George W. Cable - "Strong Hearts"

Wallace Irwin - "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"

Unkown - "The Popular Science Monthly Volume LXXXVI July to September, 1915"

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Travels in Alaska

J >> John Muir >> Travels in Alaska




When we arrived at the mouth of the fiord, and rounded the massive
granite headland that stands guard at the entrance on the north side,
another large glacier, now named the Reid, was discovered at the head
of one of the northern branches of the bay. Pushing ahead into this
new fiord, we found that it was not only packed with bergs, but that
the spaces between the bergs were crusted with new ice, compelling us
to turn back while we were yet several miles from the discharging
frontal wall. But though we were not then allowed to set foot on this
magnificent glacier, we obtained a fine view of it, and I made the
Indians cease rowing while I sketched its principal features. Thence,
after steering northeastward a few miles, we discovered still another
large glacier, now named the Carroll. But the fiord into which this
glacier flows was, like the last, utterly inaccessible on account of
ice, and we had to be content with a general view and sketch of it,
gained as we rowed slowly past at a distance of three or four miles.
The mountains back of it and on each side of its inlet are sculptured
in a singularly rich and striking style of architecture, in which
subordinate peaks and gables appear in wonderful profusion, and an
imposing conical mountain with a wide, smooth base stands out in the
main current of the glacier, a mile or two back from the discharging
ice-wall.

We now turned southward down the eastern shore of the bay, and in an
hour or two discovered a glacier of the second class, at the head of
a comparatively short fiord that winter had not yet closed. Here we
landed, and climbed across a mile or so of rough boulder-beds, and
back upon the wildly broken, receding front of the glacier, which,
though it descends to the level of the sea, no longer sends off
bergs. Many large masses, detached from the wasting front by
irregular melting, were partly buried beneath mud, sand, gravel, and
boulders of the terminal moraine. Thus protected, these fossil
icebergs remain unmelted for many years, some of them for a century
or more, as shown by the age of trees growing above them, though
there are no trees here as yet. At length melting, a pit with sloping
sides is formed by the falling in of the overlying moraine material
into the space at first occupied by the buried ice. In this way are
formed the curious depressions in drift-covered regions called
kettles or sinks. On these decaying glaciers we may also find many
interesting lessons on the formation of boulders and boulder-beds,
which in all glaciated countries exert a marked influence on scenery,
health, and fruitfulness.

Three or four miles farther down the bay, we came to another fiord,
up which we sailed in quest of more glaciers, discovering one in each
of the two branches into which the fiord divides. Neither of these
glaciers quite reaches tide-water. Notwithstanding the apparent
fruitfulness of their fountains, they are in the first stage of
decadence, the waste from melting and evaporation being greater now
than the supply of new ice from their snowy fountains. We reached the
one in the north branch, climbed over its wrinkled brow, and gained
a good view of the trunk and some of the tributaries, and also of the
sublime gray cliffs of its channel.

Then we sailed up the south branch of the inlet, but failed to reach
the glacier there, on account of a thin sheet of new ice. With the
tent-poles we broke a lane for the canoe for a little distance; but
it was slow work, and we soon saw that we could not reach the glacier
before dark. Nevertheless, we gained a fair view of it as it came
sweeping down through its gigantic gateway of massive Yosemite rocks
three or four thousand feet high. Here we lingered until sundown,
gazing and sketching; then turned back, and encamped on a bed of
cobblestones between the forks of the fiord.

We gathered a lot of fossil wood and after supper made a big fire,
and as we sat around it the brightness of the sky brought on a long
talk with the Indians about the stars; and their eager, childlike
attention was refreshing to see as compared with the deathlike apathy
of weary town-dwellers, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched
in toil and care and poor shallow comfort.

After sleeping a few hours, I stole quietly out of the camp, and
climbed the mountain that stands between the two glaciers. The ground
was frozen, making the climbing difficult in the steepest places; but
the views over the icy bay, sparkling beneath the stars, were
enchanting. It seemed then a sad thing that any part of so precious a
night had been lost in sleep. The starlight was so full that I
distinctly saw not only the berg-filled bay, but most of the lower
portions of the glaciers, lying pale and spirit-like amid the
mountains. The nearest glacier in particular was so distinct that it
seemed to be glowing with light that came from within itself. Not
even in dark nights have I ever found any difficulty in seeing large
glaciers; but on this mountain-top, amid so much ice, in the heart of
so clear and frosty a night, everything was more or less luminous,
and I seemed to be poised in a vast hollow between two skies of
almost equal brightness. This exhilarating scramble made me glad and
strong and I rejoiced that my studies called me before the glorious
night succeeding so glorious a morning had been spent!

