USA > Alaska > Peerless Alaska, our cache near the pole > Part 16
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Glaciers always carry on their frozen tide great bowlders and masses of stones and rock wrenched from the mountain sides, just as rivers carry logs and drift. Whatever is not deposited along its course is carried out to sea by the ice- bergs to strew the ocean bottom, precisely as we find them on our Western plains, where they were deposited when the salt waves covered their unlimited expanse.
Some of the lateral moraines (as the dry beds of spent
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glacial outlets are termed) are still underlaid by an ice stratum 200 feet thick, which became detached from the main body of the glacier many decades since. It will take a half century to melt it. Clambering over these is no child's play. Visitors should be prepared with waterproof anglers' wading trowsers and alpen-stocks and hob-nail shoes, leaving all top coats and superfluous wraps where they can be resumed after the jaunt is finished. Rubber shoes or boots are liable to be torn to shreds. There are spots, looking like solid earth, which often prove to be mud- holes of uncertain depth. Bowlders are everywhere- bowlders, ice, and slimy silt, or till, and nothing else. Bot- tomless crevasses head you off at every turn. To land dry- shod from the boats is not easy, on account of the surf.
Altogether, it is astonishing what a minimum of distance or altitude one can accomplish with a maximum of clamber- ing and perspiration, even with the chill wind blowing fresh ; for every object sought is at least five times the distance guessed at, and the road is hard, indeed, to travel. Never- theless, the ladies are generally foremost, and old Swiss explorers will distance all the rest.
It is a consolation and a comfort, when on the apex of the moraine, with the polar desolation all around, and every resource of succor or deliverance clean cut off, to look far down upon the little object which is our only hope-the steamer, which seems an atom more than ever-and know that although the bay be filled with floes, there is open water and safety and genial climate just beyond, and that no hopeless Arctic winters intervene. By some trivial accident, possible enough, a party of excursionists might be left in a situation almost as hopeless as the hapless sufferers of the Lena. The perils are precisely the same, modified only by the relative accessibility of succor, and therefore too much stress can not be laid upon the stanchness of the ves- sels sent into the ice.
Years ago the citizens of St. Paul built winter ice-pal- aces, all illuminated with electric lights, and all the heav- enly planets lent their aid to make resplendent. At night when the full moon shone upon its crystal walls and battle- ments, and their translucence was reflected, it looked more like an ethereal creation than one of substance. It was stately in its magnificence and overwhelming in its super- natural majesty. But what shall compare with the Muir glacier when the moonlight is upon it, and all the phosphor- escence of the Pacific Ocean beats in billows of liquid flame against its toppling, crumbling walls ? When lunar rainbows
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are tossed in air against the mounting columns of foam that are shivered into spray by the plunging mountains of ice ? In the everlasting tumult, and whirl, and crash of explosions which seem to split the glacier itself from front to mountain source, when nothing at all takes definite shape upon the ghostly interchange of lights and shades, one can imagine only the revels of chaos and the scroll rolled back to the genesis of creation.
But these are reminiscences. What of the Muir to- day? Eh bien! In September, 1899, it was wrecked by a stupendous earthquake, with Mount St. Elias as a center, which shook up 4,000 square miles of the western territory, shattering the glacier front and setting it back a mile, exposing the stumps and trunks of an ancient for- est which was growing before the ice sheet formed! It was not a pleasant experience for any chance visitor. Rev. Sheldon Jackson, who was at Yakutat at the time, wrote:
"The first shock was experienced on Sunday, Septem- ber 5. During the following five hours there were fifty-two distinct shocks, culminating at 3 p. m. in a shock so se- vere that people of Yakutat were hurled violently across their room, or, if outside, they were thrown to the ground again and again. Gaining the hills and looking seaward, they saw a great tidal wave, thirty feet high, approaching with the speed of a race horse, that would engulf their village and sweep away their homes. Be- fore the shore was reached the earth opened in the bot- tom of the harbor, and into this chasm the tidal wave spent its force, and around it the sea swirled like a great maelstrom. This saved the village from destruction."
