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[Steamer Corwin,
Plover Bay, June 15, 1881.]
A LITTLE before four o'clock
the next morning, June 10, I was awakened by the officer of the deck coming
into the cabin and reporting that the weather was densely foggy, and that
ice in large masses was crowding down upon us, which meant "The Philistines
be upon thee, Samson!" Shortly afterward, the first mass struck the ship and
made her tremble in every joint; then another and another, in quick
succession, while the anchor was being hurriedly raised. The situation in
which we suddenly found ourselves was quite serious. The ice, had it been
like that about the ship of the Ancient Mariner, "here and there and all
around," would have raised but little apprehension. But it was only on one
side of us, while a rocky beach was close by on the other, and against this
beach in our disabled condition the ice was steadily driving us. Whether
backing or going ahead in so crowded a bit of water, the result for some
time was only so many shoves toward shore.
At length a block of small
size, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, drifted in between the Corwin and
the shore, and by steaming against it and striking it on the landward bow
she glinted around, head to the pack, and an opening allowed her to enter a
little distance. This was gradually increased by stopping and starting until
we were safe in the middle of it. Watching the compass and constantly taking
soundings, we traced the edge of the pack, and in an hour or two made our
escape into open water.
Alter the fog lifted we went
again in search of the Lolita, and discovered her five or six miles below
the Eskimo village. Dropping anchor at the edge of a sheet of firm
shore-ice, we went across it to the wreck to see whether we could not get
some pintles from it for our rudder. We found her rudder had been carried
away, but procured some useful iron, blocks, tackle, spars, etc.; also, two
barrels of oil which the natives had not yet appropriated. The
transportation of these stores to the ship over ice, covered with sludge and
full of dangerous holes, made a busy day for the sailors.
Back a hundred yards from the
beach I found a few hints of the coming spring, though most of the ground is
still covered with snow. The dwarf willow is beginning to put out its
catkins, and a few buds of saxifrages, erigerons, and heathworts are
beginning to swell. The bulk of the vegetation is composed of mosses and
lichens. Half a mile from the wreck there is a deserted Eskimo village. All
its inhabitants are said to have died of famine two winters ago. The traces
of both local and general glaciation are particularly clear and telling on
this island.
In the afternoon, the weather
being calm and mild, we succeeded in mending and shipping the rudder, and
the next morning we set out yet again for Plover Bay, where we now are,
having arrived about midnight on the eleventh. The men have been busy sawing
and blasting a sort of slip in the ice for the ship that she may be secure
from drift ice and well situated for loading the coal that is piled on the
shore opposite here. The coal belongs to the Russians. In loading, the coal
was first stowed well forward in order to lift the stern high enough out of
water to enable us to make the additional repairs required on the rudder,
since we cannot find access to a beach smooth enough to lay her on.
The Indians here are very
poor. They have offered nothing to trade. With a group of men and women that
came to the ship a few mornings ago there was a half-breed girl about two
years old. She had light-brown hair, regular European features, and was very
fair and handsome. Her mother, a Chukchi, died in childbirth, and the
natives killed her father. She is plump, red-cheeked, and in every way a
picture of health. That in a Chukchi hut, nursed by a Chukchi mother-in-law,
and on Chukchi food, a half-European girl can be so beautiful, well-behaved,
happy, and healthy is very notable.
On the twelfth of June we had
snow, rain and sleet nearly all day. The view up the inlet was very striking
- lofty mountains on both sides rising from the level of the water, and
proclaiming in telling characters the story of the inlet's creation by
glaciers that have but lately vanished. Most of the slopes and precipices
seemed particularly dreary, not only on account of the absence of trees, but
of vegetation of any kind in any appreciable amount. No bits of shelf
gardens were to be seen, though not wholly wanting when we came to climb,
for I discovered some lovely garden spots with a tellima and anemone in full
bloom. [The vegetation was] very dwarfed, and sparse, and scattered. No
green meadow-hollows. The rock was fast disintegrating, and all the
mountains appeared in general views like piles of loose stones dumped from
the clouds. Plover Bay [Called Providence Bay on recent maps.] takes its
name from H.M.S. Plover, which passed the winter of 1848-49 here while on a
cruise in search of Franklin. It is a glacial fiord, which in the height of
its walls is more Yosemite- like than any I have yet seen in Siberia.
In the afternoon Dr. Rosse
and I set out across the ice to the cliffs. We found a great many seal holes
and cracks of a dangerous kind, and a good deal of water on top of the ici
that made the walking very sloppy. There were dog-sled tracks trending up
and down the inlet. The ice is broken along the shore by the rise and fall
of the tides, but we made out to cross on some large cakes wedged together.
Just before we reached the edge of rocks, in scanning the ruinous, crumbling
face of the cliffs that here are between two and three thousand feet high, I
noticed an outstanding buttress harder and more compact in cleavage than the
rest, and very obviously grooved, polished, and scratched by the main
vanished glacier that once filled all the fiord. Up to this point we
climbed, and found several other spots of the old glacial surface not yet
weathered off. This is the first I have seen of this kind of glacial traces.
