Frederick Schwatka

“ One of the most impressive physical features of the whole Territory is the stupendous glacier at Muir Inlet. This ice-field, says a recent writer, enters the sea with a front two or three hundred feet above the water and a mile wide. Fancy a wall of blue ice, splintered into columns, spires and huge crystal masses, with grottoes, crevices and recesses higher than Bunker Hill Monument and a mile in width! It is a spectacle that is strangely beautiful in its variety of form and depth of color, and at the same time awful in its grandeur. And not alone is the sight awe-inspiring. ”

“ This course brought us in time to a rough, rocky beach strewn with big bowlders along the water's edge, over which the waves were dashing in a boiling sheet of water that looked threatening enough; but a line was gotten ashore through the surf with the aid of a canoe, and while a number of the crew kept the raft off the rocks with poles, the remainder of the party tracked it back about a half a mile along the slippery stones of the beach, to a crescent-shaped cove sheltered from the waves and wind, where it was anchored near the beach. ”

“ To thoroughly appreciate how much moisture in the form of fog and rain settles upon the land, one cannot do better than to leave the ship in the harbor, or the post where he is stationed, and take up a line of march through one of the narrow valleys near by to the summit of one of the lofty peaks. He will step upon what appeared from the window of the vessel a firm greensward, and sink to his waist in a shaking, tremulous bog, or slide over moss-grown shingle, painted and concealed by the luxuriant growth of cryptogamic life, where he expected to find a free and ready path. ”

“ It takes no stretch of the imagination to conceive that such architecture provides the maximum of ventilation when least needed, and it is a fact that the winter hours of the Chilkats are cold and cheerless in the extreme. They sit crouched around the fire with their blankets closely folded about them and even drawn over their heads, the house serving indeed as a protection from the fierce wind and deep snow drifts, but no more. ”

“ This region covers the deltoid mouth of a vast river, the Yukon, and the sea-like estuary—the Amazonian mouth of another—the Kuskokvim, with the extraordinary shoals and bars of Bristol Bay, where the tides run with surprising volume. The country itself differs strikingly from the two divisions just sketched, consisting, as it does, of irregular mountain spurs planted on vast expanses of low, flat tundra. It is a country which, to our race, perhaps, is far more inhospitable than either the Sitkan or Kadiak divisions ”

“ Very soon an ominous line of drift timber appeared in our front, seeming to stretch from shore to shore as we approached it, and the great channel broke up into half a dozen smaller ones that went winding through sand-spits and log-locked débris, down one of which we shot and were just breathing more freely when the same occurrence was repeated, and we slipped down a shallow branch that was not over fifty yards in width, only to bring up on a bar in the swift current, with less than a foot of water ahead over the spit that ran from the bar to the shore. ”

“ The numerous islands that skirt the coast of Alaska, the great plains of the interior, intersected by deep rivers, gigantic snow-crowned mountains, the active volcanoes and the mighty ice fields, with many other singular, beautiful and awe-inspiring gifts of nature combine to make the country of the new gold fields one of notable grandeur and wonder. ”

“ Once in the breeze, it was comical to turn around slowly and see their efforts to keep under the lee of one's hunting shirt, as one by one they lose their hold and are wafted away in the wind. If these pests had been almost unbearable before, they now became simply fiendish while we were repairing our raft; nothing could be done unless a wind was blowing or unless we stood in a smoke from the resinous pine or spruce so thick that the eyes remained in an acute state of inflammation. ”

“ The compact mass of evergreen timber had looked dense enough from the ship, but at its feet grew a denser mass of tangled undergrowth of bushes and vines, and at their roots again was a solid carpeting of moss, lichens, and ferns that often ran up the trees and underbrush for heights greater than a man's reach, and all of it moist as a sponge, the whole being absolutely tropical in luxuriance. ”

“ The raft was left to look after itself and we gave them a running volley of skirmish fire that sent them scampering up the steep hill into the dense brush and timber, their principal loss being loss of breath. By not attending to the navigation of our craft in the excitement of the short bear hunt we ran on a submerged rock in a current so swift that we swung around so rapidly as almost to throw a number of us overboard, stuck for a couple of minutes with the water boiling over the stern, and in general lost our faith in the ability of our vessel to navigate itself. ”

“ I know of nothing that can give an explorer a better opportunity to delineate the topography of the surrounding country with such instruments as are commonly used in assisting dead reckoning, than is afforded by floating down a river. I believe the steady movement with the current makes "dead reckoning" much more exact than with a boat, where the rate of progress is variable, where one hour is spent in drifting as a raft, another in rowing, and a third in sailing with a changeable wind, and where each mode of progress is so abruptly exchanged for another. ”

“ Near the spot where we camped, just below the cascades that terminated the long rapids, was found a small grove of sapling spruce through which the fire had swept a year or two before, and the trees were thoroughly seasoned and sound, the black burned bark peeling as freely from them as the hull of a chestnut, leaving excellent light and tough poles with which we renewed our two decks, our constant walking over the old ones having converted them into somewhat unsatisfactory places for promenades unless one carefully watched his footsteps. ”

“ The fire occupies the center of the room, enough of the floor being removed to allow it to be kindled directly on the ground, the smoke escaping by a huge hole in the roof. The vast majority of the houses are squalid beyond measure, and the dense resinous smoke of the spruce and pine blackens the walls with a funereal tinge, and fills the house with an odor which, when mingled with that of decayed salmon, makes one feel like leaving his card at the door and passing on. ”

