Wonderland or Alaska and the Inside Passage Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHILKAT BLANKET.]

We are now in the land of the Chilkats, one of the most aggressive and arrogant, yet withal industrious and wealthy, Indian tribes of the T'linkits. It should be remembered that all the Alaskan Indians of the inland pa.s.sage (except the Hy-dahs of Dixon Entrance) are bound together by a common language, called the T'linkit; but having so little else in sympathy that the sub-tribes often war against each other, these sub-tribes having separate chiefs, medicine men and countries, in fact, and being known by different names. We have already spoken of the Stickeens, Kootznahoos, Sitkas, etc.; and by these names they are known among the whites of this portion of the Territory, the t.i.tle T'linkit being seldom heard. At the salmon cannery, on the west sh.o.r.e, a small but recently built village of Chilkats is cl.u.s.tered; but, to see them in "all their glory," the Chilkat river should be ascended to their princ.i.p.al village of Klukwan.

Of this country,--the Chilkat and Chilkoot,--Mrs. Eugene S. Willard, the wife of the missionary presiding at Haines Mission, in Chilkoot Inlet, and who has resided here a number of years, writes in the _Century Magazine_, of October, 1885:

"From Portage Bay (of Chilkoot Inlet) west to the Chilkat river and southward to the point, lies the largest tract of arable land, so far as my knowledge goes, in Southeastern Alaska, while the climate does not differ greatly from that of Pennsylvania * * * Here summer reaches perfection, never sultry, rarely chilling. * * * In May the world and the sun wake up together. In his new zeal, we find old Sol up before us at 2:15 A. M., and he urges us on until 9:45 at night. Even then the light is only turned down; for the darkest hour is like early summer twilight, not too dark for reading.

"From our front door to the pebbly beach below, the wild sweet pea runs rampant; while under and in and through it spring the luxuriant phlox, Indian rice, the white-blossomed 'yun-ate,' and wild roses which make redolent every breath from the bay. Pa.s.sing out the back door, a few steps lead us into the dense pine woods, whose solitudes are peopled with great bears, and owls, and--T'linkit ghosts! while eagles and ravens soar without number. On one tree alone we counted thirty bald eagles. These trees are heavily draped with moss, hanging in rich festoons from every limb; and into the rich carpeting underneath, one's foot may sink for inches. Here the ferns reach mammoth size, though many of fairy daintiness are found among the moss; and the devil's walking stick stands in royal beauty at every turn, with its broad, graceful leaves, and waxen, red berries.

"Out again into the sunshine, and we discover meadows of gra.s.s and clover, through which run bright little streams, grown over with willows, just as at home. And here and there are clumps of trees, so like the peach and apple, that a lump comes into your throat. But you lift your eyes, and there beyond is the broad shining of the river, and above it the ever-present, dream-dispelling peaks of snow, with their blue ice sliding down and down. * *

"The Chilkat people long ago gained for themselves the reputation of being the most fierce and warlike tribe in the Archipelago. Certain it is, that, between themselves and southern Hy-dah, there is not another which can compare with them in strength, either as to numbers, intelligence, physical perfection, or wealth. * * * The children always belong to their mother, and are of her to-tem. This to-temic relation is considered closer than that of blood. If the father's and mother's tribes be at war, the children must take the maternal side, even if against their father. * * * In very rare cases a woman has two husbands; oftener we find a man with two wives, even three; but more frequently met than either is the consecutive wife.

"The Chilkats are comparatively an industrious people. On the mainland we have none of the deer which so densely populate the islands, owing, it is said, to the presence of bears and wolves; but we have the white mountain goat, which, while it is lamb, is delicious meat. From its black horns the finest carved spoons are made, and its pelt, when washed and combed, forms a necessary part of the Indian's bedding and household furniture. The combings are made by the women into rolls similar to those made by machinery at home. Then, with a great basket of these white rolls on one side, and a basket on the other to receive the yarn, a woman sits on the floor, and, on her bared knee, with her palm, rolls it into cord. This they dye in most brilliant colors made of roots, gra.s.ses and moss, and of different kinds of bark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: T'LINKET WAR CANOE.]

"It is of this yarn that the famous Chilkat dancing-blanket is made.

This is done by the women with great nicety and care. The warp, all white, is hung from a handsomely carved upright frame. Into it the bright colors are wrought by means of ivory shuttles. The work is protected during the tedious course of its manufacture by a covering resembling oiled silk, made from the dressed intestines of the bear.

