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.
