The Granite Walls Of The Fiord, Though
Very High, Are Not Deeply Sculptured.
Only a few deep side canyons
with trees, bushes, grassy and flowery spots interrupt their massive
simplicity, leaving but few of the cliffs absolutely sheer and bare
like those of Yosemite, Sum Dum, or Taku.
One of the side canyons
is on the left side of the fiord, the other on the right, the
tributaries of the former leading over by a narrow tide-channel to
the bay next to the eastward, and by a short portage over into a
lake into which pours a branch glacier from the great glacier. Still
another branch from the main glacier turns to the right. Counting all
three of these separate fronts, the width of this great Taylor Bay
Glacier must be about seven or eight miles.
While camp was being made, Hunter Joe climbed the eastern wall in
search of wild mutton, but found none. He fell in with a brown bear,
however, and got a shot at it, but nothing more. Mr. Young and I
crossed the moraine slope, splashing through pools and streams up to
the ice-wall, and made the interesting discovery that the glacier
had been advancing of late years, ploughing up and shoving forward
moraine soil that had been deposited long ago, and overwhelming and
grinding and carrying away the forests on the sides and front of the
glacier. Though not now sending off icebergs, the front is probably
far below sea-level at the bottom, thrust forward beneath its
wave-washed moraine.
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