which I had seen everywhere from Tacoma north; at my feet the same
Pacific Ocean, but in front of me, apparently so close that I could
almost reach it with my fingers, the perpendicular wall of a canyon, not
of rock, nor clay, nor grass, nor forest, but of ice,--a wall of ice a
mile in length; and when I say a mile, I mean over eighteen hundred
yards of it; and when I speak of ice, I do not mean the sooty, porous
stuff that lodges in the valleys of the Alps; I mean the veritable,
pure, clear, crystal ice of the ice-pitcher. A wall a hundred yards
high, and in some places towering up an additional fifty; a wall
extending down deeper in the ocean than it reaches from the ocean to the
sky; hard as adamant, sharp and edged like flint, aqua-marine in color,
deepening towards the water into indigo, tipped on the summits and
projections with a froth of snow. If I did not know that it was ice, I
should believe that it was glass. If I did not know that it was the work
of the Creator, I should believe that here had assembled a convocation
of architects, who in their collective ingenuity had reproduced a
combination of the chefs-d'oeuvre of their art; for here were the
buttresses of the English abbeys, and flying buttresses of Notre Dame,
turrets of the Normans, towers of the early English, spires of the
cathedral in Cologne, wonderful unoccupied niches, pilasters of the
purest white marble and green malachite, and decorative carving and high
polish worthy of Cellini.
It was a cloudy day, yet the front glistened with prismatic splendor.
What will it be, I asked myself, if in the afternoon the setting sun
shall light it up? But we are too close to it for our own safety, we
learn, and are slowly moved back half a mile, where our anchor is
dropped and preparations are made to row us on shore to climb to the top
of the glacier. While we are moving a sharp detonation rings out like
the firing of a rifle, and one of the beautiful spires on the crest of
the very centre of the wall is shivered into atoms, and its fragments
fall with a splash four hundred feet. Later there is a report as of a
cannon, but without result; this, we are told, is the parting of the sea
of ice somewhere far back in its mountain home. Presently two similar
explosions, evidently right close to us, followed by rumbling echoes,
and over topples a huge mass weighing tons, which sinks so far that
several seconds elapse before it rises to the surface, swaying to and
fro until it finds its equilibrium, and then floats down the current,
one more turquoise gem added to the chain which precedes it.
And this continued all day, sometimes at intervals of seconds only,
sometimes of half an hour, and when we retired at night the explosion
and the splash became as monotonous and periodical as the tinkling of
the street-car bell or the footstep of the passer-by does at home. There
was one tremendous breaking-off towards evening; the sun, as we had
hoped, was out in full glory, and at the distance from which we now
viewed the glacier it was a mountain of snow-covered ice chopped off in
front. For many miles we could see over and beyond the facade, as though
looking at a great river of snow; yet the facade itself was a face of
corrugated emerald, reflecting the sun's rays at every imaginable angle,
and changing and scintillating with every movement of the ship.
Suddenly, near the centre, the top began to incline forward, and the
whole face of probably twenty yards in width, from the top of the
glacier to the bottom of the bay, fell outward as a ladder would fall,
without a break anywhere. There was a tremendous upheaving of the water,
of course; then the report of the invariable explosion reached us, but
no trace remained of the fallen ice, save the swell in the water, which
had almost reached and rocked the steamer. I do not know how much time
elapsed before the lovely thing rose to the surface, but it seemed an
age, and then it came in a dozen pieces, each of the same exquisite
diaphanous blue, which, as they approached us gradually, changed to a
clear transparent sapphire.
If it will help to serve the purpose of giving a just idea of the
colossal proportions of the scene I endeavor to describe, let me say
that the Capitol at Washington, the City Hall in Philadelphia, the
Cathedral, the Equitable, and the Mills Buildings in New York, and all
the mammoth newspaper offices in the same city might be floated in front
of the Muir Glacier, and yet its emerald walls would overtop and engulf
them all. As a contrast to all that is pure and chaste in the scene
before us, there rushes out from the eastern end of the glacier a
subglacial stream of thick, dirty water, much resembling, as it boils up
from its cavernous outlet, the mud geyser of the Yellowstone. This is a
perpetually flowing river, charged with sediment and _debris_ from the
scouring process produced by the friction of the moving ice along its
bed of rock; it gives the water in the inlet a thick, gray color,
utterly destroying the charm of its otherwise transparent character.
