Alaska Part 11

Admiralty Island is rich in gold, silver, and other minerals. There are whaling grounds in the vicinity, and a whaling station was recently established on the southwestern end of the Island, near Surprise Harbor and Murder Cove. Directly across Chatham Strait from this station, on Baranoff Island, only twenty-five miles from Sitka, are the famous Sulphur Hot Springs.

There are fine marble districts on the western sh.o.r.es of Admiralty Island.

On the southern end are Woewodski Harbor and Pybas Bay.

Halfway through Stephens' Pa.s.sage are the Midway Islands, and but a short distance farther, on the mainland, is Port Snettisham, a mining settlement on an arm whose northern end is formed by Cascades Glacier, and from whose southern arm musically and exquisitely leaps a cascade which is the only rival of Sarah Island in the affections of mariners--_Sweetheart Falls_.

Who so tenderly named this cascade, and for whom, I have not been able to learn; but those pale green, foam-crested waters shall yet give up their secret. Never would Vancouver be suspected of such naming. Had he so prettily and sentimentally named it, the very waters would have turned to stone in their fall, petrified by sheer amazement.

The scenery of Snettisham Inlet is the finest in this vicinity of fine scenic effects, with the single exception of Taku Glacier.

In Taku Harbor is an Indian village, called Taku, where may be found safe anchorage, which is frequently required in winter, on account of what are called "Taku winds." Pa.s.sing Grand Island, which rises to a wooded peak, the steamer crosses the entrance to Taku Inlet and enters Gastineau Channel.

There are many fine peaks in this vicinity, from two to ten thousand feet in height.

The stretch of water where Stephens' Pa.s.sage, Taku Inlet, Gastineau Channel, and the southeastern arm of Lynn Ca.n.a.l meet is in winter dreaded by pilots. A squall is liable to come tearing down Taku Inlet at any moment and meet one from some other direction, to the peril of navigation.

At times a kind of fine frozen mist is driven across by the violent gales, making it difficult to see a ship's length ahead. At such times the expressive faces on the bridge of a steamer are psychological studies.

In summer, however, no open stretch of water could be more inviting.

Clear, faintly rippled, deep sapphire, flecked with the first glistening bergs floating out of the inlet, it leads the way to the glorious presence that lies beyond.

I had meant to take the reader first up lovely Gastineau Channel to Juneau; but now that I have unintentionally drifted into Taku Inlet, the glacier lures me on. It is only an hour's run, and the way is one of ever increasing beauty, until the steamer has pushed its prow through the hundreds of sparkling icebergs, under slow bell, and at last lies motionless. One feels as though in the presence of some living, majestic being, clouded in mystery. The splendid front drops down sheer to the water, from a height of probably three hundred feet. A sapphire mist drifts over it, without obscuring the exquisite tintings of rose, azure, purple, and green that flash out from the glistening spires and columns.

The crumpled ma.s.s pushing down from the mountains strains against the front, and sends towered bulks plunging headlong into the sea, with a roar that echoes from peak to peak in a kind of "linked sweetness long drawn out" and ever diminishing.

There is no air so indescribably, thrillingly sweet as the air of a glacier on a fair day. It seems to palpitate with a fragrance that ravishes the senses. I saw a great, recently captured bear, chained on the hurricane deck of a steamer, stand with his nose stretched out toward the glacier, his nostrils quivering and a look of almost human longing and rebellion in his small eyes. The feeling of pain and pity with which a humane person always beholds a chained wild animal is accented in these wide and n.o.ble s.p.a.ces swimming from snow mountain to snow mountain, where the very watchword of the silence seems to be "Freedom." The chained bear recognized the scent of the glacier and remembered that he had once been free.

In front of the glacier stretched miles of sapphire, sunlit sea, set with sparkling, opaline-tinted icebergs. Now and then one broke and fell apart before our eyes, sending up a funnel-shaped spray of color,--rose, pale green, or azure.

At every blast of the steamer's whistle great ma.s.ses of ice came thundering headlong into the sea--to emerge presently, icebergs.

Canoeists approach glaciers closely at their peril, never knowing when an iceberg may shoot to the surface and wreck their boat. Even larger craft are by no means safe, and tourists desiring a close approach should voyage with intrepid captains who sail safely through everything.

The wide, ceaseless sweep of a live glacier down the side of a great mountain and out into the sea holds a more compelling suggestion of power than any other action of nature. I have never felt the appeal of a mountain glacier--of a stream of ice and snow that, so far as the eye can discover, never reaches anywhere, although it keeps going forever.

The feeling of forlornness with which, after years of antic.i.p.ation, I finally beheld the renowned glacier of the Selkirks, will never be forgotten. It was the forlornness of a child who has been robbed of her Santa Claus, or who has found that her doll is stuffed with sawdust.

But to behold the splendid, perpendicular front of a live glacier rising out of a sea which breaks everlastingly upon it; to see it under the rose and lavender of sunset or the dull gold of noon; to see and hear tower, minaret, dome, go thundering down into the clear depths and pound them into foam--this alone is worth the price of a trip to Alaska.

We were told that the opaline coloring of the glacier was unusual, and that its prevailing color is an intense blue, more beautiful and constant than that of other glaciers; and that even the bergs floating out from it were of a more p.r.o.nounced blue than other bergs.

But I do not believe it. I have seen the blue of the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound; and I have sailed for a whole afternoon among the intensely blue ice shallops that go drifting in an endless fleet from Glacier Bay out through Icy Straits to the ocean. If there be a more exquisite blue this side of heaven than I have seen in Icy Straits and in the palisades of the Columbia Glacier, I must see it to believe it.

There are three glaciers in Taku Inlet: two--Windham and Twin--which are at present "dead"; and Taku, the Beautiful, which is very much alive.

