Glacier Bay.—More Ice Bays.—Majestic Front of the Muir Glacier.—The
Bombardment of the Glacier.—One of the Grandest Sights in the World.—A
Moving River of Ice.—The Natives.—Abundance of Fish.—Native Cooking.—
Wild Berries.—Hooniah Tribe.—Copper Mines.—An Iron Mountain.—Coal
Mines.
From Pyramid Harbor we turn southward for a short distance, and then
again towards the north, soon reaching the ice-strewn waters of Glacier
Bay, an open expanse of ocean fully thirty miles long by from ten to
twelve in width. This locality is thus named because of the number of
glaciers which descend into it from the southern verge of the frozen
region. The still surface of the water reflects the Alpine scenery like
burnished silver, only ruffled now and again by the icebergs launched
from the majestic front of the Muir glacier, which fall with an
explosion like the blasting of rocks in a stone quarry. It is curious to
watch these enormous masses of ice rise to the surface after their first
deep plunge, see them settle and rise again until their equilibrium
becomes fixed, and then slowly float away with their imperial colors
displayed, to join the fleet gone before. They seem to exhibit in their
vivid colors a radiant joy at release from long imprisonment. It was a
gloriously bright day on which we approached the Muir glacier, the sun
pouring down its wealth of light and warmth to temper the crisp morning
air. A side-wheel steamer could not have made headway among the hundreds
of floating icebergs; but the Corona wound in and out among them in
safety, piloted by Captain Carroll’s skillful direction, occasionally
leaving the color of her painted hull along their sides by chafing them.
The ship was brought within fifty rods of the glacier’s threatening
front, which was about three hundred feet in height above the water,
standing like a frozen Niagara, and the lead showed it to extend four
hundred feet below the surface, making an aggregate of seven hundred
feet from top to bottom. What a mighty power was hidden behind the
dazzling drapery of its iridescent façade!
Standing upon its surface a short way inland, one could hear from its
depths what seemed like shrieks and groans of maddened spirits torturing
each other, as the huge mass was crowded more and more compactly between
the two abutting mountains of rock through which it found its outlet.
The roar of artillery upon a battlefield could hardly be more deafening
or incessant than were the thrilling reports caused by the falling of
vast masses of ice from the glacier’s front. Nothing could be grander or
more impressive than this steady bombardment from the ice mountain in
its resistless progress towards the sea. Neither Norway nor Switzerland
have any glacial or arctic scenery that can approach this bay in its
frigid splendor. No natives are to be seen; not a sound falls upon the
ear save the hoarse cannonading of the glacier. The white, ghostly hue
of the surroundings are startling; even the daylight assumes a certain
weird, bluish tint, heightened by shimmering reflections from the
ice-chasms and crevices.
The author, in a varied experience of many parts of the world, recalls
but two other occasions which affected him so powerfully as this first
visit to Glacier Bay in Alaska, namely: witnessing the sun rise over the
vast Himalayan range, the roof-tree of the globe, at Darjeeling, in
northern India, and the view of the midnight sun from the North Cape in
Norway, as it hung over the Polar Sea. Our power of appreciation is
limitless, though that of description is circumscribed. Here both are
challenged to their utmost capacity. Words are insufficient; pen and
pencil inadequate to convey the grandeur and fascination of the scene.
Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka tells us that a veteran traveler said to
him as they stood together on the ship’s deck regarding the scenery in
this remarkable bay: “You can take just what you see here and put it
down on Switzerland, and it will hide all there is of mountain scenery
in Europe. I have been all over the world, but you are now looking at a
scene that has not its parallel elsewhere on the globe.” The estimate
has been made by experienced persons that five thousand living glaciers,
of greater or less dimensions, are now steadily traveling down towards
the sea in this vast Territory of Alaska.
