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Travels in Alaska

J >> John Muir >> Travels in Alaska




While I was at Wrangell the chiefs and head men of the Stickeen tribe
got up a grand dinner and entertainment in honor of their
distinguished visitors, three doctors of divinity and their wives,
fellow passengers on the steamer with me, whose object was to
organize the Presbyterian church. To both the dinner and dances I was
invited, was adopted by the Stickeen tribe, and given an Indian name
(Ancoutahan) said to mean adopted chief. I was inclined to regard
this honor as being unlikely to have any practical value, but I was
assured by Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Young, and others that it would be a
great safeguard while I was on my travels among the different tribes
of the archipelago. For travelers without an Indian name might be
killed and robbed without the offender being called to account as
long as the crime was kept secret from the whites; but, being adopted
by the Stickeens, no one belonging to the other tribes would dare
attack me, knowing that the Stickeens would hold them responsible.

The dinner-tables were tastefully decorated with flowers, and the
food and general arrangements were in good taste, but there was no
trace of Indian dishes. It was mostly imported canned stuff served
Boston fashion. After the dinner we assembled in Chief Shakes's large
block-house and were entertained with lively examples of their dances
and amusements, carried on with great spirit, making a very novel
barbarous durbar. The dances seemed to me wonderfully like those of
the American Indians in general, a monotonous stamping accompanied by
hand-clapping, head-jerking, and explosive grunts kept in time to
grim drum-beats. The chief dancer and leader scattered great
quantities of downy feathers like a snowstorm as blessings on
everybody, while all chanted, "Hee-ee-ah-ah, hee-ee-ah-ah," jumping
up and down until all were bathed in perspiration.

After the dancing excellent imitations were given of the gait,
gestures, and behavior of several animals under different
circumstances--walking, hunting, capturing, and devouring their prey,
etc. While all were quietly seated, waiting to see what next was
going to happen, the door of the big house was suddenly thrown open
and in bounced a bear, so true to life in form and gestures we were
all startled, though it was only a bear-skin nicely fitted on a man
who was intimately acquainted with the animals and knew how to
imitate them. The bear shuffled down into the middle of the floor and
made the motion of jumping into a stream and catching a wooden salmon
that was ready for him, carrying it out on to the bank, throwing his
head around to listen and see if any one was coming, then tearing it
to pieces, jerking his head from side to side, looking and listening
in fear of hunters' rifles. Besides the bear dance, there were
porpoise and deer dances with one of the party imitating the animals
by stuffed specimens with an Indian inside, and the movements were so
accurately imitated that they seemed the real thing.

These animal plays were followed by serious speeches, interpreted by
an Indian woman: "Dear Brothers and Sisters, this is the way we used
to dance. We liked it long ago when we were blind, we always danced
this way, but now we are not blind. The Good Lord has taken pity upon
us and sent his son, Jesus Christ, to tell us what to do. We have
danced to-day only to show you how blind we were to like to dance in
this foolish way. We will not dance any more."

Another speech was interpreted as follows: "'Dear Brothers and
Sisters,' the chief says, 'this is else way we used to dance and
play. We do not wish to do so any more. We will give away all the
dance dresses you have seen us wearing, though we value them very
highly.' He says he feels much honored to have so many white
brothers and sisters at our dinner and plays."

Several short explanatory remarks were made all through the exercises
by Chief Shakes, presiding with grave dignity. The last of his
speeches concluded thus: "Dear Brothers and Sisters, we have been
long, long in the dark. You have led us into strong guiding light and
taught us the right way to live and the right way to die. I thank you
for myself and all my people, and I give you my heart."

At the close of the amusements there was a potlatch when robes made
of the skins of deer, wild sheep, marmots, and sables were
distributed, and many of the fantastic head-dresses that had been
worn by Shamans. One of these fell to my share.

The floor of the house was strewn with fresh hemlock boughs, bunches
of showy wild flowers adorned the walls, and the hearth was filled
with huckleberry branches and epilobium. Altogether it was a
wonderful show.

