Mrs. L.T. Meade - "A Sweet Girl Graduate"

Thomas Hardy - "Wessex Poems and Other Verses"

Leo Tolstoy - "What Men Live By and Other Tales"

Marietta Holley - "Samantha at Saratoga"

Travels in Alaska

J >> John Muir >> Travels in Alaska




Although it was now twenty minutes past three and the days were
getting short, I thought that by rapid climbing I could reach the
summit before sunset, in time to get a general view and a few pencil
sketches, and make my way back to the steamer in the night. Mr.
Young, one of the missionaries, asked permission to accompany me,
saying that he was a good walker and climber and would not delay me
or cause any trouble. I strongly advised him not to go, explaining
that it involved a walk, coming and going, of fourteen or sixteen
miles, and a climb through brush and boulders of seven thousand feet,
a fair day's work for a seasoned mountaineer to be done in less than
half a day and part of a night. But he insisted that he was a strong
walker, could do a mountaineer's day's work in half a day, and would
not hinder me in any way.

"Well, I have warned you," I said, "and will not assume
responsibility for any trouble that may arise."

He proved to be a stout walker, and we made rapid progress across a
brushy timbered flat and up the mountain slopes, open in some places,
and in others thatched with dwarf firs, resting a minute here and
there to refresh ourselves with huckleberries, which grew in
abundance in open spots. About half an hour before sunset, when we
were near a cluster of crumbling pinnacles that formed the summit,
I had ceased to feel anxiety about the mountaineering strength and
skill of my companion, and pushed rapidly on. In passing around
the shoulder of the highest pinnacle, where the rock was rapidly
disintegrating and the danger of slipping was great, I shouted in
a warning voice, "Be very careful here, this is dangerous."

Mr. Young was perhaps a dozen or two yards behind me, but out of
sight. I afterwards reproached myself for not stopping and lending
him a steadying hand, and showing him the slight footsteps I had made
by kicking out little blocks of the crumbling surface, instead of
simply warning him to be careful. Only a few seconds after giving
this warning, I was startled by a scream for help, and hurrying back,
found the missionary face downward, his arms outstretched, clutching
little crumbling knobs on the brink of a gully that plunges down a
thousand feet or more to a small residual glacier. I managed to get
below him, touched one of his feet, and tried to encourage him by
saying, "I am below you. You are in no danger. You can't slip past
me and I will soon get you out of this."

He then told me that both of his arms were dislocated. It was almost
impossible to find available footholds on the treacherous rock, and
I was at my wits' end to know how to get him rolled or dragged to a
place where I could get about him, find out how much he was hurt, and
a way back down the mountain. After narrowly scanning the cliff and
making footholds, I managed to roll and lift him a few yards to a
place where the slope was less steep, and there I attempted to set
his arms. I found, however, that this was impossible in such a place.
I therefore tied his arms to his sides with my suspenders and
necktie, to prevent as much as possible inflammation from movement. I
then left him, telling him to lie still, that I would be back in a
few minutes, and that he was now safe from slipping. I hastily
examined the ground and saw no way of getting him down except by the
steep glacier gully. After scrambling to an outstanding point that
commands a view of it from top to bottom, to make sure that it was
not interrupted by sheer precipices, I concluded that with great
care and the digging of slight footholds he could be slid down to the
glacier, where I could lay him on his back and perhaps be able to set
his arms. Accordingly, I cheered him up, telling him I had found a
way, but that it would require lots of time and patience. Digging a
footstep in the sand or crumbling rock five or six feet beneath him,
I reached up, took hold of him by one of his feet, and gently slid
him down on his back, placed his heels in the step, then descended
another five or six feet, dug heel notches, and slid him down to
them. Thus the whole distance was made by a succession of narrow
steps at very short intervals, and the glacier was reached perhaps
about midnight. Here I took off one of my boots, tied a handkerchief
around his wrist for a good hold, placed my heel in his arm pit, and
succeeded in getting one of his arms into place, but my utmost
strength was insufficient to reduce the dislocation of the other. I
therefore bound it closely to his side, and asked him if in his
exhausted and trembling condition he was still able to walk.

"Yes," he bravely replied.