I got back to camp in time for an early breakfast, and by daylight we
had everything packed and were again under way. The fiord was frozen
nearly to its mouth, and though the ice was so thin it gave us but
little trouble in breaking a way for the canoe, yet it showed us that
the season for exploration in these waters was well-nigh over. We
were in danger of being imprisoned in a jam of icebergs, for the
water-spaces between them freeze rapidly, binding the floes into one
mass. Across such floes it would be almost impossible to drag a
canoe, however industriously we might ply the axe, as our Hoona guide
took great pains to warn us. I would have kept straight down the bay
from here, but the guide had to be taken home, and the provisions we
left at the bark hut had to be got on board. We therefore crossed
over to our Sunday storm-camp, cautiously boring a way through the
bergs. We found the shore lavishly adorned with a fresh arrival of
assorted bergs that had been left stranded at high tide. They were
arranged in a curving row, looking intensely clear and pure on the
gray sand, and, with the sunbeams pouring through them, suggested the
jewel-paved streets of the New Jerusalem.

On our way down the coast, after examining the front of the beautiful
Geikie Glacier, we obtained our first broad view of the great glacier
afterwards named the Muir, the last of all the grand company to be
seen, the stormy weather having hidden it when we first entered the
bay. It was now perfectly clear, and the spacious, prairie-like
glacier, with its many tributaries extending far back into the snowy
recesses of its fountains, made a magnificent display of its wealth,
and I was strongly tempted to go and explore it at all hazards. But
winter had come, and the freezing of its fiords was an insurmountable
obstacle. I had, therefore, to be content for the present with
sketching and studying its main features at a distance.

When we arrived at the Hoona hunting-camp, men, women, and children
came swarming out to welcome us. In the neighborhood of this camp I
carefully noted the lines of demarkation between the forested and
deforested regions. Several mountains here are only in part
deforested, and the lines separating the bare and the forested
portions are well defined. The soil, as well as the trees, had slid
off the steep slopes, leaving the edge of the woods raw-looking and
rugged.

At the mouth of the bay a series of moraine islands show that the
trunk glacier that occupied the bay halted here for some time and
deposited this island material as a terminal moraine; that more of
the bay was not filled in shows that, after lingering here, it
receded comparatively fast. All the level portions of trunks of
glaciers occupying ocean fiords, instead of melting back gradually in
times of general shrinking and recession, as inland glaciers with
sloping channels do, melt almost uniformly over all the surface until
they become thin enough to float. Then, of course, with each rise and
fall of the tide, the sea water, with a temperature usually
considerably above the freezing-point, rushes in and out beneath
them, causing rapid waste of the nether surface, while the upper is
being wasted by the weather, until at length the fiord portions of
these great glaciers become comparatively thin and weak and are
broken up and vanish almost simultaneously.

Glacier Bay is undoubtedly young as yet. Vancouver's chart, made only
a century ago, shows no trace of it, though found admirably faithful
in general. It seems probable, therefore, that even then the entire
bay was occupied by a glacier of which all those described above,
great though they are, were only tributaries. Nearly as great a
change has taken place in Sum Dum Bay since Vancouver's visit, the
main trunk glacier there having receded from eighteen to twenty five
miles from the line marked on his chart. Charley, who was here when a
boy, said that the place had so changed that he hardly recognized it,
so many new islands had been born in the mean time and so much ice
had vanished. As we have seen, this Icy Bay is being still farther
extended by the recession of the glaciers. That this whole system of
fiords and channels was added to the domain of the sea by glacial
action is to my mind certain.

We reached the island from which we had obtained our store of fuel
about half-past six and camped here for the night, having spent only
five days in Sitadaka, sailing round it, visiting and sketching all
the six glaciers excepting the largest, though I landed only on three
of them,--the Geikie, Hugh Miller, and Grand Pacific,--the freezing
of the fiords in front of the others rendering them inaccessible at
this late season.