Glacier Bay is always full of vagrant icebergs which are of blinding
whiteness when under the glare of the midday sun. The variety of colors
emitted by the bergs is charming to the eye, the prevailing hues being
crystal-white mingled with azure blue, a faint touch of pink appearing
here and there, together with dainty gleams of orange-yellow. Where a
large smooth surface is presented, the prismatic shimmering is like that
of starlight upon the water. The variety in the shape of the bergs is
infinite. Some of them exhibit singularly correct architectural lines,
some resemble ruins of ancient castles on the Rhine, others, with a
little help of the imagination, represent wild animals in various
attitudes, or hideous Chinese idols with open mouths and lolling
tongues. Sea birds hover over and light in large numbers upon the
opalescent masses. Ranging alongside of a tall berg, a fall and tackle
was rigged out from the yard-arm of our steamer, while men were sent to
cut large blocks of ice from the hill of frozen water. Two weighing
nearly a ton each were hoisted on board to keep our larder cool and fill
the ship’s ice-chest. The ice was pure as crystal, and fresh as a
mountain stream.
“Why don’t you go nearer to the glacier?” asked one of the passengers of
the captain.
“Because I think we are quite near enough,” was the quiet reply.
“Those avalanches don’t reach more than thirty or forty feet from the
face of the ice cliff,” continued the passenger.
“True,” was the reply, “but they do not constitute the only discharges
from the glacier.”
“Why, where else can they occur but from the face,” asked the inquirer.
“Shall I tell you a certain experience which I had near this very spot?”
asked the captain.
“What was it?” inquired a dozen eager voices.
And then the captain told the group of listeners that when the Corona
was here last season, laying just off the Muir glacier, those on board
were startled by the sudden appearance of a huge mass of dark crystal,
as large as the steamer itself, which shot up from the depths and tossed
the ship as though it had been an egg-shell. Passengers were thrown
hither and thither, and some were severely bruised. It was a berg broken
off from the bottom of the ice mountain, four hundred feet below the
surface of the water. Had it struck the ship in its upward passage,
immediate destruction must have followed, and the steamer would have
sunk as quickly as though she had been blown up with gunpowder.
Mount Crillon, Mount La Perouse, and Mount Fairweather are all visible
from Glacier Bay, the latter rising in the northwest so high above the
intervening hills that all its snowy pinnacles are clearly defined.
The great glacier which forms the prominent feature of this bay was
named after Professor Muir, state geologist of California. It has a
front three miles wide, and has been explored to a distance of forty
miles inland. The top surface is tossed and broken by broad fissures so
as to be impassable, unless one goes back at least a mile from its
toppling and dangerous front. This glacier exceeds anything of the sort
this side of the polar zone, and is fed by fifteen other glaciers, so
far as it has been explored, towards its source among the lofty
snow-fields. In walking upon its surface great care should be observed.
A thin crust of snow and half-melted ice is often formed over fissures
into which one may easily be precipitated. One of the party from the
Corona, a lady, was thus engulfed for a moment, escaping, however, with
a thorough wetting and some slight bruises, together with a very large
measure of fright. This lady was temporarily in charge of the pilot of
the steamer, hence it was very generally remarked that he was doubtless
a good ship’s pilot, but a poor one for navigating glaciers.
From carefully conducted measurements it is known that this immense
body—frost-bound, transparent, and resistless—is moving into the sea,
during the summer months, at the rate of forty feet in every twenty-four
hours, and discharging in that time one hundred and forty million cubic
feet of ice into the bay. It is not necessary for us to discuss the
cause of this regular, uniform movement of the enormous mass; it may be
brought about by either dilation or gravitation, both of which are most
likely active agents to this end, but certain it is that the glacier
moves forward as described.
One could have passed days in studying the grandeur and beauty of the
Muir glacier, in watching its slow but steady advance, its tremendous
avalanches, its rolling, thunder-like discharges, its irregular,
translucent front decked with amethyst and opal hues by the afternoon
sunlight, but time was to be considered, the day was closing, and we
finally steamed reluctantly away. Even after we had lost sight of the
great frozen river, we heard its evening guns echoing among the
mountains, faint and fitful from the growing distance.
We pause for a moment, thoughtfully, to recall the brief hours passed in
that boreal atmosphere, crowded to repletion with wonderful experiences,
where the ice deposited during the glacial period is slowly wasting and
wearing away, exposing giant cedars which have been buried for ages upon
ages, a revelation and a process which we may nowhere else behold. There
is no touch of civilization here; the quiet and solitude is unbroken,
save by the thunder of the bergs breaking their long imprisonment.
Somehow one feels older, grayer, sadder, after witnessing these great
and startling throes of Nature, phenomena which have been in operation
thousands of years. It reminds the observer only too forcibly how
infinitesimal is the space he occupies upon this planet, and how utterly
insignificant is his personality in the vast scheme of the universe.
