USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 16
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 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
The main spring has a temperature of one hundred and
SE BRUKEK.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
SUMMIT OF CHILKOOT PASS, 1898
213
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit, its waters cooking eggs in eight minutes. From this spring the baths are fed, their waters, flowing down to the sea, being soon reduced in temperature to one hundred and thirty degrees.
Filmy vapors float over the vicinity of the springs and rise in funnel-shaped columns which may be seen at a considerable distance, and which impart an atmosphere of mystery and unreality to the place.
Vegetation is of unusual luxuriance, even for this land of tropical growth ; and in recent years experiments with melons and vegetables which usually mature in tropic climes only, have been entirely successful in this steamy and balmy region.
There are four springs, in whose waters the Indians, from the time of their discovery, have sought to wash away the ills to which flesh is heir. They came hundreds of miles and lay for hours at a time in the healing baths with only their heads visible. The bay was neutral ground where all might come, but where none might make set- tlement or establish claims.
The waters near abound in fish and water-fowl, and the forests with deer, bears, and other large game.
The place is coming but slowly to the recognition of the present generation. When the tropic beauty of its loca- tion and the curative powers of its waters are more gener- ally known, it will be a Mecca for pilgrims.
The main station of Government Agricultural Experi- mental work in Alaska is located at Sitka. Professor C. C. Georgeson is the special agent in charge of the work, which has been very successful. It has accomplished more than anything else in the way of dispelling the erroneous impressions which people have received of Alaska by read- ing the descriptions of early explorers who fancied that every drift of snow was a living glacier and every feather the war bonnet of a savage.
214
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
In 1906, at Coldfoot, sixty miles north of the Arctic Circle, were grown cucumbers eight inches long, nineteen- inch rhubarb, potatoes four inches long, cabbages whose matured heads weighed eight pounds, and turnips weigh- ing sixteen pounds - all of excellent quality.
At Bear Lake, near Seward and Cook Inlet, were grown good potatoes, radishes, lettuce, carrots, beets, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, Logan berries, blackberries ; also, roses, lilacs, and English ivy. In this locality cows and chickens thrive and are profitable investments for those who are not too indolent to take care of them.
Alaskan lettuce must be eaten to be appreciated. Dur- ing the hot days and the long, light hours of the nights it grows so rapidly that its crispness and delicacy of flavor cannot be imagined.
Everything in Alaska is either the largest, the best, or most beautiful, in the world, the people who live there maintain ; and this soon grows to be a joke to the traveller. But when the assertion that lettuce grown in Alaska is the most delicious in the world is made, not a dissenting voice is heard.
Along the coast, seaweed and fish guano are used as fertilizers ; and soil at the mouth of a stream where there is silt is most desirable for vegetables.
In southeastern Alaska and along the coast to Kodiak, at Fairbanks and Copper Centre, at White Horse, Daw- son, Rampart, Tanana, Council City, Eagle, and other places on the Yukon, almost all kinds of vegetables, berries, and flowers grow luxuriantly and bloom and bear in abundance. One turnip, of fine flavor, has been found sufficient for several people.
In the vicinity of the various hot springs, even corn, tomatoes, and muskmelons were successful to the highest degree.
On the Yukon cabbages form fine white, solid heads;
215
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
cauliflower is unusually fine and white ; beets grow to a good size, are tender, sweet, and of a bright red ; peas are excellent ; rhubarb, parsley, and celery were in many places successful. Onions seem to prove a failure in nearly all sections of the country ; and potatoes, turnips, and lettuce are the prize vegetables.
Grain growing is no longer attempted. The experiment made by the government, in the coast region, proved en- tirely unsatisfactory. It will usually mature, but August, September, and October are so rainy that it is not possible to save the crop. It is, however, grown as a forage crop, for which purpose it serves excellently.
The numerous small valleys, coves, and pockets afford desirable locations for gardens, berries, and some varieties of fruit trees.
In the interior encouraging success has been obtained with grain. The experiments at Copper Centre have not been so satisfactory as at Rampart, three and a half degrees farther north, on the Yukon.
At Copper Centre heavy frosts occur as early as August 14 ; while at Rampart no " killing " frosts have been known before the grain had ripened, in the latter part of August.