Chapter XI

The Country of the Chilcats


On October 30 we visited a camp of Hoonas at the mouth of a
salmon-chuck. We had seen some of them before, and they received us
kindly. Here we learned that peace reigned in Chilcat. The reports
that we had previously heard were, as usual in such cases, wildly
exaggerated. The little camp hut of these Indians was crowded with
the food-supplies they had gathered--chiefly salmon, dried and tied
in bunches of convenient size for handling and transporting to their
villages, bags of salmon-roe, boxes of fish-oil, a lot of
mountain-goat mutton, and a few porcupines. They presented us with
some dried salmon and potatoes, for which we gave them tobacco and
rice. About 3 P.M. we reached their village, and in the best house,
that of a chief, we found the family busily engaged in making
whiskey. The still and mash were speedily removed and hidden away
with apparent shame as soon as we came in sight. When we entered and
passed the regular greetings, the usual apologies as to being unable
to furnish Boston food for us and inquiries whether we could eat
Indian food were gravely made. Toward six or seven o'clock Mr. Young
explained the object of his visit and held a short service. The chief
replied with grave deliberation, saying that he would be heartily
glad to have a teacher sent to his poor ignorant people, upon whom he
now hoped the light of a better day was beginning to break. Hereafter
he would gladly do whatever the white teachers told him to do and
would have no will of his own. This under the whiskey circumstances
seemed too good to be quite true. He thanked us over and over again
for coming so far to see him, and complained that Port Simpson
Indians, sent out on a missionary tour by Mr. Crosby, after making a
good-luck board for him and nailing it over his door, now wanted to
take it away. Mr. Young promised to make him a new one, should this
threat be executed, and remarked that since he had offered to do his
bidding he hoped he would make no more whiskey. To this the chief
replied with fresh complaints concerning the threatened loss of his
precious board, saying that he thought the Port Simpson Indians were
very mean in seeking to take it away, but that now he would tell them
to take it as soon as they liked for he was going to get a better one
at Wrangell. But no effort of the missionary could bring him to
notice or discuss the whiskey business. The luck board nailed over
the door was about two feet long and had the following inscription:
"The Lord will bless those who do his will. When you rise in the
morning, and when you retire at night, give him thanks. Heccla Hockla
Popla."

This chief promised to pray like a white man every morning, and to
bury the dead as the whites do. "I often wondered," he said, "where
the dead went to. Now I am glad to know"; and at last acknowledged
the whiskey, saying he was sorry to have been caught making the bad
stuff. The behavior of all, even the little ones circled around the
fire, was very good. There was no laughter when the strange singing
commenced. They only gazed like curious, intelligent animals. A
little daughter of the chief with the glow of the firelight on her
eyes made an interesting picture, head held aslant. Another in the
group, with upturned eyes, seeming to half understand the strange
words about God, might have passed for one of Raphael's angels.

The chief's house was about forty feet square, of the ordinary fort
kind, but better built and cleaner than usual. The side-room doors
were neatly paneled, though all the lumber had been nibbled into
shape with a small narrow Indian adze. We had our tent pitched on a
grassy spot near the beach, being afraid of wee beasties; which
greatly offended Kadachan and old Toyatte, who said, "If this is the
way you are to do up at Chilcat, we will be ashamed of you." We
promised them to eat Indian food and in every way behave like good
Chilcats.

We set out direct for Chilcat in the morning against a brisk head
wind. By keeping close inshore and working hard, we made about ten
miles by two or three o'clock, when, the tide having turned against
us, we could make scarce any headway, and therefore landed in a
sheltered cove a few miles up the west side of Lynn Canal. Here I
discovered a fine growth of yellow cedar, but none of the trees were
very large, the tallest only seventy-five to one hundred feet high.
The flat, drooping, plume-like branchlets hang edgewise, giving the
trees a thin, open, airy look. Nearly every tree that I saw in a
long walk was more or less marked by the knives and axes of the
Indians, who use the bark for matting, for covering house-roofs, and
making temporary portable huts. For this last purpose sections five
or six feet long and two or three wide are pressed flat and secured
from warping or splitting by binding them with thin strips of wood at
the end. These they carry about with them in their canoes, and in a
few minutes they can be put together against slim poles and made into
a rainproof hut. Every paddle that I have seen along the coast is
made of the light, tough, handsome yellow wood of this tree. It is a
tree of moderately rapid growth and usually chooses ground that is
rather boggy and mossy. Whether its network of roots makes the bog or
not, I am unable as yet to say.