Travel, while teaching us numberless grand and beautiful truths, solving
many mysteries and vastly enlarging our mental grasp, does not fail also
to impress upon the most conceited the important and priceless lesson of
humility. But let us banish brooding thoughts, and be glad for a little
space; to-morrow the night cometh!
Among the evidences of the slow but steady receding of the glacier we
have Vancouver’s record that he was unable to enter this bay in 1793,
which is now navigable for over twelve miles inland. Once the ice field
was level with the mountain tops, now it has melted until the peaks are
far above its surface. Professor Muir tells us that in the earlier days
of the ice-age this glacier stood at a height of from three to four
thousand feet above its present level! Centuries hence the place of the
glacier will doubtless be occupied by a flowing river, and the land will
have entirely thrown aside its mantle of ice and snow. What a revelation
this bay would have been to Agassiz! After an arduous half day’s climb,
from the summit of the Muir glacier nearly thirty others are to be seen
in various directions, all steadily forcing their resistless way towards
the sea, slowly consummating the purpose of their existence. How far
glacial action has been concerned in determining the topographical
conditions of the globe will long be, as it has long been, a subject for
deep scientific study.
At first thought it seems impossible that a substance like ice, often
brittle as glass and as inelastic as granite, can move as though it were
fluid. The motion of the giant mass is doubtless facilitated by
subglacial streams issuing from its bottom into the bay. The water
flowing from two sources of this character manifests itself at the
surface on each corner of the ice-front, where it comes bubbling up with
great force from the bottom, a distance of from sixty to eighty fathoms.
As we lay in front of the grand façade what a revelry of color was
spread before us! The immense and towering wall of ice seemed to throb
with the softening rays of the sun, penetrating each broad fissure and
narrow rift, all luminous with blue and gold.
Scidmore Island was pointed out to us, a green hilly land, near the
mouth of the bay, named after Mrs. E. R. Scidmore, who has written so
admirably about Alaska. Another island was designated whereon a silver
mine of great promise has lately been successfully located and tested,
yielding results surpassing the most sanguine anticipations of the
owners.
All through this region one is constantly impressed with a sense of
vastness, everything seems so stupendous; Nature is cast in a larger
mould than she is in other sections of the world. The islands strike one
as continental in dimensions, the rivers are among the largest on the
globe, the ocean channels are the deepest, the primeval forests are made
up of giant trees and cover thousands of square miles, the mountains are
colossal, and the glaciers are elsewhere unequaled. It is a land of
wonders, strange, fascinating, and beautiful.
The natives of this latitude are robust and hearty in appearance, their
regular food supply being such as to sustain them in a good physical
condition. Seal and fish oil are cheap and abundant, and enter into all
of their cooking combinations. During the ripening season the wild
berries, which are remarkably abundant, are gathered by the bushel,
giving employment to the youthful portion of the community. Large
quantities are dried for winter use, but during the bearing season the
people almost live upon them, always adding a portion of oil as a
condiment. Game, such as deer, bears, mountain goats, and wild geese, is
very plenty a little way inland. These are hunted and supplied to the
whites by the aborigines, but they do not themselves seem to care
particularly for meat of any sort so long as they can obtain plenty of
fish and oil. At Sitka and Fort Wrangel fine large codfish are retailed
at five cents each, a twenty pound salmon costs in the season ten to
fifteen cents, and halibut sell at about the same rate according to
size. These latter average from eighty to a hundred pounds in weight on
this coast, and in some parts of the waters bordering western Alaska
they are twice that size. Ducks are to be had at ten and fifteen cents
per pair, wild geese at fifteen cents each, and so on. The natives are
preëminently fish-eaters, and are as a rule well developed about the
chest and shoulders, though the lower parts of their bodies are
diminutive owing to their exercise being taken almost altogether at the
paddle while sitting in their boats. The physical contrast between them
and our Western Indians, who are meat-eaters, is very decided. The one
lives in a canoe a large portion of his time, the other upon horseback
or engaged upon long foot-marches; the one is lithe and sinewy, the
other is greasy and flabby. Though the physical condition of our Western
Indians is unquestionably much superior to that of the native Alaskans,
yet the latter are the most intelligent.