I have found southeastern Alaska a good, healthy country to live in.
The climate of the islands and shores of the mainland is remarkably
bland and temperate and free from extremes of either heat or cold
throughout the year. It is rainy, however,--so much so that
hay-making will hardly ever be extensively engaged in here, whatever
the future may show in the way of the development of mines, forests,
and fisheries. This rainy weather, however, is of good quality, the
best of the kind I ever experienced, mild in temperature, mostly
gentle in its fall, filling the fountains of the rivers and keeping
the whole land fresh and fruitful, while anything more delightful
than the shining weather in the midst of the rain, the great round
sun-days of July and August, may hardly be found anywhere, north or
south. An Alaska summer day is a day without night. In the Far North,
at Point Barrow, the sun does not set for weeks, and even here in
southeastern Alaska it is only a few degrees below the horizon at its
lowest point, and the topmost colors of the sunset blend with those
of the sunrise, leaving no gap of darkness between. Midnight is only
a low noon, the middle point of the gloaming. The thin clouds that
are almost always present are then colored yellow and red, making a
striking advertisement of the sun's progress beneath the horizon. The
day opens slowly. The low arc of light steals around to the
northeastward with gradual increase of height and span and intensity
of tone; and when at length the sun appears, it is without much of
that stirring, impressive pomp, of flashing, awakening, triumphant
energy, suggestive of the Bible imagery, a bridegroom coming out of
his chamber and rejoicing like a strong man to run a race. The red
clouds with yellow edges dissolve in hazy dimness; the islands, with
grayish-white ruffs of mist about them, cast ill-defined shadows on
the glistening waters, and the whole down-bending firmament becomes
pearl-gray. For three or four hours after sunrise there is nothing
especially impressive in the landscape. The sun, though seemingly
unclouded, may almost be looked in the face, and the islands and
mountains, with their wealth of woods and snow and varied beauty of
architecture, seem comparatively sleepy and uncommunicative.

As the day advances toward high noon, the sun-flood streaming through
the damp atmosphere lights the water levels and the sky to glowing
silver. Brightly play the ripples about the bushy edges of the
islands and on the plume-shaped streaks between them, ruffled by
gentle passing wind-currents. The warm air throbs and makes itself
felt as a life-giving, energizing ocean, embracing all the landscape,
quickening the imagination, and bringing to mind the life and motion
about us--the tides, the rivers, the flood of light streaming through
the satiny sky; the marvelous abundance of fishes feeding in the
lower ocean; the misty flocks of insects in the air; wild sheep and
goats on a thousand grassy ridges; beaver and mink far back on many a
rushing stream; Indians floating and basking along the shores; leaves
and crystals drinking the sunbeams; and glaciers on the mountains,
making valleys and basins for new rivers and lakes and fertile beds
of soil.

Through the afternoon, all the way down to the sunset, the day grows
in beauty. The light seems to thicken and become yet more generously
fruitful without losing its soft mellow brightness. Everything seems
to settle into conscious repose. The winds breathe gently or are
wholly at rest. The few clouds visible are downy and luminous and
combed out fine on the edges. Gulls here and there, winnowing the
air on easy wing, are brought into striking relief; and every stroke
of the paddles of Indian hunters in their canoes is told by a quick,
glancing flash. Bird choirs in the grove are scarce heard as they
sweeten the brooding stillness; and the sky, land, and water meet and
blend in one inseparable scene of enchantment. Then comes the sunset
with its purple and gold, not a narrow arch on the horizon, but
oftentimes filling all the sky. The level cloud-bars usually present
are fired on the edges, and the spaces of clear sky between them are
greenish-yellow or pale amber, while the orderly flocks of small
overlapping clouds, often seen higher up, are mostly touched with
crimson like the out-leaning sprays of maple-groves in the beginning
of an Eastern Indian Summer. Soft, mellow purple flushes the sky to
the zenith and fills the air, fairly steeping and transfiguring the
islands and making all the water look like wine. After the sun goes
down, the glowing gold vanishes, but because it descends on a curve
nearly in the same plane with the horizon, the glowing portion of the
display lasts much longer than in more southern latitudes, while the
upper colors with gradually lessening intensity of tone sweep around
to the north, gradually increase to the eastward, and unite with
those of the morning.