Rampart is the loveliest settlement on the Yukon, with the exception of Tanana. Across the river from Rampart, the green fields of the Experimental Station slope down to the water. The experiments carried on here by Super- intendent Rader, under the general supervision of Pro- fessor Georgeson -who visits the stations yearly -have been very satisfactory.
Experimental work was begun at Rampart in 1900, and grain has matured there every year, while at Copper Centre only one crop of four has matured. In 1906, owing to dry weather, the growth was slow until the mid- dle of July ; from that date on to the latter part of August there were frequent rains, causing a later growth
216
ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY
of grain than usual. The result of these conditions was that when the first " killing" frost occurred, the grain was still growing, and all plats, save those seeded earliest, were spoiled for the finer purposes. The frosted grain was, however, immediately cut for hay, twenty tons of which easily sold for four thousand, one hundred and fifty-two dollars.
These results prove that even where grain cannot be grown to the best advantage, it may be profitably grown for hay. For the latter purpose larger growing varieties would be sown, which would produce a much heavier yield and bring larger profits. At present all the feed consumed in the interior by the horses of pack trains and of travel- lers is hauled in from tide-water, - a hundred miles, at least, and frequently two or three times as far, -and two hundred dollars a ton for hay is a low price. The actual cost of hauling a ton of hay from Valdez to Cop- per Centre, one hundred miles, is more than two hundred dollars.
Road-house keepers advertise " specially low " rates on hay at twenty cents a pound, the ordinary retail price at that distance from tide-water being five hundred dollars a ton.
The most serious drawback to the advancement of agri- culture in Alaska is the lack of interest on the part of the inhabitants. Probably not fifty people could be found in the territory who went there for the purpose of making homes. Now and then a lone dreamer of dreams may be found who lives there - or who would gladly live there, if he might - only for the beauty of it, which can be found nowhere else ; and which will soon vanish before the brutal tread of civilization.
The others go for gold. If they do not expect to dig it out of the earth themselves, they plan and scheme to get it out of those who have so acquired it. There is
217
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
no scheme that has not been worked upon Alaska and the real workers of Alaska.
The schemers go there to get gold ; honestly, if possible, but to get gold ; to live "from hand to mouth," while they are there, and to get away as quickly as possible and spend their gold far from the country which yielded it. They have neither the time nor the desire to do anything toward the development of the country itself.
Ex-Governor John G. Brady is one of the few who have devoted their lives to the interest and the up-build- ing of Alaska.
Thirty years ago he went to Alaska and established his home at Sitka. There he has lived all these years with his large and interesting family ; there he still lives.
He has a comfortable home, gardens and orchards that leave little to be desired, and has demonstrated beyond all doubt that the man who wishes to establish a modern, comfortable - even luxurious -home in Alaska, can ac- complish his purpose without serious hardship to his family, however delicate the members thereof may be.
The Bradys are enthusiasts and authorities on all mat- ters pertaining to Alaska.
Governor Brady has been called the " Rose Governor" of Alaska, because of his genuine admiration for this flower. He can scarcely talk five minutes on Alaska without introducing the subject of roses ; and no enthusi- ast has ever talked more simply and charmingly of the roses of any land than he talks of the roses of Alaska, - the cherished ones of the garden, and the big pink ones of Unalaska and the Yukon.
As missionary and governor, Mr. Brady has devoted many years to this splendid country ; and the distressful troubles into which he has fallen of late, through no fault of his own, can never make a grateful people forget his unselfish work for the upbuilding and the civilization of Alaska.
218
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
To-day, Sitka is idyllic. Her charm is too poetic and too elusive to be described in prose. A greater contrast than she presents to such hustling, commercial towns as Juneau, Valdez, Cordova, and Katalla, could scarcely be conceived. To drift into the harbor of Sitka is like entering another world.
The Russian influence is still there, after all these years - as it is in Kodiak and Unalaska.
CHAPTER XIX
IN rough weather, steamers bound for Sitka from the westward frequently enter Cross Sound and proceed by way of Icy Straits and Chatham to Peril.