The halibut, to which reference has just been made, is found in great
abundance upon the coast at nearly all seasons of the year, and forms a
large portion of the food supply of the native population, both for
summer and winter. They prefer to catch these fish by means of their own
awkward wooden hooks, rather than to use the steel barbed instrument of
the whites. They go out for the purpose in their boats, exposing
themselves in nearly all sorts of weather, anchoring upon well-known
fishing grounds by making use of a stone fastened to a cedar-bark rope
of their own manufacture. Having filled their canoe, which they can do
in a very short time, they leisurely return to the shore, where the fish
are turned over to the care of the women, who soon clean them, also
removing the large bones, head, fins, and tails, after which they cut
the bodies into broad thin slices, and doing so much of this business
they become very expert. These slices of the halibut are hung on wooden
frames, where they rapidly dry in the wind and sun, no salt being used
in the process; indeed, the natives seem to have no use for salt so far
as their own food is concerned, and do not eat it as a seasoning. After
the halibut is thus cured, the pieces are packed away in the large cedar
box which forms each family’s storehouse for such food, and when wanted
it is always ready, requiring but little further treatment to make it
palatable to native Alaskan taste. As thus preserved the fish will now
and again become putrid. This, however, is not considered by the people
to detract in any degree from its excellence and usefulness, but rather
to add zest to the flavor, just as a highly civilized gourmand requires
his birds to be kept until they become a little “gamey” before he
considers them fit to serve to himself or his guests. At certain seasons
of the year the salmon are eagerly sought and eaten, both fresh and
dried, but as intimated the halibut is a fish which can be caught at
nearly any time, and is therefore perhaps more used than any other.
There are periods when these fish also leave the coast for a short
season, and against this absence the native provides as we have
described. The kind of salmon which is mostly canned and prepared for
export in barrels from Alaska is of a pink species, which is chosen, not
because it possesses any peculiar excellence of flavor, but because the
color is generally thought to be more desirable. They are not considered
here, either by the whites or the natives, to be of quite so good
quality as some others which abound in this region, but it is the pink
salmon which the fanciful public demand, and pink salmon which they get.
All the cooking these natives seem to know anything about is to boil or
stew such food as they do not consume nearly raw. Iron kettles have been
in their possession for many generations, and were originally procured
from the Russians. The condiment which they most affect has already been
referred to, being nothing more nor less than rancid fish or seal oil,
cooled and hardened into a sort of oleomargarine, the bare smell of
which is sickening to the nostrils of a white person. This grease is
spread liberally upon all their food and eaten with manifest relish. The
inner bark of the spruce and hemlock trees is collected by the women in
considerable quantities at certain seasons of the year, and is eaten by
them, both in the green and dried state, after being dipped in this
grease as described. The Sitka Indians make a most atrocious salad of
sea-weed mixed with seal-oil, sometimes adding the roe of herring, of
which peculiar mixture they partake with ravenous appetites, the roe
having been purposely kept until it is nearly or quite putrid. The
salmon-berry, while it is in season, is a most welcome and wholesome
addition to their rather circumscribed larder. This berry is a sort of
cross between a strawberry and a blackberry, though it is larger than
the average of these delicious berries as they grow in the woods of New
England. Hundreds of barrels of the native cranberry are gathered by the
aborigines and shipped annually from here to San Francisco; they are
smaller than the cultivated berry bearing the same name, which is grown
in our Eastern States. The wild strawberries found among these islands
and on the mainland excel in flavor the highly cultivated berry of our
thickly-settled States, and may be found growing in abundance in the
very shadow of the glaciers.
The natives hereabouts have no domestic animals except a multitude of
dogs of a mongrel breed; wolfish-looking creatures; which are of no
possible use, dozing all day and howling all night. At the north the
regularly bred Eskimo dog is a very different animal, quite
indispensable to his master, and invaluable in connection with sledge
traveling.
The tribe occupying the region near to Glacier Bay is known as the
Hooniahs, an ingenious and industrious people, who manufacture
bracelets, spoons, and various ornaments out of silver and copper. Some
of the men of this tribe wear a ring in their noses, like the women, but
this seems to be going slowly out of fashion. We were told that the men
have as many wives as they choose to take, and that they are not always
careful to properly discriminate between other men’s and their own, an
act of dereliction from propriety which is, however, by no means
confined to savage life. A great laxity in morals is also said to
prevail among most of the tribes from Behring Strait southward to the
Aleutian group of islands. Let us not, however, be too censorious in
judging them; if their virtues are found to be in the minority, is not
this also the case with most communities which boast the elevating
advantages of culture and civilization?