So, with a steadying arm around him and many stops for rest, I
marched him slowly down in the starlight on the comparatively smooth,
unassured surface of the little glacier to the terminal moraine, a
distance of perhaps a mile, crossed the moraine, bathed his head at
one of the outlet streams, and after many rests reached a dry place
and made a brush fire. I then went ahead looking for an open way
through the bushes to where larger wood could be had, made a good
lasting fire of resiny silver-fir roots, and a leafy bed beside it. I
now told him I would run down the mountain, hasten back with help
from the boat, and carry him down in comfort. But he would not hear
of my leaving him.

"No, no," he said, "I can walk down. Don't leave me."

I reminded him of the roughness of the way, his nerve-shaken
condition, and assured him I would not be gone long. But he insisted
on trying, saying on no account whatever must I leave him. I
therefore concluded to try to get him to the ship by short walks from
one fire and resting-place to another. While he was resting I went
ahead, looking for the best way through the brush and rocks, then
returning, got him on his feet and made him lean on my shoulder while
I steadied him to prevent his falling. This slow, staggering struggle
from fire to fire lasted until long after sunrise. When at last we
reached the ship and stood at the foot of the narrow single plank
without side rails that reached from the bank to the deck at a
considerable angle, I briefly explained to Mr. Young's companions,
who stood looking down at us, that he had been hurt in an accident,
and requested one of them to assist me in getting him aboard. But
strange to say, instead of coming down to help, they made haste to
reproach him for having gone on a "wild-goose chase" with Muir.

"These foolish adventures are well enough for Mr. Muir," they said,
"but you, Mr. Young, have a work to do; you have a family; you have a
church, and you have no right to risk your life on treacherous peaks
and precipices."

The captain, Nat Lane, son of Senator Joseph Lane, had been swearing
in angry impatience for being compelled to make so late a start and
thus encounter a dangerous wind in a narrow gorge, and was
threatening to put the missionaries ashore to seek their lost
companion, while he went on down the river about his business. But
when he heard my call for help, he hastened forward, and elbowed the
divines away from the end of the gangplank, shouting in angry
irreverence, "Oh, blank! This is no time for preaching! Don't you see
the man is hurt?"

He ran down to our help, and while I steadied my trembling companion
from behind, the captain kindly led him up the plank into the saloon,
and made him drink a large glass of brandy. Then, with a man holding
down his shoulders, we succeeded in getting the bone into its socket,
notwithstanding the inflammation and contraction of the muscles and
ligaments. Mr. Young was then put to bed, and he slept all the way
back to Wrangell.

In his mission lectures in the East, Mr. Young oftentimes told this
story. I made no record of it in my notebook and never intended to
write a word about it; but after a miserable, sensational caricature
of the story had appeared in a respectable magazine, I thought it but
fair to my brave companion that it should be told just as it happened.



Chapter V

A Cruise in the Cassiar


Shortly after our return to Wrangell the missionaries planned a grand
mission excursion up the coast of the mainland to the Chilcat
country, which I gladly joined, together with Mr. Vanderbilt, his
wife, and a friend from Oregon. The river steamer Cassiar was
chartered, and we had her all to ourselves, ship and officers at our
command to sail and stop where and when we would, and of course
everybody felt important and hopeful. The main object of the
missionaries was to ascertain the spiritual wants of the warlike
Chilcat tribe, with a view to the establishment of a church and
school in their principal village; the merchant and his party were
bent on business and scenery; while my mind was on the mountains,
glaciers, and forests.

This was toward the end of July, in the very brightest and best of
Alaska summer weather, when the icy mountains towering in the pearly
sky were displayed in all their glory, and the islands at their feet
seemed to float and drowse on the shining mirror waters.

After we had passed through the Wrangell Narrows, the mountains of
the mainland came in full view, gloriously arrayed in snow and ice,
some of the largest and most river-like of the glaciers flowing
through wide, high-walled valleys like Yosemite, their sources far
back and concealed, others in plain sight, from their highest
fountains to the level of the sea.

