USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 10
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From east and west the "drifts" run into this cross- cut, like little creeks into a larger stream.
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No one has ever accused me of being shy in the matter of asking questions. It was the first time I had been down in one of the famous gold mines of the world, and I asked as many questions as a woman trying to rent a forty-dollar house for twenty dollars. Between shafts, stations, ore bins, crosscuts, stopes, drifts, levels, and winzes, it was less than fifteen minutes before I felt the cold moisture of despair breaking out upon my brow. Winzes proved to be the last straw. I could get a glim- mering of what the other things were; but winzes!
The manager had been polite in a forced, friend-of-the- captain kind of way. He was evidently willing to answer every question once, but whenever I forgot and asked the same question twice, he balked instantly. Exerting every particle of intelligence I possessed, I could not make out the difference between a stope and a station, except that a stope had the higher ceiling.
"I have told you the difference three times already," cried the manager, irritably.
The captain, back in the shadow, grinned sympa- thetically.
"Nor'-nor'-west, nor'-by-west, a-quarter-nor'," said he, sighing. "She'll learn your gold mine sooner than she'll learn my compass."
Then they both laughed. They laughed quite a while, and my disagreeable friend laughed with them. For my- self, I could not see anything funny anywhere.
I finally learned, however, that a station is a place cut out for a stable or for the passage of cars, or other things requiring space; while a stope is a room carried to the level of the top of the main crosscut. It is called a stope because the ore is " stoped " out of it.
But winzes ! What winzes are is still a secret of the ten-hundred-and-eighty-foot level of the Treadwell mine.
Tram-cars filled with ore, each drawn by a single horse,
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passed us in every drift - or was it in crosscuts and levels ? One horse had been in the mine seven years without once seeing sunlight or fields of green grass; without once sipping cool water from a mountain creek with quiv- ering, sensitive lips ; without once stretching his aching limbs upon the soft sod of a meadow, or racing with his fellows upon a hard road.
But every man passing one of these horses gave him an affectionate pat, which was returned by a low, pathetic whinny of recognition and pleasure.
" One old fellow is a regular fool about these horses," said the manager, observing our interest. "He's always carrying them down armfuls of green grass, apples, sugar, and everything a horse will eat. You'd ought to hear them nicker at sight of him. If they pass him in a drift, when he hasn't got a thing for them, they'll nicker and nicker, and keep turning their heads to look after him. Sometimes it makes me feel queer in my throat."
No one can by any chance know what noise is until he has stood at the head of a drift and heard three Ingersoll- Sergeant drills beating with lightning-like rapidity into the walls of solid quartz for the purpose of blasting.
Standing between these drills and within three feet of them, one suddenly is possessed of the feeling that his sense of hearing has broken loose and is floating around in his head in waves. This feeling is followed by one of suffocation. Shock succeeds shock until one's very mind seems to go vibrating away.
At a sign from the manager the silence is so sudden and so intense that it hurts almost as much as the noise.
There is a fascination in walking through these high- ceiled, brilliantly lighted stopes, and these low-ceiled, shadowy drifts. Walls and ceilings are gray quartz, glit- tering with gold. One is constantly compelled to turn
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aside for cars of ore on their way to the dumping-places, where their burdens go thundering to the levels be- low.
At last the manager paused.
"I suppose," said he, sighing, "you wouldn't care to see the -"
I did not catch the last word, and had no notion what it was, but I instantly assured him that I would rather see it than anything in the whole mine.
His face fell.
" Really-" he began.
" Of course we'll see it," said the captain; "we want to see everything."
The manager's face fell lower.
"All right," said he, briefly, "come on!"
We had gone about twenty steps when I, who was close behind him, suddenly missed him. He was gone.
Had he fallen into a dump hole ? Had he gone to atoms in a blast? I blinked into the shadows, standing motionless, but could see no sign of him.
Then his voice shouted from above me - "Come on !" I looked up. In front of me a narrow iron ladder led upward as straight as any flag-pole, and almost as high. Where it went, and why it went, mattered not. The only thing that impressed me was that the manager, halfway up this ladder, had commanded me to "come on."
I? to " come on! " up that perpendicular ladder whose upper end was not in sight!
But whatever might be at the top of that ladder, I had assured him that I would rather see it than anything in the whole mine. It was not for me to quail. I took firm hold of the cold and unclean rungs, and started.
