Ella Higginson

“ Champagne is a part of the hospitality of Alaska. The cheapest is seven dollars and a half a bottle, and Alaskans seldom buy the cheapest of anything.
It was on a soft gray afternoon that the Dora entered Karluk Bay between the two picturesque promontories that plunge boldly out into Shelikoff Straits. It seemed as though all the sea-birds of the world must be gathered there. Our entrance set them afloat from their perches on the rocky cliffs. They filled the air, from shore to shore, like a snow-storm. Their poetic flight and shrill, mournful plaining haunt every memory of Karluk Bay. ”

“ At times a kind of divine blueness seems to swim over everything. Wherever one turns, the eye is rested and charmed with blue. Sea, shore, islands, atmosphere, and sky—all are blue. A mist of it rests upon the snow mountains and goes drifting down the straits. It is a warm, delicate, luscious blue. It is like the blue of frost-touched grapes when the prisoned wine shines through.
Sand Point, a trading post on Unga Island, is a wild and picturesque place. It impressed me chiefly, however, by the enormous size of its crabs and starfishes, which I saw in great numbers under the wharf. ”

“ Up and down the water-ways slid the bidarkas noiselessly; and along the shores the brown women moved among the willows and sedges, or stood motionless, staring out at their white sisters on the stranded boat. There were times when every one of the millions of sedges on island and shore seemed to flash out alone and apart, like a dazzling emerald lance quivering to strike.
They are dull of soul and dull of imagination who complain of monotony on the Yukon Flats. There is beauty for all that have eyes wherewith to see. It is the beauty of the desert ”

“ No steamer could have a twelve-hundred-mile route more fascinating than the one from Valdez to Unalaska. It is intensely lovely. Behind the gray cliffs of the peninsula float the snow-peaks of the Aleutian Range. Here and there a volcano winds its own dark, fleecy turban round its crest, or flings out a scarlet scarf of flame. There are glaciers sweeping everything before them; bold headlands plunging out into the sea, where they pause with a sheer drop of thousands of feet; and flowery vales and dells. There are countless islands—some of them mere bits of green floating upon the blue. ”

“ It is fifty-four miles from this cape to the East Cape of Siberia, and like stepping-stones between lie Fairway Rock and the Diomedes. Beyond is the Frozen Ocean. These islands are of almost solid stone. They are snow-swept, ice-bound, and ice-bounded for eight months of every year. But ah, the auroral magnificence that at times must stream through the gates of frozen pearl which swing open and shut to the Arctic Sea! What moonlights must glitter there like millions of diamonds; what sunrises and sunsets must burn like opaline mist! How large the stars must be—and how bright and low! ”

“ Poor Whidbey felt the earth shake at a distance of three miles from the falling ice.
In ordinary light, the front of the glacier is beautifully blue. It is a blue that is never seen in anything save a glacier or a floating iceberg—a pale, pale blue that seems to flash out fire with every movement. At sunset, its beauty holds one spellbound. It sweeps down magnificently from the snow peaks which form its fit setting and pushes out into the sea in a solid wall of spired and pinnacled opal which, ever and anon breaking off, flings over it clouds of color which dazzle the eyes. ”

“ It is mine. I own it as surely as I own the green hill upon which I live, the blue sea that sparkles daily beneath my windows, the gold-brilliant constellations that move nightly above my home, or the song that the meadow-lark sings to his mate in the April dawn.
The sea breaks into surf upon Shishaldin's base, and snow covers the slender cone from summit to sea level, save for a month or two in summer when it melts around the base. Owing to the mists, it is almost impossible to obtain a sharp negative of Shishaldin from the water. ”

“ When the steamer has whistled for the sixth time to call in the wandering passengers, and the captain is on the bridge; when the last squaw has pigeon-toed herself up the gangway, flirting her gay shawl around her and chuckling and clucking over the gullibility of the innocent white people; when the last strain from the phonograph in the big store on the hill has died across the violet water widening between the shore and the withdrawing ship—the spendthrift passenger retires to his cabin and finds the berths overflowing and smelling to heaven with Indian things. ”

“ The finest scenery on the regular steamer route, until the great snow fields and glaciers are reached, is considered by many well acquainted with the route, to lie from Millbank on to Dixon Entrance. The days are not long enough now for all the beauty that weighs upon the senses like caresses. At evening, the sunset, blooming like a rose upon these splendid reaches, seems to drop perfumed petals of color, until the still air is pink with them, and the steamer pushes them aside as it glides through with faint throbbings that one feels rather than hears. ”

“ It is daylight all the time, and no one should sleep between White Horse and Dawson. Not an hour of this beautiful voyage on the Upper Yukon should be wasted.
The banks are high and bold, for the most part springing sheer out of the water in columns and pinnacles of solid stone. There are also forestated slopes rising to peaks of snow; and the same kind of clay cliffs that we saw at White Horse, white and shining in the bluish light of morning, but more beautiful still in the mysterious rosy shadows of midnight. ”