Cares of every kind were quickly forgotten, and though the Cassiar
engines soon began to wheeze and sigh with doleful solemnity,
suggesting coming trouble, we were too happy to mind them. Every face
glowed with natural love of wild beauty. The islands were seen in
long perspective, their forests dark green in the foreground, with
varying tones of blue growing more and more tender in the distance;
bays full of hazy shadows, graduating into open, silvery fields of
light, and lofty headlands with fine arching insteps dipping their
feet in the shining water. But every eye was turned to the mountains.
Forgotten now were the Chilcats and missions while the word of God
was being read in these majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the
sky. The earnest, childish wonderment with which this glorious page
of Nature's Bible was contemplated was delightful to see. All evinced
eager desire to learn.

"Is that a glacier," they asked, "down in that canyon? And is it all
solid ice?"

"Yes."

"How deep is it?"

"Perhaps five hundred or a thousand feet."

"You say it flows. How can hard ice flow?"

"It flows like water, though invisibly slow."

"And where does it come from?"

"From snow that is heaped up every winter on the mountains."

"And how, then, is the snow changed into ice?"

"It is welded by the pressure of its own weight."

"Are these white masses we see in the hollows glaciers also?"

"Yes."

"Are those bluish draggled masses hanging down from beneath the
snow-fields what you call the snouts of the glaciers?"

"Yes."

"What made the hollows they are in?"

"The glaciers themselves, just as traveling animals make their own
tracks."

"How long have they been there?"

"Numberless centuries," etc. I answered as best I could, keeping up a
running commentary on the subject in general, while busily engaged in
sketching and noting my own observations, preaching glacial gospel in
a rambling way, while the Cassiar, slowly wheezing and creeping along
the shore, shifted our position so that the icy canyons were opened to
view and closed again in regular succession, like the leaves of a
book.

About the middle of the afternoon we were directly opposite a noble
group of glaciers some ten in number, flowing from a chain of
crater-like snow fountains, guarded around their summits and well
down their sides by jagged peaks and cols and curving mural ridges.
From each of the larger clusters of fountains, a wide, sheer-walled
canyon opens down to the sea. Three of the trunk glaciers descend to
within a few feet of the sea-level. The largest of the three,
probably about fifteen miles long, terminates in a magnificent valley
like Yosemite, in an imposing wall of ice about two miles long, and
from three to five hundred feet high, forming a barrier across the
valley from wall to wall. It was to this glacier that the ships of
the Alaska Ice Company resorted for the ice they carried to San
Francisco and the Sandwich Islands, and, I believe, also to China and
Japan. To load, they had only to sail up the fiord within a short
distance of the front and drop anchor in the terminal moraine.

Another glacier, a few miles to the south of this one, receives two
large tributaries about equal in size, and then flows down a forested
valley to within a hundred feet or so of sea-level. The third of this
low-descending group is four or five miles farther south, and, though
less imposing than either of the two sketched above, is still a truly
noble object, even as imperfectly seen from the channel, and would of
itself be well worth a visit to Alaska to any lowlander so
unfortunate as never to have seen a glacier.

The boilers of our little steamer were not made for sea water, but it
was hoped that fresh water would be found at available points along
our course where streams leap down the cliffs. In this particular we
failed, however, and were compelled to use salt water an hour or two
before reaching Cape Fanshawe, the supply of fifty tons of fresh
water brought from Wrangell having then given out. To make matters
worse, the captain and engineer were not in accord concerning the
working of the engines. The captain repeatedly called for more steam,
which the engineer refused to furnish, cautiously keeping the
pressure low because the salt water foamed in the boilers and some of
it passed over into the cylinders, causing heavy thumping at the end
of each piston stroke, and threatening to knock out the
cylinder-heads. At seven o'clock in the evening we had made only
about seventy miles, which caused dissatisfaction, especially among
the divines, who thereupon called a meeting in the cabin to consider
what had better be done. In the discussions that followed much
indignation and economy were brought to light. We had chartered the
boat for sixty dollars per day, and the round trip was to have been
made in four or five days. But at the present rate of speed it was
found that the cost of the trip for each passenger would be five or
ten dollars above the first estimate. Therefore, the majority ruled
that we must return next day to Wrangell, the extra dollars
outweighing the mountains and missions as if they had suddenly become
dust in the balance.

