I was once a passenger 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 ship. 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 quantity 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 passage 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.