Icy Straits are filled, in the warmest months, with ice- bergs floating down from the many glaciers to the north. Of these Muir has been the finest, and is a world-famous glacier, owing to the charming descriptions written of it by Mr. John Muir. For several years it was the chief object of interest on the "tourist " trip ; but early in 1900 an earthquake shattered its beautiful front and so choked the bay with immense bergs that the steamer Spokane could not approach closer than Marble Island, thirteen miles from the front. The bergs were compact and filled the whole bay. Since that time excursion steamers have not attempted to enter Glacier Bay.
In the summer of 1907, however, a steamer entered the bay and, finding it free of ice, approached close to the famed glacier - only to find it resembling a great castle whose towers and turrets have fallen to ruin with the pass- ing of years. Where once shone its opaline palisades is now but a field of crumpled ice.
There are no less than seven glaciers discharging into Glacier Bay and sending out beautiful bergs to drift up and down Icy Straits with the tides and winds. Rendu, Carroll, Grand Pacific, Johns Hopkins, Hugh Miller, and Geikie front on the bay or its narrow inlets.
219
220
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
Brady Glacier has a three-mile frontage on Wimbledon, or Taylor, Bay, which opens into Icy Straits.
When, on her mid-June voyage from Seattle in 1905, the Santa Ana drew out and away from Sitka, and turning with a wide sweep, went drifting slowly through the maze of green islands and set her prow "to Westward," one of the dreams of my life was "come true."
I was on my way to the far, lonely, and lovely Aleutian Isles, - the green, green isles crested with fire and snow that are washed on the north by the waves of Behring Sea.
It was a violet day. There were no warm purple tones anywhere ; but the cool, sparkling violet ones that mean the nearness of mountains of snow. One could almost feel the crisp ting of ice in the air, and smell the sunlight that opalizes, without melting, the ice.
Round and white, with the sunken nest of the thunder- bird on its crest, Mount Edgecumbe rose before us; the pale green islands leaned apart to let us through ; the sea- birds, white and lavender and rose-touched, floated with us ; the throb of the steamer was like a pulse beating in one's own blood ; there were words in the violet light that lured us on, and a wild sweet song in the waves that broke at our prow.
" There can be nothing more beautiful on earth," I said ; but I did not know. An hour came soon when I stood with bared head and could not speak for the beauty about me; when the speech of others jarred upon me like an insult, and the throb of the steamer, which had been a sensuous pleasure, pierced my exaltation like a blow.
The long violet day of delight wore away at last, and night came on. A wild wind blew from the southwest, and the mood of the North Pacific Ocean changed. The ship rolled heavily ; the waves broke over our decks. We
221
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
could see them coming - black, bowing, rimmed with white. Then came the shock - followed by the awful shudder and struggle of the boat. The wind was terrific. It beat the breath back into the breast.
It was terrible and it was glorious. Those were big moments on the texas of the Santa Ana; they were worth living, they were worth while. But on account of the storm, darkness fell at midnight; and as the spray was now breaking in sheets over the bridge and texas, I was assisted to my cabin - drenched, shivering, happy.
"Shut your door," said the captain, "or you will be washed out of your berth; and wait till to-morrow."
I wondered what he meant, but before I could ask him, before he could close my cabin door, a great sea towered and poised for an instant behind him, then bowed over him and carried him into the room. It drenched the whole room and everything and everybody in it; then swept out again as the ship rolled to starboard.
My travelling companion in the middle berth uttered such sounds as I had never heard before in my life, and will probably never hear again unless it be in the North Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Yakutat or Katalla. She made one attempt to descend to the floor ; but at sight of the captain who was struggling to take a polite departure after his anything but polite entrance, she uttered the most dreadful sound of all and fell back into her berth.
I have never seen any intoxicated man teeter and lurch as he did, trying to get out of our cabin. I sat upon the stool where I had been washed and dashed by the sea, and laughed.
He made it at last. He uttered no apologies and no adieux; and never have I seen a man so openly relieved to escape from the presence of ladies.
I closed the window. Disrobing was out of the ques- tion. I could neither stand nor sit without holding
222
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
tightly to something with both hands for support; and when I had lain down, I found that I must hold to both sides of the berth to keep myself in.
"Serves you right," complained the occupant of the middle berth, "for staying up on the texas until such an unearthly hour. I'm glad you can't undress. Maybe you'll come in at a decent hour after this!"
