Friday, October fourth.
A gloriously lovely day, a cloudless sky and the wind in the north. That puts life into men! Up at sunrise, we two. Before breakfast the axe was going, and afterwards we brought down two mighty trees. (The trees of this part of Alaska are not to be compared with the giants of the Western States. Two feet is a large diameter.) Then I painted for a while futilely, the green and wind blown sea, the pink mountains, snowy peaks, and golden morning sky.
Rockwell and I couldn’t restrain our spirits and had to clamber up the steep mountain side; up, up we went straight above our clearings; and soon, in looking back, the bay, the lake, and our neck of land lay like a map below us. Cliffs and the steep slopes baffled us at times but we found a way at last to reach the peak of the spur above us. There it was like a pavilion, a round knoll carpeted with moss, a ring of slender, clean-trunked trees; and beyond that nothing nearer than the sea nine hundred feet below. Coming down we ran across a porcupine toiling up the slope. We played with him a bit and finally let him climb a tree. Olson would have had us bring him home for dinner. They’re said to taste good.
We cut with the saw a while in the afternoon. Rockwell drew and I made two more sketches—one a good one. The evening at sundown was more brilliant even than the day. For such days as this we have come to Alaska!