A special correspondent of the Scientific American who was sent to the field wrote: "Many well-known islands have been swallowed up and others risen in their places. Landmarks well defined and known to every nav- igator of the coast have disappeared, and every glacier from Juneau and vicinity, including all those known to tourists in Glacier Bay and elsewhere, have suffered mutilation. Volcanoes are reported to have been seen in ranges where they were never before observed. Along the coast near St. Elias the upheaval was accompanied by huge and devastating waterspouts, while enormous tidal waves rushed in from the sea. Great rocks fell from the sides of the mountains and crashed into the valleys below. The earth moved with awful velocity and undu- lation, shaking mountains from their bases and prostrat- in the hure forest trees which covered their clones
SITKA SOMNOLENT. *
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It is a " great day" for sleepy Sitka when the steamer comes up to her wharf and makes fast. The whole town rubs its eyes and turns out.
Ever since the previous sailing day, when the last box of freight was leisurely trundled into the warehouse, it has been supremely quiet. There has been absoltuely nothing to do. The government vessels are off on duty ; the miners away at the diggings ; the fishing season over ; half the ten- ements vacant ; no entries nor clearance at the custom house ; the governor is sticking type in his printing office ; and the attorneys are matching kopecks to see who shall win the next case. Down at the Indian "ranch " the dogs are dozing in the sun ; occasionally a Siwash will stroll to the beach, and straighten out the mats which cover his canoe ; a few of the mission boys at the far end of the village come in to visit their low-down relations ; groups of ravens are picking offal out of the landwash ; a few cows graze on the parade ; the black balls of the signal office anemometer scarcely turn in the wind.
Meanwhile the melting snow from the mountains trickles unceasingly into the sea, and the process of decay eats into the solid timbers of the old houses vacated by the Russians ; the rickety wharf all deserted, steams in the humid atmos- phere, and the teredos bore insidiously into the piles below the water line.
The last time the steamer made fast to the dock, her stern- line pulled off a section of the worm-eaten piling, and the splash woke up a couple of Siwashes who had been dozing against the side of the warehouse ever since the trip before.
But "steamer day" is an event. Then every thing is dif- ferent. The stars and stripes are run up from the marine barracks and custom house ; all the public offices are open ; the marshal is on the qui vive, and the attorneys have two pens behind each ear ; the war vessel comes into port ; the governor shaves and cleans up to receive his guests ; tawdry klootchmen open up their basket-work, berries and curios
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at eligible stands ; and the distracted post-master is "just too busy for any thing ; " even the cows on the parade are too curious to graze for looking at the stir.
As soon as the brass gun of the expected vessel booms among the islands of the bay, the wharf is crowded. There are just 300 white people in town, and that is enough to make a crowd. If the wharf should give way, it would en- gulf the whole population-Siwashes excepted. There are no drays nor omnibuses nor wagons to be seen, for there are none in town, and only one horse to draw them ; no hotel runners, for there are no hotels ; no loud voiced newsboys, for there is but one paper in the place, and the editor is too modest to have it hawked under his nose ; no boot-blacks, no policemen, no peanut-vendors, no little flower-girls, no any thing that one might expect to see at the chief com- mercial port of one of the biggest territories in the world .* A few impatient passengers get ashore before the gang- plank is laid, and perhaps ten minutes later the entire com- plement of sightseers is scattered about the town. Into the Græco-Russian church with its green-painted minaret and dome; into the museum of the marine barracks where there is a collection of native curios which makes collectors envious ; up to the " castle " on an eminence, which was once the pretentious residence of the governors ; out to the Indian "ranch" along the shore front, and to the Indian mission on the curve of the beach, in the opposite direction ; up to the queer looking cemeteries on the ridge, white and native ; and to the old block-houses and the stockade, and trading stores, the public offices and the photograph gallery. In- deed there is "lots" to see in Sitka, and one can remain over one steamer and spend a month most agreeably, ex- tending his observations to the environs, and for miles around. Miners and toughs who come by every steamer, camp out in gipsy fashion, or roll up in their blankets in some of the vacant rooms in the barn-like dilapidated gov- ernment buildings, but fair boarding places can be found by sojourners after a little inquiry. At the stores one can buy almost any thing which is to be found at Victoria or Portland. Washing is done by the Russian families. There is no physician in the place except the naval surgeon, and
*This cursory sketch of the lull which followed the cession of Alaska to the United States by the Russians, written in 1885, will be referred to in future history when the "Arctic Provinces" will have been subdivided into four States, each humming with a remunerative business activity, beside which that of a majority of the older States as heard to-day will be but a faint buzz.
