Part 3 (1/2)
And what an epitaph that would be for a woman--”The Remembered!” If one only knew upon whose bit of marble to grave it.
Fraser and McKay reaches follow Graham, and then is entered Wright Sound, a body of water of great, and practically unknown, depth. This small sound feeds six channels leading in different directions, one of which--Verney Pa.s.s--leads through Boxer Reach into the famed magnificence and splendor of Gardner Ca.n.a.l, whose waters push for fifty miles through dark and towering walls. An immense, glaciered mountain extends across the end of the ca.n.a.l.
Gardner Ca.n.a.l--named by Vancouver for Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, to whose friends.h.i.+p and recommendation he was indebted for the command of the expedition to Nootka and the Northwest Coast--is doubtless the grandest of British Columbian inlets or fiords. At last, the favorite two adjectives of the Vancouver expedition--”tremendous” and ”stupendous”--seem to have been most appropriately applied. Lieutenant Whidbey, exploring it in the summer of 1793, found that it ”presented to the eye one rude ma.s.s of almost naked rocks, rising into rugged mountains, more lofty than he had before seen, whose towering summits, seeming to overhang their bases, gave them a _tremendous_ appearance.
The whole was covered with perpetual ice and snow that reached, in the gullies formed between the mountains, close down to the high-water mark; and many waterfalls of various dimensions were seen to descend in every direction.”
This description is quoted in full because it is an excellent example of the descriptions given out by Vancouver and his a.s.sociates, who, if they ever felt a quickening of the pulses in contemplation of these majestic scenes, were certainly successful in concealing such human emotions from the world. True, they did occasionally chronicle a ”pleasant” breeze, a ”pleasing” landscape which ”reminded them of England;” and even, in the vicinity of Port Townsend, they were moved to enthusiasm over a ”landscape almost as enchantingly beautiful as the most elegantly finished pleasure-grounds in Europe,” which called to their remembrance ”certain delightful and beloved situations in Old England.”
But apparently, having been familiar only with pleasing pastoral scenes, they were not able to rise to an appreciation of the sublime in nature.
”Elegant” is the mincing and amusing adjective applied frequently to snow mountains by Vancouver; he mentions, also, ”s.p.a.cious meadows, elegantly adorned with trees;” but when they arrive at the n.o.ble beauty which arouses in most beholders a feeling of exaltation and an appreciation of the marvellous handiwork of G.o.d, Vancouver and his a.s.sociates, having never seen anything of the kind in England, find it only ”tremendous,” or ”stupendous,” or a ”rude ma.s.s.” They would have probably described the chaste, exquisite cone of s.h.i.+shaldin on Unimak Island--as peerless and apart in its delicate beauty among mountains as Venice is among cities--as ”a mountain covered with snow to the very sea and having a most elegant point.”
There are many mountains more than twice the height of s.h.i.+shaldin, but there is nowhere one so beautiful.
Great though our veneration must be for those brave mariners of early years, their apparent lack of appreciation of the scenery of Alaska is to be deplored. It has fastened upon the land an undeserved reputation for being ”rugged” and ”gloomy”--two more of their adjectives; of being ”ice-locked, ice-bound, and ice-bounded.” We may pardon them much, but scarcely the adjective ”grotesque,” as applied to snow mountains.
Grenville Channel is a narrow, lovely reach, extending in a northwestward direction from Wright Sound for forty-five miles, when it merges into Arthur Pa.s.sage. In its slender course it curves neither to the right nor to the left.
In this reach, at one o'clock one June day, the thrilling cry of ”man overboard” ran over the decks of the _Santa Ana_. There were more than two hundred pa.s.sengers aboard, and instantly an excited and dangerous stampede to starboard and stern occurred; but the captain, cool and stern on the bridge, was equal to the perilous situation. A life-boat was ordered lowered, and the steerage pa.s.sengers were quietly forced to their quarters forward. Life-buoys, life-preservers, chairs, ropes, and other articles were flung overboard, until the water resembled a junk-shop. Through them all, the man's dark, closely shaven head could be seen, his face turned from the steamer, as he swam fiercely toward the sh.o.r.e against a strong current. The channel was too narrow for the steamer to turn, but a boat was soon in hot pursuit of the man who was struggling fearfully for the sh.o.r.e, and who was supposed to be too bewildered to realize that he was headed in the wrong direction. What was our amazement, when the boat finally reached him, to discover, by the aid of gla.s.ses, that he was resisting his rescuers. There was a long struggle in the water before he was overcome and dragged into the boat.
He was a pitiable sight when the boat came level with the hurricane deck; wild-eyed, gray-faced, shuddering like a dog; his s.h.i.+rt torn open at the throat and exposing its tragic emaciation; his glance flas.h.i.+ng wildly from one face to another, as though in search of one to be trusted--he was an object to command the pity of the coldest heart. In his hand was still gripped his soft hat which he had taken from his head before jumping overboard.
”What is it, my man?” asked the captain, kindly, approaching him.
The man's wild gaze steadied upon the captain and seemed to recognize him as one in authority.
”They've been trying to kill me, sir, all the way up.”
”Who?”
The poor fellow shuddered hard.
”They,” he said. ”They're on the boat. I had to watch them night and day. I didn't dast go to sleep. It got too much; I couldn't stand it. I had to get ash.o.r.e. I'd been waiting for this channel because it was so narrow. I thought the current 'u'd help me get away. I'm a good swimmer.”
”A better one never breasted a wave! Take him below. Give him dry clothes and some whiskey, and set a watch over him.”
The poor wretch was led away; the crowd drifted after him. Pale and quiet, the captain went back to the chart-room and resumed his slow pacing forth and back.
”I wish tragedies of body and soul would not occur in such beautiful lengths of water,” he said at last. ”I can never sail through Grenville Channel again without seeing that poor fellow's haggard face and wild, appealing eyes. And after Gardner Ca.n.a.l, there is not another on the route more beautiful than this!”
Two inlets open into Grenville Channel on the starboard going north, Lowe and Klewnuggit,--both affording safe anchorage to vessels in trouble. Pitt Island forms almost the entire western sh.o.r.e--a beautifully wooded one--of the channel. There is a salmon cannery in Lowe Inlet, beside a clear stream which leaps down from a lake in the mountains. The waters and sh.o.r.es of Grenville have a clear, washed green, which is springlike. In many of the other narrow ways the waters are blue, or purple, or a pale blue-gray; but here they suddenly lead you along the palest of green, s.h.i.+mmering avenues, while mountains of many-shaded green rise steeply on both sides, glimmering away into drifts of snow, which drop threads of silver down the sheer heights.
This shaded green of the mountains is a feature of Alaskan landscapes.
Great landslides and windfalls cleave their way from summit to sea, mowing down the forests in their path. In time the new growth springs up and streaks the mountain side with lighter green.
Probably one-half of the trees in southeastern Alaska are the Menzies spruce, or Sitka pine. Their needles are sharp and of a bluish green.
The Menzies spruce was named for the Scotch botanist who accompanied Vancouver.