When we had slowly and painfully climbed to the top, we worked our way through a small, square hole and emerged into another stope, or level, and in a very dark
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part of it. Each man worked by the light of a single candle. They were stoping out ore and making it ready to be dumped into lower levels -from which it would finally be hoisted out of the mine in skips.
The ceiling was so low that we could walk only in a stooping position. The laborers worked in the same posi- tion ; and what with this discomfort and the insufficient light, it would seem that their condition was unenviable. Yet their countenances denoted neither dissatisfaction nor ill-humor.
" Well," said the manager, presently, "you can have it to say that you have been under the bay, anyhow."
" Under the-"
" Yes; under Gastineau Channel. That's straight. It is directly over us."
We immediately decided that we had seen enough of the great mine, and cheerfully agreed to the captain's suggestion that we return to the ship. We were com- pelled to descend by the perpendicular ladder ; and the descent was far worse than the ascent had been.
On our way to the "lift " by which we had made our advent into the mine, we met another small party. It was headed by a tall and handsome man, whose air of delicate breeding would attract attention in any gather- ing in the world. His distinction and military bearing shone through his greasy slicker and greasier cap -which he instinctively fumbled, in a futile attempt to lift it, as we passed.
It was that brave and gallant explorer, Brigadier-Gen- eral Greely, on his way to the Yukon. He was on his last tour of inspection before retirement. It was his fare- well to the Northern country which he has served so faith- fully and so well.
One stumbles at almost every turn in Alaska upon some world-famous person who has answered Beauty's far,
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
EYAK LAKE, NEAR CORDOVA
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insistent call. The modest, low-voiced gentleman at one's side at the captain's table is more likely than not a cele- brated explorer or geologist, writer or artist; or, at the very least, an earl.
" After we've seen our passengers eat their first meal," said the chief steward, "we know how to seat them. You can pick out a lady or a gentleman at the table without fail. A boor can fool you every place except at the table. We never assign seats until after the first meal ; and oftener than you would suppose we seat them accord- ing to their manners at the first meal."
I smiled and smiled, then, remembering the first meal on our steamer. It was breakfast. We had been down to the dining room for something and, returning, found ourselves in a mob at the head of the stairs.
There were one hundred and sixty-five passengers on the boat, and fully one hundred and sixty of them were squeezed like compressed hops around that stairway. In two seconds I was a cluster of hops myself, simply that and nothing more. I do not know how the compressing of hops is usually accomplished; but in my particular case it was done between two immensely big and dis- agreeable men. They ignored me as calmly as though I were a little boy, and talked cheerfully over my head, although it soon developed that they were not in the least acquainted.
A little black-ringleted, middle-aged who seemed to be mounted on wires, suddenly squeezed her head in under their arms, simpering.
"Oh, Doctor !" twittered she, coquettishly. "You are talking to my husband."
" The deuce !" ejaculated the Doctor, but whether with evil intent or not, I could not determine from his face.
"Yes, truly. Doctor Metcalf, let me introduce my husband, Mr. Wildey."
K
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They shook hands on my shoulder - but I didn't mind a little thing like that.
"On your honeymoon, eh ?" chuckled the Doctor, ami- ably. The other big man grew red to his hair, and the lady's black ringlets danced up and down.
"Now, now, Doctor," chided she, shaking a finger at him, - she was at least fifty, -" no teasing. No steamer serenades, you know. I was on an Alaskan steamer once, and they pinned red satin hearts all over a bride's state- room door. Just fancy getting up some morning and finding my stateroom door covered with red satin hearts !"
" I can smell mackerel," said a shrill tenor behind me; and alas! so could I. If there be anything that I like the smell of less than a mackerel, it is an Esquimau hut only.
Somebody sniffed delightedly.
" Fried, too," said a happy voice. " Can't you squeeze down closer to the stairway ?"
Almost at once the big man behind me was tipped for- ward into the big man in front of me-and, as a mere incident in passing, of course, into me as well. We all went tipping and bobbing and clutching toward the stair- way.
Life does not hold many half-hours so rich and so full as the one that followed. As a revelation of the baser side of human nature, it was precious.
My friend was tall; and once, far down the saloon, I caught a glimpse of her handsome, well-carried head as the mob parted for an instant. The expression on her face was like that on the face of the Princess de Lamballe when Lorado Taft has finished with her.
