On leaving Juneau the steamer passed around the lower end of Douglas Island, and then headed northward once more, toward what is called the “Lynn Canal.”
The sun came out, warm and bright, so that although there was a strong southerly breeze, it was calm and comfortable even on the hurricane deck.
An old Alaskan traveler had come on board at Juneau, taking passage to a cannery in which he was interested, farther north. There was also a family of Thlinket Indians, bound for the same port.
The stranger pointed out various objects of interest, as they passed, including many glaciers which sent their white tongues of ice down to the sea front, dividing the dark forest that clothed both mainland and islands as far as the eye could reach.
“That is the largest glacier hereabouts—the Davidson,” he said, “and the most interesting. It’s something like three miles wide at the foot.”
“Oh! that doesn’t seem possible,” exclaimed a passenger standing near by. “It doesn’t look over a dozen rods wide. Are you sure you are right about that, sir?”
“Do you see that dark strip lying between this end of the glacier and the open sea?”
“Where—O, yes! What is it—moss, or low bushes?”
“Those bushes are tall trees. There is a great terminal moraine two miles from front to rear, pushed out by the Davidson, and a whole forest grows upon it. Here, take this glass, and you can see for yourself.”
The skeptical passenger was obliged to own himself in the wrong, and the great, silent glacier—so motionless, yet forever moving toward the ocean—seemed more mysterious and terrible even than the enormous ice-stream of the Selkirks.