“ For the sea lover, it is enough only to stand in the bow of a steamer headed for Alaska and hear the kiss and the rippling murmur of the waves as they break apart when the sharp cut-water pierces them, and then their long, musical rush along the steamer's sides, ere they reunite in one broad wake of bowing silver that leads across the purple toward home. ”

“ The winds were but the softest zephyrs, touching the face and hair like rose petals, or other delicate, visible things; and, the air was fragrant with things that grow day and night and that fling their splendor forth in one riotous rush of bloom. Shaken through and through their perfume was that thrilling, indescribable sweetness which abides in vast spaces where snow mountains glimmer and the opaline palisades of glaciers shine. [Pg 338]
It is a view to quicken the blood, and to inspire an American to give silent thanks to God that this rich and peerlessly beautiful country is ours. ”

“ One could almost feel the crisp ting of ice in the air, and smell the sunlight that opalizes, without melting, the ice.
Round and white, with the sunken nest of the thunder-bird on its crest, Mount Edgecumbe rose before us; the pale green islands leaned apart to let us through; the sea-birds, white and lavender and rose-touched, floated with us; the throb of the steamer was like a pulse beating in one's own blood; there were words in the violet light that lured us on, and a wild sweet song in the waves that broke at our prow.
"There can be nothing more beautiful on earth," I said ”

“ The color reminded me of the dull old-rose of Columbia Glacier.
Lake Bennett dashes its foam-crested blue waves along the pebbly beaches and stone terraces for a distance of twenty-seven miles. At its widest it is not more than two miles, and it narrows in places to less than half a mile. It winds and curves like a river.
The railway runs along the eastern shore of the lake, and mountains slope abruptly from the opposite shore to a height of five thousand feet. The scenery is never monotonous. It charms constantly, and the air keeps the traveller as fresh and sparkling in spirit as champagne. ”

“ The view from the summit of Sour-Dough Hill is unsurpassed in the interior of Alaska. Glacial creeks and roaring rivers; wild and fantastic canyons; moving glaciers; gorges of royal purple gloom; green valleys and flowery slopes; the domed and towered Castle [Pg 286] Mountains; the lone and majestic peaks pushing up above all others, above the clouds, cascades spraying down sheer precipices; and far to the south the linked peaks of the Coast Range piled magnificently upon the sky, dim and faintly blue in the great distance,—all blend into one grand panorama of unrivalled inland grandeur. ”

“ The vegetation is all of tropical luxuriance, and, owing to its constant dew and mist baths, it is of an intense and vivid green that is fairly dazzling where the sun touches it. One of the chief charms of the wooded reserve is its stillness—broken only by the musical rush of waters and the lyrical notes of birds. A kind of lavender twilight abides beneath the trees, and, with the narrow, spruce-aisled vistas that open at every turn, gives one a sensation as of being in some dim and scented cathedral. ”

“ The unique situation of Juneau appeals powerfully to the lover of beauty. There is an unforgettable charm in its narrow, crooked streets and winding, mossed stairways; its picturesque shops,—some with gorgeous totem-poles for signs,—where a small fortune may be spent on a single Attu or Atka basket; the glitter and the music of its streets and its "places," the latter open all night; its people standing in doorways and upon corners, eager to talk to strangers and bid them welcome; and its gayly clad squaws, surrounded by fine baskets and other work of their brown hands. ”

“ After Tanana, this is the loveliest place on the Yukon. Its sparkling, emerald beauty shone under a silvery blue sky. There was a long street of artistic log houses and stores on a commanding bluff, up which paths wound from the water. Roofs covered with earth and flowers, carried out in brilliant bloom over the porches, added the characteristic Yukon touch. Every door-yard and window blazed with color. Narrow paths ran through tall fireweed and grasses over and around the hill—each path terminating, like a winding lane, in a pretty log-cabin home. ”

“ There those saintly beings spend their lives in God's service. Nothing save a divine faith could sustain a delicate woman to endure such ceaseless torment for three months in every year; and yet, like the lone woman at Nation, their faces tell us that we, rather than they, are for pity. The stars upon their brows are the white and blessed stars of peace.
The steamer lands at neither Russian Mission nor Andreaofsky; but at both may be seen, on grassy slopes, beautiful Greek churches, with green, pale blue, and yellow roofs, domes and bell-towers, chimes and glittering crosses. ”

“ Port Valdez—or the Puerto de Valdés, as it was named by Vancouver after Whidbey's exploration—is a fiord twelve miles long and of a beauty that is simply enchanting.
On a clear day it winds like a pale blue ribbon between colossal mountains of snow, with glaciers streaming down to the water at every turn. The peaks rise, one after another, sheer from the water, pearl-white from summit to base. ”