On the thirteenth the whaler
Thomas Pope [Captain M. V. B. Millard.] arrived here and anchored to the ice
near us. Getting everything in trim for the return voyage, having already
taken all the [whale}-oil she can carry. All the fleet are doing well this
year, or, as the natives express it, they are getting a "big grease."
[According to brief entries
in Muir's journal the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of June were
spent aboard the Corwin, writing personal letters and several communications
to the "San Francisco Bulletin." From Captain Hooper's report of the cruise
of the Corwin, the following interesting record of events during the
interval is extracted: -
On the fourteenth we worked
all day, drawing coal on the sleds, assisted by the natives and two sleds
with three dogs each, but the rapidly melting ice made it very tedious. On
the fifteenth we continued work, although the softness of the ice compelled
us to reduce the loads to one-half their former size. About four in the
afternoon a slight roll of the vessel was perceptible, indicating a swell
coming in from the outside. At the same time a slight undulating motion of
the ice was observed. This was followed by cracks in the ice running in
every direction, and we had barely time to take in our ice anchors, call our
men on board, and take the Thomas Pope in tow before the ice was all broken
and in motion and rapidly drifting toward the mouth of the bay. At first it
looked as if we might have to go to sea to avoid it. The wind by this time
was blowing fresh from the northeast with a thick snow-storm, and, judging
from the roll coming into the bay, a heavy sea must be running. Added to
this was the fact of the sea being filled with large fields of heavy drift
ice, making the prospect anything but a pleasing one. After lying off
outside the ice for an hour or two and just when it seemed as if our only
hope was in putting to sea, Captain Millard reported from the masthead that
the whole body of ice had started offshore, and that if we could get in
through it we could find good anchorage in clear water. Although the ice was
pitching and rolling badly, it was well broken up, and we determined to make
the attempt, and succeeded better than I had anticipated, and about midnight
we came out into clear water, and anchored near the shore in twelve fathoms,
the Thomas Pope coming to just outside of us in twenty fathoms.
Muir's journal continues with
the following record under date of June 17:]
Half-clear in the morning,
foggy in the afternoon. Left Plover Bay at six in the morning with Thomas
Pope [The San Francisco Bulletin, in its issue of July 13, 1881, noted the
arrival in port of the whaling bark Thomas Pope with a series of letters
from John Muir.] in tow. Left her at the mouth of the bay. It was barred
with rather heavy ice, which was heaving in curious commotion from a heavy
swell. We gave and received three cheers in parting. Have had a very
pleasant time with Captains Millard and Kelly. Very telling views of the
sculpture of the mountains along the Bay, at its head, and at the mouth,
where the land-ice flowed into the one grand glacier that filled Bering
Strait and Sea. The fronting cliffs of the sea glacier seem to be hardly
more weathered than those of Plover Bay and adjacent fords.
St. Michael, Alaska, June 20,
1881.
Sunshine now in the Far
North, sunshine all the long nightless days! ripe and mellow and hazy, like
that which feeds the fruits and vines! We came into it two days ago when we
were approaching this old-fashioned Russian trading post near the mouth of
the Yukon River. How sweet and kindly and reviving it is after so long a
burial beneath dark, sleety storm clouds! For a whole month before the
begin- fling of this bright time, it snowed every day more or less, perhaps
only for an hour or two, or all the twenty-four hours; not one day on which
snow did not fall either in wet, sleety blasts, making sludge on the deck
and rigging and afterward freezing fast, or in dry crystals, blowing away as
fast as it fell. I have never before seen so cloudy a month, weather so
strangely bewildering and depressing. It was all one stormy day, broken here
and there by dim gleams of sunlight, but never so dark at midnight that we
could not read ordinary print.
The general effect of this
confusing inter-blending of the hours of day and night, of the quick
succession of howling gales that we encountered, and of dull black clouds
dragging their ragged, drooping edges over the waves, was very depressing,
and when, at length, we found ourselves free beneath a broad, high sky full
of exhilarating light, we seemed to have emerged from some gloomy, icy cave.
How garish and blinding the light seemed to us then, and how bright the
lily-spangles that flashed on the glassy water! With what rapture we gazed
into the crimson and gold of the midnight sunsets!
While we were yet fifty miles
from land a small gray finch came aboard and flew about the rigging while we
watched its movements and listened to its suggestive notes as if we had
never seen a finch since the days of our merry truant rambles along the
hedgerows. A few hours later a burly, dozing bumblebee came droning around
the pilot-house, seeming to bring with him all the warm, summery gardens we
had ever seen.
The fourth of June was the
most beautiful of the days we spent in the Arctic Ocean. The water was
smooth, reflecting a tranquil, pearl-gray sky with spots of pure azure near
the zenith and a belt of white around the horizon that shone with a bright,
satiny luster, trying to the eyes like clear sunshine. Some seven
whale-ships were in sight, becalmed with their canvas spread. Chukchi
hunters in pursuit of seals were gliding about in light skin-covered canoes,
and gulls, auks, eider ducks, and other water birds in countless multitudes
skimmed the glassy level, while in the background of this Arctic picture the
Siberian coast, white as snow could make it, was seen sweeping back in fine,
fluent, undulating lines to a chain of mountains, the tops of which were
veiled in the shining sky. A few snow crystals were shaken down from a black
cloud towards midnight, but most of the day was one of deep peace, in which
God's love was manifest as in a countenance.
