A Pacific Coast Vacation

by Mrs. James Edwin Morris

This is nature’s iceberg factory. The “calving” of a berg is a wonderful sight and one never to be forgotten. Avalanches and great blocks of crumbling ice are continually falling with a crash and roar into the sea, while spray dashes high and great waves roll along the wall of the glacier, washing the blocks of floating ice upon the sandy beach on either side of the great ice-wall. The great buttresses on either side as they rise from the sea are solid white, veined and streaked with mud and rocks, but farther in near the middle of the wall the color changes to turquoise and sapphire blues, blended with the changeable greens of the sea.

The upper strata of a glacier moves faster than the lower and is constantly being pushed forward, producing a perpendicular and at times projecting front. A piece of the projecting front breaks off and falls with a heavy splash into the water, then up it comes almost white. Now a piece breaks from the lower and older strata and comes up a dazzling green. Again a deafening roar as of artillery and a huge piece of ice splits off from top to bottom of the sea wall and goes plunging and raving like a great lion to the bottom of the sea, then up it comes slowly, a berg of dazzling rainbow hues. Such a one, as big as all the business houses in a village, floated toward the beach and the outgoing tide left it stranded there. We ate a piece of it, ice thousands of years old, and drank water from a cup or pocket in its side.

The beach is strewn with rock, pebbles and bowlders carved by the icy hand of the glacier. Along the beach near the glacier, just above high tide, in the rocks and sand grow lagoon grass, laurel and beautiful clarkias. These brilliant purple flowers are named for Prof. Clarke, who first studied and classified them. They are sweet scented and belong to the evening primrose family.

The Tlingit Indians believe that mountains were once living creatures and that the glaciers are their children. These parents hold them in their arms, dip their feet into the sea, then cover them with snow in the winter and scatter rocks and sand over them in summer. These Indians dread the cold and always speak the name Sith, the ice god, in a whisper. They have no fear of a hades such as ours. To them hell is a place of everlasting cold. The chill of the ice god’s breath is death. He freezes rivers into glaciers and when angry heaves down the bergs and crushes canoes. When summer comes the ice spirit sleeps, but the Indians speak in whispers and never touch the icebergs with their canoe paddles for fear of awaking him.

Once upon a time glaciers plowed over Illinois. Manitoba and Hudson Bay were then great snow and ice fields, down from which swept the glaciers over the United States south to the Ohio river. Great rocks and bowlders were carried along and deposited here and there on the broad prairies. Many of these rocks and bowlders may still be seen in central Illinois, still bearing the marks of the glacial slide.

An odd old character in our neighborhood used to tell us children that those big flattened bowlders were left there for the good people to stand on when the world should be burned up. “Would they get hot?” we asked. “Oh, how could they when they had lain years in the heart of a glacier?” To all of our questions as to how he knew he always turned a deaf ear.

Our sailors rowed out and with ropes captured an iceberg which they said would weigh five tons and with rope and tackle hauled it aboard and put it down in the hold. Then they captured a second one not quite so large and after it was safely stored away we weighed anchor and steamed out of the beautiful bay, afloat with icebergs, many of them being larger above water than our ship. But one disappointment met me, not a polar bear was in sight.

A nunatak is an area of fertile land surrounded by ice. One of the finest on the Alaskan coast is Blossom island. It is quite a large tract of rich land covered with forest and brilliant flowers.

When Mr. Young (before mentioned) was missionary to the Hoonah Indians they appealed to him to pray to God to keep the glaciers from cutting down the trees on the bays putting into Cross sound. They said their medicine man had advised them to offer as a sacrifice two of their slaves to the ice god, but this they had done without any effect. They were greatly disappointed when Mr. Young told them that he could do nothing to prevent the glaciers destroying their forests.