USA > Alaska > Alaska, its neglected past, its brilliant future > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
And what place better than Juneau! Already set- tled, already possessing a passable port, and even now mentioned as one of the cities of the United States. Business and pleasure do not often combine so beau- tifully. Here are the ores, the workmen, the tools; and the natives make excellent miners. Here the vessels can come to carry away the fruits of the miners' and stampers' toil. And here nature revels in wild mountain grandeur, in calm valley peaceful- ness and in rushing water music; while now and again messengers from the great glacial fields come sailing down through Gastineau Channel and Taku Inlet, jostling against the grass-draped islands and brushing the long, feathery ferns as they pass.
But we must leave Douglas Island, excusing its stunted flora when we remember the soil from which it springs. We must leave promising little Juneau and the Gastineau Channel, whose waters, fed with gold and debris from glaciers and gulches above, are choked by the accumulation into shoals, and refuse to let us go onward. We must retrace our path to the entrance of the strait before we can proceed north- ward to scenery more charming and wonderful.
CHAPTER XIII.
LYNN CANAL AND CHILKOOT BAY.
I L EAVING Gastineau Channel, and taking a last longing look at Taku Inlet, we steam toward Lynn Canal, in which great and wonderful beauty awaits us. Those who have been there tell us of its scenery, and in anticipation our imagination be -- gins picture making, which, as we glide along, be- comes at first eclipsed and finally effaced by what we behold in bright reality.
Lynn Canal is but the entrance to our lofty Ameri- can Alpine scenery, but even here no land can boast rarer and more startling and contrasting loveliness! Great frowning mountain peaks, bleak as night in some places, in others white with the snow of ages, bear on their sides mimic glaciers-rugged icy masses- rich in emerald and azure tints, and capped with clear- est silver or purest fleecy white, shaded down to azure and brown where the earth and water mingle at their foundations. Surprises greet the eye at every turn. Low, dark evergreens throw their shadows across the gleaming ice and draw their needed moisture from the streams that steal their way through gilded passes. Cascades break upon the view suddenly, as they leap from great rocky heights and plunge with scarcely
94
95
LYNN CANAL AND CHILKOOT BAY.
a sound into the dark waters, which foam for a little space and bubble as they open to receive them. Rivu- lets ripple and glide and glisten on their way and trickle so gently into the black canal that their advent is hardly noticed by the ceaseless waves.
Everywhere ice and snow, water, earth, and sparse but hardy vegetation meet the eye, no two places hav- ing exactly the same formation or combination, yet all to be described by the same defective or defi- cient adjectives.
Here we are in Chilkoot Bay and pressing forward to its terminus, reach by a mile or two the highest point yet passed in former voyages of the steamer, and the most northerly of our trip in this direction. On our right six or eight small waterfalls, keeping company with one of great power and beauty, welcome us to the country of the T'linkets. The shores are sharp, abrupt and rocky. The snow-covered mountains towering above us on either side show great seams of mineral-stained quartz, which outcrop from dark, slate-like formations from the water's edge up to- ward the dazzling snow line. Streams of greenish- yellow water trickle through the lines of yellow quartz and mingle their colors with the bay's darkly blue waters. In some places the outcrop is white and smooth as marble, in others it is rugged and tinged brown, green and yellow, making an appear- ance something like the lichen covered rocks in the more southern districts.
96
ALASKA.
Eagle Glacier glows and frowns upon us from one side to be eclipsed in magnitude by Davidson's bolder and more massive majesty as we enter Chilkoot Inlet. We fain would linger near either and feast our eyes upon the cold, wonderful beauty, but soon we will see the peerless Muir Glacier and gain far greater pleasure in exploring its vast moraines and peering into its nooks and dazzling corridors. Chil- koot Inlet bears our good vessel through more of the same wondrously tinted beauty; between lofty moun- tain ranges that shut out all but their own stately, haughty grandeur, then open for a space, showing ranges, hills and glacier streams in the distance until the very head aches with the brain's effort to take and hold forever the beautiful and impressive pic- tures.
Dyea, Dyay or Dayea, the starting point for the new gold fields of the Upper Yukon River, is situated at the head of this Inlet on its eastern side. This route leads over the Chilkoot Mountain Pass, thence to the series of lakes that offer a water-carriage by canoe or boat to the Yukon.