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it occurs to the author that a fine opportunity is offered for a worthy disciple of Æsculapius to establish himself in a good business at Sitka, as the native Alaskans need the services of a physician to an alarming extent.
During the twenty-four hours which the steamer is re- quired by contract to remain in port, although she frequent- ly stays two days, all the elite of the town-the "leading ladies," the Creoles, the pure blood Russians, and the better Klootchmen, crowd aboard to see their metropolitan sisters, and inspect the latest fashions ; the merchants and officials obtain their mail matter and invoices ; the naval officers " see the boys " and receive their magazines and newspapers ; if there is any fresh beef or fruit to spare, it is immediately bespoken. Meanwhile the busy Siwashes on the dock are unremittingly trundling freight, and small knots of privi- leged rustics wander all over the ship and inspect her fittings and machinery. Sometimes there is opportunity to make side excursions to points of interest, in respect to which the blue jackets are of essential service, as they have a steam launch and light boats and are always hospitable. Festivi- ties, too, are in order, and invitations are issued for a " grand ball " at the castle, sans ceremonie, toilets at discre- tion. The invitations are general, for the shore community is not large enough to cut up into castes. If it were crit .. ically culled there wouldn't be waltzers enough to go round, for the American population, all told, is but sixty. So the floor is sifted over with spermaceti shavings, and an old brass relic of a Russian chandelier is filled with candles and hung up, while a couple of marines or waiters from the mail steamer do excellent duty as musicians with banjo and ac- cordeon. Slips and mishaps never mar such an occasion- never ; they embellish it. " Select your Klootchmen! " and " swing your Siwash! " fill up the measure of shuffling feet, and the ball succeeds until the antiquated dust of all the Romanoffs is stirred. 'Twas ever thus in the ancient days, I'm told ; for even then, no crucial distinctions could be made if the necessary components of a ball would be forth- coming. But alas! not a vestige of the old glory remains to illuminate the dark bare walls. Desolation reigns through- out the empty halls, and the wind whistles mournfully through dozens of broken panes. Not a tenant holds the venerable places in the castle except the U. S. signal man aloft who keeps his lonely vigils in the cupola on the roof. Up there, in the government sky parlor, the faithful chronicler of the storms clings to his weather-beaten post. Nothing moves him. Politics may change, civil service
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reform may fail, silver coinage be repealed, or the rookery itself collapse and fall! Whatever may betide, blow hot, blow cold, whichever way the vane may turn, the four little cups on the top of his tripod go round and round in the unremit- ting whirligig of time.
In Sitka and northward, revelers, owls, and such, find small indulgence for orgies claimed for hours of darkness, for the sun is bright at 3 o'clock A.M., and he goes home early who goes " when daylight doth appear." In the longest days there is no interval of night so dark that all the stars are seen. Only the brightest of the planets outvie the twilight. So, long before the " wee sma' hours do come " the candles have burned down in their sockets, and the dancers in the castle repair to the parade for an Indian performance on the grass ; or sometimes there is a wedding in the church. Once in a while the fire company turns out for review, 48 men strong, with hose-cart, fire engine, and tin buckets improvised from oil cans.
I doubt if there is a more enchanting site in the world than Sitka's. It has been compared with Naples ; but Naples, though serenely sweet, is not so massive, nor near so grand. In the varied combination of its picturesque envi- ronment Sitka is both placid and stupendous, benignant and majestic, alluring and severe. It entices while it warns. It gathers its beautiful brood of verdant islets into its arms and folds them tenderly to its bosom, while momentarily it frowns in awful majesty from the beetling heights above. Behind is a battlement of snow-clad mountains. Volcanic peaks flank the range at either end-Edgecumbe and Vos- tovia-lifted high against the firmament of blue, and welted with great red ridges of hardened lava which radiate from their pure white tops-the contrast of colors showing aloft with striking effect. Edgecumbe, the nearest peak, some fifteen miles away, but seeming close at hand, is nearly 3,500 feet above the sea level, but looks as if it were part of a 5,000-feet peak which had been sliced off. This trun- cated apex is a crater, said by those who have visited it to be 2,000 feet in diameter by 200 feet deep.