The average temperature for
most of the month commencing May twentieth has been but little above the
freezing point, the maximum about 45° F. To-day the temperature in the shade
at noon is 65°, the highest since leaving San Francisco. The temperature of
the water in Bering Sea and Strait, and as far as we have gone in the
Arctic, has been about from 29° to 35°. But as soon as we approached within
fifty miles of the mouths of the Yukon, the temperature changed suddenly to
42°.
The mirage effects we have
witnessed on the cruise thus far are as striking as any I ever saw on the
hot American desert. Islands and headlands seemed to float in the air,
distorted into the most unreal, fantastic forms imaginable, while the
individual mountains of a chain along the coast appeared to dance at times
up and down with a rhythmic motion, in the tremulous refracting atmosphere.
On the northeast side of Norton Sound I saw two peaks, each with a flat,
black table on top, looming suddenly up and sinking again alternately, like
boys playing see-saw on a plank.
The trading post of St.
Michael was established by the Russians in 1833. It is built of drift timber
derived from the Yukon, and situated on a low bluff of lava on the island of
St. Michael, about sixty-five miles northeast of the northmost of the Yukon
mouths. The fort is composed of a square of log buildings and palisades,
with outlying bastions pierced for small cannon and musketry, while outside
the fort there are a few small buildings and a Greek church, reinforced
during the early part of the summer with groups of tents belonging to the
Indians and the traders. The fort is now occupied by the employees of the
Alaska Commercial Company. This is the headquarters of the fur traders of
northern and central Alaska.
The Western Fur and Trading
Company has a main station on the side of the bay about three miles from
here, and the two companies, being in close competition, have brought on a
condition of the fur business that is bitterly bewailed by the sub-traders
located along the Yukon and its numerous tributaries. Not only have the
splendid profits of the good old times diminished nearly to zero, say they,
but the big prices paid for skins have spoiled the Indians, making them
insolent, lazy, and dangerous, without conferring any substantial benefit
upon them. Since they can now procure all the traders' supplies they need
for fewer skins than formerly, they hunt less, and spend their idle hours in
gambling and quarreling.
The furs and skins of every
kind derived annually from the Yukon and Kuskoquim regions, and shipped from
here, are said to be worth from eighty thousand to one hundred thousand
dollars. The trade goods are brought to this point from San Francisco by the
rival companies in June, and delivered to their agents, by whom they are
distributed to their traders and taken up the rivers to the different
stations in the interior in boats towed most of the way by small stern-wheel
steamers. Then, during the winter, the furs are collected and brought to
this point and carried to San Francisco by the vessels that bring the goods
for the next season's trade.
On the nineteenth instant the
steamer belonging to the Western Fur and Trading Company arrived from a
station fifteen hundred miles up the river, towing three large boats laden
with Indians and traders, together with the last year's collection of furs.
After they had begun to set up their tents and unload the furs, we went over
to the storerooms of the Company to look at the busy throng. They formed a
strange, wild picture on the rocky beach; the squaws pitching the tents and
cutting armfuls of dry grass to lay on the ground as a lining for fur
carpets; the children with wild, staring eyes gazing at us, or, heedless of
all the stir, playing with the dogs; groups of dandy warriors, arrayed in
all the colors of the rainbow, grim, and cruel, and coldly dignified; and a
busy train coming and going between the warehouse and the boats, storing the
big bundles of shaggy bearskins, black and brown, marten, mink, fox, beaver,
otter, lynx, moose, wolf, and wolverine, many of them with claws spread and
hair on end, as if still fighting for life. They were vividly suggestive of
the far wilderness whence they came -its mountains and valleys, its broad
grassy plains and far-reaching rivers, its forests and its bogs.
The Indians seemed to me the
wildest animals of all. The traders were not at all wild, save in dress, but
rather gentle and subdued in manners and aspect, like half-paid village
ministers. They held us in a long interesting conversation, and gave us many
valuable facts concerning the heart of the Yukon country. Some Indians on
the beach were basking in the yellow, mellow sun. Herring and salmon were
hanging upon frames or lying on the rocks - a lazy abundance of food that
discouraged thought of the future.
The shores here are crowded
with immense shoals of herring, and the Indians are lazily catching just
enough to eat. Those we had for dinner are not nearly so good as those I ate
last year at Cross Sound. The Yukon salmon, however, are now in excellent
condition, and are the largest by far that I have seen. Yet the Yukon
Indians suffer severely at times from famine, though they might dry enough
in less than a week to last a year.
We are making a short stay
here to take on provisions, and intend, to go northward again to-morrow to
meet the search party that we landed near Koliuchin Island. Another
delightful sun-day - nearly cloudless and with lily-spangles on the bay. The
temperature was 65° F. in the shade at noon. The birds are nesting and the
plants are rapidly coming into bloom. |