Three glaciers on the opposite side of the canal were in sight,
descending nearly to sea-level, and many smaller ones that melt a
little below timber-line. While I was sketching these, a canoe hove
in sight, coming on at a flying rate of speed before the wind. The
owners, eager for news, paid us a visit. They proved to be Hoonas, a
man, his wife, and four children, on their way home from Chilcat. The
man was sitting in the stern steering and holding a sleeping child in
his arms. Another lay asleep at his feet. He told us that Sitka Jack
had gone up to the main Chilcat village the day before he left,
intending to hold a grand feast and potlatch, and that whiskey up
there was flowing like water. The news was rather depressing to Mr.
Young and myself, for we feared the effect of the poison on
Toyatte's old enemies. At 8.30 P.M. we set out again on the turn of
the tide, though the crew did not relish this night work. Naturally
enough, they liked to stay in camp when wind and tide were against
us, but didn't care to make up lost time after dark however wooingly
wind and tide might flow and blow. Kadachan, John, and Charley rowed,
and Toyatte steered and paddled, assisted now and then by me. The
wind moderated and almost died away, so that we made about fifteen
miles in six hours, when the tide turned and snow began to fall. We
ran into a bay nearly opposite Berner's Bay, where three or four
families of Chilcats were camped who shouted when they heard us
landing and demanded our names. Our men ran to the huts for news
before making camp. The Indians proved to be hunters, who said there
were plenty of wild sheep on the mountains back a few miles from the
head of the bay. This interview was held at three o'clock in the
morning, a rather early hour. But Indians never resent any such
disturbance provided there is anything worth while to be said or
done. By four o'clock we had our tents set, a fire made and some
coffee, while the snow was falling fast. Toyatte was out of humor
with this night business. He wanted to land an hour or two before we
did, and then, when the snow began to fall and we all wanted to find
a camping-ground as soon as possible, he steered out into the middle
of the canal, saying grimly that the tide was good. He turned,
however, at our orders, but read us a lecture at the first
opportunity, telling us to start early if we were in a hurry, but
not to travel in the night like thieves.

After a few hours' sleep, we set off again, with the wind still
against us and the sea rough. We were all tired after making only
about twelve miles, and camped in a rocky nook where we found a
family of Hoonas in their bark hut beside their canoe. They presented
us with potatoes and salmon and a big bucketful of berries,
salmon-roe, and grease of some sort, probably fish-oil, which the
crew consumed with wonderful relish.

A fine breeze was blowing next morning from the south, which would
take us to Chilcat in a few hours, but unluckily the day was Sunday
and the good wind was refused. Sunday, it seemed to me, could be kept
as well by sitting in the canoe and letting the Lord's wind waft us
quietly on our way. The day was rainy and the clouds hung low. The
trees here are remarkably well developed, tall and straight. I
observed three or four hemlocks which had been struck by
lightning,--the first I noticed in Alaska. Some of the species on
windy outjutting rocks become very picturesque, almost as much so as
old oaks, the foliage becoming dense and the branchlets tufted in
heavy plume-shaped horizontal masses.

Monday was a fine clear day, but the wind was dead ahead, making
hard, dull work with paddles and oars. We passed a long stretch of
beautiful marble cliffs enlivened with small merry waterfalls, and
toward noon came in sight of the front of the famous Chilcat or
Davidson Glacier, a broad white flood reaching out two or three
miles into the canal with wonderful effect. I wanted to camp beside
it but the head wind tired us out before we got within six or eight
miles of it. We camped on the west side of a small rocky island in a
narrow cove. When I was looking among the rocks and bushes for a
smooth spot for a bed, I found a human skeleton. My Indians seemed
not in the least shocked or surprised, explaining that it was only
the remains of a Chilcat slave. Indians never bury or burn the bodies
of slaves, but just cast them away anywhere. Kind Nature was covering
the poor bones with moss and leaves, and I helped in the pitiful work.

