The sun shone bright and warm, but a cold wave swept over the glacier.
It was the beautiful Muir glacier.
We left the steamer in a little boat and were rowed to the shore,
landing on the sandy beach. High on the sand lay an Indian canoe, a
dug-out. Near by a party of Indians wrapped in their scarlet blankets
squatted on the sand. They had come to meet the steamer and sell their
toys, baskets and slippers.
A little black eyed boy had a half dozen young seagulls, in a basket,
great awkward squabs. Their coats were a dirty fuzzy down like that of
a gosling, sprinkled over with black dots. Their big hungry mouths and
frowsy coats gave no hint of the beautiful birds they would be when
they grew up.
When I paused to look at the birds their owner regarded me with
interest as he sat with the basket hugged to his breast. Then the
young merchant held one up for my inspection, with the remark, “hees
nice bird.”
“Yes,” said I, “hees very nice.” I had no thought of buying a seagull.
What would I do with it? Then I remembered a little invalid boy whom I
thought might be pleased with a pet seagull.
“How much you give?” inquired my little Indian boy.
“How much will you take?”
“Two bits.”
So, I paid down my two bits and picked up my baby seagull. Then my
little merchant spoke up, “Him want basket?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think that I want a basket.”
The basket was paid for and my enterprising little Indian tucked the
baby gull in with a wisp of sea weed and handed him to me with the
remark, “Him all right now.”
How that gull did squawk when he found himself all alone in a big
basket. What cared he that I had purchased for him the prettiest basket
on the beach? He wanted his brothers. When we arrived on the deck of
the steamer I hurried my gull down to the steward and gained admission
for him to the cook’s department, where he was cared for the
remainder of the voyage.
[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER (SECTION OF).]
It is something of a novelty to be seated at the base of a glacier
in July. From the Chilkoot to the source of the Yukon river is only
thirty-five miles, but the intervening mountain chain is several
thousand feet high and bears numerous glaciers on its seaward side.
Forty miles west of Lynn canal and separated from it by a low range
of mountains is Glacier bay, and at the head of one of its inlets
is the far-famed Muir glacier. It is one of the many fields of ice
which stellates from a center fifteen miles back of the Muir front
and covers the valley of the mountains between the Pacific and the
headwaters of the Yukon river. Nine glaciers now discharge icebergs
into the bay. All of these glaciers have receded from one to four miles
in the past twenty years. Kate Field says, “In Switzerland a glacier
is a vast bed of dirty air-holed ice that has fastened itself like a
cold porous plaster to the Alps. In Alaska a glacier is a wonderful
torrent that seems to have been frozen when about to plunge into the
sea.” There they lay, almost free from debris, clear and gleaming in
the cold sunshine of Alaska. The most beautiful of them all is the
Muir glacier. It is named in honor of John Muir, who visited Alaska
in company with Mr. Young, the Presbyterian missionary, in 1879,
and discovered it. This glacier extends straight across the fiord,
presenting at tide water a perpendicular wall two hundred to four
hundred feet above and seven hundred and fifty feet below the surface,
making a solid wall of ice a thousand feet high and three miles wide.
I cannot do better than to give Prof. Muir’s own description of this
wonderful _mer de glace_: “The front and brow of the glacier were
dashed and sculptured into a maze of yawning chasms, ravines, cañons,
crevasses, and a bewildering chaos of architectural forms, beautiful
beyond description, and so bewildering in their beauty as to almost
make the spectator believe he is reveling in a dream. There were
great clusters of glistening spires, gables, obelisks, monoliths,
and castles, standing out boldly against the sky, with bastion and
mural surmounted by fretted cornice and every interstice and chasm
reflecting a sheen of scintillating light and deep blue shadow, making
a combination of color, dazzling, startling and enchanting.”
This is nature’s iceberg factory. The “calving” of a berg is a
wonderful sight and one never to be forgotten. Avalanches and great
blocks of crumbling ice are continually falling with a crash and roar
into the sea, while spray dashes high and great waves roll along the
wall of the glacier, washing the blocks of floating ice upon the sandy
beach on either side of the great ice-wall. The great buttresses on
either side as they rise from the sea are solid white, veined and
streaked with mud and rocks, but farther in near the middle of the wall
the color changes to turquoise and sapphire blues, blended with the
changeable greens of the sea.
