Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

They were not disappointed. The day dawned fair, an early start was made, and they paddled toward the mouth of the Inlet. For some miles a long point ahead of them cut off the view of the Inlet, and when they passed this point, its beauties were revealed as a real surprise to them. Directly before them, but on the farther side of the Inlet, rose a superb snow cone, five thousand feet in height; and beyond that could be seen a broad bay leading up to a narrow dark green forest, closely shut in between two ranges of mountains, far down whose sides extended the white mantle which in this region crowns every considerable height.

A little farther on the travellers found themselves directly in front of Marlborough Heights, mountains which, even in this land of grand scenery are unequalled for majesty. Two of them rise almost sheer from the water's edge to a height of over sixty-one hundred feet, and the third, standing a little farther back from the water, lifts its great head between the two, as if looking over its brothers' shoulders. The summits of these do not run up into peaks and needles of rock, but appear rather like blunt cones of solid granite. There is a little timber on the slopes, but except for this nothing is to be seen but the black rocks. Scarcely a patch of snow was visible, for the unceasing winds, which blow on these lofty peaks, sweep the snow into the valleys and lower lands before it can lay hold on the smooth bare granite. Some of these peaks rise in unbroken cliffs. Other heights come down to the water's edge in a long series of steps, many of them showing the rounded, smoothing action of the great glacier which passed over them as it cut out this cañon.

Down near the water, tall grass and underbrush grow among these dark, rounded, naked rocks, which look like the backs of so many great elephants sleeping in a jungle, whose growth is not tall enough to hide them.

Though for the most part narrow,—not more than a mile in width,—the Inlet often broadens out and has a lake-like appearance, especially where side valleys come down into it, showing the course of tributary streams of the old glacier.

At Deserted Bay, a little river enters the Inlet, and at its mouth is a wide stretch of meadow land.

Long before they reached this point something white could be seen on the shore. Hugh and Jack were curious to know what it could be, and appealed to Fannin and the Indians for information. No one could tell, and the glasses only made the white objects appear a little larger. Gradually, however, as the canoe approached them, it was seen that here was an Indian village and a burial place, and that the white objects were the white cloth coverings of the crosses and the houses of the dead. There seemed to be no one at the village, and the canoe did not stop, but kept on until sunset, reaching a level, grassy piece of land at the mouth of a mountain torrent, where the party put ashore and camped.

Evidently this was a favorite camping-ground, for there were found here the remains of fires, a rude shanty put up for protection against the weather, many old poles, and a scaffold erected for the purpose of drying fish.

Down the side of the mountains came thundering the large stream which had formed the little flat where they camped, and which was more than a brook and rather less than a river.

After camp had been made, Hugh, Fannin, and Jack climbed the mountain for a few hundred feet along the stream's course, and they were greatly impressed by the tumultuous rush with which it tumbled from pool to pool in tempestuous descent. The hillside was so steep that climbing was done by pulling one's self up by the trees, underbrush, and rocks. The ever rising spray of the torrent had moistened the earth, grass, and moss, making the ground so slippery that it was often difficult to keep one's footing. The stream made leaps of twenty, forty, and fifty feet at a time, falling with a dull sullen roar into the deep rocky basins which it had dug out for itself, making the milk-white foam which they contained surge and whirl over and over in unceasing motion. The constant moisture of the stream nourished a rank growth of vegetation. Rocks and fallen tree trunks were covered by a thick growth of long, pale green moss, into which the feet sank ankle deep, and from which water could be wrung as from a well-soaked sponge. In the crevices of the rocks grew bunches of tall grasses, sparkling with drops of water, as though there had been a rain storm. Everywhere there were tall flower stalks, brilliant with blossoms of yellow or blue. Back from the bed of the stream grew a thick tangle of undergrowth and young trees, which it would have been very hard to penetrate.