Alaska Part 26

La Perouse found enormous ma.s.ses of ice detaching themselves from five different glaciers. The water was covered with icebergs, and nearness to the sh.o.r.e was exceedingly dangerous. His small boat was upset half a mile from sh.o.r.e by a ma.s.s of ice falling from a glacier.

Mr. Muir describes La Perouse Glacier as presenting grand ice bluffs to the open ocean, into which it occasionally discharged bergs.

All agree that the appearance and surroundings of the bay are extraordinary.

Yakutat Bay is two hundred and fifteen miles from Sitka. It was called Behring Bay by Cook and Vancouver, who supposed it to be the bay in which the Dane anch.o.r.ed in 1741. It was named Admiralty Bay by Dixon, and the Bay of Monti by La Perouse. The Indian name is the only one which has been preserved.

It is so peculiarly situated that although several islands lie in front of it, the full force of the North Pacific Ocean sweeps into it. At most seasons of the year it is full of floating ice which drifts down from the glaciers of Disenchantment Bay.

At the point on the southern side of the bay which Dixon named Mulgrave, and where there is a fine harbor, Baranoff established a colony of Siberian convicts about 1796. His instructions from Shelikoff for the laying-out of a city in such a wilderness make interesting reading.

"And now it only remains for us to hope that, having selected on the mainland a suitable place, you will lay out the settlement with some taste and with due regard for beauty of construction, in order that when visits are made by foreign ships, as cannot fail to happen, it may appear more like a town than a village, and that the Russians in America may live in a neat and orderly way, and not, as in Ohkotsk, in squalor and misery, caused by the absence of nearly everything necessary to civilization. Use taste as well as practical judgment in locating the settlement. Look to beauty, as well as to convenience of material and supplies. On the plans, as well as in reality, leave room for s.p.a.cious squares for public a.s.semblies. Make the streets not too long, but wide, and let them radiate from the squares. If the site is wooded, let trees enough stand to line the streets and to fill the gardens, in order to beautify the place and preserve a healthy atmosphere. Build the houses along the streets, but at some distance from each other, in order to increase the extent of the town. The roofs should be of equal height, and the architecture as uniform as possible. The gardens should be of equal size and provided with good fences along the streets. Thanks be to G.o.d that you will at least have no lack of timber."

In the same letter poor Baranoff was reproached for exchanging visits with captains of foreign vessels, and warned that he might be carried off to California or some other "desolate" place.

The colony of convicts had been intended as an "agricultural"

settlement; but the bleak location at the foot of Mount St. Elias made a farce of the undertaking. The site had been chosen by a mistake. A post and fortifications were erected, but it is not chronicled that Shelikoff's instructions were carried out. There was great mortality among the colonists and their families, and constant danger of attack by the Kolosh. Finally, in 1805, the fort and settlement were entirely destroyed by their cruel and revengeful enemies.

The new town of Yakutat is three or four miles from the old settlement.

There is a good wharf at the foot of a commanding plateau, which is a good site for a city. On the wharf are a saw-mill and cannery. A stiff climb along a forest road brings one to a store, several other business houses, and a few residences.

There are good coal veins in the vicinity. The Yakutat and Southern Railway leads several miles into the interior, and handles a great deal of timber.

In 1794 Puget sailed the _Chatham_ through the narrow channel between the mainland and the islands, leading to Port Mulgrave--where Portoff was established in a tent with nine of his countrymen and several hundred Kadiak natives. He found the channel narrow and dangerous; his vessel grounded, but was successfully floated at returning tide. Pa.s.sage to Mulgrave was found easy, however, by a channel farther to the westward and southward.

In this bay, as in nearly all other localities on the Northwest Coast, the Indians coming out to visit them paddled around the ship two or three times singing a ceremonious song, before offering to come aboard.

They gladly exchanged bows, arrows, darts, spears, fish-gigs--whatever they may be--kamelaykas, or walrus-gut coats, and needlework for white shirts, collars, cravats, and other wearing apparel.

An Indian chief stole Mr. Puget's gold watch chain and seals from his cabin; but it was discovered by Portoff and returned.

The cape extending into the ocean south of the town was the Cape Phipps of the Russians. It has long been known, however, as Ocean Cape. Cape Manby is on the opposite side of the bay.

Sailing up Yakutat Bay, the Bay of Disenchantment is entered and continues for sixty miles, when it merges into Russell Fiord, which bends sharply to the south and almost reaches the ocean.

Enchantment Bay would be a more appropriate name. The scenery is of varied, magnificent, and ever increasing beauty. The climax is reached in Russell Fiord--named for Professor Russell, who explored it in a canoe in 1891.

From Yakutat Bay to the very head of Russell Fiord supreme splendor of scenery is encountered, surpa.s.sing the most vaunted of the Old World.

Within a few miles, one pa.s.ses from luxuriant forestation to lovely lakes, lacy cascades, bits of green valley; and then, of a sudden, all unprepared, into the most sublime snow-mountain fastnesses imaginable, surrounded by glaciers and many of the most majestic mountain peaks of the world.

Cascades spring, foaming, down from misty heights, and flowers bloom, large and brilliant, from the water to the line of snow.

Malaspina, an Italian in the service of Spain, named Disenchantment Bay.

Turner Glacier and the vast Hubbard Glacier discharge into this bay; and from the reports of the Italian, Tabenkoff, and Vancouver, it has been considered possible that the two glaciers may have reached, more than a hundred years ago, across the narrowest bend at the head of Yakutat Bay.

