There is certainly one good thing about a rain-storm in Alaska, however, and that is the repulsion that exists between a moving drop of rain and a comparatively stationary mosquito when the two come in contact, and which beats down the latter with a most comforting degree of pertinacity. Mosquitoes evidently know how to protect themselves from the pelting rain under the broad deciduous leaves, or under the lee of trees and branches, for the instant it ceases they are all out, apparently more voracious than ever. All along this bank near the Indians' camp, the dense willow brake crawled up and leaned over the water, and I feared there was no camping place to be found for my approaching party, until after walking back about half a mile I espied a place where a little spur of spruce-clad hillocks infringed on the shore. Here I halted the raft and we made an uncomfortable camp. Fish of some kind kept jumping in the river, but the most seductive "flies" were unrewarded with a single bite, although the weather was not of the kind to tempt one either to hunt or fish.
The next day, the 30th of June, was but little better as far as the weather was concerned, and we got away late from our camp, having overslept ourselves. Our Tahk-heesh friend, with his family, now preceded us in his canoe for the purpose of indicating the rapids in good season; but of course he disappeared ahead of us around every bend and island, so as to keep us feeling more anxious about it. At one time, about eight o'clock in the evening—our Tahk-heesh guide out of sight for the last half hour—we plainly heard a dull roaring ahead of us as we swung around a high broken clay bluff, and were clearly conscious of the fact that we were shooting forward at a more rapid pace. Thinking that discretion was the better part of valor, the raft was rapidly swung inshore with a bump that almost upset the whole crew, and a prospecting party were sent down stream to walk along the bank until they found out the cause of the sound, a plan which very soon revealed that there were noisy, shallow rapids extending a short distance out into the bend of the river, but they were not serious enough to have stopped us; at least they would have been of no consequence if we had not landed in the first place, but, as matters stood, they were directly in front of our position on the shore, and so swift was the current that we could not get out fast enough into the stream with our two oars to avoid sticking on the rough bar of gravel and bowlders. Shortly after the crew had jumped off, and just as they were preparing to pry the raft around into the deeper water of the stream, the most violent splashing and floundering was heard on the outer side of the craft, and it was soon found that a goodly-sized and beautifully-spotted grayling had hooked himself to a fish-line that some one had allowed to trail over the outer logs in the excitement of attending to the more important duties connected with the supposed rapids. He was rapidly taken from the hook, and when the line was again thrown over into the ripples another immediately repeated the operation, and it soon became evident that we were getting into the very best of fishing waters, the first we had discovered of that character on the river. After the raft was swung clear of the outer bowlders of the reef and had started once more on its way down stream, several lines, poles and flies were gotten out, and it was quite entertaining to see the long casts that were attempted as we rushed by distant ripples near the curve of the banks. More than one of these casts, however, proved successful in landing a fine grayling. A jump and a splash and a miss, and there was no more chance at that ripple for the same fish, for by the time a recover and a cast could be made the raft was nearly alongside of another tempting place, so swift was the river and so numerous the clean gravel bars jutting into it at every bend. Many a pretty grayling would come sailing through the air like a flying squirrel and unhooking himself en route, with a quick splash would disappear through the logs of the raft, with no other injury than a good bump of his nose against the rough bark, and no doubt ready to thank his stars that his captors were not on land. Passing over shallow bottoms covered with white pebbles, especially those shoaling down stream from the little bars of which I have spoken, a quick eye could often detect great numbers of fish, evidently grayling, with their heads up stream and propelling their tails just enough to remain over the same spot on the bottom, in the swift current. That evening we camped very late—about 10 P.M.—having hopes to the last that we might reach the upper end of the Grand Cañon. Our Stick guide had told us that when we saw the mouth of a small stream coming in from the west and spreading out in a mass of foam over the rocks at the point of confluence, we could be sure of finding the great cañon within half a mile. An accurate census of small creeks answering exactly to that description having been taken, gave a total of about two dozen, with another still in view ahead of us as we camped. Knowing the penchant of our fishy friends for half-submerged gravel bars, our camp was picked with reference to them, and near it there were two of such bars running out into the stream. Some fifty or sixty grayling were harvested by the three lines that were kept going until about eleven o'clock, by which time it was too dark to fish with any comfort, for the heavy banked clouds in the sky brought on darkness much earlier than usual. Red and white mixed flies were eagerly snapped by the voracious and active creatures, and as the evening shadows deepened, a resort to more white in the mixture kept up the exhilarating sport until it was too dark for the fisherman to see his fly on the water. The grayling caught that evening seemed to be of two very distinct sizes, without any great number of intermediate sizes, the larger averaging about a pound in weight, the smaller about one-fourth as much. So numerous and voracious were they that two or three flies were kept on one line, and two at a cast were several times caught, and triplets once.
