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SHORTLY after our return to
Wrangell the missionaries planned a grand mission excursion up the coast of
the mainland to the Chilcat country, which I gladly joined, together with
Mr. Vanderbilt, his wife, and a friend from Oregon. The river steamer
Cassiar was chartered, and we had her all to ourselves, ship and officers at
our command to sail and stop where and when we would, and of course
everybody felt important and hopeful. The main object of the missionaries
was to ascertain the spiritual wants of the warlike Chilcat tribe, with a
view to the establishment of a church and school in their principal village;
the merchant and his party were bent on business and scenery; while my mind
was on the mountains, glaciers, and forests.
This was toward the end of
July, in the very brightest and best of Alaska summer weather, when the icy
mountains towering in the pearly sky were displayed in all their glory, and
the islands at their feet seemed to float and drowse on the shining mirror
waters.
After we had passed through
the Wrangell Narrows, the mountains of the mainland came in full view,
gloriously arrayed in snow and ice, some of the largest and most river-like
of the glaciers flowing through wide, high-walled valleys like Yosemite,
their sources far back and concealed, others in plain sight, from their
highest fountains to the level of the sea.
Cares of every kind were
quickly forgotten, and though the Cassiar engines soon began to wheeze and
sigh with doleful solemnity, suggesting coming trouble, we were too happy to
mind them. Every face glowed with natural love of wild beauty. The islands
were seen in long perspective, their forests dark green in the foreground,
with varying tones of blue growing more and more tender in the distance;
bays full of hazy shadows, graduating into open, silvery fields of light,
and lofty headlands with fine arching insteps dipping their feet in the
shining water. But every eye was turned to the mountains. Forgotten now were
the Chilcats and missions while the word of God was being read in these
majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the sky. The earnest, childish
wonderment with which this glorious page of Nature's Bible was contemplated
was delightful to see. All evinced eager desire to learn.
"Is that a glacier," they
asked, "down in that canon? And is it all solid ice?"
"Yes."
"How deep is it?"
"Perhaps five hundred or a
thousand feet."
"You say it flows. How can
hard ice flow?"
"It flows like water, though
invisibly slow.
"And where does it come
from?"
"From snow that is heaped up
every winter on the mountains."
"And how, then, is the snow
changed into ice?"
"It is welded by the pressure
of its own weight."
"Are these white masses we
see in the hollows glaciers also?"
"Yes."
"Are those bluish draggled
masses hanging down from beneath the snow-fields what you call the snouts of
the glaciers?"
"Yes."
"What made the hollows they
are in?"
"The glaciers themselves,
just as traveling animals make their own tracks."
"How long have they been
there?"
"Numberless centuries," etc.
I answered as best I could, keeping up a running commentary on the subject
in general, while busily engaged in sketching and noting my own
observations, preaching glacial gospel in a rambling way, while the Cassiar,
slowly wheezing and creeping along the shore, shifted our position so that
the icy canons were opened to view and closed again in regular succession,
like the leaves of a book.
About the middle of the
afternoon we were directly opposite a noble group of glaciers some ten in
number, flowing from a chain of crater-like snow fountains, guarded around
their summits and well down their sides by jagged peaks and cols and curving
mural ridges. From each of the larger clusters of fountains, a wide,
sheer-walled canon opens down to the sea. Three of the trunk glaciers
descend to within a few feet of the sea-level. The largest of the three,
probably about fifteen miles long, terminates in a magnificent valley like
Yosemite, in an imposing wall of ice about two miles long, and from three to
five hundred feet high, forming a barrier across the valley from wall to
wall. It was to this glacier that the ships of the Alaska Ice Company
resorted for the ice they carried to San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands,
and, I believe, also to China and Japan. To load, they had only to sail up
the fiord within a short distance of the front and drop anchor in the
terminal moraine.
Another glacier, a few miles
to the south of this one, receives two large tributaries about equal in
size, and then flows down a forested valley to within a hundred feet or so
of sea-level. The third of this low-descending group is four or five miles
farther south, and, though less imposing than either of the two sketched
above, is still a truly noble object, even as imperfectly seen from the
channel, and would of itself be well worth a visit to Alaska to any
lowlander so unfortunate as never to have seen a glacier.