Bright striped stockings of this yarn are also knitted on little needles whittled from wood."

An ill.u.s.tration of a dancing-blanket is given on page 81. These are made by several of the T'linkit tribes; but the Chilkats so predominate in the manufacture, both in numbers and excellence, that you seldom hear them mentioned in Alaska, except as Chilkat blankets. Nearly all of the T'linkit tribes, as the tourist will have seen by this time, spend most of their out-of-door time in the water, in their canoes; and this constant semi-aquatic life has told on their physical development to the extent of giving them very dwarfed and illy developed lower limbs, although the trunk and arms are well developed. When walking, they seem to shamble along more like an aquatic fowl on land than a human being.

The Chilkats are noticeable exceptions. Although their country is much more mountainous in appearance than others lower down, yet here are some of the most accessible of the few mountain pa.s.ses by which the interior, a rich fur-bearing district, can be gained. The Chilkats have yearly taken trading goods from the white men, lashed them into packs of about a hundred pounds, and carried them on their backs through these glacier-clad pa.s.ses, and traded them for furs, bringing them out in the same way. They monopolized the trade by the simple process of prohibiting the interior Indians from coming to the sea-coast to trade.

The Chilkats therefore are probably the richest tribe of Indians in the Northwest, the chief having two houses full of blankets, their standard of value, at the village of Kluk-wan.

To those who find their greatest pleasure in a rough, out-of-door life, let them leave the steamer at this point, hire three or four Indians to carry their company effects on their backs, and make an Alpine journey to the head of the Yukon river, where lakes aggregating 150 miles in length can be pa.s.sed over in a canoe. The route leads up the Dayay river, over the Perrier Pa.s.s in the Kotusk Mountains. The trip could be made between visiting steamers, and I will guarantee the persons will come back with more muscle than they took in.

Bidding good-bye to the picturesque country of the Chilkats, the steamer's head is turned south again; and, when just about ready to leave Lynn Ca.n.a.l, we entered an intricate series of channels bearing eastward, and which bring us to the great mining town of Juneau, where many Alaskan hopes are centred. This is what a correspondent of the Chicago _Times_, under date of February 23, 1885, says of this Alaskan town and its curious history:

"The centre from which radiates whatever of excitement and interest there is in Alaskan mines is Douglas Island. The history of the discovery of ore near this island, which eventually led to the location of the present much-talked-of property, is similar to that attending the finding of most of the large mines in the West. It seems that some half-dozen years ago two needy and seedy prospectors named Juneau and Harris arrived at an Indian village that still remains visible on the sh.o.r.e across the bay from Douglas Island, in search of ore. They prospected the country as thoroughly as they could, with but little success, and were about to return home when an Indian said that he knew where gold existed, and that he would reveal the place for a certain sum of money. Hardly believing, but yet curious, Harris and Juneau accepted the offer, and, with their guide, set out on a pilgrimage into the interior to a spot now known as 'The Basin.' After a long tramp through the forests, and up a deep valley, the Indian showed them a place where there were nuggets of free gold and dirt, which, when panned, yielded a handsome return. Claims were immediately staked out, and the adventurers began their work in earnest. Later, the fact of the discovery became known, and other miners entered the valley, and the region gained no little celebrity, and became the scene of much animation. Four years the work progressed, and a town, which to-day is of respectable size and great expectations, was founded, and christened Juneau.

"The Douglas Island mine is located within fifty yards of the waters of Juneau Bay, and was discovered by a man named Treadwell, who sold his claim a year or two ago to a San Francisco company. The new owners set up a fine stamp-mill to begin with, and made thorough tests of the ore.

It is a 120-stamp mill, the largest in the world, and the company has refused, it is said, $16,000,000 for the mine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: T'LINKET CARVED SPOONS.

(Made from the Horns of Mountain Goats.)]