On the morning of July 1st, we approached the great rapids of the Grand Cañon of the Yukon. Just as I had expected, our Tahk-heesh guide in his cottonwood canoe was non est, until we were within sight of the upper end of the cañon and its boiling waters, and tearing along at six or seven miles an hour, when we caught sight of him frantically gesticulating to us that the rapids were in sight, which was plainly evident, even to us. He probably thought that our ponderous raft was as manageable in the seething current as his own light craft, or he never would have allowed us to get so near. In the twinkling of an eye we got ashore the first line that came to hand, and there was barely time to make both ends fast, one on the raft and the other to a convenient tree on the bank, before the spinning raft came suddenly to the end of her tether with a snappish twang that made the little rope sing like a musical string. Why that little quarter-inch manilla did not part seems a mystery, even yet,—it was a mere government flagstaff lanyard that we had brought along for packing purposes, etc.—but it held on as if it knew the importance of its task, and with the swift water pouring in a sheet of foam over the stern of the shackled raft, she slowly swung into an eddy under the lee of a gravel bar where she was soon securely fastened, whereupon we prepared to make an inspection of our chief impediment. A laborious survey of three or four hours' duration, exposed to heat and mosquitoes, revealed that the rapids were about five miles long and in appearance formidable enough to repel any one who might contemplate making the passage even in a good boat, while such an attempt seemed out of the question with an unmanageable raft like ours.
VIEW IN GRAND CAÑON FROM ITS SOUTHERN ENTRANCE.
The only cañon on the Yukon, 1870 miles from Aphoon mouth.
The Yukon River, which had previously been about three hundred or three hundred and fifty yards in width, gradually contracts as it nears the upper gate of the cañon and at the point where the stream enters it in a high white-capped wave of rolling water, I do not believe its width exceeds one-tenth of that distance. The walls of the cañon are perpendicular columns of basalt, not unlike a diminutive Fingal's cave in appearance, and nearly a mile in length, the center of this mile stretch being broken into a huge basin of about twice the usual width of the stream in the cañon, and which is full of seething whirlpools and eddies where nothing but a fish could live for a minute. On the western rim of this basin it seems as though one might descend to the water's edge with a little Alpine work. Through this narrow chute of corrugated rock the wild waters of the great river rush in a perfect mass of milk-like foam, with a reverberation that is audible for a considerable distance, the roar being intensified by the rocky walls which act like so many sounding boards. Huge spruce trees in somber files overshadow the dark cañon, and it resembles a deep black thoroughfare paved with the whitest of marble. At the northern outlet of the cañon, the rushing river spreads rapidly into its former width, but abates not a jot of its swiftness, and flows in a white and shallow sheet over reefs of bowlders and bars thickly studded with intertwining drifts of huge timber, ten times more dangerous for a boat or raft than the narrow cañon itself, although perhaps not so in appearance. This state of things continues for about four miles further, offering every possible variety of obstacle in turn, when the river again contracts, hemmed in by low basaltic banks, and becomes even narrower than before. So swift is it, so great the volume of water, and so contracted the channel, that half its water ascends the sloping banks, runs over them for nearly a score of yards, and then falls into the narrow chute below, making a veritable horseshoe funnel of boiling cascades, not much wider than the length of our raft, and as high at the end as her mast. Through this funnel of foam the waves ran three or four feet high, and this fact, added to the boiling that often forced up columns of water like small geysers quite a considerable distance into the air, made matters very uninviting for navigation in any sort of craft.
Every thing being in readiness, our inspection made, and our resolution formed, in the forenoon of the second of July, we prepared to "shoot" the raft though the rapids of the grand cañon, and at 11:25 the bow and stern lines were cast loose and after a few minutes' hard work at shoving the craft out of the little eddy where she lay, the poor vessel resisting as if she knew all that was ahead of her and was loth to go, she finally swung clear of the point and like a racer at the start made almost a leap forward and the die was cast. A moment's hesitation at the cañon's brink, and quick as a flash the whirling craft plunged into the foam, and before twenty yards were made had collided with the western wall of columnar rock with a shock as loud as a blast, tearing off the inner side log and throwing the outer one far into the stream. The raft swung around this as upon a hinge, just as if it had been a straw in a gale of wind, and again resumed its rapid career. In the whirlpool basin of the cañon the craft, for a brief second or two, seemed actually buried out of sight in the foam. Had there been a dozen giants on board they could have had no more influence in directing her course than as many spiders. It was a very simple matter to trust the rude vessel entirely to fate, and work out its own salvation. I was most afraid of the four miles of shallow rapids below after the cañon, but she only received a dozen or a score of smart bumps that started a log here and there, but tore none from the structure, and nothing remained ahead of her but the cascades. These reached, in a few minutes the craft was caught at the bow by the first high wave in the funnel-like chute and lifted into the air until it stood almost at an angle of thirty degrees, when it went through the cascades like a charge of fixed bayonets, and almost as swiftly as a flash of light, burying its nose in the foam beyond as it subsided. Those on board of the raft now got hold of a line from their friends on shore, and after breaking it several times they finally brought the craft alongside the bank and commenced repairing the damage with a light heart, for our greatest obstacle was now at our backs.