In this region the summer sun hardly takes time to rest from his round of brilliant duties. As he retires he sinks so slowly, so regretfully, that the last tender tints of one day are hardly buried in pallid twilight till the new morning's pageant appears and decks the sky in colors rivalling his late departure.
جب
-
FINE CHILKAT BLANKET AND WORKED TOTEMS.
97
LYNN CANAL AND CHILKOOT BAY.
Beautiful flowers in gold and pink and purest white smile from valley and hillside. Tall grasses wave and ripple in the gentle wind. Cedars, vines and willows spread their verdure-clad branches to catch the warmth and brightness of the friendly sun. In the woods the moss makes a carpet, velvety, soft and deep enough for the feet to sink some distance sponge-like, before touching ground, making locomotion and transporta- tion difficult and irksome. Briars and wood tangle, with trailing tree moss, lash the trunks together in an impenetrable jungle of living beauty. Waters clear as crystal, and cool and fresh, trickle on their way from the glaciers to the smiling, sun-kissed inlet, where countless fishes flash like jewels as they dart about from shore to channel. Immense strong stemmed ferns bend toward the water beside tender, fairly-like companions, which dip into the stream and lift upon their feathery leaves bright gem-drops, in which the sun may find his beams reflected. And this is the land of the Chilkats, among the bravest, most warlike and surely the richest of Alaska's natives.
Here the wool of the mountain goat is made into the famous Chilkat dancing blankets. The snowy wool is interwoven in the most grotesque designs by the women, while the men carve spoons, cups, spears, fishing-hooks and many other articles, useful or orna- mental, from the jet black horns of the same animal. Some of the carving is exquisite in design and finish,
7
98
ALASKA.
displaying artistic talent of no mean order. These T'linkets have long held the position of "middle men" between the traders, and they have fully profited by their power and cunning, for their wealth is pro- verbial among the northern nations.
But we have lingered long enough with the na- tives. Our ship courses on toward Icy Bay, the home of icebergs, the dwelling of glaciers whose steady, resistless but imperceptible advance toward the sea fills our souls with wonder and admiration.
CHAPTER XIV.
OVER MUIR GLACIER-A BIRTH-PLACE OF ICEBERGS.
T HERE is no cause for complaint in being com- pelled to retrace our course through Lynn Canal, even should it require many hours to do so, for new scenes open before us at every turn. Islets appear that we did not notice as we passed, or it may be that approaching them from an opposite direction makes them entirely new to us; clear, babbling streanı- lets hurrying to their sure engulfment in the greedy waters below; snowy cascades rolling and tumbling over rugged rocks and polished pebbles; mountains whose frowning contours stand sharply against the tender azure of the sky, and here and there fair, fleecy clouds reproducing themselves in the tinted bosom of the Canal, all tend to make the return as lovely as any part of the trip.
Now we pass through Icy Strait, the doorway to Glacier Bay. Icebergs bow a chilling welcome to us and the air becomes decidedly bracing, with a prom- ise for the near necessity for warmer clothing.
And now our vessel steams on in among real ice- bergs almost as tall as her slender masts, and some far more broad than her graceful hull. Great moving masses of crystal, tinted with all the shades
99
100
ALASKA.
of blue imaginable, from palest pearl to deepest in- digo, with here and there rich rainbows gleam- ing on the splintered edges. On we move, jost- ling mimic icebergs out of our path, tossing them aside with every pulse of the iron heart that propels us along safely and smoothly. Far ahead there seems to be a dense white mist, a few moments it rolls and curves, but soon it has cleared away and all is still. The captain answers our query with a smile and tells us that we are in Glacier Bay.
Night has fallen and we must retire, each with a silent resolve that he will be first to see what further wonders are awaiting us in the breaking day. In the morning sunlight behold the mighty giant Glacier, in front of whose splendor and beneath whose threatening brow our puny ship stands, audaciously puffing her smoke and steam right into the face of so much majesty that we are compelled to fear that punishment must follow. Muir Glacier rises before us, not a great, tall rock of ice, but a crystal citadel, with towers, turrets, crested minarets and lance-like spires, all of glittering ice, clear and transparent, shading through all the tints and tones of blue; capped in some places with pur- est silver, in others with fleece-like snow. Later in the morning we land and climb to its summit and roam over its crystal landscape. Deep crevasses show shimmering lights far down their shattered sides when the sun touches the ragged edges of the waving
IOI
OVER MUIR GLACIER.
curves of broken ice. Strange sounds come up from the uncertain depths-murmurs, gurgles and long broken sighs, as the prisoned water forces its way along, now and then interrupted in the course by rocks and stones, and sometimes aided in its sad- toned music by sharp gusts of wind that sweep down into the icy gorges. Great solid blocks stand be- tween these crevices, so clear and pure that one can imagine that the eye penetrates to an impossible dis- tance into the heart of the Glacier.
