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.