Since the above was written, and as late as last August, reports from there gave the astonishing showing of enough ore in sight to keep the 120-stamp mill "running for a lifetime." The uninitiated in mining mills, ledges and lodes, may grasp the value of the mine by saying its output for a twenty-days run of the stamp-mill was $100,000 in gold, or at the rate of $1,800,000 per year; which, estimating its value on an income of five per cent. annually, would make the mine worth $36,000,000, or just five times the amount we paid for the whole Territory. There is no doubt whatever in the minds of many experts, that there are a number of such places as the Treadwell mine yet to be found, the great difficulty of prospecting in the dense, deep ma.s.s of fallen timber covered with wet moss and thick underbrush on the steepest mountain sides, coupled with the little probability of the Treadwell being an isolated case in such a uniformly Alpine country, amply justifying them in coming to such conclusions. A visit to the mines is one the tourists can readily make. At Juneau we find the Takoo band of T'linkits in a village near by, where nearly all that has been said regarding Alaskan Indians may be here repeated. The very curious spoons they carve from the horns of the mountain goat, which are figured on page 85, and beautifully woven mats, and the baskets shown on page 68, may be purchased; and, in leaving a few pieces of silver among them for their own handiwork, little as it is that we have thus done for them, it is far more than the extremists of either side in the Indian question have done, those who would exterminate, or those who would sentimentalize in print over their wrongs.

Bidding the mining metropolis of Alaska farewell, our bowsprit is once more pointed for the Pacific Sea; but, before we reach it, or get quite to it, we turn northward and enter Glacier Bay, its name signifying its main attractions. Glaciers, which are great rivers or sheets of ice made from compacted snows, are functions as much of alt.i.tude as of high lat.i.tude; and both unite here, with an air charged with moisture from the warm Pacific waters, to make the grand glaciers which are to be seen in this bay. In the immediate vicinity are the Mount St. Elias Alps, a snowy range which culminates in the well-known peak from which it derives its name; and, radiating from their flanks, come down these rivers of ice, reaching the sea-level in the greatest perfection in Glacier Bay, the largest one of the grand group being the Muir Glacier, after Professor John Muir, the scientist, of California, who is said to be the first to discover it. I will give the language of the man who claims to be the second to arrive upon the scene, and who gives his account in the St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_, writing from Glacier Bay, July 14, 1883:

"When d.i.c.k Willoughby told of the great glacier, thirty miles up the bay, the thud of whose falling ice could be heard and felt at his house, the captain of the 'Idaho' said he would go there, and took this d.i.c.k Willoughby along to find the place and prove the tale. Away we went coursing up Glacier Bay, a fleet of 112 little icebergs gayly sailing out to meet us as we left our anchorage the next morning. Entering into these unknown and unsurveyed waters, the lead was cast through miles of bottomless channels; and, when the pilot neared a green and mountainous little island, he made me an unconditional present of the domain, and duly entered its bearings on the ship's log. For a summer resort my island possesses unusual advantages, and I hereby invite all suffering and perspiring St. Louis to come to that emerald spot in lat.i.tude 58 degrees 29 minutes north, and longitude 135 degrees 52 minutes west from Greenwich, and enjoy the July temperature of 42 degrees, the whale fishing, the duck hunting, and a sight of the grandest glacier in the world.

"But one white man had ever visited the glacier before us, and he was the irrepressible geologist and scientist, John Muir, who started out in an Indian canoe, with a few blankets and some hard-tack, and spent days scrambling over the icy wastes. Feeling our way along carefully, we cast anchor beside a grounded iceberg, and the photographers were rowed off to a small island to take the view of the ship in the midst of that arctic scenery. Mount Crillon showed his h.o.a.ry head to us in glimpses between the clouds; and then, rounding Willoughby Island, which the owner declares is solid marble of a quality to rival that of Pentelicus and Carrara, we saw the full front of the great Muir Glacier, where it dips down and breaks into the sea. At the first breathless glance at that glorious ice-world, all fancies and dreams were surpa.s.sed: the marvelous beauty of those shining, silvery pinnacles and spires, the deep blue b.u.t.tresses, the arches and aisles of that fretted front, struck one with awe. In all Switzerland there is nothing comparable to these Alaskan glaciers, where the frozen wastes rise straight from the sea, and a steamer can go up within an eighth of a mile, and cruise beside them. Add to the picture of high mountains and snowy glaciers a sapphire bay scattered over with glittering little icebergs, and nature can supply nothing more to stir one's soul, to rouse the fancy and imagination, and enchant the senses. The vastness of this Muir Glacier is enough alone to overpower one with a sense of the might and strength of these forces of nature. Dry figures can give one little idea of the great, desolate stretches of gray ice and snow that slope out of sight behind the jutting mountains, and the tumbled and broken front forced down to and into the sea. Although not half of the glacier has been explored, it is said to extend back 40 miles.