The upper strata of a glacier moves faster than the lower and is
constantly being pushed forward, producing a perpendicular and at
times projecting front. A piece of the projecting front breaks off
and falls with a heavy splash into the water, then up it comes almost
white. Now a piece breaks from the lower and older strata and comes up
a dazzling green. Again a deafening roar as of artillery and a huge
piece of ice splits off from top to bottom of the sea wall and goes
plunging and raving like a great lion to the bottom of the sea, then up
it comes slowly, a berg of dazzling rainbow hues. Such a one, as big
as all the business houses in a village, floated toward the beach and
the outgoing tide left it stranded there. We ate a piece of it, ice
thousands of years old, and drank water from a cup or pocket in its
side.
The beach is strewn with rock, pebbles and bowlders carved by the icy
hand of the glacier. Along the beach near the glacier, just above high
tide, in the rocks and sand grow lagoon grass, laurel and beautiful
clarkias. These brilliant purple flowers are named for Prof. Clarke,
who first studied and classified them. They are sweet scented and
belong to the evening primrose family.
The Tlingit Indians believe that mountains were once living creatures
and that the glaciers are their children. These parents hold them in
their arms, dip their feet into the sea, then cover them with snow
in the winter and scatter rocks and sand over them in summer. These
Indians dread the cold and always speak the name Sith, the ice god,
in a whisper. They have no fear of a hades such as ours. To them hell
is a place of everlasting cold. The chill of the ice god’s breath is
death. He freezes rivers into glaciers and when angry heaves down the
bergs and crushes canoes. When summer comes the ice spirit sleeps, but
the Indians speak in whispers and never touch the icebergs with their
canoe paddles for fear of awaking him.
Once upon a time glaciers plowed over Illinois. Manitoba and Hudson Bay
were then great snow and ice fields, down from which swept the glaciers
over the United States south to the Ohio river. Great rocks and
bowlders were carried along and deposited here and there on the broad
prairies. Many of these rocks and bowlders may still be seen in central
Illinois, still bearing the marks of the glacial slide.
An odd old character in our neighborhood used to tell us children that
those big flattened bowlders were left there for the good people to
stand on when the world should be burned up. “Would they get hot?” we
asked. “Oh, how could they when they had lain years in the heart of a
glacier?” To all of our questions as to how he knew he always turned a
deaf ear.
Our sailors rowed out and with ropes captured an iceberg which they
said would weigh five tons and with rope and tackle hauled it aboard
and put it down in the hold. Then they captured a second one not quite
so large and after it was safely stored away we weighed anchor and
steamed out of the beautiful bay, afloat with icebergs, many of them
being larger above water than our ship. But one disappointment met me,
not a polar bear was in sight.
A nunatak is an area of fertile land surrounded by ice. One of the
finest on the Alaskan coast is Blossom island. It is quite a large
tract of rich land covered with forest and brilliant flowers.
When Mr. Young (before mentioned) was missionary to the Hoonah Indians
they appealed to him to pray to God to keep the glaciers from cutting
down the trees on the bays putting into Cross sound. They said their
medicine man had advised them to offer as a sacrifice two of their
slaves to the ice god, but this they had done without any effect. They
were greatly disappointed when Mr. Young told them that he could do
nothing to prevent the glaciers destroying their forests.
[Illustration: GREEK CHURCH, KILLISNOO.]
Passing Cross strait we go down Chatham strait. Our next stop is
Killisnoo, a small fishing hamlet on Admiralty island. The largest cod
liver oil factory in the world is located here. The Northwest Trading
Company established a fishing post here in 1880. Chatham strait is full
of cod. The fish are artificially dried. The natives receive two
cents apiece for a five-pound fish. Many fish are packed in salt. Our
steamer took on many hundred pounds of dried and packed fish. Cod liver
oil is made in the factory. Each barrel of fish when pressed yields
three quarts of oil valued at twenty-five cents to thirty-five cents
per gallon. The refuse of fifty barrels of fish when dried and powdered
yields one ton of guano worth thirty dollars. This is shipped to the
fruit ranches of California and the sugar plantations of the Hawaiian
islands. Great vats of oil stand in rows under the shed of the factory.
