The 28th we had on Lake Marsh a brisk rain and thunder shower, lasting from 12.45 P.M. to 2.15 P.M., directly overhead, which was, I believe, the first thunderstorm recorded on the Yukon, thunder being unknown on the lower river, according to all accounts. Our Camp 15 was on a soft, boggy shore covered with reeds, where a tent could not be pitched and blankets could not be spread. The raft lay far out in the lake, a hundred yards from the shore, across soft white mud, through which one might sink in the water to one's middle. When to this predicament the inevitable mosquitoes and a few rain showers are added, I judge that our plight was about as disagreeable as could well be imagined. Such features of the explorer's life, however, are seldom dwelt upon. The northern shores of the lake are unusually flat and boggy. Our primitive mode of navigation suffered also from the large banks of "glacier mud" as we approached the lake's outlet. Most of this mud was probably deposited by a large river, the McClintock (in honor of Vice-Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, R. N.), that here comes in from the north-east—a river so large that we were in some doubt as to its being the outlet, until its current settled the matter by carrying us into the proper channel. A very conspicuous hill, bearing north-east from Lake Marsh, was named Michie Mountain after Professor Michie of West Point.
[CHAPTER VI.]
A CHAPTER ABOUT RAFTING.
"SNUBBING" THE RAFT.
Lake Marsh gave us four days of variable sailing on its waters, when, on the 29th of June, we emerged from it and once more felt the exhilaration of a rapid course on a swift river, an exhilaration that was not allowed to die rapidly away, by reason of the great amount of exercise we had to go through in managing the raft in its many eccentric phases of navigation. On the lakes, whether in storm or still weather, one man stationed at the stern oar of the raft had been sufficient, as long as he kept awake, nor was any great harm done if he fell asleep in a quiet breeze, but once on the river an additional oarsman at the bow sweep was imperatively needed, for at short turns or sudden bends, or when hearing half-sunken bowlders or tangled masses of driftwood, or bars of sand, mud or gravel, or while steering clear of eddies and slack water, it was often necessary to do some very lively work at both ends of the raft in swinging the ponderous contrivance around to avoid these obstacles, and in the worst cases two or three other men assisted the oarsmen in their difficult task. Just how much strength a couple of strong men could put on a steering sweep was a delicate matter to gauge, and too often in the most trying places our experiments in testing the questions were failures, and with a sharp snap the oar would part, a man or two would sit down violently without stopping to pick out the most luxurious places, and the craft like a wild animal unshackled would go plowing through the fallen timber that lined the banks, or bring up on the bar or bowlder we had been working hard to avoid. We slowly became practical oar makers, however, and toward the latter part of the journey had some crude but effective implements that defied annihilation.
As we leisurely and lazily crept along the lakes somebody would be driving away ennui by dressing down pins with a hatchet, boring holes with an auger and driving pins with an ax, until by the time the lakes were all passed I believe that no two logs crossed each other in the raft that were not securely pinned at the point of juncture with at least one pin, and if the logs were large ones with two or three. In this manner our vessel was as solid as it was possible to make such a craft, and would bring up against a bowlder with a shock and swing dizzily around in a six or seven mile current with no more concern than if it were a slab in a mill race.
I believe I have made the remark in a previous chapter that managing a raft—at least our method of managing a raft—on a lake was a tolerably simple affair, especially with a favorable wind, and to tell the truth, one can not manage it at all except with a favorable wind. It was certainly the height of simplicity when compared with its navigation upon a river, although at first sight one might perhaps think the reverse; at least I had thought so, and from the conversation of the whites and Indians of south-eastern Alaska, I knew that their opinions coincided with mine; but I was at length compelled to hold differently from them in this matter, as in many others. Especially was this navigation difficult on a swift river like the Yukon, and I know of none that can maintain a flow of more even rapidity from source to mouth than this great stream. It is not very hard to keep a raft or any floating object in the center of the current of a stream, even if left alone at times, but the number of things which present themselves from time to time to drag it out of this channel seems marvelous.
Old watermen and rafting lumbermen know that while a river is rising it is hard to keep the channel, even the driftwood created by the rise clinging to the shores of the stream. Accordingly they are anxious for the moment when this driftwood begins to float along the main current and out in the middle of the stream, for then they know the water is subsiding, and from that point it requires very little effort to keep in the swiftest current. Should this drift matter be equally distributed over the running water it is inferred that the river is at "a standstill," as they say. An adept can closely judge of the variations and stage of water by this means.