"What we could know accurately was, that the front of the glacier was two miles across, and that the ice-wall rose 500 and 1,000 feet from the water. The lead cast at the point nearest to the icy front gave eighty fathoms, or 240 feet, of water; and, in the midst of those deep soundings, icebergs filled with boulders lay grounded with forty feet of their summits visible above water. At very low tide, there is a continual crash of falling ice; and, for the half-day we spent beside this glacier, there was a roar as of artillery every few minutes, when tons of ice would go thundering down into the water. After the prosaic matter of lunch had been settled, and we had watched the practical-minded steward order his men down on the iceberg to cut off a week's supply with their axes, we embarked in the life-boats, and landed in a ravine beside the glacier. * * * We wandered at will over the seamed and ragged surface, the ice cracked under our feet with a pleasant midwinter sound, and the wind blew keenly from over those hundreds of miles of glacier fields; but there were the gurgle and hollow roar of the water heard in every deep creva.s.se, and trickling streams spread a silver network in the sunshine. Reluctantly we obeyed the steamer's whistle, and started back to the boats.

"A magnificent sunset flooded the sky that night, and filled every icy ravine with rose and orange lights. At the last view of the glacier, as we steamed away from it, the whole brow was glorified and transfigured with the fires of sunset; the blue and silvery pinnacles, the white and shining front floating dreamlike on a roseate and amber sea, and the range and circle of dull violet mountains lighting their glowing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and gold."

Since the above was written, in July, 1883, Glacier Bay has been one of the constant visiting points of the excursion steamer, and the experience of two or three years has shown the company how to exhibit this great panorama of nature to its patrons to the best advantage, and one will now be astonished at the ease with which the whole field may be surveyed in this the most wonderful bay on a line of steamboat travel.

Our same correspondent speaks of an unknown pa.s.sage down which they traveled in a way that will delight the heart of a Nimrod; but he should have added that almost half the inland pa.s.sage is of that character so far as the general world is wiser concerning it, and half of this, again, may be wholly unknown, offering one of the finest fields for short explorations without any of the dangers and difficulties which so often beset greater undertakings, and rob them of all pleasure while they are being prosecuted, and only compensating the explorer in the results attained. Here is what he has to say:

"For the twenty miles that we had come down the beautiful inlet, the coast survey charts showed an unbroken stretch of dry land. To the sportsman that unknown inlet is the dreamed-of paradise. When we went out in the small boats, salmon and flounders could be seen darting in schools through the water; and, as we approached the mouth of a creek, the freshening current was alive with the fish. The stewards who went to the sh.o.r.e with the tank-boats for fresh water, startled seven deer as they pushed their way to the foot of a cascade, and the young men caught thirteen great salmon with their own inexperienced spearing. The captain of the ship took his rifle, and was rowed away to shallow waters, where he shot a salmon, waded in, and threw it ash.o.r.e. While wandering along after some huge bear tracks, he saw an eagle at work on his salmon, and another fine shot laid the bird of freedom low. When the captain returned to the ship he threw the eagle and salmon on deck, and, at the size of the former, every one marveled. The outspread wings measured the traditional six feet from tip to tip, and the beak, the claws, and the huge, stiff feathers were rapidly seized upon as trophies and souvenirs of the day. A broad double rainbow arched over us as we left the lovely niche between the mountains, and then we swept back to Icy Straits, and started out to the open ocean."

But we will not confine ourselves to the description of one person in considering this the most fascinating and curious scene presented to the Alaskan tourists. Grand, even to the extent of being almost appalling, as are the Alaskan fjords, they are but the Yosemite or Colorado Parks, with navigable valleys, as they would appear greatly enlarged; much as we are awestruck at the feet of Mount St. Elias, it is but Tacoma or Shasta in grander proportions, and so on through the list of scenes we view: but in the glaciers we have no counterpart that can be viewed from a steamer's deck, unless the polar zones themselves be invaded; and here, in fact, we view the grandest sight to be seen in that dreary zone, without any of its many dangers. Says Professor Denman, of San Francisco, who has devoted much of his attention to glaciers, and especially these of Alaska, compared with which he p.r.o.nounces those to be seen in Switzerland and other parts of Europe to be "babies:"

"Muir Glacier is a spectacle whose grandeur can not be described,--a vast frozen river of ice, ever slowly moving to the sea, and piling the enormous ma.s.ses higher between the mountain banks, until their summit towers hundreds of feet in the air. Where the point of the glacier pushes out into and overhangs the water, vast fragments breaking apart every few moments of their own weight, and falling with a thundering crash into the sea, to float away as enormous icebergs, it affords a spectacle which can only be understood and appreciated by one who beholds it with his own eyes. From the summit of Muir Glacier no less than twenty-nine others are to be seen in various directions, all grinding and crowding their huge ma.s.ses toward the sea, a sight which must certainly be one which few other scenes can equal."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENES AMONG THE ALASKAN GLACIERS. (From Photographs.)