The wind was fair and joyful in the morning, and away we glided to
the famous glacier. In an hour or so we were directly in front of it
and beheld it in all its crystal glory descending from its white
mountain fountains and spreading out in an immense fan three or four
miles wide against its tree-fringed terminal moraine. But, large as
it is, it long ago ceased to discharge bergs.

The Chilcats are the most influential of all the Thlinkit tribes.
Whenever on our journey I spoke of the interesting characteristics of
other tribes we had visited, my crew would invariably say, "Oh, yes,
these are pretty good Indians, but wait till you have seen the
Chilcats." We were now only five or six miles distant from their
lower village, and my crew requested time to prepare themselves to
meet their great rivals. Going ashore on the moraine with their boxes
that had not been opened since we left Fort Wrangell, they sat on
boulders and cut each other's hair, carefully washed and perfumed
themselves and made a complete change in their clothing, even to
white shirts, new boots, new hats, and bright neckties. Meanwhile, I
scrambled across the broad, brushy, forested moraine, and on my
return scarcely recognized my crew in their dress suits. Mr. Young
also made some changes in his clothing, while I, having nothing
dressy in my bag, adorned my cap with an eagle's feather I found on
the moraine, and thus arrayed we set forth to meet the noble
Thlinkits.

We were discovered while we were several miles from the village, and
as we entered the mouth of the river we were hailed by a messenger
from the chief, sent to find out who we were and the objects of our
extraordinary visit.

"Who are you?" he shouted in a heavy, far-reaching voice. "What are
your names? What do you want? What have you come for?"

On receiving replies, he shouted the information to another
messenger, who was posted on the river-bank at a distance of a
quarter of a mile or so, and he to another and another in succession,
and by this living telephone the news was delivered to the chief as
he sat by his fireside. A salute was then fired to welcome us, and a
swarm of musket-bullets, flying scarce high enough for comfort,
pinged over our heads. As soon as we reached the landing at the
village, a dignified young man stepped forward and thus addressed
us:--

"My chief sent me to meet you, and to ask if you would do him the
honor to lodge in his house during your stay in our village?"

We replied, of course, that we would consider it a great honor to be
entertained by so distinguished a chief.

The messenger then ordered a number of slaves, who stood behind him,
to draw our canoe out of the water, carry our provisions and bedding
into the chief's house, and then carry the canoe back from the river
where it would be beyond the reach of floating ice. While we waited,
a lot of boys and girls were playing on a meadow near the
landing--running races, shooting arrows, and wading in the icy river
without showing any knowledge of our presence beyond quick stolen
glances. After all was made secure, he conducted us to the house,
where we found seats of honor prepared for us.

The old chief sat barefooted by the fireside, clad in a calico shirt
and blanket, looking down, and though we shook hands as we passed him
he did not look up. After we were seated, he still gazed into the
fire without taking the slightest notice of us for about ten or
fifteen minutes. The various members of the chief's family,
also,--men, women, and children,--went about their usual employment
and play as if entirely unconscious that strangers were in the house,
it being considered impolite to look at visitors or speak to them
before time had been allowed them to collect their thoughts and
prepare any message they might have to deliver.

At length, after the politeness period had passed, the chief slowly
raised his head and glanced at his visitors, looked down again, and
at last said, through our interpreter:--

"I am troubled. It is customary when strangers visit us to offer them
food in case they might be hungry, and I was about to do so, when I
remembered that the food of you honorable white chiefs is so much
better than mine that I am ashamed to offer it."

We, of course, replied that we would consider it a great honor to
enjoy the hospitality of so distinguished a chief as he was.

Hearing this, he looked up, saying, "I feel relieved"; or, in John
the interpreter's words, "He feels good now, he says he feels good."

He then ordered one of his family to see that the visitors were fed.
The young man who was to act as steward took up his position in a
corner of the house commanding a view of all that was going on, and
ordered the slaves to make haste to prepare a good meal; one to bring
a lot of the best potatoes from the cellar and wash them well;
another to go out and pick a basketful of fresh berries; another to
broil a salmon; while others made a suitable fire, pouring oil on the
wet wood to make it blaze. Speedily the feast was prepared and passed
around. The first course was potatoes, the second fish-oil and
salmon, next berries and rose-hips; then the steward shouted the
important news, in a loud voice like a herald addressing an army,
"That's all!" and left his post.

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