The boilers of our little
steamer were not made for sea water, but it was hoped that fresh water would
be found at available points along our course where streams leap down the
cliffs. In this particular we failed, however, and were compelled to use
salt water an hour or two before reaching Cape Fanshawe, the supply of fifty
tons of fresh water brought from Wrangell having then given out. To make
matters worse, the captain and engineer were not in accord concerning the
working of the engines. The captain repeatedly called for more steam, which
the engineer refused to furnish, cautiously keeping the pressure low because
the salt water foamed in the boilers and some of it passed over into the
cylinders, causing heavy thumping at the end of each piston stroke, and
threatening to knock out the cylinder-heads. At seven o'clock in the evening
we had made only about seventy miles, which fact caused dissatisfaction,
especially among the divines, who thereupon called a meeting in the cabin to
consider what had better be done. In the discussions that followed much
indignation and economy were brought to light. We had chartered the boat for
sixty dollars per day, and the round trip was to have been made in four or
five days. But at the present rate of speed it was found that the cost of
the trip for each passenger would be five or ten dollars above the first
estimate. Therefore, the majority ruled that we must return next day to
Wrangell, the extra dollars outweighing the mountains and missions as if
they had suddenly become dust in the balance.
Soon after the close of this
economical meeting, we came to anchor in a beautiful bay, and as the long
northern day had still hours of good light to offer, I gladly embraced the
opportunity to go ashore to see the rocks and plants. One of the Indians,
employed as a deck hand on the steamer, landed me at the mouth of a stream.
The tide was low, exposing a luxuriant growth of alga, which sent up a fine,
fresh sea smell. The shingle was composed of slate, quartz, and granite,
named in the order of abundance. The first land plant met was a tall grass,
nine feet high, forming a meadow-like margin in front of the forest. Pushing
my way well back into the forest, I found it composed almost entirely of
spruce and two hemlocks (Picea sitchensis, Tsuga heterophylla and T.
mertensiana) with a few specimens of yellow cypress. The ferns were
developed in remarkable beauty and size - aspidiums, one of which is about
six feet high, a woodsia, lomaria, and several species of polypodium. The
underbrush is chiefly alder, rubus, ledum, three species of vaccinium, and
Echinopanax horrida, the whole about from six to eight feet high, and in
some places closely intertangled and hard to penetrate. On the opener spots
beneath the trees the ground is covered to a depth of two or three feet with
mosses of indescribable freshness and beauty, a few dwarf cornels often
planted on their rich furred bosses, together with pyrola, coptis, and
Solomon's-seal. The tallest of the trees are about a hundred and fifty feet
high, with a diameter of about four or five feet, their branches mingling
together and making a perfect shade. As the twilight began to fall, I sat
down on the mossy instep of a spruce. Not a bush or tree was moving; every
leaf seemed hushed in brooding repose. One bird, a thrush, embroidered the
silence with cheery notes, making the solitude familiar and sweet, while the
solemn monotone of the stream sifting through the woods seemed like the very
voice of God, humanized, terrestrialized, and entering one's heart as to a
home prepared for it. Go where we will, all the world over, we seem to have
been there before.
The stream was bridged at
short intervals with picturesque, moss-embossed logs, and the trees on its
banks, leaning over from side to side, made high embowering arches. The log
bridge I crossed was, I think, the most beautiful of the kind I ever saw.
The massive log is pushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of
three or four species, their different tones of yellow shading finely into
each other, while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in
exquisite order, inclining outward and down the sides in rich, furred,
clasping sheets overlapping and felted together until the required thickness
is attained. The pedicels and spore-cases give a purplish tinge, and the
whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row of small seedling trees and
currant bushes with colored leaves, every one of which seems to have been
culled from the woods for this special use, so perfectly do they harmonize
in size, shape, and color with the mossy cover, the width of the span, and
the luxuriant, brushy abutments.
Sauntering back to the beach,
I found four or five Indian deck hands getting water, with whom I returned
aboard the steamer, thanking the Lord for so noble an addition to my life as
was this one big mountain, forest, and glacial day.
