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 canyons
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 canyons
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.
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