We Arrived Before Noon At The Old Trading-Post Called
"Buck's" In Front Of The Stickeen Glacier, And Remained Long Enough
To Allow The Few Passengers Who Wished A Nearer View To Cross The
River To The Terminal Moraine.
The sunbeams streaming through the
ice pinnacles along its terminal wall produced a wonderful glory of
color, and the broad, sparkling crystal prairie and the distant snowy
fountains were wonderfully attractive and made me pray for
opportunity to explore them.
Of the many glaciers, a hundred or more, that adorn the walls of the
great Stickeen River Canyon, this is the largest. It draws its sources
from snowy mountains within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast,
pours through a comparatively narrow canyon about two miles in width
in a magnificent cascade, and expands in a broad fan five or six
miles in width, separated from the Stickeen River by its broad
terminal moraine, fringed with spruces and willows. Around the
beautifully drawn curve of the moraine the Stickeen River flows,
having evidently been shoved by the glacier out of its direct course.
On the opposite side of the canyon another somewhat smaller glacier,
which now terminates four or five miles from the river, was once
united front to front with the greater glacier, though at first both
were tributaries of the main Stickeen Glacier which once filled the
whole grand canyon. After the main trunk canyon was melted out, its
side branches, drawing their sources from a height of three or four
to five or six thousand feet, were cut off, and of course became
separate glaciers, occupying cirques and branch canyons along the tops
and sides of the walls. The Indians have a tradition that the river
used to run through a tunnel under the united fronts of the two large
tributary glaciers mentioned above, which entered the main canyon from
either side; and that on one occasion an Indian, anxious to get rid
of his wife, had her sent adrift in a canoe down through the ice
tunnel, expecting that she would trouble him no more. But to his
surprise she floated through under the ice in safety. All the
evidence connected with the present appearance of these two glaciers
indicates that they were united and formed a dam across the river
after the smaller tributaries had been melted off and had receded to
a greater or lesser height above the valley floor.
The big Stickeen Glacier is hardly out of sight ere you come upon
another that pours a majestic crystal flood through the evergreens,
while almost every hollow and tributary canyon contains a smaller one,
the size, of course, varying with the extent of the area drained.
Some are like mere snow-banks; others, with the blue ice apparent,
depend in massive bulging curves and swells, and graduate into the
river-like forms that maze through the lower forested regions and are
so striking and beautiful that they are admired even by the passing
miners with gold-dust in their eyes.
Thirty-five miles above the Big Stickeen Glacier is the "Dirt
Glacier," the second in size. Its outlet is a fine stream, abounding
in trout. On the opposite side of the river there is a group of five
glaciers, one of them descending to within a hundred feet of the
river.
Near Glenora, on the northeastern flank of the main Coast Range, just
below a narrow gorge called "The Canyon," terraces first make their
appearance, where great quantities of moraine material have been
swept through the flood-choked gorge and of course outspread and
deposited on the first open levels below. Here, too, occurs a marked
change in climate and consequently in forests and general appearance
of the face of the country. On account of destructive fires the woods
are younger and are composed of smaller trees about a foot to
eighteen inches in diameter and seventy-five feet high, mostly
two-leaved pines which hold their seeds for several years after
they are ripe. The woods here are without a trace of those deep
accumulations of mosses, leaves, and decaying trunks which make so
damp and unclearable mass in the coast forests. Whole mountain-sides
are covered with gray moss and lichens where the forest has been
utterly destroyed. The river-bank cottonwoods are also smaller, and
the birch and contorta pines mingle freely with the coast hemlock
and spruce. The birch is common on the lower slopes and is very
effective, its round, leafy, pale-green head contrasting with the
dark, narrow spires of the conifers and giving a striking character
to the forest. The "tamarac pine" or black pine, as the variety of
P. contorta is called here, is yellowish-green, in marked contrast
with the dark lichen-draped spruce which grows above the pine at a
height of about two thousand feet, in groves and belts where it has
escaped fire and snow avalanches. There is another handsome spruce
hereabouts, Picea alba, very slender and graceful in habit, drooping
at the top like a mountain hemlock. I saw fine specimens a hundred
and twenty-five feet high on deep bottom land a few miles below
Glenora. The tops of some of them were almost covered with dense
clusters of yellow and brown cones.
We reached the old Hudson's Bay trading-post at Glenora about one
o'clock, and the captain informed me that he would stop here until
the next morning, when he would make an early start for Wrangell.
At a distance of about seven or eight miles to the northeastward of
the landing, there is an outstanding group of mountains crowning a
spur from the main chain of the Coast Range, whose highest point
rises about eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; and
as Glenora is only a thousand feet above the sea, the height to
be overcome in climbing this peak is about seven thousand feet.
Though the time was short I determined to climb it, because of the
advantageous position it occupied for general views of the peaks
and glaciers of the east side of the great range.
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