An Expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska

by Israel C. Russell

FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA.

Preparations having been completed, the expedition sailed from Seattle June 16, on the steamer Queen, belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, in command of Captain James Carroll, and reached Sitka on the morning of June 24. This portion of our voyage was through the justly celebrated "inland passage" of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska, and was in every way delightful. We touched at Victoria and Wrangell, and, after threading the Wrangell narrows, entered Frederick sound, where the first floating ice was seen. The bergs were from a neighboring glacier, which enters the sea at the head of a deep inlet, too far away to be seen from the course followed by the Queen. The route northward led through Stephens passage, and afforded glimpses of glaciers both on the mainland and on Admiralty island. In Taku inlet several hours were spent in examining the glaciers, two of which come down to the sea. One on the western side of the fjord, an ice-stream known as the Norris glacier, descends through a deep valley and expands into a broad ice-foot on approaching the water, though it is not washed by the waves, owing to an accumulation of mud about its extremity. Another ice-stream is the Taku glacier, situated at the head of the inlet. It comes boldly down to the water, and ends in a splendid sea-cliff of azure blue, some 250 feet high. The adjacent waters are covered with icebergs shed by the glacier. Some of the smaller fragments were hoisted on board the Queen for table use. The bold, rocky shores of the inlet are nearly bare of vegetation, and indicate by their polished and striated surfaces that glaciers of far greater magnitude than those now existing formerly flowed through this channel.

After leaving Taku inlet, a day was spent at Juneau; and then the Queen steamed up Lynn canal to Pyramid harbor, near its head. For picturesque beauty, this is probably the finest of the fjords of Alaska. Several glaciers on each side of the inlet come down nearly to the sea, and all the higher mountains are buried beneath perpetual snow. On returning from Lynn canal, the Queen visited Glacier bay, and here passengers were allowed a few hours on shore at the Muir glacier. The day of our visit was unusually fine, and a splendid view of the great ice-stream with its many tributaries was obtained from a hill-top about a thousand feet high, on its eastern border. The glacier discharges into the head of the bay and forms a magnificent line of ice-cliffs over two hundred feet high and three miles in extent.

This portion of the coast of Alaska has been described by several writers; yet its bleak shores are still in large part unexplored. To the west of the bay rise the magnificent peaks of the Fairweather range, from which flow many great ice-streams. The largest of the glaciers descending from these mountains into Glacier bay is called the Pacific glacier. Like the Muir glacier, it discharges vast numbers of icebergs into the sea.

The day after leaving Glacier bay we arrived at Sitka, and as soon as practicable called on Lieutenant-Commander O. F. Farenholt, of the U. S. S. Pinta, who had previously received instructions from the Secretary of the Navy to take us to Yakutak bay. We also paid our respects to the Governor and other Alaskan officials, and made a few final preparations for the start westward.

FROM SITKA TO YAKUTAT BAY.

All of our effects having been transferred to the Pinta, we put to sea early on the morning of June 25.

Honorable Lyman E. Knapp, Governor of Alaska, taking advantage of the sailing of the Pinta, accompanied us on the voyage. Mr. Henry Boursin, census enumerator, also joined us for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the Indians at Yakutak.

The morning we left Sitka was misty, with occasional showers; but even these unfavorable conditions could not obscure the beauty of the wild, densely wooded shore along which we steamed. The weather throughout the voyage was thick and foggy and the sea rough. We anchored in De Monti bay, the first indentation on the eastern shore of Yakutat bay, late the following afternoon, without having obtained so much as a glimpse of the magnificent scenery of the rugged Fairweather range.

At Yakutat we found two small Indian villages, one on Khantaak island and the other on the mainland to the eastward (both shown on plate 8). The village on Khantaak island is the older of the two, and consists of six houses built along the water's edge. The houses are made of planks, each hewn from a single log, after the manner of the Thlinkets generally. They are rectangular, and have openings in the roofs, with wind guards, for the escape of smoke. The fires, around which the families gather, are built in the centers of the spaces below. The houses are entered by means of oval openings, elevated two feet above the ground on platforms along their fronts. In the interior of each there is a rectangular space about twenty feet square surrounded by raised platforms, the outer portions of which are shut off by partitions and divided into smaller chambers.