There are more fox ranches on "The Brothers" Islands, and soon after passing them Frederick Sound narrows into Stephens' Passage. 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 pronounce 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' Passage is between the mainland and Admiralty Island. This island barely escapes becoming three or four islands. Seymour Canal, in the eastern part, almost cuts off a large portion, which is called Glass 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 steamship 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 passenger 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.
Admiralty Island is rich in gold, silver, and other minerals. There are whaling grounds in the vicinity, and a whaling station was recently established on the southwestern end of the Island, near Surprise Harbor and Murder Cove. Directly across Chatham Strait from this station, on Baranoff Island, only twenty-five miles from Sitka, are the famous Sulphur Hot Springs.
There are fine marble districts on the western shores of Admiralty Island.