It Was Decided, Therefore, That The Cassiar Company Should Have The
Benefit Of Another Day's Hire, In Visiting The Old Deserted Stickeen
Village Fourteen Miles To The South Of Wrangell.
"We shall have a good time," one of the most influential of the party
said to me in a semi-apologetic tone, as if dimly recognizing my
disappointment in not going on to Chilcat.
"We shall probably find
stone axes and other curiosities. Chief Kadachan is going to guide
us, and the other Indians aboard will dig for us, and there are
interesting old buildings and totem poles to be seen."
It seemed strange, however, that so important a mission to the most
influential of the Alaskan tribes should end in a deserted village.
But divinity abounded nevertheless; the day was divine and there was
plenty of natural religion in the newborn landscapes that were being
baptized in sunshine, and sermons in the glacial boulders on the
beach where we landed.
The site of the old village is on an outswelling strip of ground
about two hundred yards long and fifty wide, sloping gently to the
water with a strip of gravel and tall grass in front, dark woods back
of it, and charming views over the water among the islands - a
delightful place. The tide was low when we arrived, and I noticed
that the exposed boulders on the beach - granite erratics that had
been dropped by the melting ice toward the close of the glacial
period - were piled in parallel rows at right angles to the
shore-line, out of the way of the canoes that had belonged to the
village.
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