It has been known for a century more or less that masses of pure copper
were found by the aborigines along the course of Copper River, which
flows into the Pacific Ocean midway between Mount St. Elias and the
peninsula of Kenai. The natives exhibited one mass of pure copper, as
naturally deposited, weighing over sixty pounds. The character of this
mineral closely resembles that of our Lake Superior district, and there
is every indication of its abundance in this region, not alone on Copper
River, but in several districts and islands. The natives have utilized
the article for many generations in the manufacture of personal
ornaments, and for making various useful household utensils, such as
stewpans and small kettles. Any permanent rise in the market value of
copper would stimulate the development of the copper mines of Alaska to
compete with other portions of our country. Petroleum is also found on
Copper River, forcing itself to the surface from some underground
reservoir, and again near the Bay of Katmai. This product was largely
used by the Russians for lubricating purposes.
Professor Davidson discovered in this vicinity an iron mountain some two
thousand feet high, which was so full of magnetic ore as to seriously
affect his calculations and derange his compass. Mr. Seward said of the
same vicinity: “I found there not a single iron mountain, but a whole
range of hills the very dust of which adhered to the magnet.” There is
plenty of coal also, and with these two articles in juxtaposition a
great industry may ultimately be the outgrowth. Viewed as a sure
foundation of commercial and manufacturing prosperity, coal and iron
will prove, in the long run, to be worth nearly as much to Alaska as her
abundant and inexhaustible gold supply.
Captain J. W. White of the United States revenue marine says: “I have
seen coal veins over an area of forty or fifty square miles so thick
that it seemed to me to be one vast bed. It is of an excellent
steam-producing quality, having a clear white ash. The quantity seemed
to be unlimited. This bed lies northwest of Sitka, up Cook’s Inlet which
broadens into a sea in some places.” Nature has provided fuel in
limitless quantities for this great Territory, both in the form of coal
and of wood, each of which is of the most available character, both as
regards the quality and the convenience of location.
In speaking of the rich and varied prospects of the country, let us not
forget to mention the abundance of pure white, statuary marble, which
exists here in immense quarries, near the site of which there are
numerous safe and commodious harbors, with great depth of water,
inviting the commerce of the world. We need not send to Italy for a fine
article in this line; the choicest product for statuary purposes is here
upon our own soil. While these sheets are going through the press, the
fact that a valuable quicksilver mine, which was discovered at Kuskoquin
some years ago, now proves to be of high grade and purity, is published
to the world at large. If so, this is extremely providential, as there
is now a constant demand for mercury in the treatment of the
gold-bearing quartz of the numerous mines hereabouts.
The studied effort of certain writers to depreciate the value of the
Territory of Alaska in nearly every possible respect seems very singular
to us, and is altogether too obvious to carry conviction with it. The
great amount of gold now being realized every month of the year, the
millions of cured salmon and cod annually exported to other sections,
together with the rich furs regularly shipped from the Territory,
counted by hundreds of thousands, must cause such people a degree of
mortification. One of these writers put himself on record by saying not
long since that gold did not exist in the Territory in paying
quantities. Yet there is a standing offer of sixteen million dollars for
the Treadwell gold mine on Douglas Island, while within eight or ten
miles of it, at Silver Bow Basin, on the mainland, is another gold mine,
as has been shown, owned and worked by a Boston company, nearly as
valuable.
Referring to this auriferous deposit on Douglas Island, Governor
Swineford says, in his official report to the government for the year
1887: “It is without doubt the largest body of gold-bearing quartz ever
developed in this or any other country.”
At last we prepare to turn our backs upon the home of the glaciers and
the locality of the most remarkable gold deposits of the Northwest,
surfeited with wonders, and actually longing for the sight of something
intensely common, satisfied that the tourist who makes the voyage from
Tacoma to Glacier Bay through the inland sea has the opportunity of
beholding some of the grandest scenery and natural phenomena on the
globe.
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