If you are amiable enough to say that what I have written gives a
sufficiently correct idea of what you expect to see, I beg to differ
from you. No camera, no pencil, no vocabulary, can do more than produce
a desire to see for one's self. I can only say that it has been my
fortune to behold much that is grand in nature and in art at home and
abroad, but the hours spent at Muir Glacier made the great event of my
life. If God spares me, I hope to see it often. And fearing I might be
accused of exaggeration, which is far from my desire, for I am searching
in vain for superlatives which would do the subject justice, let me
quote from others who preceded me, and all of whom have established
their reputation as authorities.
Miss 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 side of an Alp. Distance alone lends enchantment to the view. In
Alaska a glacier is a wonderful torrent that seems to have been suddenly
frozen when about to plunge into the sea.... Think of Niagara Falls
frozen stiff, add thirty-six feet to its height, and you have a slight
idea of the terminus of Muir Glacier, in front of which your steamer
anchors; picture a background of mountains fifteen thousand feet high,
all snow-clad, and then imagine a gorgeous sun lighting up the
ice-crystals with rainbow coloring. The face of the glacier takes on
the hue of aquamarine, the hue of every bit of floating ice, big and
little, that surround the steamer and make navigation serious. These
dazzling serpents move at the rate of sixty-four feet a day, tumbling
headlong into the sea, and, as they fall, the ear is startled by
submarine thunder, the echoes of which resound far and near. Down, down,
down goes the berg, and woe to the boat in its way when it rises again
to the surface."
Charles Hallock in "Our New Alaska," pp. 172-733: "The glacier wall
overhung us with its mighty majesty, three times the height of the
steamer's mast or more, and we seemed none too far away to escape the
constantly cleaving masses which dropped from its face with deafening
detonations. The foam which gathered from the impetus of the plunges
surged upward fully two-thirds of the height of the cliff, and the
resulting swell tossed the large steamer like a toy, and rolled up in
breakers of surf upon the beach.... The glacier is by no means smooth,
but is seamed and riven in every part by clefts and fissures. It is
hollowed into caverns and grottos, hung with massive stalactites, and
fashioned into pinnacles and domes. Every section and configuration
has its heart of translucent blue or green, interlaced or bordered by
fretted frostwork of intensest white, so that the appearance is at all
times gnome-like and supernatural....
"I cannot conceive how any one can sit by and contemplate without
emotion the stupendous throes which give birth to the icebergs,
attended with detonations like explosions of artillery, and
reverberations of thunder across the sky, and the mighty wreckage
which follows each convulsion. Nevertheless, I have seen a lady loll
with complaisance in her steamer chair comfortably wrapped for the
chilly air, and observe the astounding scene with the same languid
contemplation that she would discuss her social fixtures and
appointments. Zounds! I believe that such a human negation would calmly
view the wrecks of worlds and hear the crack of doom at the final
rendering, if it did not affect her set. She could watch, at a suitable
distance, the agony of Christian martyrs, the carnage of great battles,
the sweep of cyclones, the diluvial submergence. Dynamite would not
appall her, but to me it would be the acme of satisfaction, ineffably
supreme, to startle such clods of inanition by a cry of mouse, and
electrify them into momentary emotion. No vinaigrette would ever
mitigate the shock."...
Mrs. E. R. Scidmore, in "Journeys in Alaska," says, "Avalanches of
crumbling snow and great pieces of the front were continually falling
with the roar and crash of artillery, revealing new caverns and rifts of
deeper blue light, while the spray dashed high and the great waves
rolled along the icy wall, and, widening in their sweep, washed the
blocks of floating ice up on the beaches on either side.... The nearer
one approached the higher the ice-walls seemed, and all along the front
there were pinnacles and spires weighing several tons, that seemed on
the point of toppling every moment. The great buttresses of ice that
rose first from the water and touched the moraine were as solidly white
as marble, veined and streaked with rocks and mud, but farther on, as
the pressure was greater, the color slowly deepened to turquoise and
sapphire blues."