“ But though the vast plains of the interior are within the grasp of the ice king for eight months of the year, with the advent of the long days of summer, water runs, flowers bloom, and grasses spring into life as if by magic, and their growth is at once luxuriant and rapid, even though in many places the soil is never thawed beyond a few inches below the surface. In the far north, at St. Michael, and at Point Barrow, wells have been dug through sixty feet of solid ice, and the same condition has been noted on the Yukon, at Forty-Mile. ”

“ The ice-mountain is almost constantly breaking to pieces with sounds that resemble the discharge of heavy guns or the reverberations of thunder. At times an almost deafening report is heard, or a succession of them, like the belching of a whole park of artillery, when no outward effect is seen. It is the breaking apart of great masses of ice within the glacier. Then some huge berg topples over with a roar and gigantic splash that may be heard several miles, the waters being thrown aloft like smoke. ”

“ Alongside the very banks and edges of these colossal rivers of ice one can gather the most beautiful of Alpine flowers and wade up to his waist in grasses that equal in luxuriance the famed fields of the pampas; while the singing of the birds from the woods and glens and the fragrance of the foliage make one easily imagine that the Arctic circle and equator have been linked together at this point. ”

“ As one stood on the bow—as we always called the down-stream end of the raft, although it was shaped no differently from the stern—and looked forward on the water flowing along, the imagination easily conceives that one can follow up from that position to almost any thing ahead and see the direction of the current leading straight for it. ”

“ When we camped that evening on the new lake the signal smoke of the Tahk-heesh Indians—if it was one—was still burning, at least some six or seven miles ahead of us, which showed how much we had been mistaken in estimating its distance the day before. A tree has something definite in its size, and even a butte or mountain peak has something tangible on which a person can base a calculation for distance, but when one comes down to a distant smoke I think the greatest indefiniteness has been reached, especially when one wants to estimate its distance. ”

“ Many a pretty grayling would come sailing through the air like a flying squirrel and unhooking himself en route, with a quick splash would disappear through the logs of the raft, with no other injury than a good bump of his nose against the rough bark, and no doubt ready to thank his stars that his captors were not on land. ”

“ The everlasting mountain scenery now commences to pall and offers nothing in the way of the picturesque except the same old high mountains, the same dense growth of timber on their steep sides, and the same salt-water canals cutting through them. ”

“ Having once reached the tops of the lower hills—the higher ones are covered with snow and glacier ice the year round—a few small openings may be seen, which, if any thing, are more boggy and treacherous to the feet than the hillsides themselves, lagoon-like morasses, covered with pond lilies and aquatic plant life, being connected by a network of sluggish canals with three or four inches of amber colored water and as many feet of soft black oozy mud, with here and there a clump of willow brake or "pussy-tails" springing above the waste of sedge and flags. ”

“ The murderers, great muscular men, would jump up and down on their bodies, singing a wild death chant, with their fists clinched across their breasts, every cracking of a rib or bone being followed by loud shouts of derisive laughter. Sometimes the slave was bound to huge bowlders at the water's edge at low tide, and as the returning waves came rolling in and slowly drowned the wretch, his cries were deafened by the hideous shouts from the spectators on the land. ”

“ This thick carpet of moss extends from the shore line to the edges of the glaciers on the mountain summits, and the constant melting of the ice through the warm summer supplies it with water which it absorbs like a sponge. The air is saturated with moisture from the warm ocean current, and every thing you see and touch is like Mr. Mantalini's proposed body, "dem'd moist and unpleasant." It is almost impossible to conceive how heavily laden with tropical moisture the atmosphere is in this supposed sub-Arctic colony of ours. ”

“ Under the skin roofs of their log-cabins and on the scaffoldings upon the gravel beach were many hundred salmon that had been caught in this curious way. The only plausible theory which I could evolve within the limits of the non-marvelous, was, that the salmon came along near the top of the water, so as to show or indicate the dorsal fin, and that as it approached the canoe, the sight of it, or more likely some slight noise, made with that intention, drove the fish to the bottom without any considerable lateral deviation, whereupon they were inclosed by the net. ”

“ As we advanced the mosquitoes invariably kept the same distance ahead, as if they had not the remotest idea we were coming toward them. An occasional vicious reach forward through the mass with the evergreens would have about as much effect in removing them as it would in dispersing the same amount of fog, for it seemed as if they could dodge a streak of lightning. Nothing was better than a good strong wind in one's face, and as one emerged from the brush or timber it was simply delicious to feel the cool [Pg 172] breeze on one's peppered face and to see the rascals disappear. ”

“ On the forenoon of the 20th, the Yukon continued her voyage up the stream, having accomplished all the summer trading with the Fort Yukon Indians the day previous. I was present at an afternoon parley with them, and was greatly impressed at the patience exhibited and required by traders among these savages; a patience such as not one shopman in a thousand possesses, according to my experience, however great a haggler he may be. McQuestion had learned the art of patience from his old employers, probably the most successful bargainers with savages the world has ever seen. ”

“ In the shallow water near the shores of Lake Kluk-tas-si, especially where a little bar of pretty white sand put out into the banks of glacier mud, one could always find innumerable shoals of small graylings not over an inch in length, and our Indians immediately improvised a mosquito bar into a fish net, catching hundreds of the little fellows, which were used so successfully as bait with the larger fish of the lake that we finally thought the end justified the means. ”