Then We Sailed Up The South Branch Of The Inlet, But Failed To Reach
The Glacier There, On Account Of A Thin Sheet Of New Ice.
With the
tent-poles we broke a lane for the canoe for a little distance; but
it was slow work, and we soon saw that we could not reach the glacier
before dark.
Nevertheless, we gained a fair view of it as it came
sweeping down through its gigantic gateway of massive Yosemite rocks
three or four thousand feet high. Here we lingered until sundown,
gazing and sketching; then turned back, and encamped on a bed of
cobblestones between the forks of the fiord.
We gathered a lot of fossil wood and after supper made a big fire,
and as we sat around it the brightness of the sky brought on a long
talk with the Indians about the stars; and their eager, childlike
attention was refreshing to see as compared with the deathlike apathy
of weary town-dwellers, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched
in toil and care and poor shallow comfort.
After sleeping a few hours, I stole quietly out of the camp, and
climbed the mountain that stands between the two glaciers. The ground
was frozen, making the climbing difficult in the steepest places; but
the views over the icy bay, sparkling beneath the stars, were
enchanting. It seemed then a sad thing that any part of so precious a
night had been lost in sleep. The starlight was so full that I
distinctly saw not only the berg-filled bay, but most of the lower
portions of the glaciers, lying pale and spirit-like amid the
mountains. The nearest glacier in particular was so distinct that it
seemed to be glowing with light that came from within itself. Not
even in dark nights have I ever found any difficulty in seeing large
glaciers; but on this mountain-top, amid so much ice, in the heart of
so clear and frosty a night, everything was more or less luminous,
and I seemed to be poised in a vast hollow between two skies of
almost equal brightness. This exhilarating scramble made me glad and
strong and I rejoiced that my studies called me before the glorious
night succeeding so glorious a morning had been spent!
I got back to camp in time for an early breakfast, and by daylight we
had everything packed and were again under way. The fiord was frozen
nearly to its mouth, and though the ice was so thin it gave us but
little trouble in breaking a way for the canoe, yet it showed us that
the season for exploration in these waters was well-nigh over. We
were in danger of being imprisoned in a jam of icebergs, for the
water-spaces between them freeze rapidly, binding the floes into one
mass. Across such floes it would be almost impossible to drag a
canoe, however industriously we might ply the axe, as our Hoona guide
took great pains to warn us. I would have kept straight down the bay
from here, but the guide had to be taken home, and the provisions we
left at the bark hut had to be got on board. We therefore crossed
over to our Sunday storm-camp, cautiously boring a way through the
bergs. We found the shore lavishly adorned with a fresh arrival of
assorted bergs that had been left stranded at high tide. They were
arranged in a curving row, looking intensely clear and pure on the
gray sand, and, with the sunbeams pouring through them, suggested the
jewel-paved streets of the New Jerusalem.
On our way down the coast, after examining the front of the beautiful
Geikie Glacier, we obtained our first broad view of the great glacier
afterwards named the Muir, the last of all the grand company to be
seen, the stormy weather having hidden it when we first entered the
bay. It was now perfectly clear, and the spacious, prairie-like
glacier, with its many tributaries extending far back into the snowy
recesses of its fountains, made a magnificent display of its wealth,
and I was strongly tempted to go and explore it at all hazards. But
winter had come, and the freezing of its fiords was an insurmountable
obstacle. I had, therefore, to be content for the present with
sketching and studying its main features at a distance.
When we arrived at the Hoona hunting-camp, men, women, and children
came swarming out to welcome us. In the neighborhood of this camp I
carefully noted the lines of demarkation between the forested and
deforested regions. Several mountains here are only in part
deforested, and the lines separating the bare and the forested
portions are well defined. The soil, as well as the trees, had slid
off the steep slopes, leaving the edge of the woods raw-looking and
rugged.
At the mouth of the bay a series of moraine islands show that the
trunk glacier that occupied the bay halted here for some time and
deposited this island material as a terminal moraine; that more of
the bay was not filled in shows that, after lingering here, it
receded comparatively fast. All the level portions of trunks of
glaciers occupying ocean fiords, instead of melting back gradually in
times of general shrinking and recession, as inland glaciers with
sloping channels do, melt almost uniformly over all the surface until
they become thin enough to float. Then, of course, with each rise and
fall of the tide, the sea water, with a temperature usually
considerably above the freezing-point, rushes in and out beneath
them, causing rapid waste of the nether surface, while the upper is
being wasted by the weather, until at length the fiord portions of
these great glaciers become comparatively thin and weak and are
broken up and vanish almost simultaneously.
Glacier Bay is undoubtedly young as yet. Vancouver's chart, made only
a century ago, shows no trace of it, though found admirably faithful
in general.
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