[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER, ALASKA]
Alexander Badlam, in his "Wonders of Alaska," p. 42, quotes Professor
Muir himself as saying that the front and brow of the glacier were
"dashed and sculptured into a maze of yawning chasm, ravines, canyons,
crevasses, and, a bewildering chaos of architectural forms, beautiful
beyond the measure of description, and so bewildering in their beauty as
to almost make the spectator believe he was revelling in a dream."
"There were," he said, "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."
The next sensation in store for the tourist is the climb to the top of
the glacier. All the row-boats were lowered, and about a dozen
passengers in each, armed with alpenstocks, were ferried in successive
groups from the ship to the eastern beach, a distance of perhaps half a
mile, instructions being given to each steersman to keep a sharp lookout
for falling icebergs. And here your trouble commences unless you are
well advised. The ascent is exceedingly difficult; what looks like a
mountain of rock over which you must wend your way to the ice-fields, is
really a mountain of ice covered by a layer of slimy mud, crusted with
pieces of flinty granite, standing up on end like broken bottle glass on
top of a wall. I wore India-rubber high boots when I started, and I
needed crutches before I finished. It may be chilly as you leave the
ship, according as the sun may be out or in; if chilly, get your escort
to carry an extra shawl for you to wrap yourself in when you row back to
the ship; if the weather is bright and warm, clothe yourself lightly,
for it grows warmer with the glare from the ice and the physical
exertion. Be very careful where you step, and if you are wise follow in
the footsteps of others; do not undertake to lead, else one foot may be
trying to ascertain the depth of a quagmire and the other exploring a
fissure.
After an ascent of perhaps two and a half miles, which seem more like
ten, you will find yourself on the edge of a frozen sea, frozen, as it
were, while in the throes of a tempest, a bay of storm-tossed waves
solidified as by a signal; and this extends as far as the eye can reach
up into the mountains towards the north, and several miles across to the
hills upon the opposite shore. The ice is by no means clear or
brilliant, on the contrary, its color is milky and its formation
honey-combed, plastic, porous, and yielding to the tread; besides which
it is besmeared with sediment from mountain thaws which have traversed
its rifts, and disfigured by fallen logs and drift-wood.
I confess if I visited Muir Glacier a hundred times I should always
remain on deck and watch the pyrotechnics of the facade rather than
undergo the thankless fatigue of climbing to the top, which is
infinitely more laborious than the ascent of Vesuvius on foot through
the lava, or any work to be done on the trails of the Yosemite. To those
who are willing to undertake it, however, I suggest that when they have
ascended the first mile, which will bring them on a line with the top of
the wall of the glacier, they should look back at their little tiny
ship, floating like the "Maid of the Mist" beneath Niagara, to fully
realize the immense proportions of the glacier.
It is said that persons have been missed and never again found who made
this ascent, and I know that at least one case is authentic, that of a
young clergyman, who, straying away from his companions, was never again
seen, though the most diligent search was made for him by his friends
and the ship's crew. A slip into one of those crevasses which is covered
by a thin coat of ice, means to be precipitated in an instant to a depth
where no human aid can reach you. In fact, I would advise all who wish
to preserve the impression of Muir Glacier in its pure, idealized,
unsullied grandeur, to stay aboard and gaze on its beautiful face.
It is a Persian custom, after plucking the fruit, to tear it asunder in
the middle, hand the sunny side to the friend and throw the other half
away, the best portion being the only part good enough for those they
love. It is my duty to present to you the better half of the glacier and
to cast away the other. Tired, footsore, and muddy, we were all early in
bed, and while dozing to sleep I was much impressed with the awful
stillness of the hour; everybody had retired, not even the tread of the
man on watch was heard, the very machinery was sleeping, but every now
and then there was a splash and a report and an echo that brought with
them the proof that the forces of nature were ever awake, and that what
was, "is, and ever shall be, world without end."