Deep, chilly caverns yawn almost at the feet of the daring explorer, and ever and anon loud thunder tones and frightful crashing sounds reverberate from neighboring crevasses as great ice masses fall into the depths and startle one for an instant, so calm and quiet is the solitude around. Beautiful grottoes, with clear blue flooring and shimmering iridescent walls greet the beholder in most surprising localities. Long, irregular depressions starting from the far away heights of the ice mountains and running quite to the turrets near its verge make courses for the constant drip from the hills beyond our view, as the rivulets trickle and rush onward down to the sub- glacial river, or as the superficial streamlets discharge their freight into the Bay by the glacier stream near the mountain side. Some rivulets are clear and lim- pid, some appear like streams of milk, others like amber, while more are turbid and swollen in the mid-
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRA
102
ALASKA.
day sun, carrying with them mud and stones, making rough, grating sounds as they take their final leaps into the water.
Here and there moraines give safe footing for the most timid to explore the Glacier. Debris, polished stones, pieces of rock, scratched and ground into all imaginable shapes, dark earth and tiny rivulets, com- pose these great moraines, whose sub-strata is solid ice. Once in a while old tree trunks meet us as we scramble over the rugged surface, and now and then a lovely flower peeps at us from some sheltered spot near the hill side.
Go into one of the lovely grottoes.
Its dazzling beauty makes the heart swell with ad- miration, powerless for words to express. The tink- ling song of the melting ice, as it drips down the chis- eled walls, makes infant echoes in small offsetting chambers that no foot dare enter, while the flecks of light falling upon the pellucid water, gleam like living eyes, which seem to blink as the tiny streams run smoothly or vary in their onward motion. But, alas! amid all this glittering loveliness there is a chill as of the tomb! The feet become numb, the ears tingle and at last frail nature compels us to leave and return to the welcome warmth of the sun.
We may wander on and upward for miles, seeing at every turn new features of the mammoth Glacier whose birth-place we cannot reach. Explorers have
A VIEW ON GLACIER BAY.
1
4
103
OTER MUIR GLACIER.
traveled over its expansive surface for at least eighty miles, and its full extent is supposed to be nearly four hundred miles; its width varies according to the prox- imity of the great mountain chains and peaks to whose presence it has accommodated itself most won- derfully, notwithstanding it has torn and bruised them as it passed. Wearied, cold and hungry, we return to the ship, which rides in the rippling waters or tosses as some sudden motion rolls and rocks it. Here from the deck, or even from our stateroom window, we may gaze until we tire, for our captain kindly promises to stay all day in the immediate neighborhood.
Bang! Crash! Roar! Again and again that clatter- ing cannonade. Again and again the water, turned to misty foam, leaps high and tosses, for a distance, its glistening particles! And now, not very far from where we ride, we hear the loud report of its sudden cleavage, and watch an immense berg break from the parental bosom, and plunge down, down into the deep waters of Glacier Bay that welcomes it with engulf- ing waves, and throws around it a very Niagara of spray. Down it plunges deep into the yawning gulf, lost and entombed.
Then it bounds up suddenly into a massive, glisten- ing, silver-clad tower, dashing huge waves across the bay, and dancing up and down, each time showing more of its glinting, dark blue surface, each time
104
ALASKA.
seeming to endeavor to bring itself into a more secure and dignified position. At last it settles and then starts out upon its journey to the sea-a glorious, new-fledged iceberg, out to the wilting waters of the briny sea-to the golden sunshine, which, while lend- ing new beauty to the Arctic stranger, will steal part of its life away with every slender ray that touches it.
So section after section of the mighty glacier se- cedes and starts upon its independent journey. So heaven's grand artillery notes each iceberg's birth, and so ever the waters baptize the beautiful majestic voyagers, as they start forth on their fateful journey.
