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.
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