A SUMMER TRIP TO ALASKA.
JAMES A. HARRISON.
[Nature possesses no scenery more beautiful than that to be
found on the Pacific coast of Washington and in the island
region leading to north Alaska. And the description of it given
below is well worth reproduction, for its poetic appreciation
of this rich scenic route.]
The whole fourteen hundred--one might say two thousand--miles of coast
extending from Puget's Sound to Behring's Strait is a succession of
beautiful and picturesque archipelagoes, consisting of hundreds, if not
thousands, of islands, through which there are countless water-caves,
lakes, bays, inlets, as smooth as Lake George and the Hudson, and far
more lovely. The smoothness of the water is such that life on the
steamer is a luxurious rest, and the stimulating coolness of the air in
summer contributes to pleasant days and delightful nights. Our summer
trip covered about two thousand five hundred miles from Portland and
back, and we had ample opportunities to stop at the various settlements,
talk with the Indians, and collect curiosities.
On leaving Port Townsend early in August, our ship made for the Straits
of Georgia, and for a long time followed the aqueous boundary-line
between the British and American possessions. The fog dissolved, and we
caught views of Smith's Island, Bellingham Bay, and other points. The
scenery became river-like, the strait now opening into waveless lakes,
now contracting, like the neck of a bottle, into channels where there
were counter-currents and chopped seas.
At Active Bay we could not tell which way we were going, the passage
seemed closed by lofty mountains, and the sea appeared to flow against
their bases; but presently the wall of rock split into a wooded gorge,
through which we shot with a graceful curve.
The long meandering line of Vancouver Island followed for three hundred
miles on the left, and we crossed the Gulf of Georgia in water of
enchanting tranquillity.
Our first days were spent in threading the wilderness of islands off
Vancouver, and we were close enough to the coast on the right to see it
distinctly. There was the continental coast range of the Cascade
Mountains, vanishing streaks of snow and silver on our eastern horizon,
rising from five hundred to two thousand five hundred feet above the
sea-level. Its peaks lay in every imaginable shape, twisted, coiled,
convoluted against the horizon-bar, now running up into a perfect cone,
like the Silberhorn of Switzerland, now elongating in rippling lines
along the east, now staining the sky with deep-blue masses of
ultramarine flecked with pearly lines.
The smoke of the burning forests of Washington Territory and British
Columbia had filled the air for days, and worried us not a little; but
one morning we awoke in perfect sunshine, and found an atmosphere
impregnated with frosty sparkles from the distant snow-peaks. Just
before night-fall, when we were about to cross Queen Charlotte's Sound,
a fog came up, and the pilot thought it advisable to lie by for the
night, more particularly as the coast is a dangerous one and is strewn
with reefs and rocks; so, while we were at dinner, the ship wheeled
around, and we reversed our course, going south until we reached Port
Alexandria, one of the most perfect little harbors conceivable. It is a
cove just like the foot of a stocking; a tiny, circle-shaped island lies
in its mouth, and richly-wooded heights throw their green shimmer on the
placid water.
Here we lay till morning, as "snug as a bug in a rug." Just before
entering the cove, which is only about two hundred yards wide, we saw in
the distance an Indian sea-canoe, with its wet paddles flashing in the
sun, and the agreeable thought was suggested, Suppose we should be
surrounded and scalped in the night! Nothing could have been easier in
this lonely neighborhood.
The perpetual wheeling of the vessel in her nautical evolutions as she
steamed through each successive archipelago gave rise to ever-new
comment on the new vistas and island-combinations before us. The coast
of Maine is not to be mentioned in comparison with this, nor the
island-dusted Caribbean Sea. These inland-sweeping seas open in long
river reaches, beyond which, in sharp sunshine, rise the everlasting
peaks, burnished with ice. The shores of British Columbia are densely
clothed with diminutive needle-wood, much of which is dead, so that the
pale yellow-green is toned with brown-gray. The water is intensely salt,
and is skimmed by wild duck and by low-flying, tufted water-fowl.