No. 1 (Top). A Near View of the Terminal Front of the Muir Glacier. No.

2. Looking Seaward from the Surface of the Glacier. No 3. The Excursion Steamer at the Front of the Glacier. No. 4 (Bottom). On the Great Frozen Sea; a Near View of the Surface of the Glacier.]

Says a writer, Mr. Edward Roberts, in the _Overland Monthly_: "I do not know how wide, nor how long, nor how deep Glacier Bay is. One does not think of figures and facts when sailing over its waters and enjoying the novel features. Flood Switzerland, and sail up some of its canons toward Mont Blanc, and you will have there another Glacier Bay. But until the sea-waves wash the feet of that Swiss peak, and until one can sail past the glaciers of that country, there will never be found a companion bay to this of Alaska. Norway, with all its ruggedness, has nothing to equal it; and there is not a mountain in all the ranges of the Rockies which has the majestic gracefulness of Fairweather Peak, which looks down upon the bay.

"Imagine the view we had as we turned out of Lynn Ca.n.a.l and moved into the ice-strewn waters of the strange place. Above hung the sun, warm and clear, and lighting up the wide waste of waters till they glistened like flashing brilliants. Away to the left and right ran sombre forests, and long stretches of yellow-colored stone, and rocky cliffs that now ran out into the bay, and, again, rose high and straight from out it. No villages were in sight; no canoes dotted the waters; but all was desolate, neglected, still; and cakes of ice, white in the distance and highly colored nearer to, floated about our ship. And there, in the northwest, rising so high above the intervening hills that all its pinnacles, all its gorges, and its deep ravines of moving ice were visible, was Fairweather, loftiest, whitest, most delicately moulded peak of all the snowy crests in this north land. From a central spur, topping all its fellows, lesser heights helped form a range which stretched for miles across the country, and on whose ma.s.sive shoulders lay a mantle of such pure whiteness that the sky above was bluer still by contrast, and the forests grew doubly dark and drear. All through the afternoon we sailed toward the glorious beacon, while the air grew colder every hour, and the ice cakes, hundreds of tons in weight, grew more numerous as the daylight began to wane. The glaciers of Glacier Bay are the largest in Alaska. Formed among the highest crags of the Fairweather range, they gradually deepen and widen as they near the sea, and end, at last, in ma.s.sive cliffs of solid ice, often measuring three hundred feet high, and having a width of several miles. The surface of the glaciers is rough and billowy, resembling the waves of a troubled sea frozen into solid blocks of ice at the moment of their wildest gambols. Constantly pressed forward by the heavy blocks that gradually slide down the mountain ravines, the great frozen river keeps pressing seaward, until the action of the waves crumbles away gigantic cakes, that fall into the waters with a noise like the booming of cannon, and with a force that sends columns of water high into the air. The scene was one of arctic splendor,--white, ghostly and cheerless; while the light was that so often described by visitors to the polar sea,--uncertain, bluish, and strongly resembling a November twilight in New England, when the sky is overcast, the trees are bare, and the clouds are full of snow. Gaining at last a point barely three hundred yards from the glacier, the ship was stopped short. Before us rose the towers and solid walls, forming an embankment higher than our mast-head, and towering upward in dense ma.s.ses against the leaden sky. Taken to Switzerland, the glacier of Alaska would cover that country three times over; for the frozen rivers of our largest purchase are not only fifty miles in length and three in width, but often twice that distance long and ten times that distance wide."