The fiord is so narrow that the tops of the high snow mountains have the appearance of overhanging their bases; and to the canoeist floating down the slender, translucent water-way, this effect adds to the austerity of the scene.

Captains of regular steamers are frequently offered good prices to make a side trip up Yakutat Bay to the beginning of Disenchantment; but owing to the dangers of its comparatively uncharted waters, they usually decline with vigor.

One who would penetrate into this exquisitely beautiful, lone, and enchanted region must trust himself to a long canoe voyage and complete isolation from his kind. But what recompense--what life-rememberable joy!

Each country has its spell; but none is so great as the spell of this lone and splendid land. It is too sacred for any light word of pen or lip. The spell of Alaska is the spell of G.o.d; and it holds all save the basest, whether they acknowledge it or deny. Here are sphinxes and pyramids built of century upon century's snow; the pale green thunder of the cataract; the roar of the avalanche and the glacier's compelling march; the flow of mighty rivers; the unbroken silences that swim from snow mountain to snow mountain; and the rose of sunset whose petals float and fade upon mountain and sea.

As one sails past these mountains days upon days, they seem to lean apart and withdraw in pearly aloofness, that others more beautiful and more remote may dawn upon the enraptured beholder's sight. For hundreds of miles up and down the coast, and for hundreds into the interior, they rise in full view from the ocean which breaks upon the nearer ones. At sunrise and at sunset each is wrapped in a different color from the others, each in its own light, its own glory--caused by its own peculiar shape and its position among the others.

While the steamer lies at Yakutat pa.s.sengers may, if they desire, walk through the forest to the old village, where there is an ancient Thlinkit settlement. There is a new one at the new town. The tents and cabins climb picturesquely among the trees and ferns from the water up a steep hill.

In 1880 there was a great gold excitement at Yakutat. Gold was discovered in the black-sand beaches. A number of mining camps were there until the late 'eighties, and by the use of rotary hand amalgamators, men were able to clean up forty dollars a day.

The bay was flooded by a tidal wave which left the beach covered with fish. The oil deposited by their decay prevented the action of the mercury, and the camp was abandoned.

The sea is now restoring the black sand, and a second Nome may one day spring up on these hills in a single night.

As I have said elsewhere, the Yakutat women are among the finest basket weavers of the coast. A finely twined Yakutat basket, however small it may be, is a prize; but the bottom should be woven as finely and as carefully as the body of the basket. Some of the younger weavers make haste by weaving the bottom coa.r.s.ely, which detracts from both its artistic and commercial value.

The instant the end of the gangway touches the wharf at Yakutat, the gayly-clad, dark-eyed squaws swarm aboard. They settle themselves noiselessly along the promenade decks, disposing their baskets, bracelets, carved horn spoons, totem-poles, inlaid lamps, and beaded moccasins about them.

If, during the hours of animated barter that follow, one or two of the women should disappear, the wise woman-pa.s.senger will saunter around the ship and take a look into her stateroom, to make sure that all is well; else, when she does return to it, she may miss silver-backed mirrors, bottles of lavender water, bits of jewellery that may have been carelessly left in sight, pretty collars--and even waists and hats--to say nothing of the things which she may later on find.

These poor dark people were born thieves; and neither the little education they have received, nor the treatment accorded them by the majority of white people with whom they have been brought into contact, has served to wean them entirely from the habits and the instincts of centuries.

At Yakutat, no matter how much good sound sense he may possess, the traveller parts with many large silver dollars. He thinks of Christmas, and counts his friends on one hand, then on the other; then over again, on both.

When the steamer has whistled for the sixth time to call in the wandering pa.s.sengers, and the captain is on the bridge; when the last squaw has pigeon-toed herself up the gangway, flirting her gay shawl around her and chuckling and clucking over the gullibility of the innocent white people; when the last strain from the phonograph in the big store on the hill has died across the violet water widening between the sh.o.r.e and the withdrawing ship--the spendthrift pa.s.senger retires to his cabin and finds the berths overflowing and smelling to heaven with Indian things. Then--too late--he sits down, anywhere, and reflects.

The western sh.o.r.e of Yakutat Bay is bounded by the largest glacier in the world--the Malaspina. It has a sea-frontage of more than sixty miles extending from the bay "to Westward"; and the length of its splendid sweep from its head to the sea at the foot of Mount St. Elias is ninety miles.

For one whole day the majestic mountain and its beautiful companion peaks were in sight of the steamer, before the next range came into view. The sea breaks sheer upon the ice-palisades of the glacier.

Icebergs, pale green, pale blue, and rose-colored, march out to meet and, bowing, pa.s.s the ship.

One cannot say that he knows what beauty is until he has cruised leisurely past this glacier, with the mountains rising behind it, on a clear day, followed by a moonlit night.

On one side are miles on miles of violet ocean sweeping away into limitless s.p.a.ce, a fleck of sunlight flashing like a fire-fly in every hollowed wave; on the other, miles on miles of glistening ice, crowned by peaks of softest snow.

At sunset warm purple mists drift in and settle over the glacier; above these float banks of deepest rose; through both, and above them, glimmer the mountains pearlily, in a remote loveliness that seems not of earth.

But by moonlight to see the glacier streaming down from the mountains and out into the ocean, into the midnight--silent, opaline, majestic--is worth ten years of dull, ordinary living.

It is as if the very face of G.o.d shone through the silence and the sublimity of the night.

CHAPTER XXI