Part 10 (2/2)

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 sh.o.r.es are heard saluting the sun with song; and never, under any other circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.senger 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sing them Frederick Sound narrows into Stephens' Pa.s.sage. 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 p.r.o.nounce 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' Pa.s.sage is between the mainland and Admiralty Island. This island barely escapes becoming three or four islands. Seymour Ca.n.a.l, in the eastern part, almost cuts off a large portion, which is called Gla.s.s 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 steams.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.senger 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.

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