The most extravagantly colored of all the sunsets I have yet seen in
Alaska was one I enjoyed on the voyage from Portland to Wrangell,
when we were in the midst of one of the most thickly islanded parts
of the Alexander Archipelago. The day had been showery, but late in
the afternoon the clouds melted away from the west, all save a few
that settled down in narrow level bars near the horizon. The evening
was calm and the sunset colors came on gradually, increasing in
extent and richness of tone by slow degrees as if requiring more time
than usual to ripen. At a height of about thirty degrees there was a
heavy cloud-bank, deeply reddened on its lower edge and the
projecting parts of its face. Below this were three horizontal belts
of purple edged with gold, while a vividly defined, spreading fan of
flame streamed upward across the purple bars and faded in a feather
edge of dull red. But beautiful and impressive as was this painting
on the sky, the most novel and exciting effect was in the body of the
atmosphere itself, which, laden with moisture, became one mass of
color--a fine translucent purple haze in which the islands with
softened outlines seemed to float, while a dense red ring lay around
the base of each of them as a fitting border. The peaks, too, in the
distance, and the snow-fields and glaciers and fleecy rolls of mist
that lay in the hollows, were flushed with a deep, rosy alpenglow of
ineffable loveliness. Everything near and far, even the ship, was
comprehended in the glorious picture and the general color effect.
The mission divines we had aboard seemed then to be truly divine as
they gazed transfigured in the celestial glory. So also seemed our
bluff, storm-fighting old captain, and his tarry sailors and all.

About one third of the summer days I spent in the Wrangell region
were cloudy with very little or no rain, one third decidedly rainy,
and one third clear. According to a record kept here of a hundred
and forty-seven days beginning May 17 of that year, there were
sixty-five on which rain fell, forty-three cloudy with no rain, and
thirty-nine clear. In June rain fell on eighteen days, in July eight
days, in August fifteen days, in September twenty days. But on some
of these days there was only a few minutes' rain, light showers
scarce enough to count, while as a general thing the rain fell so
gently and the temperature was so mild, very few of them could be
called stormy or dismal; even the bleakest, most bedraggled of them
all usually had a flush of late or early color to cheer them, or some
white illumination about the noon hours. I never before saw so much
rain fall with so little noise. None of the summer winds make roaring
storms, and thunder is seldom heard. I heard none at all. This wet,
misty weather seems perfectly healthful. There is no mildew in the
houses, as far as I have seen, or any tendency toward mouldiness in
nooks hidden from the sun; and neither among the people nor the
plants do we find anything flabby or dropsical.

In September clear days were rare, more than three fourths of them
were either decidedly cloudy or rainy, and the rains of this month
were, with one wild exception, only moderately heavy, and the clouds
between showers drooped and crawled in a ragged, unsettled way
without betraying hints of violence such as one often sees in the
gestures of mountain storm-clouds.

July was the brightest month of the summer, with fourteen days of
sunshine, six of them in uninterrupted succession, with a temperature
at 7 A.M. of about 60 degrees, at 12 M., 70 degrees. The average 7 A.M.
temperature for June was 54.3 degrees; the average 7 A.M. temperature
for July was 55.3 degrees; at 12 M. the average temperature was 61.45
degrees; the average 7 A.M. temperature for August was 54.12 degrees;
12 M., 61.48 degrees; the average 7 A.M. temperature for September was
52.14 degrees; and 12 M., 56.12 degrees.

The highest temperature observed here during the summer was
seventy-six degrees. The most remarkable characteristic of this
summer weather, even the brightest of it, is the velvet softness
of the atmosphere. On the mountains of California, throughout the
greater part of the year, the presence of an atmosphere is hardly
recognized, and the thin, white, bodiless light of the morning comes
to the peaks and glaciers as a pure spiritual essence, the most
impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. The clearest
of Alaskan air is always appreciably substantial, so much so that it
would seem as if one might test its quality by rubbing it between the
thumb and finger. I never before saw summer days so white and so full
of subdued lustre.

The winter storms, up to the end of December when I left Wrangell,
were mostly rain at a temperature of thirty-five or forty degrees,
with strong winds which sometimes roughly lash the shores and carry
scud far into the woods. The long nights are then gloomy enough and
the value of snug homes with crackling yellow cedar fires may be
finely appreciated. Snow falls frequently, but never to any great
depth or to lie long. It is said that only once since the settlement
of Fort Wrangell has the ground been covered to a depth of four feet.
The mercury seldom falls more than five or six degrees below the
freezing-point, unless the wind blows steadily from the mainland.
Back from the coast, however, beyond the mountains, the winter months
are very cold. On the Stickeen River at Glenora, less than a thousand
feet above the level of the sea, a temperature of from thirty to
forty degrees below zero is not uncommon.