The town of Sitka, most picturesque herself, though dingy, occupies the incurve of the crescent-shaped level, cuddling like a trustful child between the knees of the great giants, with her attendant satellites ranged in view among the glancing waves, some cultivated as gardens or used as pastures, and others natural gems of rock with verdure clad. And all her lap is filled with wealth of evergreens, back to the very bases of the mountains ; sparkling streams
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course through them ; and giant firs whose feet rest in the shadows of the valleys, lift their tremendous spires high into the sunlight of the upper air. The atmosphere is soft, like Italy's, suffused with pink and yellow laid on blue, and whenever the tall truncated cones catch the hues of sunset, the lava of their ice-crowned tops glows red hot! Right in the harbor of Sitka is Japonskoi (Japanese) Island, where government pastures cattle. Eighty years ago a Japanese junk, drifting on the Kuro-Siwo from its native moorings, crossed the sea and rested there-a waif from Asia, to suggest to intellects obtuse the explanation of ethnical possibilities not at all mysterious or unaccountable. It is stated that the sympathetic Russians kindly cared for the castaway survivors of that dreadful drift and returned them to their country, as witnesses of a long-vexed problem solved. Some ten miles from town is Silver Bay, with a trout stream and a superb waterfall, which is often visited by excursionists who go in boats towed by a steam launch which tail out behind in a most exhilarating way. Indeed a steam launch of light draft, is indispensable to pleasure or business in those parts. Six miles north is Old Harbor, where the Russian Baronoff built the first fort in 1799, call- ing it Archangel. Three years later its garrison was massa- cred by Sitka Indians, and the present site of Sitka was occupied instead, and named New Archangel. The Hot Springs are ten or eleven miles south of town, on the main land, in a little bay which is protected by a break-water of pretty islands. There are three mineral springs-two of warm magnesia, and one of hot sulphur, the density of which is indicated by heavy incrustations in their basins. The temperature ranges from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and twenty-five degrees. Almost every visitor claims to have boiled an egg in them, but I have yet to learn where each contrives to get his egg. It might be well for future tourists who like positive tests to provide them- selves with eggs in Boston, New York, San Francisco or New Orleans, so as not to be disappointed when they finally reach the place. A few rods off is a clear spring of cold water, in which there may be trout convenient for the other popular test. For myself, when I visit the Yellowstone Park, or other noted place, I always catch my fish ready boiled. In 1860 the Russians built a hospital and bath, and the treatment was said to have had wonderful remedial powers in skin and rheumatic diseases. The buildings are now badly dilapidated and ought to be restored at once. If done, Sitka would soon become more than ever a popular
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watering place, and an equivalent equal to the outlay would flow into the official treasury daily. In summer, excursion trips should be arranged to the springs at stated periods, so that visitors can depend upon them. Some four miles from Sitka is an old Russian redoubt, where there was also a prison, which is well worth a visit, not only as a relic of the former occupation, but for its beautiful scenery, the moun- tains rising 3,000 feet almost perpendicularly, on one side of the bay, and inclosing a lake (Ozersky) ten miles long, which is much resorted to by anglers. There are five Rus- sian houses still standing which are used for a salmon can- nery, and there are besides several other houses for the fishermen, and huts for the Siwashes. Substantial bridges, also built by the Russians, cross the rapids between the outlet of the lake and the bay, and form part of a long and winding promenade. Indeed one may say that all the vicinity of Sitka is suggestive of Russian America, which we, before its purchase, looked upon askance, as hyper- borean and savage ; but now are surprised to discover was so far advanced that the humble people of Cape Cod, or other shore settlements of the Atlantic, would have been appalled at its magnificence. Every thing built by the Russians was of a substantial character, and where the offi- cial comfort was concerned, with elegance.