As we were passing along one morning, an Indian crew came dashing out in
a canoe, with a deer for sale. There were stunted-looking squaws in the
boat, and all quacked and gesticulated and grunted after the peculiar
linguistic fashion of the neighborhood. These Indians are wonderfully
deft with their fingers, and weave bottle-cases, satchels, baskets, and
table-mats out of split and dyed grasses with curious delicacy and
skill. Their face-type is the homeliest I have seen: enormous skulls,
high-angled cheek-bones, blinking black eyes, flattish noses, and shocks
of horsehair. Evidently they are expert huntsmen and sportsmen: often we
saw their camp-fires, or a canoe stealing along the silent water, filled
with crouching forms.
Day after day there was a never-ending succession of
lake-scenery,--long, winding lanes of green water between steep
snow-streaked domes and precipices. The evenings softened into
singularly lovely nights, with close-hugging shores, volumes of dark,
iodine-hued water, lingering stars, and phosphorescence. The light hung
over the hyperborean landscape as if loath to leave. At ten o'clock one
evening we went out and found the ship steaming up a lane of purple
glass,--the water magically still, the air full of soft, plaintive cries
from the breeding gulls, the tinkle of the parted sea around our bows,
and the dim, spectral water lighted up at the end of the long avenue by
a haunting aurora.
Many a time the cabin door formed a delightful frame for a
forest-picture,--gliding water, pale-blue sky, a broken shore, and,
behind, long lines of brilliant snow-peaks, with their chased and
frozen silver. We would lie asleep for a few moments in the cool
dark of the cabin-interior, and then wake up with one of these perfect,
swiftly-moving views in the foreground. Before we caught it, often it
had gone,--the pale, plenteous beauty of the fir-crowned shore, the
dancing islets, the sedgy strand-line, the many-colored rocks, with
their pools and fountain-basins of transparent water caught from the
deep and held in by their rocky framework in a lightness and purity of
crystal dew.
Then the ship ran dangerously near to the coast, or again out into the
open sound, with its mediterranean sprinkle of islets, serrated walls of
rocks, coves and island-mounds, wherein nested shadows of amethyst or
indigo.
The flow of life in some of these coves and estuary-like indentations is
marvellous, the fish coming in egg-laden, and looking for streams of
fresh water in which to deposit their ova. We anchored in one of these
inlets, and found on the land luxuriant ferns and splendid clumps of
yellow cedar and hemlock, with snow-banks behind. Half a dozen little
bucks and half-breeds were tumbling about in the water through the
long afternoon light, which seemed to have an amaranthine quality
and to be unfading. The sun did not set till after eight o'clock, and
there was cold, ghostly, green light up in the north till nearly
midnight. When darkness did come, it was of the genuine cuttle-fish
kind,--inky,--splashed with stars. There was now and then a delicate
shell of a moon incising the sky against a mountain-side and lending
the most fragile transfiguration to its top.
As we approached Fort Wrangel, the ship's company turned out in the
sweet evening sunshine and found a glorious panorama awaiting them. The
sheen of a mighty mass of embattled peaks and pinnacles and feathery
floating snow-points shone high up in the evening air, just mellowing
under a magnificent sunset. These mountains guard the entrance to the
Stickeen River and mount up the horizon after the Duke of Clarence
Strait has been traversed.
Wrangel itself is most memorably situated just on one side of these
sheeny peaks and glaciers, almost in the shadow of the Devil's Thumb,
which rises about four hundred feet above its own mountain-cluster and
forms one of a throng of confused and radiant _aiguilles_ overlooking
the Stickeen. The sunset had not entirely faded at nine o'clock, when we
touched shore and rejoiced our eyes with a series of wonderful
semi-arctic color-pictures,--coal-black islands, purple islands, lilac
islands, islands in india-ink and amber, lying in glacier-water of pale
green, and above and beyond all the glorious flush of the sun stealing
in between the white snow-needles and throwing them out and up into
luminous relief.