Lieutenant Wood, whom we have quoted before, in speaking of the T'linkit Indians in the ice, says: "I noticed that, when journeying through the floating ice in good weather, our Indians would carefully avoid striking pieces of ice, lest they should offend the Ice Spirit. But, when the Ice Spirit beset us with peril, they did not hesitate to retaliate by banging his subjects. After picking our way through the ice for three days, we came upon a small, temporary camp of Hoonahs, who were seal hunting. We found little camps of a family or two scattered along both sh.o.r.es. One of the largest glaciers from Fairweather comes into the bay, and thus keeps its waters filled with the largest icebergs, even in the summer season, for which reason the bay is a favorite place for seal hunting. The seal is the native's meat, drink (the oil is like melted b.u.t.ter) and clothing. I went seal hunting to learn the art, which requires care and patience. The hunter, whether on an ice floe or in a canoe, never moves when the seal is aroused. When the animal is asleep, or has dived, the hunter darts forward. The spear has a barbed, detachable head, fastened to the shaft by a plaited line made from sinew. The line has attached to it a marking buoy, which is merely an inflated seal's bladder. The young seals are the victims of the T'linkit boys, who kill them with bow and arrow. These seal hunters used a little moss and seal oil and some driftwood for fuel. * * * After about forty miles' travel, we came to a small village of Asonques. They received us with great hospitality, and, as our canoe had been too small to carry any shelter, the head man gave me a bed in his own cabin. He had a great many wives, who busied themselves making me comfortable. The buckskin re-enforcement of my riding trousers excited childish wonder. I drew pictures of horses and men separate, and then of men mounted on horses.

Their astonishment over the wonderful animal was greater than their delight at comprehending the utility of the trousers. The Alaskan women are childish and pleasant, yet quick-witted, and capable of heartless vindictiveness. Their authority in all matters is unquestioned. No bargain is made, no expedition set on foot, without first consulting the women. Their veto is never disregarded. I bought a silver-fox skin from Tsatate; but his wife made him return the articles of trade and recover the skin. In the same way I was perpetually being annoyed by having to undo bargains because his wife said '_clekh_;' that is, 'no.'

I hired a fellow to take me about thirty miles in his canoe, when my own crew was tired. He agreed. I paid him the tobacco, and we were about to start, when his wife came to the beach and stopped him. He quietly unloaded the canoe and handed me back the tobacco. The whole people are curious in the matter of trade. I was never sure that I had done with a bargain; for they claimed and exercised the right to undo a contract at any time, provided they could return the consideration received. This is their code among themselves. For example: I met, at the mouth of the Chilkat, a native trader who had been to Fort Simpson, about six hundred miles away, and, failing to get as much as he gave in the interior of Alaska for the skins, was now returning to the interior to find the first vender, and revoke the whole transaction.

"From the Asonque village I went, with a party of mountain goat hunters, up into the Mount St. Elias Alps back of Mount Fairweather,--that is, to the northeast of that mountain. For this trip our party made elaborate preparations. We donned belted shirts made of squirrel skins, fur head-dresses (generally conical), sealskin bootees, fitting very closely, and laced half way to the knee. We carried spears for alpenstocks, bows and arrows, raw-hide ropes, and one or two old Hudson Bay rifles. Ptarmigan were seen on the lower levels where the ground was bare. The goats kept well up toward the summit, amid the snow fields, and fed on the gra.s.s which sprouted along the edges of melting drifts.

The animal is like a large, white goat, with long, coa.r.s.e hair and a heavy coat of silky underfleece. We found a bear that, so far as I know, is peculiar to this country. It is of a beautiful bluish under-color, with the tips of the long hairs silvery white. The traders call it 'St.

Elias silver bear.' The skins are not uncommon." This little mountain trip of Lieutenant Wood's is especially spread before the attention of those who find in this form of exercise their best recreation from their regular duties.

But, however much the tourists may want to dwell amidst the curious and marvelous scenes of Glacier Bay (and so great has been this demand that it is contemplated building a summer resort near by, that pa.s.sengers may remain over one steamer), yet a time must come when we will have to bid good-bye to this polar part of our wonderland, and pa.s.s on to the next grand panorama in view. Southeastward out of Glacier Bay into Icy Straits, and we turn southwestward into Cross Sound, headed for the Pacific Ocean, and for the first time enter its limitless waters. Cross Sound was named by Vancouver, in 1778, in honor of the day on which it was discovered, and is about fifty-five miles long. It corresponds on the north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south, these two waterways being the limiting channels north and south of the inland pa.s.sage as it connects with the Pacific Ocean. As the Puget Sound projects much farther to the south from Fuca Strait into the mainland, hemmed in by snowy peaks, so Lynn Ca.n.a.l, "the Puget Sound of the North,"

continues the Sound of the Holy Cross far to the northward, embayed by glaciers, icebergs, and fields of snow.

