DEAD GLACIER
While studying the North American Indians in Alaska I experience a thrilling adventure in the Mendenthall Valley which memory often recalls.
At Juneau, Judge Mellen, one of the eight United States judges appointed to Alaska, from Kentucky, who had accompanied me to Taku, giving me much information, invited me to dinner, when he told me I ought not to leave Alaska until I had seen a dead glacier. Mendenthall, he said was the most wonderful but hard to approach, and he and his wife declared I was just the fellow to tackle the job.
That evening he sent a trusty guide to me, who had another man on the string, and said he would take both of us for $20.00, we bearing all expenses. We were soon together, with his mother, a lady of great self-respect, who advised me to caution her son, Archibald, and not allow him to plunge into danger.
I sized Archibald up and decided he was a good fellow with heavy self-esteem and light experience, so I mentioned, before his mother, that the outing would be wild experience and very strenuous, at which Archibald assured me he could stand it if I could, besides it was just the job he was seeking for, as he wanted to take something home out of the ordinary.
The next evening at 10:30, the time when the sun sets in Alaska in June, we left Juneau in a rowboat, as we must cross the bar at high water at about midnight, or go around about fifty miles each way, both going and returning.
Our guide, who had never taken the trip before, miscalculated and we were late at the bar. This left us our choice to jump out and draw the boat through the sea weeds at once or wait until the next tide came in. Archibald reluctantly straddled over the side of the boat, mentioning that he came north for his health, and did not think that a midnight bath would be beneficial, especially such a very cold one.
"You will get warm enough," I said, "before noon, when we are working our way through that swamp, where mosquitoes are as big as grasshoppers and the bears as big as oxen."
"Bears? What bears, Mr. Richardson?"
"I understand that those woods are full of bears. How is it, guide?"
"That is why I took my rifle along," replied the grim old mountaineer, as he tugged at the oars.
"Where is your rifle, Mr. Richardson?" inquired Archibald, as the white of his eyes began to show.
"Oh, I prefer a large knife for a close contact. Judge Mellon said we could borrow either of the Indians."
Soon we were in deep water again, where the wild geese and ducks were scooting this way and that to keep out of our way, when Archibald turned his attention to the oarsman, saying, "Say, old man, I suppose we can hire plenty of guides at the hotel to go with us?"
"Guides," grunted the boatsman, "I can find the place myself. Besides, there ain't no hotel there."
"No hotel! Where will we get our breakfast?"
"Plenty of fresh bear meat, sir; they kill them every day."
Soon Archibald turned to me and said: "Really, Mr. Richardson, I am quite chilly now, and if it will be just the same to you I will stay at the landing while our good friend takes you to the glacier, which you are so anxious to see."
"Chilly," ejaculated the old guide. "The sun will soon be up. It rises here now at 2:30 in the morning, and as for staying at the landing is concerned, would you dare stay alone with those Indians?"
"Alone with the Indians? Why, the Alaska Indians are civilized, aren't they?"
"Spose so, but Mendenthall Valley is a great place for men to come up missing."