Chapter IV

The Stickeen River


The most interesting of the short excursions we made from Fort
Wrangell was the one up the Stickeen River to the head of steam
navigation. From Mt. St. Elias the coast range extends in a broad,
lofty chain beyond the southern boundary of the territory, gashed by
stupendous canyons, each of which carries a lively river, though most
of them are comparatively short, as their highest sources lie in the
icy solitudes of the range within forty or fifty miles of the coast.
A few, however, of these foaming, roaring streams--the Alsek,
Chilcat, Chilcoot, Taku, Stickeen, and perhaps others--head beyond
the range with some of the southwest branches of the Mackenzie and
Yukon.

The largest side branches of the main-trunk canyons of all these
mountain streams are still occupied by glaciers which descend in
showy ranks, their messy, bulging snouts lying back a little distance
in the shadows of the walls, or pushing forward among the
cotton-woods that line the banks of the rivers, or even stretching
all the way across the main canyons, compelling the rivers to find a
channel beneath them.

The Stickeen was, perhaps, the best known of the rivers that cross
the Coast Range, because it was the best way to the Mackenzie River
Cassiar gold-mines. It is about three hundred and fifty miles long,
and is navigable for small steamers a hundred and fifty miles to
Glenora, and sometimes to Telegraph Creek, fifteen miles farther. It
first pursues a westerly course through grassy plains darkened here
and there with groves of spruce and pine; then, curving southward and
receiving numerous tributaries from the north, it enters the Coast
Range, and sweeps across it through a magnificent canyon three
thousand to five thousand feet deep, and more than a hundred miles
long. The majestic cliffs and mountains forming the canyon walls
display endless variety of form and sculpture, and are wonderfully
adorned and enlivened with glaciers and waterfalls, while throughout
almost its whole extent the floor is a flowery landscape garden, like
Yosemite. The most striking features are the glaciers, hanging over
the cliffs, descending the side canyons and pushing forward to the
river, greatly enhancing the wild beauty of all the others.

Gliding along the swift-flowing river, the views change with
bewildering rapidity. Wonderful, too, are the changes dependent on
the seasons and the weather. In spring, when the snow is melting
fast, you enjoy the countless rejoicing waterfalls; the gentle
breathing of warm winds; the colors of the young leaves and flowers
when the bees are busy and wafts of fragrance are drifting hither and
thither from miles of wild roses, clover, and honeysuckle; the swaths
of birch and willow on the lower slopes following the melting of the
winter avalanche snow-banks; the bossy cumuli swelling in white and
purple piles above the highest peaks; gray rain-clouds wreathing
the outstanding brows and battlements of the walls; and the
breaking-forth of the sun after the rain; the shining of the leaves
and streams and crystal architecture of the glaciers; the rising of
fresh fragrance; the song of the happy birds; and the serene
color-grandeur of the morning and evening sky. In summer you find
the groves and gardens in full dress; glaciers melting rapidly under
sunshine and rain; waterfalls in all their glory; the river rejoicing
in its strength; young birds trying their wings; bears enjoying
salmon and berries; all the life of the canyon brimming full like the
streams. In autumn comes rest, as if the year's work were done. The
rich hazy sunshine streaming over the cliffs calls forth the last
of the gentians and goldenrods; the groves and thickets and meadows
bloom again as their leaves change to red and yellow petals; the
rocks also, and the glaciers, seem to bloom like the plants in the
mellow golden light. And so goes the song, change succeeding change
in sublime harmony through all the wonderful seasons and weather.

My first trip up the river was made in the spring with the missionary
party soon after our arrival at Wrangell. We left Wrangell in the
afternoon and anchored for the night above the river delta, and
started up the river early next morning when the heights above the
"Big Stickeen" Glacier and the smooth domes and copings and arches of
solid snow along the tops of the canyon walls were glowing in the
early beams. We arrived before noon at the old trading-post called
"Buck's" in front of the Stickeen Glacier, and remained long enough
to allow the few passengers who wished a nearer view to cross the
river to the terminal moraine. The sunbeams streaming through the
ice pinnacles along its terminal wall produced a wonderful glory of
color, and the broad, sparkling crystal prairie and the distant snowy
fountains were wonderfully attractive and made me pray for
opportunity to explore them.