“ Its wide blue water-sweeps, its many mountainous, wooded, and snow-peaked islands, the magnificent glaciers which palisade its ice-inlets, and the chain of lofty, snowy mountains that float mistily, like linked pearls, around it through the amethystine clouds, give it a poetic and austere beauty of its own. Every slow turn of the prow brings forth some new delight to the eye. Never does one beautiful snow-dome fade lingeringly from the horizon, ere another pushes into the exquisitely colored atmosphere, in a chaste beauty that fairly thrills the heart of the beholder. ”

“ In all the world there cannot be another spot so noble in which to lie down and rest when "life's fevers and life's passions—all are past." There, alone,—but never again to be lonely!—facing that sublime sweep of sapphire summer sea, set here and there with islands, and those miles upon miles of glittering winter ice; with white sails drifting by in summer, and in winter the wild and roaring march of icebergs; with summer nights of lavender dusk, and winter nights set with the great stars and the magnificent brilliance of Northern Lights ”

“ For many miles a solid road-bed, four or five feet above the water, is hewn out of the base of the mountains; the terrace from the railway to the water is a solid blaze of bloom; white sails, blown full, drift up and down the blue water avenue; cloud-fragments move silently over the nearer rose-colored mountains; while in the distance, in every direction that the eye may turn, the enchanted traveller is saluted by some lonely and beautiful peak of snow. It is an exquisitely lovely lake. ”

“ The Aleutian Islands drift out, one after another, toward the coast of Asia, like an emerald rosary on the blue breast of Behring Sea. The only tree in the Aleutian Islands is a stunted evergreen growing at the gate of a residence in Unalaska, on the island of the same name.
The prevailing atmospheric color of Alaska is a kind of misty, rosy lavender, enchantingly blended from different shades of violet, rose, silver, azure, gold, and green. The water coloring changes hourly. One passes from a narrow channel whose waters are of the most delicate green into a wider reach of the palest blue ”

“ Some otherwise fine specimens of Atkan basketry are rendered valueless, in my judgment, by the present custom of introducing flecks of gaily dyed wool, the matchless beauty of these baskets lying in their delicate, even weaving, and in their exquisite natural coloring—the faintest old rose, lavender, green, yellow and purple being woven together in one ravishing mist of elusive splendor. So enchanting to the real lover of basketry are the creations of those far lonely women's hands and brains, that they seem fairly to breathe out their loveliness upon the air, as a rose. ”

“ Some parts of Alaska lull the senses drowsily by their languorous charm; under their influence one sinks to a passive delight and drifts unresistingly on through a maze of tender loveliness. Nothing irritates. All is soft, velvety, soothing. Wordless lullabies are played by different shades of blue, rose, amber, and green; by the curl of the satin waves and the musical kiss of their cool and faltering lips; by the mists, light as thistle-down and delicately tinted as wild-rose petals, into which the steamer pushes leisurely ”

“ The Yukon is a mighty and a beautiful river, and its memory becomes more haunting and more compelling with the passage of time. From the slender blue stream of its source, it grows, in its twenty-three hundred miles of wandering to the sea, to a width of sixty miles at its mouth. In its great course it widens, narrows, and widens; cuts through the foot-hills of vast mountain systems, spreads over flats, makes many splendid sweeping curves, and slides into hundreds of narrow channels around spruce-covered islands. ”

“ In the absolute perfection of its conical form, its chaste and delicate beauty of outline, and the slender column of smoke pushing up from its finely pointed crest, Shishaldin stands alone. Its height is not great, only nine thousand feet; but in any company of loftier mountains it would shine out with a peerlessness that would set it apart.
The sunset trembled upon the North Pacific Ocean, changing hourly as the evening wore on. Through scarlet and purple and gold, the mountain shone; through lavender, pearl, and rose; growing ever more distant and more dim, but not less beautiful. ”

“ I had meant to take the reader first up lovely Gastineau Channel to Juneau; but now that I have unintentionally drifted into Taku Inlet, the glacier lures me on. It is only an hour's run, and the way is one of ever increasing beauty, until the steamer has pushed its prow through the hundreds of sparkling icebergs, under slow bell, and at last lies motionless. One feels as though in the presence of some living, majestic being, clouded in mystery. ”

“ No one should visit Dawson without climbing, on a clear day, to the summit of the hill behind the town, which is called "the Dome." The view of the surrounding country from this point is magnificent. The course of the winding, widening Yukon may be traced for countless miles; the little creeks pour their tawny floods down into the Klondike before the longing eyes of the beholder; and faraway on the horizon faintly shine the snow-peaks that beautify almost every portion of the northern land. ”

“ To-day there is a town of seven thousand people in summer, and of three or four thousand in winter—a town having most of the comforts and many of the luxuries to be obtained in cities of older civilization. Nome sprang into existence in the summer of 1899, and grew like Fairbanks and Dawson; but it is more wonderfully situated than, probably, any town in the world. For eight months of the year it is cut off from steamship service, and its front door-yard is a sea of solid ice stretching to the shores of Siberia, while its back yard is a gold-mine. ”