Next morning most of the
company seemed uncomfortably conscience-stricken, and ready to do anything
in the way of compensation for our broken excursion that would not cost too
much. It was not found difficult, therefore, to convince the captain and
disappointed passengers that instead of creeping back to Wrangell direct we
should make an expiatory branch-excursion to the largest of the three
low-descending glaciers we had passed. The Indian pilot, well acquainted
with this part of the coast, declared himself willing to guide us. The water
in these fiord channels is generally deep and safe, and though at wide
intervals rocks rise abruptly here and there, lacking only a few feet in
height to enable them to take rank as islands, the flat-bottomed Cassiar
drew but little more water than a duck, so that even the most timid raised
no objection on this score. The cylinder-heads of our engines were the main
source of anxiety; provided they could be kept on all might yet be well. But
in this matter there was evidently some distrust, the engineer having
imprudently informed some of the passengers that in consequence of using
salt water in his frothing boilers the cylinder-heads might fly off at any
moment. To the glacier, however, it was at length decided we should venture.
Arriving opposite the mouth
of its fiord, we steered straight inland between beautiful wooded shores,
and the grand glacier came in sight in its granite valley, glowing in the
early sunshine and extending a noble invitation to come and see. After we
passed between the two mountain rocks that guard the gate of the fiord, the
view that was unfolded fixed every eye in wondering admiration. No words can
convey anything like an adequate conception of its sublime grandeur — the
noble simplicity and fineness of the sculpture of the walls; their
magnificent proportions; their cascades, gardens, and forest adornments; the
placid fiord between them; the great white and blue ice wall, and the
snow-laden mountains beyond. Still more impotent are words in telling the
peculiar awe one experiences in entering these mansions of the icy North,
notwithstanding it is only the natural effect of appreciable manifestations
of the presence of God.
Standing in the gateway of
this glorious temple, and regarding it only as a picture, its outlines may
be easily traced, the water foreground of a pale-green color, a smooth
mirror sheet sweeping back five or six miles like one of the lower reaches
of a great river, bounded at the head by a beveled barrier wall of
bluish-white ice four or five hundred feet high. A few snowy mountain-tops
appear beyond it, and on either hand rise a series of majestic, pale-gray
granite rocks from three to four thousand feet high, some of them thinly
forested and striped with bushes and flowery grass on narrow shelves,
especially about half way up, others severely sheer and bare and built
together into walls like those of Yosemite, extending far beyond the ice
barrier, one immense brow appearing beyond another with their bases buried
in the glacier. This is a Yosemite Valley in process of formation, the
modeling and sculpture of the walls nearly completed and well planted, but
no groves as yet or gardens or meadows on the raw and unfinished bottom. It
is as if the explorer, in entering the Merced Yosemite, should find the
walls nearly in their present condition, trees and flowers in the warm nooks
and along the sunny portions of the moraine-covered brows, but the bottom of
the valley still covered with water and beds of gravel and mud, and the
grand glacier that formed it slowly receding but still filling the upper
half of the valley.
Sailing directly up to the
edge of the low, outspread, water-washed terminal moraine, scarce noticeable
in a general view, we seemed to be separated from the glacier only by a bed
of gravel a hundred yards or so in width; but on so grand a scale are all
the main features of the valley, we afterwards found the distance to be a
mile or more.
The captain ordered the
Indian deck hands to get out the canoe, take as many of us ashore as wished
to go, and accompany us to the glacier in case we should need their help.
Only three of the company, in the first place, availed themselves of this
rare opportunity of meeting a glacier in the flesh, - Mr. Young, one of the
doctors, and myself. Paddling to the nearest and driest-looking part of the
morained flat, we stepped ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe;
for the gray mineral mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept
unstable by the tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us feet
foremost with becoming glacial deliberation. Our next attempt, made nearer
the middle of the valley, was successful, and we soon found ourselves on
firm, gravelly ground, and made haste to the huge ice wall, which seemed to
recede as we advanced. The only difficulty we met was a network of icy
streams, at the largest of which we halted, not willing to get wet in
fording. The Indian attendant promptly carried us over on his back. When my
turn came I told him I would ford, but he bowed his shoulders in so
ludicrously persuasive a manner I thought I would try the queer mount, the
only one of the kind I had enjoyed since boyhood days in playing leapfrog.