The old Baronoffs lived high. They enriched themselves from the furs of the land, and subsisted on the appropria- tions of the crown. All they earned was clear profit, and whenever perchance a prince of the blood came over the Strait from Siberia, he was royally entertained ; moreover, their spiritual welfare was zealously cared for by the church, which is able even now, so many years after the retirement of the Muscovites to maintain gratuitously its several missions at Sitka, St. Paul, St. Michael's, Anvic, Oonalashka, and Andreavsky. And so it happens that Greek priests still officiate for penitents of the great Republic, and the three little brass bells that were cast in Russia ring out from the tower of the Sitka sanctuary a Slavic melody for all Americans who respect the Sabbath. It is fortunate, indeed, that the little capital of Alaska was not left wholly bereft of Christian influences, else would its mongrel population have gone wholly to the bad; for so long as the suggestive spire stood in their midst, pointing heavenward, duty received a reminder and wickedness a check. At present there is a form of Protestant worship at the Indian mission, and ere many months elapse I trust a befitting chapel will be erected to meet the religious
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demands of a growing population. The public have long been made familiar with the architecture of the Greek church, its lofty dome, its shapely minaret, its gilt and gold and silver ornaments, and costly vestments, and holy pictures ; and since it is now so well preserved in photograph and tourist's story, I can manifest no sincerer interest for the saintly relic than to bespeak for it the trifling sum necessary "for its structural repair and preservation, or at least to replace the old barrel which is now used as a baptismal tub. It is a sin and a shame to let it drop piecemeal into ruin. The green paint is nearly worn from off the metal dome, and its wooden sides are weather-worn and stained; the doors are sprung, the bolts are rusted ; the interior is well nigh despoiled by time and vandal hands; the voice of one of the bells is hushed, and in winter the main auditorium can not be used with comfort ; yet I see that the gilding of the spire and roof continues bright, and by that token a new day is at hand.
The Russian population of Sitka pure and mixed, is about 250, and the church attendance is made up chiefly of Indians and Creoles, although Father Metropolsky is a well- instructed priest, pious and intelligent, and so might court the attendance of the better classes in the absence of teachers of other sects, especially and inasmuch as the services are conducted in the Slavonic language, which is both impres- sive and innocuous. The Indian communicants are always devout and neatly dressed, observing all the periods and crossing themselves at proper times with due observance of the formula ; and as the services are conducted with form- ality and proper ceremony no essential rites can be over- looked. I agree with a most intelligent correspondent who has written : " There is a very silly and unnecessary antipa- thy existing between the missionaries here and this church, and instead of working harmoniously together in their efforts to Christianize the Indians, they work at cross purposes. If the Greek Church or any other can succeed in making the Indians clean themselves up one day in the week at least, well and good ; it is a great step toward godliness, and it is the purest nonsense to try to Christianize any body before he is civilized to a certain extent." Ever since the American accession, the missionaries have antagonized the Greek Church, and the public officials fight the missionaries ; and I could only wish that the long-suffering Siwash might look quietly on and pick up what drops in the mélee to his own advantage.
It has taken a good while for the country to adapt itself
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to the changed circumstances which followed its relinquish- ment by the Russians. The Muscovites left every thing in good order when they evacuated Sitka, indeed they wisely let go by degrees, and not all at once ; and they still retain some hold on the missions which they established. Had they not done so many years of utter neglect would have left the place a useless ruin. That there is a house still standing is largely due to the fact that they built of great logs, both hewed and round, and often two feet square ; the substantial structures which they have erected have not only withstood the high winds of winter, but the wearing tooth of time, very well for a climate whose rainfall is 55 1/2 inches per year, soaking every thing with moisture. The principal buildings which are now occupied by the ter- ritorial and naval officers as custom-house, court-house, barracks, and government warehouse have at some time been coated with a dull yellow paint which still sticks to a degree ; some of the roofs are either of iron painted red, or they have grown rusty from rain. Once they were preten- tious structures all, large, spacious, two-storied, with hard wood doors elaborately carved, and some regard paid to ornament in the shape of stained-glass panes inserted in parts to be effective ; but now the foundation timbers are eaten half through by rot, some of the 6-inch planking of the floors has been torn up for fuel ; piles of rubbish fill one-half of the apartments and with the exception of the marine barracks there is not one of all the lot with its win- dow-glass unbroken or the plastering intact. A fire once cleared out several of the rooms in the custom-house, and there the charred débris still remains ; only three rooms in the entire great building are fit to be occupied and two of these are used by the judge and attorney. I believe the governor has to "rustle " for his quarters. The grand old castle which crowns a rocky eminence that overlooks the town, and was once the pride of all the Baronoffs and Romanoffs, is now the worst of all the Badly-offs ; and although it looks imposing in the uncertain twilight, noth- ing but immediate relief will save it from the assaults of time and weather. Once it was destroyed by earthquake, once by fire, and now the grand staircase up the rocky heights will scarcely stand another year, and after they collapse only scaling ladders can be used. A half-dozen unhappy barrels collect the rainfall from the roof ; the whole structure is sprung in every joint and tenon, and ere many moons have passed it will not be safe for the legend- ary " ghost of the hapless princess " which wanders there-
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