Recently, a trip out of Cross Sound, and northwestward about two hundred miles along the Pacific coast, has been occasionally added to the scenes of the inland pa.s.sage, the new views presented being the Mount St. Elias Alps, directly facing the Pacific, for the distance noted, and containing within those limits the greatest number of high and imposing peaks to be found in any range in the world. The inland pa.s.sage (by the use of Peril Straits to Sitka) became so perfect a river-like journey, absolutely free from sea-sickness, that no one felt like breaking this delightful trip by a sea journey, in any of its parts, however tempting the display might be. A trip or two, however, soon convinced the company that the mildness of the sea during the excursion season would warrant them in taking it as a part of the journey; and since, as I have said, it is taken occasionally, I think a short description of it would be appropriate here. Should the hotel in Glacier Bay, or near vicinity, be completed soon, it would be a good stopping-point for those who are sure to feel sea-sick with the least motion of the waves; while, to all others, the chances for good weather on the Fairweather Grounds, as they are not inappropriately termed, are very good, and, conjoined with the grand mountain scenery, should not be missed. Rounding Cape Spencer (_Punta de Villaluenga_ of old Spanish charts), the northern point of the Pacific entrance to Cross Sound, the journey out to sea is commenced; a view about ten to fifteen miles off sh.o.r.e being the best, or on what is known to the fishermen who here used to pursue the right whale, "the Fairweather Grounds," being so named, it is said, from Fairweather peak being in sight of most of it; and this, again, was named by the indomitable Cook, in 1778, as a monument to the fair weather he had cruising in sight of the grand old chain, a name which most tourists may congratulate themselves is well bestowed.

Almost as soon as Cape Spencer is doubled, the southern spurs of the Mount St. Elias Alps burst into view, Crillon and Fairweather being prominent, and the latter easily recognized from our acquaintance with it from the waters of Glacier Bay. A trip of an hour or two takes us along a comparatively uninteresting coast, as viewed from "square off our starboard beam;" but all this time the mind is fixed by the grand Alpine views we have ahead of us that are slowly developing in plainer outline here and there as we speed toward them. Soon we are abreast of Icy Point: while, just beyond it, comes down a glacier to the ocean that gives about three miles of solid sea-wall of ice, while its source is lost in the heights covering the bases of the snowy peaks just behind.

The high peak to the right, as we steam by the glacier front, is Mount La Perouse, named for one of the most daring of France's long list of explorers, and who lost his life in the interest of geographical science. His eyes rested on this range of Alpine peaks in 1786, just a century ago. Its highest point reaches well above 10,000 feet, and its sides are furrowed with glaciers, one of which is the ice-wall before our eyes, and which is generally known as the La Perouse Glacier. The highest peak of all, and on the left of this n.o.ble range, is Mount Crillon, named by La Perouse, in 1786, after the French Minister of the Marine; while between Crillon and La Perouse is Mount D'Agelet, the astronomer of that celebrated expedition. Crillon cleaves the air for 16,000 feet above the sea on which we rest, and can be seen for over a hundred miles to sea. It, too, is surrounded with glaciers, in all directions from its crown. Crillon and La Perouse are about seven miles apart, nearly north and south of each other. About fifteen miles northwest from Crillon is Lituya Peak, 10,000 feet high; and the little bay opening that we pa.s.s, between the two, is the entrance to Lituya Bay, a sheet of water which La Perouse has p.r.o.nounced as one of the most extraordinary in the world for grand scenery, with its glaciers and Alpine sh.o.r.es. Our steamer will not enter, however; for the pa.s.sage is dangerous to even small boats,--one island bearing a monument to the officers and men of La Perouse's expedition, lost in the tidal wave which sweeps through the contracted pa.s.sage like a breaker over a treacherous bar. Some ten or twelve miles northwest from Lituya Peak is Mount Fairweather, which bears abreast us after a little over an hour's run from Lituya Bay. It was named by Cook in 1778, and is generally considered to be a few hundred feet shorter than Mount Crillon. It is in every way, by its peculiar isolation from near ridges almost as high as itself, a much grander peak than Crillon, whose surroundings are not so good for a fine Alpine display. Fairweather, too, has its frozen rivers flowing down its sides; but none of them reach the sea, for a low, wooded country, some three or four miles in width, lies like a glacis at the seaward side of the St. Elias Alps, for a short distance along this part of the coast. The sombre, deep green forests add an impressive feature to the scene, however, lying between the dancing waves below and the white and blue glacier ice above. Rounding Cape Fairweather, the coast trends northward; and, as our bowsprit is pointed in the same direction, directly before us are seen immense glaciers reaching to the sea. From Cape Fairweather (abreast of Mount Fairweather) to Yakutat Bay (abreast of Mount Vancouver), no conspicuous peak rears its head above the grand mountain chain which for nearly a hundred miles lies between these two Alpine bastions; but nevertheless every hour reveals a new mountain of 5,000 to 8,000 feet in height, which, if placed anywhere else, would be held up with national or State pride as a grand acquisition. Here they are only dwarfed by grander peaks. The glacier which we are approaching from Cape Fairweather was named, by La Perouse, _La Grande Plateau_. It is a very low lying glacier, its grade as it fades away inland being very slight, more like a frozen river than the precipitous ma.s.ses of ice which we have been used to seeing. Little is known of it, beyond the seaward aspect; but it is probably the largest glacier in Alaska, and the largest in the world, south of the polar regions themselves.