Away staggered my perpendicular mule over the boulders into the brawling
torrent, and in spite of top-heavy predictions to the contrary, crossed
without a fall. After being ferried in this way over several more of these
glacial streams, we at length reached the foot of the glacier wall. The
doctor simply played tag on it, touched it gently as if it were a dangerous
wild beast, and hurried back to the boat, taking the portage Indian with him
for safety, little knowing what he was missing. Mr. Young and I traced the
glorious crystal wall, admiring its wonderful architecture, the play of
light in the rifts and caverns, and the structure of the ice as displayed in
the less fractured sections, finding fresh beauty everywhere and facts for
study. We then tried to climb it, and by dint of patient zigzagging and
doubling among the crevasses, and cutting steps here and there, we made our
way up over the brow and back a mile or two to a height of about seven
hundred feet. The whole front of the glacier is gashed and sculptured into a
maze of shallow caves and crevasses, and a bewildering variety of novel
architectural forms, clusters of glittering lance-tipped spires, gables, and
obelisks, bold outstanding bastions and plain mural cliffs, adorned along
the top with fretted cornice and battlement, while every gorge and crevasse,
groove and hollow, was filled with light, shimmering and throbbing in
pale-blue tones of ineffable tenderness and beauty. The day was warm, and
back on the broad melting bosom of the glacier beyond the crevassed front,
many streams were rejoicing, gurgling, ringing, singing, in frictionless
channels worn down through the white disintegrated ice of the surface into
the quick and living blue, in which they flowed with a grace of motion and
flashing of light to be found only on the crystal hillocks and ravines of a
glacier.
Along the sides of the
glacier we saw the mighty flood grinding against the granite walls with
tremendous pressure, rounding outswelling bosses, and deepening the
retreating hollows into the forms they are destined to have when, in the
fullness of appointed time, the huge ice tool shall be withdrawn by the sun.
Every feature glowed with intention, reflecting the plans of God. Back a few
miles from the front, the glacier is now probably but little more than a
thousand feet deep; but when we examine the records on the walls, the
rounded, grooved, striated, and polished features so surely glacial, we
learn that in the earlier days of the ice age they were all over-swept, and
that this glacier has flowed at a height of from three to four thousand feet
above its present level, when it was at least a mile deep.
Standing here, with facts so
fresh and telling and held up so vividly before us, every seeing observer,
not to say geologist, must readily apprehend the earth-sculpturing,
landscape-making action of flowing ice. And here, too, one learns that the
world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of
creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced
for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes; that moraine soil is being
ground and outspread for coming plants, — coarse boulders and gravel for
forests, finer soil for grasses and flowers, — while the finest part of the
grist, seen hastening out to sea in the draining streams, is being stored
away in darkness and builded particle on particle, cementing and
crystallizing, to make the mountains and valleys and plains of other
predestined landscapes, to be followed by still others in endless rhythm and
beauty.
Gladly would we have camped
out on this grand old landscape mill to study its ways and works; but we had
no bread and the captain was keeping the Cassiar whistle screaming for our
return. Therefore, in mean haste, we threaded our way back through the
crevasses and down the blue cliffs, snatched a few flowers from a warm spot
on the edge of the ice, plashed across the moraine streams, and were paddled
aboard, rejoicing in the possession of so blessed a day, and feeling that in
very foundational truth we had been in one of God's own temples and had seen
Him and heard Him working and preaching like a man.