Soon after the close of this economical meeting, we came to anchor in
a beautiful bay, and as the long northern day had still hours of good
light to offer, I gladly embraced the opportunity to go ashore to see
the rocks and plants. One of the Indians, employed as a deck hand on
the steamer, landed me at the mouth of a stream. The tide was low,
exposing a luxuriant growth of algae, which sent up a fine, fresh sea
smell. The shingle was composed of slate, quartz, and granite, named
in the order of abundance. The first land plant met was a tall grass,
nine feet high, forming a meadow-like margin in front of the forest.
Pushing my way well back into the forest, I found it composed almost
entirely of spruce and two hemlocks (Picea sitchensis, Tsuga
heterophylla and T. mertensiana) with a few specimens of yellow
cypress. The ferns were developed in remarkable beauty and
size--aspidiums, one of which is about six feet high, a woodsia,
lomaria, and several species of polypodium. The underbrush is chiefly
alder, rubus, ledum, three species of vaccinium, and Echinopanax
horrida, the whole about from six to eight feet high, and in some
places closely intertangled and hard to penetrate. On the opener
spots beneath the trees the ground is covered to a depth of two or
three feet with mosses of indescribable freshness and beauty, a few
dwarf conifers often planted on their rich furred bosses, together
with pyrola, coptis, and Solomon's-seal. The tallest of the trees are
about a hundred and fifty feet high, with a diameter of about four
or five feet, their branches mingling together and making a perfect
shade. As the twilight began to fall, I sat down on the mossy instep
of a spruce. Not a bush or tree was moving; every leaf seemed hushed
in brooding repose. One bird, a thrush, embroidered the silence with
cheery notes, making the solitude familiar and sweet, while the
solemn monotone of the stream sifting through the woods seemed like
the very voice of God, humanized, terrestrialized, and entering one's
heart as to a home prepared for it. Go where we will, all the world
over, we seem to have been there before.

The stream was bridged at short intervals with picturesque,
moss-embossed logs, and the trees on its banks, leaning over from
side to side, made high embowering arches. The log bridge I crossed
was, I think, the most beautiful of the kind I ever saw. The massive
log is plushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of three
or four species, their different tones of yellow shading finely into
each other, while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in
exquisite order, inclining outward and down the sides in rich,
furred, clasping sheets overlapping and felted together until the
required thickness is attained. The pedicels and spore-cases give a
purplish tinge, and the whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row
of small seedling trees and currant bushes with colored leaves, every
one of which seems to have been culled from the woods for this
special use, so perfectly do they harmonize in size, shape, and color
with the mossy cover, the width of the span, and the luxuriant,
brushy abutments.

Sauntering back to the beach, I found four or five Indian deck hands
getting water, with whom I returned aboard the steamer, thanking the
Lord for so noble an addition to my life as was this one big
mountain, forest, and glacial day.

Next morning most of the company seemed uncomfortably
conscience-stricken, and ready to do anything in the way of
compensation for our broken excursion that would not cost too much.
It was not found difficult, therefore, to convince the captain and
disappointed passengers that instead of creeping back to Wrangell
direct we should make an expiatory branch-excursion to the largest of
the three low-descending glaciers we had passed. The Indian pilot,
well acquainted with this part of the coast, declared himself willing
to guide us. The water in these fiord channels is generally deep and
safe, and though at wide intervals rocks rise abruptly here and
there, lacking only a few feet in height to enable them to take rank
as islands, the flat-bottomed Cassiar drew but little more water than
a duck, so that even the most timid raised no objection on this
score. The cylinder-heads of our engines were the main source of
anxiety; provided they could be kept on all might yet be well. But in
this matter there was evidently some distrust, the engineer having
imprudently informed some of the passengers that in consequence of
using salt water in his frothing boilers the cylinder-heads might fly
off at any moment. To the glacier, however, it was at length decided
we should venture.

Arriving opposite the mouth of its fiord, we steered straight inland
between beautiful wooded shores, and the grand glacier came in sight
in its granite valley, glowing in the early sunshine and extending a
noble invitation to come and see. After we passed between the two
mountain rocks that guard the gate of the fiord, the view that was
unfolded fixed every eye in wondering admiration. No words can convey
anything like an adequate conception of its sublime grandeur--the
noble simplicity and fineness of the sculpture of the walls; their
magnificent proportions; their cascades, gardens, and forest
adornments; the placid fiord between them; the great white and blue
ice wall, and the snow-laden mountains beyond. Still more impotent
are words in telling the peculiar awe one experiences in entering
these mansions of the icy North, notwithstanding it is only the
natural effect of appreciable manifestations of the presence of God.