Wherever these glaciers reach the sea, or connect with it by draining rivers,--and all large glaciers, at least, do this,--there is seen a milky sediment floating in the water, which these "mills of the G.o.ds"

grind from the mountain flanks in their slow but rasping course down their sides. Wherever they find calcareous strata to abrade, the water is almost milklike in hue for miles around. The glacier of the Grand Plateau is the last one facing the Pacific itself, as we move northward; but, where little bays cut back through the flat lands at the foot of the range, they may reach the glaciers which exist everywhere on the mountain sides.

Off the Bay of Yakutat,--a name given it by the resident T'linkit tribes,--we have our best view of imperial St. Elias, the crowning peak of this n.o.ble range, and the highest mountain in all North America,--nearly 20,000 feet above the sea-level, and all of this vast height seemingly springing from the very sea itself. No good picture has ever been given of it, and no words have ever fully described it. All of the superlatives of our language have clothed so many lesser peaks that they fall flat and mentally tasteless in the presence of this Alpine t.i.tan, rearing his crest among the clouds as if defying description.

This want of words has been felt by so many who have visited the grand scenery of Alaska, who saw that, in ill.u.s.trating a fjord here or a glacier there, they have but duplicated the word-painting of some other writer describing a puny antagonist, compared with their subject, that I will give it in the words of one who expresses the idea more closely than I. It is from the pen of a correspondent in the Kansas City _Journal_, under date of September 14, 1885.

"The difficult thing for the tourist to do in regard to Alaska is to describe what is seen for the general reader. Everything is on such an immense and ma.s.sive scale that words are diminutives for expression, rather than--as travelers have been credited with using them--for exaggerated descriptions. For example, people cross the continent to sail for an hour or two among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and word-painting has been exhausted in exaltation of their beauties.

But here is a thousand miles of islands, ranging in size from an acre to the proportions of a State, covered with evergreen forests of tropical luxuriance, yet so arctic in their character as to be new to the eye, and in regard to which botanical nomenclature but confuses and dissatisfies. And in all this vast extent of mountain scenery, with summits ranging from one thousand to fifteen thousand feet in height, there is not enough level land visible to aggregate one prairie county in Western Missouri or Kansas. Day after day there is a continuous and unbroken chain of mountain scenery. I can not better impress the character of the landscape, as seen from a vessel's deck, than to ask the reader to imagine the parks, valleys, canons, gorges and depressions of the Rocky Mountains to be filled with water to the base of the snowy range, and then take a sail through them from Santa Fe to the northern line of Montana. Just about what could be seen on such an imaginary voyage is actually pa.s.sed through in the sail now completed by our party of enthusiastic tourists for the past ten days. You may divide the scenery into parts by the days, and just as it was successively pa.s.sed through, and any one of the subdivisions will furnish more grand combination of mountain and sea than can be seen anywhere on the globe.

It is this vast profusion of scenery, this daily and hourly unrolling of the panorama, that overwhelms and confuses the observer. It is too great to be separated into details, and everything is platted on such a gigantic scale that all former experiences are dwarfed, and the imagination rejects the adjectives that have heretofore served for other scenes: to employ them here is only to mislead."

"As one gentleman, a veteran traveler, remarked to me, as we stood looking north at the entrance to Glacier Bay, with the St. Elias Alps in full view, and Mounts Crillon and Fairweather overtopping the snow-covered peaks of that remarkable range:

"'You can take just what we see here, and put it down on Switzerland, and it will hide all there is of mountain scenery in Europe.' And then he added: 'I have been all over the world; but you are now looking at a scene that has not its parallel elsewhere on the globe.'