CHAPTER VIII

Leaving Wrangell, the steamer soon passes, on the port side and at the entrance to Sumner Strait, Zarembo Island, named for that Lieutenant Zarembo who so successfully prevented the Britishers from entering Stikine River. Baron Wrangell bestowed the name, desiring in his gratitude and appreciation to perpetuate the name and fame of the intrepid young officer.

From Sumner Strait the famed and perilously beautiful Wrangell Narrows is entered. This ribbonlike water-way is less than twenty miles long, and in many places so narrow that a stone may be tossed from shore to shore. It winds between Mitkoff and Kupreanoff islands, and may be navigated only at certain stages of the tide. Deep-draught vessels do not attempt Wrangell Narrows, but turn around Cape Decision and proceed by way of Chatham Strait and Frederick Sound--a course which adds at least eighty miles to the voyage.

The interested voyager will not miss one moment of the run through the narrows, either for sleep or hunger. Better a sleepless night or a dinnerless day than one minute lost of this matchless scenic attraction.

The steamer pushes, under slow bell, along a channel which, in places, is not wider than the steamer itself. Its sides are frequently touched by the long strands of kelp that cover the sharp and dangerous reefs, which may be plainly seen in the clear water.

The timid passenger, sailing these narrows, holds his breath a good part of the time, and casts anxious glances at the bridge, whereon the captain and his pilots stand silent, stern, with steady, level gaze set upon the course. One moment's carelessness, ten seconds of inattention, might mean the loss of a vessel in this dangerous strait.

Intense silence prevails, broken only by the heavy, slow throb of the steamer and the swirl of the brown water in whirlpools over the rocks; and these sounds echo far.

The channel is marked by many buoys and other signals. The island shores on both sides are heavily wooded to the water, the branches spraying out over the water in bright, lacy green. The tree trunks are covered with pale green moss, and long moss-fringes hang from the branches, from the tips of the trees to the water's edge. The effect is the same as that of festal decoration.

Eagles may always be seen perched motionless upon the tall tree-tops or upon buoys.

The steamship _Colorado_ went upon the rocks between Spruce and Anchor points in 1900, where her storm-beaten hull still lies as a silent, but eloquent, warning of the perils of this narrow channel.

The tides roaring in from the ocean through Frederick Sound on the north and Sumner Strait on the south meet near Finger Point in the narrows.

Sunrise and sunset effects in this narrow channel are justly famed. I once saw a mist blown ahead of my steamer at sunset that, in the vivid brilliancy of its mingled scarlets, greens, and purples, rivalled the coloring of a humming-bird.

At dawn, long rays of delicate pink, beryl, and pearl play through this green avenue, deepening in color, fading, and withdrawing like Northern Lights. When the scene is silvered and softened by moonlight, one looks for elves and fairies in the shadows of the moss-dripping spruce trees.

The silence is so intense and the channel so narrow, that frequently at dawn wild birds on the shores are heard saluting the sun with song; and never, under any other circumstances, has bird song seemed so nearly divine, so golden with magic and message, as when thrilled through the fragrant, green stillness of Wrangell Narrows at such an hour.

I was once a passenger on a steamer that lay at anchor all night in Sumner Strait, not daring to attempt the Narrows on account of storm and tide. A stormy sunset burned about our ship. The sea was like a great, scarlet poppy, whose every wave petal circled upward at the edges to hold a fleck of gold. Island upon island stood out through that riot of color in vivid, living green, and splendid peaks shone burnished against the sky.

There was no sleep that night. Music and the dance held sway in the cabins for those who cared for them, and for the others there was the beauty of the night. In our chairs, sheltered by the great smoke-stacks of the hurricane-deck, we watched the hours go by--each hour a different color from the others--until the burned-out red of night had paled into the new sweet primrose of dawn. The wind died, leaving the full tide "that, moving, seems asleep"; and no night was ever warmer and sweeter in any tropic sea than that.

