might have fancied they were
a happy band of spirit people on a journey making use of the splendid
bow for a bridge. There must have been hundreds of miles of them; for
the time required for each to cross from one end of the bridge to the
other seemed only a minute or less, while nearly an hour elapsed from
their first appearance until the last of the rushing throng vanished
behind the western mountain, leaving the bridge as bright and solid and
steadfast as before they arrived. But later, half an hour or so, it
began to fade. Fissures or cracks crossed it diagonally through which a
few stars were seen, and gradually it became thin and nebulous until it
looked like the Milky Way, and at last vanished, leaving no visible
monument of any sort to mark its place.

I now returned to my cabin, replenished the fire, warmed myself, and
prepared to go to bed, though too aurorally rich and happy to go to
sleep. But just as I was about to retire, I thought I had better take
another look at the sky, to make sure that the glorious show was over;
and, contrary to all reasonable expectations, I found that the pale
foundation for another bow was being laid right overhead like the
first. Then losing all thought of sleep, I ran back to my cabin,
carried out blankets and lay down on the moraine to keep watch until
daybreak, that none of the sky wonders of the glorious night within
reach of my eyes might be lost.

I had seen the first bow when it stood complete in full splendor, and
its gradual fading decay. Now I was to see the building of a new one
from the beginning. Perhaps in less than half an hour the silvery
material was gathered, condensed, and welded into a glowing, evenly
proportioned arc like the first and in the same part of the sky. Then
in due time over the eastern mountain-wall came another throng of
restless electric auroral fairies, the infinitely fine pale-gray
garments of each lightly touching those of their neighbors as they
swept swiftly along the under side of the bridge and down over the
western mountain like the merry band that had gone the same way before
them, all keeping quivery step and time to music too fine for mortal
ears.

While the gay throng was gliding swiftly along, I watched the bridge
for any change they might make upon it, but not the slightest could I
detect. They left no visible track, and after all had passed the
glowing arc stood firm and apparently immutable, but at last faded
slowly away like its glorious predecessor.

Excepting only the vast purple aurora mentioned above, said to have
been visible over nearly all the continent, these two silver bows in
supreme, serene, supernal beauty surpassed everything auroral I ever
beheld.



Glossary of Words in the Chinook Jargon


_Boston_: English.
_Chuck_: Water, stream.
_Deliat_: Very, _or_ very good.
_Friday_: Shoreward.
_Hi yu_: A great quantity of, plenty of.
_Hootchenoo_: A native liquor. _See page 202_.
_Hyas_: Big, very.
_Klosh_: Good.
_Kumtux_: Know, understand.
_Mika_: You, your (_singular_).
_Muck-a-muck_: Food.
_Poogh_: Shoot, shooting.
_Sagh-a-ya_: How do you do?
_Skookum_: Strong.
_Skookum-house_: Jail.
_Tillicum_: Friend.
_Tola_: Lead (_verb_).
_Tucktay_: Seaward.
_Tumtum_: Mind, heart.
_Wawa_: Talk (_noun or verb_).




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