Steaming solemnly out of the
fiord and down the coast, the islands and mountains were again passed in
review; the clouds that so often hide the mountain-tops even in good weather
were now floating high above them, and the transparent shadows they cast
were scarce perceptible on the white glacier fountains. So abundant and
novel are the objects of interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are
pursuing special studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the
same place. Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all
places the best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world
or in any other for those who may not be happy here. The bright hours were
spent in making notes and sketches and getting more of the wonderful region
into memory. In particular a second view of the mountains made me raise my
first estimate of their height. Some of them must be seven or eight thousand
feet at the least. Also the glaciers seemed larger and more numerous. I
counted nearly a hundred, large and small, between a point ten or fifteen
miles to the north of Cape Fanshawe and the mouth of the Stickeen River. We
made no more landings, however, until we had passed through the Wrangell
Narrows and dropped anchor for the night in a small sequestered bay. This
was about sunset, and I eagerly seized the opportunity to go ashore in the
canoe and see what I could learn. It is here only a step from the marine
algae to terrestrial vegetation of almost tropical luxuriance. Parting the
alders and huckleberry bushes and the crooked stems of the prickly panax, I
made my way into the woods, and lingered in the twilight doing nothing in
particular, only measuring a few of the trees, listening to learn what birds
and animals might be about, and gazing along the dusky aisles.
In the mean time another
excursion was being invented, one of small size and price. We might have
reached Fort Wrangell this evening instead of anchoring here; but the owners
of the Cassiar would then receive only ten dollars fare from each person,
while they had incurred considerable expense in fitting up the boat for this
special trip, and had treated us well. No, under the circumstances, it would
never do to return to Wrangell so meanly soon.
It was decided, therefore,
that the Cassiar Company should have the benefit of another day's hire, in
visiting the old deserted Stickeen village fourteen miles to the south of
Wrangell.
"We shall have a good time,"
one of the most influential of the party said to me in a semi-apologetic
tone, as if dimly recognizing my disappointment in not going on to Chilcat.
"We shall probably find stone axes and other curiosities. Chief Kadachan is
going to guide us, and the other Indians aboard will dig for us, and there
are interesting old buildings and totem poles to be seen."
It seemed strange, however,
that so important a mission to the most influential of the Alaskan tribes
should end in a deserted village. But divinity abounded nevertheless; the
day was divine and there was plenty of natural religion in the newborn
landscapes that were being baptized in sunshine, and sermons in the glacial
boulders on the beach where we landed.
The site of the old village
is on an outswelling strip of ground about two hundred yards long and fifty
wide, sloping gently to the water with a strip of gravel and tall grass in
front, dark woods back of it, and charming views over the water among the
islands — a delightful place. The tide was low when we arrived, and I
noticed that the exposed boulders on the beach - granite erratics that had
been dropped by the melting ice toward the close of the glacial period —
were piled in parallel rows at right angles to the shore-line, out of the
way of the canoes that had belonged to the village.
Most of the party sauntered
along the shore; for the ruins were overgrown with tall nettles, elder
bushes, and prickly rubus vines through which it was difficult to force a
way. In company with the most eager of the relic-seekers and two Indians, I
pushed back among the dilapidated dwellings. They were deserted some sixty
or seventy years before, and some of them were at least a hundred years old.
So said our guide, Kadachan, and his word was corroborated by the venerable
aspect of the ruins. Though the damp climate is destructive, many of the
house timbers were still in a good state of preservation, particularly those
hewn from the yellow cypress, or cedar as it is called here. The magnitude
of the ruins and the excellence of the workmanship manifest in them was
astonishing as belonging to Indians. For example, the first dwelling we
visited was about forty feet square, with walls built of planks two feet
wide and six inches thick. The ridgepole of yellow cypress was two feet in
diameter, forty feet long, and as round and true as if it had been turned in
a lathe; and, though lying in the damp weeds, it was still perfectly sound.
The nibble marks of the stone adze were still visible, though crusted over
with scale lichens in most places. The pillars that had supported the
ridgepole were still standing in some of the ruins. They were all, as far as
I observed, carved into life-size figures of men, women, and children,
fishes, birds, and various other animals, such as the beaver, wolf, or bear.
Each of the wall planks had evidently been hewn out of a whole log, and must
have required sturdy deliberation as well as skill. Their geometrical
truthfulness was admirable. With the same tools not one in a thousand of our
skilled mechanics could do as good work. Compared with it the bravest work
of civilized backwoodsmen is feeble and bungling. The completeness of form,
finish, and proportion of these timbers suggested skill of a wild and
positive kind, like that which guides the woodpecker in drilling round
holes, and the bee in making its cells.