Wrangell Narrows leads into Frederick Sound--so named by Whidbey and Johnstone, who met there, in 1794, on the birthday of Frederick, Duke of York.

Vancouver's expedition actually ended here, and the search for the "Strait of Anian" was finally abandoned.

Several glaciers are in this vicinity: Small, Patterson, Summit, and Le Conte. The Devil's Thumb, a spire-shaped peak on the mainland, rises more than two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and stands guard over Wrangell Narrows and the islands and glaciers of the vicinity.

On Soukhoi Island fox ranches were established about five years ago; they are said to be successful.

The Thunder Bay Glacier is the first on the coast that discharges bergs. The thunder-like roars with which the vast bulks of beautiful blue-white ice broke from the glacier's front caused the Indians to believe this bay to be the home of the thunder-bird, who always produces thunder by the flapping of his mighty wings.

Baird Glacier is in Thomas Bay, noted for its scenic charms,--glaciers, forestation, waterfalls, and sheer heights combining to give it a deservedly wide reputation among tourists. Elephant's Head, Portage Bay, Farragut Bay, and Cape Fanshaw are important features of the vicinity. The latter is a noted landmark and storm-point. It fronts the southwest, and the full fury of the fiercest storms beats mercilessly upon it. Light craft frequently try for days to make this point, when a wild gale is blowing from the Pacific.

Of the scenery to the south of Cape Fanshaw, Whidbey reported to Vancouver, on his final trip of exploration in August, 1794, that "the mountains rose abruptly to a prodigious height ... to the South, a part of them presented an uncommonly awful appearance, rising with an inclination towards the water to a vast height, loaded with an immense quantity of ice and snow, and overhanging their base, which seemed to be insufficient to bear the ponderous fabric it sustained, and rendered the view of the passage beneath it horribly magnificent."

At the Cape he encountered such severe gales that a whole day and night were consumed in making a distance of sixteen miles.

There are more fox ranches on "The Brothers" Islands, and soon after passing them Frederick Sound narrows into Stephens' Passage. Here, to starboard, on the mainland, is Mount Windham, twenty-five hundred feet in height, in Windham Bay.

Gold was discovered in this region in the early seventies, and mines were worked for a number of years before the Juneau and Treadwell excitement. The mountains abound in game.

Sumdum is a mining town in Sumdum, or Holkham, Bay. The fine, live glacier in this arm is more perfectly named than any other in Alaska--Sumdum, as the Indians pronounce it, more clearly describing the deep roar of breaking and falling ice, with echo, than any other syllables.

Large steamers do not enter this bay; but small craft, at slack-tide, may make their way among the rocks and icebergs. It is well worth the extra expense and trouble of a visit.

To the southwest of Cape Fanshaw, in Frederick Sound, is Turnabout Island, whose suggestive name is as forlorn as Turnagain Arm, in Cook Inlet, where Cook was forced to "turn again" on what proved to be his last voyage.

Stephens' Passage is between the mainland and Admiralty Island. This island barely escapes becoming three or four islands. Seymour Canal, in the eastern part, almost cuts off a large portion, which is called Glass Peninsula, the connecting strip of land being merely a portage; Kootznahoo Inlet cuts more than halfway across from west to east, a little south of the centre of the island; and at the northern end had Hawk Inlet pierced but a little farther, another island would have been formed. The scenery along these inlets, particularly Kootznahoo, where the lower wooded hills rise from sparkling blue waters to glistening snow peaks, is magnificent. Whidbey reported that although this island appeared to be composed of a rocky substance covered with but little soil, and that chiefly consisting of vegetables in an imperfect state of dissolution, yet it produced timber which he considered superior to any he had before observed on the western coast of America.

It is a pity that some steamship company does not run at least one or two excursions during the summer to the little-known and unexploited inlets of southeastern Alaska--to the abandoned Indian villages, graveyards, and totems; the glaciers, cascades, and virgin spruce glades; the roaring narrows and dim, sweet fiords, where the regular passenger and "tourist" steamers do not touch. A month might easily be spent on such a trip, and enough nature-loving, interested, and interesting people could be found to take every berth--without the bugaboo, the increasing nightmare of the typical tourist, to rob one of his pleasure.

