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.