There is a little fish here called the candle fish. It is almost all
oil. For a light the natives impale this fish on a stick and light the
fish. It burns with a sizzle and sputter but makes a good light.
This is a beautiful island. The gardens are now at their best.
Everything grows luxuriantly. Fine strawberries, currants and
gooseberries are grown. Beds of royal purple and golden pansies in
dewy splendor adorn the yards and gardens, great broad faced beauties
measuring from two to two and a half inches across.
Here we met our first Alaskan mosquito. He is about the size of our
glow flies. His bite is something to remember. It leaves a miniature
snow capped mountain on your face.
The Indians say that once upon a time, many thousand of snows ago, he
was a giant spider, but a wicked manitou tossed him into the fire one
day where he shriveled up to his present size. The bad manitou thought
him dead but when the fire burned low he escaped and flew away with a
live coal in his mouth which he carries to this day. Since he could not
be revenged on the manitou he takes his vengeance out on man.
Arachne, fair mortal, at Minerva’s fateful touch shrank and shriveled
into a spider.
The student of Indian myths will be impressed before he carries his
researches very far, with the likeness of many of these legends to the
mythologies of the old world.
[Illustration: KITCHNATTI.]
These Indians, the Kootznahoos, claim to have come from over the
seas. They deny any relation with the Tlingits. They were the first
Indians to distill hoochinoo, which carries more fight and warwhoop
to the drop than any other liquor known. It is made from a mash of
yeast and molasses, thickened with a little flour. They were great
fighters and murdered the traders as soon as the Russians left. In
1869 Commander Mead shelled the village and took Kitchnatti prisoner.
He was taken to Mare Island, California, and confined for a year.
The tribe now numbers only five hundred souls. They are a peaceable
people and follow fishing for a livelihood. Many of them are employed
in the fish factory on the island. Kitchnatti is still the recognized
chief, and is very proud of his position. He meets all the steamers
coming in and is delighted to meet the officers of the vessels, all of
whom are kind to him. He is quite vain in his dress, wearing a silk
hat, long coat, black pantaloons and slippers. He also sports a cane,
which is a sheathed sword. He claims descent from ancestry as old as
“yonder granite mountain” which stands across the strait. His state
dress consists of a crown made of goat horns and a tunic made of red
felt trimmed with fur. Over his door he has posted his escutcheon,
which some one has translated for him into English. It reads, “By the
governor’s permission and the company’s commission I am made the Grand
Tyhee of this entire illabee.”
On a green slope stands a Greek church, established by the Russian
government. The priest lives in a tiny cottage next door.
At the wharf a dozen little Indian boys, dressed in sweaters and
overalls, displayed much energy and skill in helping to unload the
freight which was landed at this point. The first officer gave them
fifty cents apiece when the work was completed and away they went to
spend it, American boy like, at the candy store.
One of the most interesting things that I saw in the village was a
little papoose taking his bath in a big dishpan on the front veranda.
He did not like it at all and kicked and screamed but his mother
without a word proceeded with the bathing.
Just off Killisnoo the steamer anchored several hours to give the
passengers an opportunity to try deep-sea fishing. Some fine halibut
were brought aboard. Then we weighed anchor and steamed toward the old
town of Sitka. This ancient capital of the Romanoffs is the seat of the
territorial government of Alaska. A strong effort is being made by the
mining interest of Juneau to move it to that point.
[Illustration: SITKA.--SOLDIERS’ BARRACKS, OLD RUSSIAN WAREHOUSE
AND GREEK CHURCH ON THE RIGHT, INDIAN VILLAGE ON THE LEFT, RUSSIAN
BLOCKHOUSES BEYOND AND MISSION SCHOOLS IN THE DISTANCE. By permission
of F. LAROCHE, Photographer, Seattle, Washington.]