At present an excursion steamer sails from Seattle, and from the hour of its sailing the steamer throbs through the most beautiful archipelago in the world, the least known, and the one most richly repaying study, making only five or six landings, and visiting two glaciers at most. It is quite true that every moment of this "tourist" trip of ten days is, nevertheless, a delight, if the weather be favorable; that the steamer rate is remarkably cheap, and that no one can possibly regret having made this trip if he cannot afford a longer one in Alaska. But this does not alter the fact that there are hundreds of people who would gladly make the longer voyage each summer, if transportation were afforded. Local transportation in Alaska is so expensive that few can afford to go from place to place, waiting for steamers, and paying for boats and guides for every side trip they desire to make.

Admiralty Island is rich in gold, silver, and other minerals. There are whaling grounds in the vicinity, and a whaling station was recently established on the southwestern end of the Island, near Surprise Harbor and Murder Cove. Directly across Chatham Strait from this station, on Baranoff Island, only twenty-five miles from Sitka, are the famous Sulphur Hot Springs.

There are fine marble districts on the western shores of Admiralty Island.

On the southern end are Woewodski Harbor and Pybas Bay.

Halfway through Stephens' Passage are the Midway Islands, and but a short distance farther, on the mainland, is Port Snettisham, a mining settlement on an arm whose northern end is formed by Cascades Glacier, and from whose southern arm musically and exquisitely leaps a cascade which is the only rival of Sarah Island in the affections of mariners--_Sweetheart Falls_.

Who so tenderly named this cascade, and for whom, I have not been able to learn; but those pale green, foam-crested waters shall yet give up their secret. Never would Vancouver be suspected of such naming. Had he so prettily and sentimentally named it, the very waters would have turned to stone in their fall, petrified by sheer amazement.

The scenery of Snettisham Inlet is the finest in this vicinity of fine scenic effects, with the single exception of Taku Glacier.

In Taku Harbor is an Indian village, called Taku, where may be found safe anchorage, which is frequently required in winter, on account of what are called "Taku winds." Passing Grand Island, which rises to a wooded peak, the steamer crosses the entrance to Taku Inlet and enters Gastineau Channel.

There are many fine peaks in this vicinity, from two to ten thousand feet in height.

The stretch of water where Stephens' Passage, Taku Inlet, Gastineau Channel, and the southeastern arm of Lynn Canal meet is in winter dreaded by pilots. A squall is liable to come tearing down Taku Inlet at any moment and meet one from some other direction, to the peril of navigation.

At times a kind of fine frozen mist is driven across by the violent gales, making it difficult to see a ship's length ahead. At such times the expressive faces on the bridge of a steamer are psychological studies.

In summer, however, no open stretch of water could be more inviting. Clear, faintly rippled, deep sapphire, flecked with the first glistening bergs floating out of the inlet, it leads the way to the glorious presence that lies beyond.

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. The splendid front drops down sheer to the water, from a height of probably three hundred feet. A sapphire mist drifts over it, without obscuring the exquisite tintings of rose, azure, purple, and green that flash out from the glistening spires and columns. The crumpled mass pushing down from the mountains strains against the front, and sends towered bulks plunging headlong into the sea, with a roar that echoes from peak to peak in a kind of "linked sweetness long drawn out" and ever diminishing.

There is no air so indescribably, thrillingly sweet as the air of a glacier on a fair day. It seems to palpitate with a fragrance that ravishes the senses. I saw a great, recently captured bear, chained on the hurricane deck of a steamer, stand with his nose stretched out toward the glacier, his nostrils quivering and a look of almost human longing and rebellion in his small eyes. The feeling of pain and pity with which a humane person always beholds a chained wild animal is accented in these wide and noble spaces swimming from snow mountain to snow mountain, where the very watchword of the silence seems to be "Freedom." The chained bear recognized the scent of the glacier and remembered that he had once been free.