Suddenly I began to move forward. Rather, I was borne forward without effort on my part. A great wave seemed to pick me up and carry me to the head of the stairway. I fairly floated down into the dining room.
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I fell into the first chair at the first table I came to; but the mob flowed by, looking for something better. Every woman was on a mad hunt for the captain's table. My table remained unpeopled until my friend came in and found me. Gradually and reluctantly the chairs were filled and we devoted ourselves to the mackerel.
In a far corner at the other end of the room, there was a table with flowers on it. With a sigh of relief I saw black ringlets dancing thereat.
" Thank heaven! " I said. "The bride is at the cap- tain's table."
" Ho, no, ma'am," said the gentle voice of the waiter in my ear. "You're hat hit yourself, ma'am. You're hin the captain's hown seat, ma'am. 'E don't come down to the first meal, though, ma'am," he added hastily, seeing my look of horror. For the first, last, and, I trust, only, time in my life I had innocently seated myself at a captain's table, without an invitation.
After breakfast we hastened on deck and went through deep-breathing exercises for an hour, trying to work our- selves back to our usual proportions.
I should like to see a chief steward seat tliat mob.
I was greatly amused, by the way, at a young waiter's description of an earl.
" We have lots of earls goin' up," said he, easily. "Oh, yes; they go up to Cook Inlet and Kodiak to hunt big game. I always know an earl the first meal. He makes me pull his corks, and he gives me a quarter or a half for every cork I pull. Sometimes I make six bits or a dollar at a meal, just pulling one earl's corks. I'd rather wait on earls than anybody -except ladies, of course," he added, with a positive jerk of remembrance; whereupon we both smiled.
INDIAN HOUSES, CORDOVA
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
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on the starboard side. It is topped by a great crag which so closely resembles in outline our national emblem that it was so named by Admiral Beardslee, in 1879. The glacier itself is not of great importance.
On Benjamin Island, a fair anchorage may be secured for vessels bound north which have unfortunately been caught in a strong northwest gale.
After the dangerous Vanderbilt Reef is passed, Point Bridget and Point St. Mary's are seen at the entrance to Berner's Bay, where is situated the rich gold mine belong- ing to Governor Hoggatt.
A light was established in 1905 on Point Sherman ; also, on Eldred Rock, where the Clara Nevada went down, in 1898, with the loss of every soul on board. For ten years repeated attempts to locate this wreck have been made, on account of the rich treasure which the ship was supposed to carry; but not until 1908 was it discovered - when, upon the occurrence of a phenomenally low tide, it was seen gleaming in clear green depths for a few hours by the keeper of the lighthouse. There was a large loss of life.
There is a mining and mill settlement at Seward, in this vicinity.
William Henry Bay, lying across the canal from Berner's, is celebrated as a sportsman's resort, although this recom- mendation has come to bear little distinction in a country where it is so common. Enormous crabs, rivalling those to the far " Westward," are found here. Their meat is not coarse, as would naturally be supposed, because of their great size, but of a fine flavor.
Seduction Point, on the island bearing the same name, lies between Chilkaht Inlet on the west and Chilkoot Inlet on the east. For once, Vancouver rose to the oc- casion and bestowed a striking name, because at this point the treacherous Indians tried to lure Whidbey and his
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men up the inlet to their village. Upon his refusal to go, they presented a warlike front, and the sincerity of their first advances was doubted.
At the entrance to Chilkaht Inlet, Davidson Glacier is seen sweeping down magnificently from near the summit of the White Mountains. Although this glacier does not discharge bergs, nor rise in splendid tinted palisades straight from the water, as do Taku and Columbia, it is, nevertheless, very imposing - especially if seen from the entrance of the inlet at sunset of a clear day.
The setting of the glaciers of Lynn Canal is superb. The canal itself, named by Vancouver for his home in England, is the most majestic slender water-way in Alaska. From Puget Sound, fiord after fiord leads one on in ever increasing, ever changing splendor, until the grand climax is reached in Lynn Canal.
For fifty-five miles the sparkling blue waters of the canal push almost northward. Its shores are practically unbroken by inlets, and rise in noble sweeps or stately palisades, to domes and peaks of snow. Glaciers may be seen at every turn of the steamer. Not an hour- not one mile of this last fifty-five - should be missed.