The carved totem-pole
monuments are the most striking of the objects displayed here. The simplest
of them consisted of a smooth, round post fifteen or twenty feet high and
about eighteen inches in diameter, with the figure of some animal on top — a
bear, porpoise, eagle, or raven, about life-size or larger. These were the
totems of the families that occupied the houses in front of which they
stood. Others supported the figure of a man or woman, life-size or larger,
usually in a sitting posture, said to resemble the dead whose ashes were
contained in a closed cavity in the pole. The largest were thirty or forty
feet high, carved from top to bottom into human and animal totem figures,
one above another, with their limbs grotesquely doubled and folded. Some of
the most imposing were said to commemorate some event of an historical
character. But a telling display of family pride seemed to have been the
prevailing motive. All the figures were more or less rude, and some were
broadly grotesque, but there was never any feebleness or obscurity in the
expression. On the contrary, every feature showed grave force and decision;
while the childish audacity displayed in the designs, combined with manly
strength in their execution, was truly wonderful.
The colored lichens and
mosses gave them a venerable air, while the larger vegetation often found on
such as were most decayed produced a picturesque effect. Here, for example,
is a bear five or six feet long, reposing on top of his lichen-clad pillar,
with paws comfortably folded, a tuft of grass growing in each ear and rubus
bushes along his back. And yonder is an old chief poised on a taller pillar,
apparently gazing out over the landscape in contemplative mood, a tuft of
bushes leaning back with a jaunty air from the top of his weatherbeaten hat,
and downy mosses about his massive lips. But no rudeness or grotesqueness
that may appear, however combined with the decorations that nature has
added, may possibly provoke mirth. The whole work is serious in aspect and
brave and true in execution.
Similar monuments are also
made by other Thlinkit tribes. The erection of a totem pole is made a grand
affair, and is often talked of for a year or two beforehand. A feast, to
which many are invited, is held, and the joyous occasion is spent in eating,
dancing, and the distribution of gifts. Some of the larger specimens cost a
thousand dollars or more. From one to two hundred blankets, worth three
dollars apiece, are paid to the genius who carves them, while the presents
and feast usually cost twice as much, so that only the wealthy families can
afford them. I talked with an old Indian who pointed out one of the carvings
he had made in the Wrangell village, for which he told me he had received
forty blankets, a gun, a canoe, and other articles, all together worth about
$170. Mr. Swan, who has contributed much information concerning the British
Columbian and Alaskan tribes, describes a totem pole that cost $2500. They
are always planted firmly in the ground and stand fast, showing the sturdy
erectness of their builders.
While I was busy with my
pencil, I heard chopping going on at the north end of the village, followed
by a heavy thud, as if a tree had fallen. It appeared that after digging
about the hearth in the first dwelling visited without finding anything of
consequence, the archaeological doctor called the steamer deck hands to one
of the most interesting of the totems and directed them to cut it down, saw
off the principal figure, — a woman measuring three feet three inches across
the shoulders, — and convey it aboard the steamer, with a view to taking it
on East to enrich some museum or other. This sacrilege came near causing
trouble and would have cost us dear had the totem not chanced to belong to
the Kadachan family, the representative of which is a member of the newly
organized Wrangell Presbyterian Church. Kadachan looked very seriously into
the face of the reverend doctor and pushed home the pertinent question: "How
would you like to have an Indian go to a graveyard and break down and carry
away a monument belonging to your family?"
However, the religious
relations of the parties and a few trifling presents embedded in apologies
served to hush and mend the matter.
Some time in the afternoon
the steam whistle called us together to finish our memorable trip. There was
no trace of decay in the sky; a glorious sunset gilded the water and cleared
away the shadows of our meditations among the ruins. We landed at the
Wrangell wharf at dusk, pushed our way through a group of inquisitive
Indians, across the two crooked streets, and up to our homes in the fort. We
had been away only three days, but they were so full of novel scenes and
impressions the time seemed indefinitely long, and our broken Chilcat
excursion, far from being a failure as it seemed to some, was one of the
most memorable of my life. |