Of the many glaciers, a hundred or more, that adorn the walls of the
great Stickeen River Canyon, this is the largest. It draws its sources
from snowy mountains within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast,
pours through a comparatively narrow canyon about two miles in width
in a magnificent cascade, and expands in a broad fan five or six
miles in width, separated from the Stickeen River by its broad
terminal moraine, fringed with spruces and willows. Around the
beautifully drawn curve of the moraine the Stickeen River flows,
having evidently been shoved by the glacier out of its direct course.
On the opposite side of the canyon another somewhat smaller glacier,
which now terminates four or five miles from the river, was once
united front to front with the greater glacier, though at first both
were tributaries of the main Stickeen Glacier which once filled the
whole grand canyon. After the main trunk canyon was melted out, its
side branches, drawing their sources from a height of three or four
to five or six thousand feet, were cut off, and of course became
separate glaciers, occupying cirques and branch canyons along the tops
and sides of the walls. The Indians have a tradition that the river
used to run through a tunnel under the united fronts of the two large
tributary glaciers mentioned above, which entered the main canyon from
either side; and that on one occasion an Indian, anxious to get rid
of his wife, had her sent adrift in a canoe down through the ice
tunnel, expecting that she would trouble him no more. But to his
surprise she floated through under the ice in safety. All the
evidence connected with the present appearance of these two glaciers
indicates that they were united and formed a dam across the river
after the smaller tributaries had been melted off and had receded to
a greater or lesser height above the valley floor.

The big Stickeen Glacier is hardly out of sight ere you come upon
another that pours a majestic crystal flood through the evergreens,
while almost every hollow and tributary canyon contains a smaller one,
the size, of course, varying with the extent of the area drained.
Some are like mere snow-banks; others, with the blue ice apparent,
depend in massive bulging curves and swells, and graduate into the
river-like forms that maze through the lower forested regions and are
so striking and beautiful that they are admired even by the passing
miners with gold-dust in their eyes.

Thirty-five miles above the Big Stickeen Glacier is the "Dirt
Glacier," the second in size. Its outlet is a fine stream, abounding
in trout. On the opposite side of the river there is a group of five
glaciers, one of them descending to within a hundred feet of the
river.

Near Glenora, on the northeastern flank of the main Coast Range, just
below a narrow gorge called "The Canyon," terraces first make their
appearance, where great quantities of moraine material have been
swept through the flood-choked gorge and of course outspread and
deposited on the first open levels below. Here, too, occurs a marked
change in climate and consequently in forests and general appearance
of the face of the country. On account of destructive fires the woods
are younger and are composed of smaller trees about a foot to
eighteen inches in diameter and seventy-five feet high, mostly
two-leaved pines which hold their seeds for several years after
they are ripe. The woods here are without a trace of those deep
accumulations of mosses, leaves, and decaying trunks which make so
damp and unclearable mass in the coast forests. Whole mountain-sides
are covered with gray moss and lichens where the forest has been
utterly destroyed. The river-bank cottonwoods are also smaller, and
the birch and contorta pines mingle freely with the coast hemlock
and spruce. The birch is common on the lower slopes and is very
effective, its round, leafy, pale-green head contrasting with the
dark, narrow spires of the conifers and giving a striking character
to the forest. The "tamarac pine" or black pine, as the variety of
P. contorta is called here, is yellowish-green, in marked contrast
with the dark lichen-draped spruce which grows above the pine at a
height of about two thousand feet, in groves and belts where it has
escaped fire and snow avalanches. There is another handsome spruce
hereabouts, Picea alba, very slender and graceful in habit, drooping
at the top like a mountain hemlock. I saw fine specimens a hundred
and twenty-five feet high on deep bottom land a few miles below
Glenora. The tops of some of them were almost covered with dense
clusters of yellow and brown cones.

We reached the old Hudson's Bay trading-post at Glenora about one
o'clock, and the captain informed me that he would stop here until
the next morning, when he would make an early start for Wrangell.

At a distance of about seven or eight miles to the northeastward of
the landing, there is an outstanding group of mountains crowning a
spur from the main chain of the Coast Range, whose highest point
rises about eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; and
as Glenora is only a thousand feet above the sea, the height to
be overcome in climbing this peak is about seven thousand feet.
Though the time was short I determined to climb it, because of the
advantageous position it occupied for general views of the peaks
and glaciers of the east side of the great range.

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