In winter the snow descends to the water's edge and this stretch is exalted to sublimity. The waters of the canal take on deep tones of purple at sunset; fires of purest old rose play upon the mountains and glaciers ; and the clear, washed-out atmosphere brings the peaks forward until they seem to overhang the steamer throb- bing up between them.
Lynn Canal is really but a narrowing continuation of Chatham Strait. Together they form one grand fiord, two hundred miles in length, with scarcely a bend, ex- tending directly north and south. From an average width of four or five miles, they narrow, in places, to less than half a mile.
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In July, 1794, Vancouver, lying at Port Althorp, in Cross Sound, sent Mr. Whidbey to explore the continen- tal shore to the eastward. Mr. Whidbey sailed through Icy Strait, seeing the glacier now known as the Brady Glacier, and rounding Point Couverden, sailed up Lynn Canal.
Here, as usual, he was simply stunned by the grandeur and magnificence of the scenery, and resorted to his pet adjectives.
" Both sides of this arm were bounded by lofty, stupen- dous mountains, covered with perpetual ice and snow, whilst the shores in this neighborhood appeared to be composed of cliffs of very fine slate, interspersed with beaches of very fine paving stone. Up this channel the boats passed, and found the continental shore now take a direc- tion N. 22 W., to a point where the arm narrowed to two miles across ; from whence it extended ten miles further in a direction N. 30 W., where its navigable extent termi- nated in latitude 59° 12', longitude 224° 33'. This sta- tion was reached in the morning of the 16th, after passing some islands and some rocks nearly in mid-channel." (It was probably on one of these that the Clara Nevada was wrecked a hundred years later. ) " Above the northern- most of these (which lies four miles below the shoal that extends across the upper part of the arm, there about a mile in width) the water was found to be perfectly fresh. Along the edge of this shoal, the boats passed from side to side, in six feet water, and beyond it, the head of the arm extended about half a league, where a small opening in the land was seen, about the fourth of a mile wide, lead- ing to the northwestward, from whence a rapid stream of fresh water rushed over the shoal" (this was Chilkaht River). "But this, to all appearance, was bounded at no great distance by a continuation of the same lofty ridge of snowy mountains so repeatedly mentioned, as stretch-
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ing eastwardly from Mount Fairweather, and which, in every point of view they had hitherto been seen, appeared to be a firm and close-connected range of stupendous mountains, forever doomed to support a burthen of undissolv- ing ice and snow."
Here, it will be observed, Whidbey was so unconsciously wrought upon by the sublimity of the country that he was moved to fairly poetic utterance. He seemed, however, to be himself doomed to support forever a burthen of gloom and undissolving weariness as heavy as that borne by the mountains.
Up this river, or, as Whidbey called it, brook, the Indians informed him, eight chiefs of great consequence resided in a number of villages. He was urged to visit them. Their behavior was peaceable, civil, and friendly ; but Mr. Whidbey declined the invitation, and returning, rounded, and named, Point Seduction, and passing into Chilkoot Inlet, discovered more " high, stupendous moun- tains, loaded with perpetual ice and snow."
After exploring Chilkoot Inlet, they returned down the canal, soon falling in with a party of friendly Indians, who made overtures of peace. Mr. Whidbey describes their chief as a tall, thin, elderly man. He was dressed superbly, and supported a degree of state, consequence, and personal dignity which had been found among no other Indians. His external robe was a very fine large garment that reached from his neck down to his heels, made of wool from the mountain goat - the famous Chilkaht blanket here described, for the first time, by the unappreciative Whidbey. It was neatly variegated with several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with little tufts of woollen yarn, dyed of various colors. His head-dress was made of wood, resembling a crown, and adorned with bright copper and brass plates, whence hung a number of tails, or streamers, composed of wool and fur
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worked together, dyed of various colors, and each termi- nating in a whole ermine skin.
His whole appearance, both as to dress and manner, was magnificent.
Mr. Whidbey was suspicious of the good intentions of these new acquaintances, and was therefore well prepared for the trouble that followed.
Headed by the splendid chief, the Indians attacked Whidbey's party in boats, and, being repulsed, followed for two days.