The latter was named Foster, for the former Secretary of the Treasury; but the Indian name has clung to it, which is one more cause for thanksgiving.

The Inlet is eighteen miles long and about seven hundred feet wide. Taku River flows into it from the northeast, spreading out in blue ribbons over the brown flats; at high tide it may be navigated, with caution, by small row-boats and canoes. It was explored in early days by the Hudson Bay Company, also by surveyors of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

Whidbey, entering the Inlet in 1794, sustained his reputation for absolute blindness to beauty. He found "a compact body of ice extending some distance nearly all around." He found "frozen mountains," "rock sides," "dwarf pine trees," and "undissolving frost and snow." He lamented the lack of a suitable landing-place for boats; and reported the aspect in general to be "as dreary and inhospitable as the imagination can possibly suggest."

Alas for the poor chilly Englishman! He, doubtless, expected silvery-gowned ice maidens to come sliding out from under the glacier in pearly boats, singing and kissing their hands, to bear him back into their deep blue grottos and dells of ice, and refresh him with Russian tea from old bra.s.s samovars; he expected these maidens to be girdled and crowned with carnations and poppies, and to pluck winy grapes--with _dust_ clinging to their bloomy roundness--from living vines for him to eat; and most of all, he expected to find in some remote corner of the clear and sparkling cavern a big fireplace, "which would remind him pleasantly of England;" and a brilliant fire on a well-swept hearth, with the smoke and sparks going up through a melted hole in the glacier.

About fifteen miles up Taku River, Wright Glacier streams down from the southeast and fronts upon the low and marshy lands for a distance of nearly three miles.

The mountains surrounding Taku Inlet rise to a height of four thousand feet, jutting out abruptly, in places, over the water.

CHAPTER IX

Gastineau Channel is more than a mile wide at the entrance, and eight miles long; it narrows gradually as it separates Douglas Island from the mainland, and, still narrowing, goes glimmering on past Juneau, like a silver-blue ribbon. Down this channel at sunset burns the most beautiful coloring, which slides over the milky waters, producing an opaline effect. At such an hour this scene--with Treadwell glittering on one side, and Juneau on the other, with Mount Juneau rising in one swelling sweep directly behind the town--is one of the fairest in this country of fair scenes.

The unique situation of Juneau appeals powerfully to the lover of beauty. There is an unforgettable charm in its narrow, crooked streets and winding, mossed stairways; its picturesque shops,--some with gorgeous totem-poles for signs,--where a small fortune may be spent on a single Attu or Atka basket; the glitter and the music of its streets and its "places," the latter open all night; its people standing in doorways and upon corners, eager to talk to strangers and bid them welcome; and its gayly clad squaws, surrounded by fine baskets and other work of their brown hands.

The streets are terraced down to the water, and many of the pretty, vine-draped cottages seem to be literally hung upon the side of the mountain. One must have good, strong legs to climb daily the flights of stairs that steeply lead to some of them.

In the heart of the town is an old Presbyterian Mission church, built of logs, with an artistic square tower, also of logs, at one corner. This church is now used as a brewery and soda-bottling establishment!

The lawns are well cared for, and the homes are furnished with refined taste, giving evidences of genuine comfort, as well as luxury.

My first sight of Juneau was at three o'clock of a dark and rainy autumn night in 1905. We had drifted slowly past the mile or more of brilliant electric lights which is Treadwell and Douglas; and turning our eyes to the north, discovered, across the narrow channel, the lights of Juneau climbing out of the darkness up the mountain from the water's edge.

Houses and buildings we could not see; only those radiant lights, leading us on, like will-o'-the-wisps.

When we landed it seemed as though half the people of the town, if not the entire population, must be upon the wharf. It was then that we learned that it is always daytime in Alaskan towns when a steamer lands--even though it be three o'clock of a black night.

The business streets were brilliant. Everything was open for business, except the banks; a blare of music burst through the open door of every saloon and dance-hall; blond-haired "ladies" went up and down the streets in the rain and mud, bare-headed, clad in gauze and other airy materials, in silk stockings and satin slippers. They laughed and talked with men on the streets in groups; they were heard singing; they were seen dancing and inviting the young waiters and cabin-boys of our steamer into their dance halls.

"How'd you like Juneau?" asked my cabin-boy the next day, teetering in the doorway with a plate of oranges in his hand, and a towel over his arm.

"It seemed very lively," I replied, "for three o'clock in the morning."

"Oh, hours don't cut any ice in Alaska," said he. "People in Alaska keep their clo's hung up at the head of their beds, like the harness over a fire horse. When the boat whistles, it loosens the clo's from the hook; the people spring out of bed right under 'em; the clo's fall onto 'em--an' there they are on the wharf, all dressed, by the time the boat docks. They're all right here, but say! they can't hold a candle to the people of Valdez for gettin' to the dock. They just cork you at Valdez."

At Juneau I went through the most brilliant business transaction of my life. I was in the post-office when I discovered that I had left my pocket-book on the steamer. I desired a curling-iron; so I borrowed a big silver dollar of a friend, and hastened away to the largest dry-goods shop.

A sleepy clerk waited upon me. The curling-iron was thirty cents. I gave him the dollar, and he placed the change in my open hand. Without counting it, I went back to the post-office, purchased twenty-five cents' worth of stamps, and gave the balance to the friend from whom I had borrowed the dollar.

"Count it," said I, "and see how much I owe you."

She counted it.

"How much did you spend?" she asked presently.

"Fifty-five cents."

She began to laugh wildly.

"You have a thirty-cent curling-iron, twenty-five cents' worth of stamps, and you've given me back a dollar and sixty-five cents--all out of one silver dollar!"