It is small wonder that Behring and Chirikoff disagreed and drifted apart in the North Pacific Ocean. It is my belief that two angels would quarrel if shut up in a state- room in a " Yakutat blow "-than which only a " Yakataga blow " is worse; and it comes later.
I am convinced, after three summers spent in voyaging along the Alaskan coast to Nome and down the Yukon, that quarrelling with one's room-mate on a long voyage aids digestion. My room-mate and I have never agreed upon any other subject ; but upon this, we are as one.
Neither effort nor exertion is required to begin a quarrel. It is only necessary to ask with some querulous- ness, " Are you going to stand before that mirror all day?" and hey, presto! we are instantly at it with ham- mer and tongs.
Toward daylight the storm grew too terrible for further quarrelling; too big for all little petty human passions. A coward would have become a man in the face of such a conflict. I have never understood how one can com- mit a cowardly act during a storm at sea. One may dance a hornpipe of terror on a public street when a man thrusts a revolver into one's face and demands one's money. That is a little thing, and inspires to little sensations and little actions. But when a ship goes down into a black hol- low of the sea, down, down, so low that it seems as though she must go on to the lowest, deepest depth of all - and then lies still, shudders, and begins to mount, higher, higher, higher, to the very crest of a mountainous wave; if
223
ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY
God put anything at all of courage and of bravery into the soul of the human being that experiences this, it comes to the front now, if ever.
In that most needlessly cruel of all the ocean disasters of the Pacific Coast, the wreck of the Valencia on Seabird Reef of the rock-ribbed coast of Vancouver Island, more than a hundred people clung to the decks and rigging in a freezing storm for thirty-six hours. There was a young girl on the ship who was travelling alone. A young man, an athlete, of Victoria, who had never met her before, assisted her into the rigging when the decks were all awash, and protected her there. On the last day before the ship went to pieces, two life-rafts were successfully launched. Only a few could go, and strong men were desired to manage the rafts. The young man in the rigging might have been saved, for the ones who did go on the raft were the only ones rescued. But when sum- moned, he made simple answer : -
"No; I have some one here to care for. I will stay."
Better to be that brave man's wave-battered and fish- eaten corpse, than any living coward who sailed away and left those desperate, struggling wretches to their awful fate.
The storm died slowly with the night; and at last we could sleep.
It was noon when we once more got ourselves up on deck. The sun shone like gold upon the sea, which stretched, dimpling, away for hundreds upon hundreds of miles, to the south and west. I stood looking across it for some time, lost in thought, but at last something led me to the other side of the ship.
All unprepared, I lifted my eyes-and beheld before me the glory and the marvel of God. In all the splendor of the drenched sunlight, straight out of the violet, sparkling sea, rose the magnificent peaks of the Fair-
224
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
weather Range and towered against the sky. No great snow mountains rising from the land have ever affected me as did that long and noble chain glistening out of the sea. They seemed fairly to thunder their beauty to the sky.
From Mount Edgecumbe there is no significant break in the mountain range for more than a thousand miles; it is a stretch of sublime beauty that has no parallel. The Fairweather Range merges into the St. Elias Alps ; the Alps are followed successively by the Chugach Alps, the Kenai and Alaskan ranges, -the latter of which holds the loftiest of them all, the superb Mount Mckinley, -- and the Aleutian Range, which extends to the end of the Aliaska Peninsula. The volcanoes on the Aleutian and Kurile islands complete the ring of snow and fire that circles around the Pacific Ocean.
CHAPTER XX
OUR ship having been delayed by the storm, it was mid-afternoon when we reached Yakutat. A vast pla- teau borders the ocean from Cross Sound, north of Bara- noff and Chicagoff islands, to Yakutat; and out of this plateau rise four great snow peaks - Mount La Pérouse, Mount Crillon, Mount Lituya, and Mount Fairweather - ranging in height from ten thousand to fifteen thousand nine hundred feet.
In all this stretch there are but two bays of any size, Lituya and Dry, and they have only historical impor- tance.
Lituya Bay was described minutely by La Pérouse, who spent some time there in 1786 in his two vessels, the Astrolabe and Boussole.
The entrance to this bay is exceedingly dangerous ; the tide enters in a bore, which can only be run at slack tide. La Pérouse lost two boatloads of men in this bore, on the eve of his departure, - a loss which he describes at length and with much feeling.
