Then the long range of ice-bluffs is plainly seen stretching
through the gloom in weird, unearthly splendor, luminous wave foam
dashing against every bluff and drifting berg; and ever and anon amid
all this wild auroral splendor some huge new-born berg dashes the
living water into yet brighter foam, and the streaming torrents
pouring from its sides are worn as robes of light, while they roar in
awful accord with the winds and waves, deep calling unto deep,
glacier to glacier, from fiord to fiord over all the wonderful bay.
After spending a few days here, we struck across to the main Hoona
village on the south side of Icy Strait, thence by a long cut-off
with one short portage to Chatham Strait, and thence down through
Peril Strait, sailing all night, hoping to catch the mail steamer at
Sitka. We arrived at the head of the strait about daybreak. The tide
was falling, and rushing down with the swift current as if descending
a majestic cataract was a memorable experience. We reached Sitka the
same night, and there I paid and discharged my crew, making allowance
for a couple of days or so for the journey back home to Fort
Wrangell, while I boarded the steamer for Portland and thus ended my
explorations for this season.
Part III
The Trip of 1890
Chapter XVII
In Camp at Glacier Bay
I left San Francisco for Glacier Bay on the steamer City of Pueblo,
June 14, 1890, at 10 A.M., this being my third trip to southeastern
Alaska and fourth to Alaska, including northern and western Alaska as
far as Unalaska and Pt. Barrow and the northeastern coast of Siberia.
The bar at the Golden Gate was smooth, the weather cool and pleasant.
The redwoods in sheltered coves approach the shore closely, their
dwarfed and shorn tops appearing here and there in ravines along the
coast up to Oregon. The wind-swept hills, beaten with scud, are of
course bare of trees. Along the Oregon and Washington coast the trees
get nearer the sea, for spruce and contorted pine endure the briny
winds better than the redwoods. We took the inside passage between
the shore and Race Rocks, a long range of islets on which many a good
ship has been wrecked. The breakers from the deep Pacific, driven by
the gale, made a glorious display of foam on the bald islet rocks,
sending spray over the tops of some of them a hundred feet high or
more in sublime, curving, jagged-edged and flame-shaped sheets. The
gestures of these upspringing, purple-tinged waves as they dashed and
broke were sublime and serene, combining displays of graceful beauty
of motion and form with tremendous power - a truly glorious show. I
noticed several small villages on the green slopes between the
timbered mountains and the shore. Long Beach made quite a display of
new houses along the beach, north of the mouth of the Columbia.
I had pleasant company on the Pueblo and sat at the chief engineer's
table, who was a good and merry talker. An old San Francisco lawyer,
rather stiff and dignified, knew my father-in-law, Dr. Strentzel.
Three ladies, opposed to the pitching of the ship, were absent from
table the greater part of the way. My best talker was an old
Scandinavian sea-captain, who was having a new bark built at Port
Blakely, - an interesting old salt, every sentence of his conversation
flavored with sea-brine, bluff and hearty as a sea-wave, keen-eyed,
courageous, self-reliant, and so stubbornly skeptical he refused to
believe even in glaciers.
"After you see your bark," I said, "and find everything being done to
your mind, you had better go on to Alaska and see the glaciers."
"Oh, I haf seen many glaciers already."
"But are you sure that you know what a glacier is?" I asked.
"Vell, a glacier is a big mountain all covered up vith ice."
"Then a river," said I, "must be a big mountain all covered with
water."
I explained what a glacier was and succeeded in exciting his
interest. I told him he must reform, for a man who neither believed
in God nor glaciers must be very bad, indeed the worst of all
unbelievers.
At Port Townsend I met Mr. Loomis, who had agreed to go with me as
far as the Muir Glacier. We sailed from here on the steamer Queen. We
touched again at Victoria, and I took a short walk into the adjacent
woods and gardens and found the flowery vegetation in its glory,
especially the large wild rose for which the region is famous, and
the spiraea and English honeysuckle of the gardens.
June 18. We sailed from Victoria on the Queen at 10.30 A.M. The
weather all the way to Fort Wrangell was cloudy and rainy, but the
scenery is delightful even in the dullest weather. The marvelous
wealth of forests, islands, and waterfalls, the cloud-wreathed
heights, the many avalanche slopes and slips, the pearl-gray tones of
the sky, the browns of the woods, their purple flower edges and mist
fringes, the endless combinations of water and land and ever-shifting
clouds - none of these greatly interest the tourists. I noticed one of
the small whales that frequent these channels and mentioned the fact,
then called attention to a charming group of islands, but they turned
their eyes from the islands, saying, "Yes, yes, they are very fine,
but where did you see the whale?"
The timber is larger and apparently better every way as you go north
from Victoria, that is on the islands, perhaps on account of fires
from less rain to the southward.