As the second night came on boisterously, Mr. Whidbey was compelled to seek shelter. The Indians, understand- ing his design, hastened to shore in advance, got possession of the only safe beach, drew up in battle array, and stood with spears couched, ready to receive the explor- ing party. (This was on the northern part of Admiralty Island.)
Here appears the most delicious piece of unintentional humor in all Vancouver's narrative.
" There was now no alternative but either to force a landing by firing upon them, or to remain at their oars all night. The latter Mr. Whidbey considered to be not only the most humane, but the most prudent to adopt, concluding that their habitations were not far distant, and believing them, from the number of smokes that had been seen during the day, to be a very numerous tribe."
They probably appeared more " stupendous " than any snow-covered mountain in poor Mr. Whidbey's startled eyes.
To avoid a " dispute " with these " troublesome people," Mr. Whidbey withdrew to the main canal and stopped "to take some rest " at a point which received the felicitous name of Point Retreat, on the northern part of Admiralty Island -a name which it still retains.
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In the following month Mr. Whidbey was compelled to rest again upon his extremely humane spirit, to the south- ward in Frederiek Sound.
" The day being fair and pleasant," chronicles Van- couver, " Mr. Whidbey wished to embrace this opportunity of drying their wet clothes, putting their arms in order. For this purpose the party landed on a commodious beach ; but before they had finished their business a large canoe arrived, containing some women and children, and sixteen stout Indian men, well appointed with the arms of the country. Their conduct afterward put on a very suspicious appearance ; the children withdrew into the woods, and the rest fixed their daggers round their wrists, and exhibited other indications not of the most friendly nature. To avoid the chance of anything unpleasant taking place, Mr. Whidbey considered it most humane and prudent to withdraw " - which he did, with all possible despatch.
They were pursued by the Indians; this conduct "greatly attracting the observation of the party."
Mr. Whidbey did not scruple to fire into a fleeing canoe; nor did he express any sorrow when "most hideous and extraordinary noises " indicated that he had fired to good effect ; but the instant the Indians lined up in considerable numbers with " couched spears " and warlike attitude, the situation immediately became "stupendous " and Whid- bey's ever ready " humaneness " came to his relief.
CHAPTER XII
THE Davidson Glacier was named for Professor George Davidson, who was one of its earliest explorers. A heavy forest growth covers its terminal moraine, and detracts from its lower beauty.
Pyramid Harbor, at the head of Chilkaht Inlet, has an Alaska Packers' cannery at the base of a mountain which rises as straight as an arrow from the water to a height of eighteen hundred feet. This mountain was named Labouchere, for the Hudson Bay Company's steamer which, in 1862, was almost captured by the Hoonah Ind- ians at Port Frederick in Icy Strait.
Pyramid Harbor was named for a small pyramid-shaped island which now bears the same name, but of which the Indian name is Schlayhotch. The island is but little more than a tiny cone, rising directly from the water. Indians camp here, in large numbers in the summer-time, to work in the canneries. The women sell berries, baskets, Chilkaht blankets of deserved fame, and other curios.
It was this harbor which the Canadians in the Joint High Commission of 1898 unblushingly asked the United States to cede to them, together with Chilkaht Inlet and River, and a strip of land through the lisière owned by us.
The Chilkalt River flows into this inlet from the north- west. At its mouth it widens into low tide flats, over which, at low tide, the water flows in ribbonish loops. Here, during a "run," the salmon are taken in countless thousands.
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The Chilkahts and Chilkoots are the great Indians of Alaska. They comprise the real aristocracy. They are a brave, bold, courageous race ; sauey and independent, constantly carrying a "chip on the shoulder," or a "feather pointing forward " in the head-gear. They are looked up to and feared by the Thlinkits of inferior tribes.
Their villages are located up the Chilkaht and Chilkoot rivers ; and their frequent mountain journeyings have de- veloped their legs, giving them a well-proportioned, athletic physique, in marked contrast to the bowed- and serawny- legged canoe dwellers to the southward and westward.
They are skilful in various kinds of work; but their fame will eventually endure in the exquisite dance- blankets, known as the Chilkaht blanket. These blankets are woven of the wool of the mountain goat, whose winter coat is strong and coarse. At shedding time in the spring, as the goat leaps from place to place, the wool clings to trees, rocks, and bushes in thick festoons. These the indolent Indians gather for the weaving of their blankets, rather than take the trouble of killing the goats.
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