Before finally departing, he caused to be erected a monu- ment to the memory of the lost officers and crew on a small island which he named Cénotaphe, or Monument, Isle. A bottle containing a full account of the disaster and the names of the twenty-one men was buried at the foot of the monument.
La Pérouse named this bay Port des Français.
The chronicles of this modest French navigator seem,
Q
225
226
ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY
somehow, to stand apart from those of the other early voyagers. There is an appearance of truth and of fine feeling in them that does not appear in all.
He at first attempted to enter Yakutat Bay, which he called the Bay of Monti, in honor of the commandant of an exploring expedition which he sent out in advance ; but the sea was breaking with such violence upon the beach that he abandoned the attempt.
He described the savages of Lituya Bay as treacherous and thievish. They surrounded the ships in canoes, offer- ing to exchange fresh fish and otter skins for iron, which seemed to be the only article desired, although glass beads found some small favor in the eyes of the women.
La Pérouse supposed himself to be the first discoverer of this bay. The Russians, however, had been there years before.
The savages appeared to be worshippers of the sun. La Pérouse pronounced the bay itself to be the most ex- traordinary spot on the whole earth. It is a great basin, the middle of which is unfathomable, surrounded by snow peaks of great height. During all the time that he was there, he never saw a puff of wind ruffle the surface of the water, nor was it ever disturbed, save by the fall of masses of ice which were discharged from five different glaciers with a thunderous noise which reechoed from the farthest recesses of the surrounding mountains. The air was so tranquil and the silence so undisturbed that the human voice and the cries of sea-birds lying among the rocks were heard at the distance of half a league.
The climate was found to be "infinitely milder " than that of Hudson Bay of the same latitude. Vegetation was extremely vigorous, pines measuring six feet in di- ameter and rising to a height of one hundred and forty feet.
Celery, sorrel, lupines, wild peas, yarrow, chicory,
227
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
angelica, violets, and many varieties of grass were found in abundance, and were used in soups and salads, as remedies for scurvy.
Strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, the elder, the willow, and the broom were found then as they are to- day. Trout and salmon were taken in the streams, and in the bay, halibut.
It is to be feared that La Pérouse was not strong on birds; for in the copses he heard singing " linnets, nightingales, blackbirds, and water quails," whose songs were very agreeable. It was July, which he called the " pairing-time." He found one very fine blue jay ; and it is surprising that he did not hear it sing.
For the savages- especially the women -the fas- tidious Frenchman entertained feelings of disgust and horror. He could discover no virtues or traits in them to praise, conscientiously though he tried.
They lived in the same kind of habitations that all the early explorers found along the coast of Alaska: large buildings consisting of one room, twenty-five by twenty feet, or larger. Fire was kindled in the middle of these rooms on the earth floor. Over it was suspended fish of several kinds to be smoked. There was always a large hole in the roof - when there was a roof at all - to receive the smoke.
About twenty persons of both sexes dwelt in each of these houses. Their habits, customs, and relations were indescribably disgusting and indecent.
Their houses were more loathsome and vile of odor than the den of any beast. Even at the present time in some of the native villages - notably Belkoffski on the Aliaskan Peninsula -all the most horrible odors ever experienced in civilization, distilled into one, could not equal the stench with which the natives and their habi- tations reek. As their customs are somewhat cleanlier
228
ALASKA: THIE GREAT COUNTRY
now than they were a hundred and thirty years ago, and as upon this one point all the early navigators forcibly agree, we may well conclude that they did not exaggerate.
The one room was used for eating, sleeping, cooking, smoking fish, washing their clothes - in their cooking and eating wooden utensils, by the way, which are never cleansed - and for the habitation of their dogs.
The men pierced the cartilage of the nose and ears for the wearing of ornaments of shell, iron, or other material. They filed their teeth down even with the gums with a piece of rough stone. The men painted their faces and other parts of their bodies in a " frightful manner " with ochre, lamp-black, and black lead, mixed with the oil of the "sea-wolf." Their hair was frequently greased and dressed with the down of sea-birds; the women's, also. A plain skin covered the shoulders of the men, while the rest of the body was left entirely naked.
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.