Governor Brady has been called the "Rose Governor" of Alaska, because of his genuine admiration for this flower. He can scarcely talk five minutes on Alaska without introducing the subject of roses; and no enthusiast has ever talked more simply and charmingly of the roses of any land than he talks of the roses of Alaska,—the cherished ones of the garden, and the big pink ones of Unalaska and the Yukon.
As missionary and governor, Mr. Brady has devoted many years to this splendid country; and the distressful troubles into which he has fallen of late, through no fault of his own, can never make a grateful people forget his unselfish work for the up-building and the civilization of Alaska.
To-day, Sitka is idyllic. Her charm is too poetic and too elusive to be described in prose. A greater contrast than she presents to such hustling, commercial towns as Juneau, Valdez, Cordova, and Katalla, could scarcely be conceived. To drift into the harbor of Sitka is like entering another world.
The Russian influence is still there, after all these years—as it is in Kodiak and Unalaska.
CHAPTER XIX
In rough weather, steamers bound for Sitka from the westward frequently enter Cross Sound and proceed by way of Icy Straits and Chatham to Peril.
Icy Straits are filled, in the warmest months, with icebergs floating down from the many glaciers to the north. Of these Muir has been the finest, and is a world-famous glacier, owing to the charming descriptions written of it by Mr. John Muir. For several years it was the chief object of interest on the "tourist" trip; but early in 1900 an earthquake shattered its beautiful front and so choked the bay with immense bergs that the steamer Spokane could not approach closer than Marble Island, thirteen miles from the front. The bergs were compact and filled the whole bay. Since that time excursion steamers have not attempted to enter Glacier Bay.
In the summer of 1907, however, a steamer entered the bay and, finding it free of ice, approached close to the famed glacier—only to find it resembling a great castle whose towers and turrets have fallen to ruin with the passing of years. Where once shone its opaline palisades is now but a field of crumpled ice.