Look long upon the wonderful creation. Here rides our tiny ship close beneath its gleaming crest. Here we stand, atoms, whom the boulders could crush into shapeless clay. And yet we gaze and calmly talk of the grandeur and the beauty.
Can it be that the huge glacial ice mountain, miles and miles in extent, is surely, positively coming to- ward us? Can it be that each of those deafening sal- vos prove that its progress is tending in our direc- tion? Yet we wait and watch. Yes, some of us would like to see with our own eyes the onward move- ment, so slowly and imperceptibly is the glacier mo- tion. We would dare to hold our position until we could have the proof in our own knowledge that the great ice river, the mammoth frozen cataract, is really
105
OVER MUIR GLACIER.
moving onward ever and ever toward its own de- struction.
Will we ever forget this city of spires and turrets, this home of caverns and grottoes, this birthplace of the huge, beautiful icebergs that gleam down upon us from every side? Will our ears ever fail to hear those ringing, rattling charges of nature's artillery?
In years to come the picture will doubtless be as vivid as the first impression, for time can scarcely efface such stupendous grandeur from the mind that has received it.
CHAPTER XV.
AMONG THE ISLANDS-FROM MUIR GLACIER TO SITKA.
L EAVING the magnificent, beautiful and woll- derful Muir, what wonder is it that we turn and gaze from the upper deck of our steamer as long as the tinted towers and gleam- ing front of the Glacier 'can be seen in the in- creasing distance? With a long sigh of regret and lonesomeness we glide away, perhaps never to behold the like again. There is but one place that we may visit to find the Glacier's rival, and that is Greenland, but tourists are not yet daring enough to encounter the dangers and difficulties of such a voyage. From this time, Swiss Alpine Glaciers, grand as they are, will lose much of their attractive- ness to us.
Sailing onward we can see nothing of the Glacier but the great beautiful fragments that come floating down in front, to the rear and alongside of the ship. As we will need ice for our return trip, our daring sailors throw great grappling hooks into the clearest floe that they dare approach, and our vessel steams saucily along towing in her wake an iceberg, from which the men are industriously breaking convenient blocks and stowing them away in the huge ice chest. Some- times the mnen will go off for a supply while the steamer
IO6
107
AMONG THE ISLANDS.
is anchored and bring in a life boat load from bergs near the glacier's face. Sometimes tall icebergs can be approached so closely that a supply can be cut off from above and dropped down upon the deck of the ship. When shall we ever drink of water from such pure, limpid, rainbow-tinted ice as this after the store is exhausted and we cannot reach Icy Bay to replen- ish it?
Slowly but surely we are leaving the cold, barren, beautiful North. Down through Icy Strait small ice- bergs dance against our vessel, and then turning away dart about in a comical manner as they encounter the rolling waves in the wake of the vessel. They grow smaller, and at last almost entirely disappear as we make headway through Chatham Sound, one of the largest and most wonderful of Alaska's charming waterways. Its many islands, islets and kelp-covered rocks are always making changing scenes as we wind carefully around to avoid shoals and hidden rocks. Great sweeping branches of kelp turn about like long brown serpents as the movements of the ship agitates the water. Reeds grow tall and strong in bunches here and there, and ferns, and mosses min- gle to grace the islets that we can almost touch as we glide along into Peril Straits.
The name is enough to make the heart a little anx- ious about the safety of this part of the tour, but we are assured that it is no worse than other portions tin-
108
ALASKA.
less we should be foolish enough to partake of the poisonous mussels of the neighborhood. It was the death of a large number of Aleuts who had eaten of them at this place that gave the name of the Straits. For quite a distance the stream is wide, but it gradu- ally narrows, and with Neva and Olga Straits forms a number of most beautiful channels, graced with lit- tle islands completely covered with verdure. Oh! the welcome, restful green, shading to many tones, as the growth is young or old! Oh, the sweet, healthful perfume of the feathery pines!
The graceful bending of the branches as the breezes touch them! What after all is the frozen, silent beauty of the North in comparison to this living, per- fumed loveliness? But night has fallen. We will rest now and see how far we will be on our journey when the morning gong awakes us. The quietness of the ship as it lies at anchor arouses us, for the monotonous jar of the machinery has long ago be- come our lullaby. It may be time to rise or not, but it will do no harm to take a peep and get some idea of our whereabouts! Ah! where are we? What lovely surroundings! Rise and see more fully! This is Sitka Sound. Here are the bright gleaming waters of the bay all decked with rocky, moss-covered islands clad with verdure to their very rims, and bearing stunted firs and slender spruce trees whose tips quiver with the slightest breath of wind.