In front of the glacier stretched miles of sapphire, sunlit sea, set with sparkling, opaline-tinted icebergs. Now and then one broke and fell apart before our eyes, sending up a funnel-shaped spray of color,--rose, pale green, or azure.

At every blast of the steamer's whistle great masses of ice came thundering headlong into the sea--to emerge presently, icebergs. Canoeists approach glaciers closely at their peril, never knowing when an iceberg may shoot to the surface and wreck their boat. Even larger craft are by no means safe, and tourists desiring a close approach should voyage with intrepid captains who sail safely through everything.

The wide, ceaseless sweep of a live glacier down the side of a great mountain and out into the sea holds a more compelling suggestion of power than any other action of nature. I have never felt the appeal of a mountain glacier--of a stream of ice and snow that, so far as the eye can discover, never reaches anywhere, although it keeps going forever. The feeling of forlornness with which, after years of anticipation, I finally beheld the renowned glacier of the Selkirks, will never be forgotten. It was the forlornness of a child who has been robbed of her Santa Claus, or who has found that her doll is stuffed with sawdust.

But to behold the splendid, perpendicular front of a live glacier rising out of a sea which breaks everlastingly upon it; to see it under the rose and lavender of sunset or the dull gold of noon; to see and hear tower, minaret, dome, go thundering down into the clear depths and pound them into foam--this alone is worth the price of a trip to Alaska.

We were told that the opaline coloring of the glacier was unusual, and that its prevailing color is an intense blue, more beautiful and constant than that of other glaciers; and that even the bergs floating out from it were of a more pronounced blue than other bergs.

But I do not believe it. I have seen the blue of the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound; and I have sailed for a whole afternoon among the intensely blue ice shallops that go drifting in an endless fleet from Glacier Bay out through Icy Straits to the ocean. If there be a more exquisite blue this side of heaven than I have seen in Icy Straits and in the palisades of the Columbia Glacier, I must see it to believe it.

There are three glaciers in Taku Inlet: two--Windham and Twin--which are at present "dead"; and Taku, the Beautiful, which is very much alive. The latter was named Foster, for the former Secretary of the Treasury; but the Indian name has clung to it, which is one more cause for thanksgiving.

The Inlet is eighteen miles long and about seven hundred feet wide. Taku River flows into it from the northeast, spreading out in blue ribbons over the brown flats; at high tide it may be navigated, with caution, by small row-boats and canoes. It was explored in early days by the Hudson Bay Company, also by surveyors of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

Whidbey, entering the Inlet in 1794, sustained his reputation for absolute blindness to beauty. He found "a compact body of ice extending some distance nearly all around." He found "frozen mountains," "rock sides," "dwarf pine trees," and "undissolving frost and snow." He lamented the lack of a suitable landing-place for boats; and reported the aspect in general to be "as dreary and inhospitable as the imagination can possibly suggest."

Alas for the poor chilly Englishman! He, doubtless, expected silvery-gowned ice maidens to come sliding out from under the glacier in pearly boats, singing and kissing their hands, to bear him back into their deep blue grottos and dells of ice, and refresh him with Russian tea from old brass samovars; he expected these maidens to be girdled and crowned with carnations and poppies, and to pluck winy grapes--with _dust_ clinging to their bloomy roundness--from living vines for him to eat; and most of all, he expected to find in some remote corner of the clear and sparkling cavern a big fireplace, "which would remind him pleasantly of England;" and a brilliant fire on a well-swept hearth, with the smoke and sparks going up through a melted hole in the glacier.

About fifteen miles up Taku River, Wright Glacier streams down from the southeast and fronts upon the low and marshy lands for a distance of nearly three miles.

The mountains surrounding Taku Inlet rise to a height of four thousand feet, jutting out abruptly, in places, over the water.