Standing in the gateway of this glorious temple, and regarding it
only as a picture, its outlines may be easily traced, the water
foreground of a pale-green color, a smooth mirror sheet sweeping back
five or six miles like one of the lower reaches of a great river,
bounded at the head by a beveled barrier wall of blueish-white ice
four or five hundred feet high. A few snowy mountain-tops appear
beyond it, and on either hand rise a series of majestic, pale-gray
granite rocks from three to four thousand feet high, some of them
thinly forested and striped with bushes and flowery grass on narrow
shelves, especially about half way up, others severely sheer and bare
and built together into walls like those of Yosemite, extending far
beyond the ice barrier, one immense brow appearing beyond another
with their bases buried in the glacier. This is a Yosemite Valley in
process of formation, the modeling and sculpture of the walls nearly
completed and well planted, but no groves as yet or gardens or
meadows on the raw and unfinished bottom. It is as if the explorer,
in entering the Merced Yosemite, should find the walls nearly in
their present condition, trees and flowers in the warm nooks and
along the sunny portions of the moraine-covered brows, but the bottom
of the valley still covered with water and beds of gravel and mud,
and the grand glacier that formed it slowly receding but still
filling the upper half of the valley.

Sailing directly up to the edge of the low, outspread, water-washed
terminal moraine, scarce noticeable in a general view, we seemed to
be separated from the glacier only by a bed of gravel a hundred yards
or so in width; but on so grand a scale are all the main features of
the valley, we afterwards found the distance to be a mile or more.

The captain ordered the Indian deck hands to get out the canoe, take
as many of us ashore as wished to go, and accompany us to the glacier
in case we should need their help. Only three of the company, in the
first place, availed themselves of this rare opportunity of meeting a
glacier in the flesh,--Mr. Young, one of the doctors, and myself.
Paddling to the nearest and driest-looking part of the moraine flat,
we stepped ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe; for the
gray mineral mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept
unstable by the tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us
feet foremost with becoming glacial deliberation. Our next attempt,
made nearer the middle of the valley, was successful, and we soon
found ourselves on firm gravelly ground, and made haste to the huge
ice wall, which seemed to recede as we advanced. The only difficulty
we met was a network of icy streams, at the largest of which we
halted, not willing to get wet in fording. The Indian attendant
promptly carried us over on his back. When my turn came I told him I
would ford, but he bowed his shoulders in so ludicrously persuasive a
manner I thought I would try the queer mount, the only one of the
kind I had enjoyed since boyhood days in playing leapfrog. Away
staggered my perpendicular mule over the boulders into the brawling
torrent, and in spite of top-heavy predictions to the contrary,
crossed without a fall. After being ferried in this way over several
more of these glacial streams, we at length reached the foot of the
glacier wall. The doctor simply played tag on it, touched it gently
as if it were a dangerous wild beast, and hurried back to the boat,
taking the portage Indian with him for safety, little knowing what he
was missing. Mr. Young and I traced the glorious crystal wall,
admiring its wonderful architecture, the play of light in the rifts
and caverns, and the structure of the ice as displayed in the less
fractured sections, finding fresh beauty everywhere and facts for
study. We then tried to climb it, and by dint of patient zigzagging
and doubling among the crevasses, and cutting steps here and there,
we made our way up over the brow and back a mile or two to a height
of about seven hundred feet. The whole front of the glacier is gashed
and sculptured into a maze of shallow caves and crevasses, and a
bewildering variety of novel architectural forms, clusters of
glittering lance-tipped spires, gables, and obelisks, bold
outstanding bastions and plain mural cliffs, adorned along the top
with fretted cornice and battlement, while every gorge and crevasse,
groove and hollow, was filled with light, shimmering and throbbing in
pale-blue tones of ineffable tenderness and beauty. The day was warm,
and back on the broad melting bosom of the glacier beyond the
crevassed front, many streams were rejoicing, gurgling, ringing,
singing, in frictionless channels worn down through the white
disintegrated ice of the surface into the quick and living blue, in
which they flowed with a grace of motion and flashing of light to be
found only on the crystal hillocks and ravines of a glacier.

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