109
AMONG THE ISLANDS.
Briars and long creeping vines form tiny jungles among the tree-trunks as though to defy invasion upon the lovely precincts. The waters lap and ripple in and out, now showing the rocky bases of the islets, now leaving the ferns and mosses high upon their mimic shores. Look up over the bow! There is Mount Edgecombe, with an almost perfect cone, its top cut off so smoothly as to appear like a table, but a crater 2,000 feet across and several hundred feet deep is known to be reposing there. Once it illum- inated the Sound with its lurid light, but it has long since become dark and silent. In the morning glow
the peak is strangely beautiful. At its feet small trees and vines cluster closely, growing more scarce to- ward the top, until they disappear altogther, leaving the rugged red of the lava and stones in strong con- trast with the clear waves of the bay, or perchance the gliding water of numerous cascades, or seams of snow so protected that they remain in the fissures in the mountain side from one winter's storm until an- other cold season comes to replenish them. On the other side, near at hand, lies Sitka, with its cluster of plain, old-fashioned houses and native dwellings. From their midst Baranoff Castle once arose, which has since been burned down. It was not a grand, imposing castle, ivy-grown, bastioned and turreted, but a square substantial structure of frame, painted light or yellow and surmounted by a small tower,
110
ALASKA.
from whose window it is said the ghost of a beautiful lady watched across the bay when the nights were dark and stormy.
We know that it was used by both the Russians and our own Government as a point from which to take observations of the locality, but maybe while the officials slept the ghost occupied the window with a lantern.
How still it was the morning I wandered over it and gazed curiously upon it. That old castle that once echoed with the voice of its lordly, self-indul- gent, indomitable tyrant and master, Count Baranoff, whose hall once sounded back the clamor of invited guests, or the ripple of sweet laughter from fair ladies' lips. How those lordly rooms once rung with the sounds of rout and revelry !
These lonesome streets were once graced with Rus- sian soldiery in brilliant uniforms. And long ago thousands lived where now the inhabitants are so scattered and so few! Then the population was nearly all thrifty whites; now it is composed of Creoles, Indi- ans and but a very few whites, a small number of whom live a sort of dejected, indolent life, which shows itself not only in their faces, but in the dilapi- dated, fast-decaying abodes which they occupy. Only one good thing has come to the capital's occupation by our soldiers, and that is cleanliness. With all the Rus- sian grandeur and pomp the town was in many places
III
AMONG THE ISLANDS.
dirty and slimy. Now it is passable and quite pleas- ing in every direction, and the present government officials and the business people are improving its condition.
The training school for native Alaskans is a model of industry, thrift and neatness, and it is doing a good educational work among the Indian children.
Look! the sun is touching the dome of the old Greek Church, and stealing in at the windows to kin- dle new light about the richly gilded pictures, the altar and its gaily ornamented surroundings. It touches the sweet, pure faces of the Madonna and child, it glorifies the saints who guard the altar place. But'look beyond! The mountains around are touched here and there, and the sunlight gildings look like great flecks and patches of gold.
The grass, the trees, the waters smile to greet the sweet morning. The birds, oh, the strange and beau- tiful birds that we have not heard for so long, are singing a loud and joyous jubilee! Why is Sitka to-day not more fully occupied? Why is all this loveliness wasted? Pearly, shimmering beauty in the waters; waving, tempting, refreshing and charm- ing glimpses among the trees, the grasses and the brightly blooming flowers! A climate never too hot, seldom too cold. Is it the drizzling, super- abundant rain or mist? Even that does not last all the time, and it is no worse now than when the town was
II2
ALASKA.
occupied by thousands of Russian inhabitants. It is the greed for gold and new fields that has caused the beautiful capital to be forsaken for the more distant, flourishing mining towns that are springing up else- where.
Probably it is the uncertainty or insecurity of landed investments that hinders its prosperity and even depopulates this lovely placc. If so it will con- tinue until the United States gives a territorial gov- ernment to this deserving section of the country, and furnishes adequate official support and jur- isdiction with a naval force and outfit to maintain the laws when given. Alaska has food-fish enough to supply the entire country, and immense gold mines and other resources, so that one day Sitka, her capi- tal, may become a great metropolis.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.