And So Goes The Song, Change Succeeding Change
In Sublime Harmony Through All The Wonderful Seasons And Weather.
My first trip up the river was made in the spring with the missionary
party soon after our arrival at Wrangell.
We left Wrangell in the
afternoon and anchored for the night above the river delta, and
started up the river early next morning when the heights above the
"Big Stickeen" Glacier and the smooth domes and copings and arches of
solid snow along the tops of the canyon walls were glowing in the
early beams. 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.
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