CHAPTER XI
Gastineau Channel northwest of Juneau is not navigable for craft drawing more than three feet of water, at high tide.
Coming out of the channel the steamer turns around the southern end of Douglas Island and heads north into Lynn Canal, with Admiralty Island on the port side and Douglas on the starboard.
Directly north of the latter island is Mendenhall Glacier, formerly known as the Auk. The Indians of this vicinity bear the same name, and have a village north of Juneau. They were a warlike offshoot of the Hoonahs, and bore a bad reputation for treachery and unreliability. Only a few now remain.
In the neighborhood of this glacier—at which the steamer does not call but which may be plainly seen streaming down—are several snow mountains, from five thousand to seven thousand feet in height. They seem hardly worthy of the name of mountain in Alaska; but they float so whitely and so beautifully above the deep blue waters of Lynn Canal that the voyager cannot mistake their mission.
Shelter Island, west of Mendenhall Glacier, forms two channels—Saginaw and Favorite. The latter, as indicated by its name, is the one followed by steamers going to Skaguay. Saginaw is taken by steamers going down Chatham Straits, or Icy Straits, to Sitka.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
Indian Houses, Cordova
Sailing up Favorite Channel, Eagle Glacier is passed on the starboard side. It is topped by a great crag which so closely resembles in outline our national emblem that it was so named by Admiral Beardslee, in 1879. The glacier itself is not of great importance.