[June 10th - June 15th]

                                          On board G.W. Elder

                                          Glacier Bay, June 10th 1899

My dear:

     The days are slipping away very fast, especially now that we are in a locality so interesting as is this.  Yesterday was indeed a full day and I got no chance for writing and the day before I was under the weather and not equal to the effort of composing my ideas.  Let me see—I left off before in Juneau after my day in the mine.  That evening we had quite an experience.  After dinner a number of Juneau's leading citizens came and introduced themselves and told us about the resources of the island and town and finally asked us to join a "stag social" given by the Order of Elks—a Social Order widely distributed through the west.  We accepted, not knowing what sort of a thing it would prove to be but tolerably sure of something novel and possibly of some fun.  It was held in "Slim Jim's" Opera House whose hall space we found filled with long rough board tables on which we found clay pipes and smoking tobacco laid out while kegs of beer and piles of sandwiches showed the character of the refreshments.  The chairman took the stage and we soon saw where the fun came in.  He had full power and none might refuse obedience.  Most of his acts of power consisted in the levying of fines on the members for doing or for not doing things of all sorts, for saying or thinking or for not doing so, all sorts of things or for not carrying out with sufficient dispatch the orders of the chair.  Two burly policemen hustled culprits to the bar to be fined and a refreshment committee kept the beer circulating.  At intervals there was a song or dance or story either by members or by some theatrical variety people who happened to be in town.  Among other things the head of our party, Prof. Ritter from Berkeley was summoned to tell what new animals he had found in Alaska and after a very decent speech he escaped by telling them that they might find out if they would all come to the Elder at four the next morning when she would be at the dock.  We escaped at midnight when the stories were beginning to get unpleasantly coarse and turned in only to be awakened at 2:30 to get aboard the ship which had returned for us.  I had to look up some laundry that had been left for us and by the time I got it it was nearly five A.M. so that by the time I had taken a cold bath and got to bed it was already 6:  I was up at 8 with a fine headache and general Katzenjammer as a memorial of the previous night's entertainment and was not good for much all day.  The steamer headed for this point and along toward noon we began to sight small icebergs, whose sources, the glaciers that empty into Glacier Bay soon came into view.

     We were up in front of the great Muir Glacier by 4 P.M. and soon had the anchor out and two parties went ashore to explore —one to hunt for big game which was said to abound in a valley 20 miles to the eastward and intending to stay out four or five days.  This consisted of Mr. Harriman and the hunters.  The others simply knocked about on the shore till dark.  I staid on board and went to bed early after a little game of cribbage with Mrs. Harriman and the Captain of the ship. 

     I wish I could give any sort of an idea of the glacier.  It is the coloring which is utterly indescribable.  It comes down to the water with a front of some two miles blocking up the whole channel.  It is broken up into gigantic blocks which tower 200 feet above the water and of course runs down to the bottom of the channel which is here 600-800 feet deep.  The solid ice is the deepest, darkest blue you can imagine —blue vitriol is the color if you know what that looks like—and as the bergs break off from beneath the water and come up to the surface they present great masses of this glorious blue.  Where the sun has acted on the ice it becomes paler and finally quite white and snowy so that all gradations exist between the deep blue and white.  The surface of the ice is a great sea of pinnacles and chasms between—the most chaotic and wild place imaginable.  From time to time great masses of ice break or slide off with thundering crash and fall into the sea with a magnificent splash causing a wave which rocks our ship as we lie at anchor a mile away.  The ice plunges beneath the water and then surges up again to half its former height before it finally gets its balance in the water.  The water about us was full of bergs large and small some towering higher than the ship and quantities of small ice in between.  In the morning (yesterday) it was raining hard and the cold was arctic.  Several parties started ashore—ours a small one to go to the west side of the glacier; but we found the ice drift so thick and dangerous that we could not risk forcing the launch thro' it and we turned back to land with the others on the east side.  I stuck to Emerson and Gilbert and first we climbed the mountain 600 or 700 feet up to get a general view over the ice field before we went upon it.  We were just on the shoulder of the mountain which towered above us two or three thousand feet and hid its snow covered head in the heavy clouds.  Here we photographed and hammered at the rocks.  I found my first gold "prospect"—not I fear destined to make our fortunes—and then I had an odd find.  Walking over the rocks I suddenly saw at my feet, sitting on her moss nest, a ptarmigan—a sort of grouse —looking at me unalarmed.  I lifted her off and I am rather ashamed to say killed her and took her eggs, six in number.  It seemed cruel but she was a prize for the bird men and science excused the deed. 

     We eat our lunch on the mountain side, then descended and left some of our traps in an ice cave and started for a ten mile tramp on the glacier to a rocky mass rising like an island above the ice—technically called a nunatok [?].

     The surface of the ice we walked on was very smooth and even.  It was nearly covered with a thin coating of mud with here and there bands of rocky moraine material.  You could almost have ridden a bicycle for miles over the even surface except that the sharp ice points would soon have cut the tires.  We crossed one place full of crevasses where we had to pick our way between deep cracks but the major part was clear sailing.  We reached our goal, climbed its summit and had a broad view over the vast expanse of snow and ice that feeds the glacier.  Mountains rose behind these fields again but all was shrouded in mist and the view was far from complete.  We returned by a longer route of the same character and got back to the ship about 8 P.M. well tired out but delighted with the day's experiences.  I forgot to say that soon after lunch we met the hunting party returning footsore, cold and weary—they had found deep soft snow on the summit and had been forced to turn back.

     Mr. Muir talked in the evening about glaciers and told some good stories but I was too sleepy to hear much of it and turned in for a solid sleep at 10. 

     This morning the ship has run down the bay twenty miles to land two parties, one to camp for a couple of days and collect birds and plants and animals; the others for the day to dredge and collect.  If all goes well I shall be one of a small boat party to start this afternoon and explore the glaciers along twenty miles of the bay, camping for a couple of days.  Gilbert and Muir and 3 helpers make up the party.  I am not yet packed for it and must go now and make my preparations.  For now good morning. 

                                           -  June 14th  -

                                           Sitka Harbor

My dear:

     Good morning once more.  Another and I think in many ways the most interesting period of our excursion is over and as I could not write during the busy days while I was away from the ship I must try to tell of our doings now.  I see that I stopped writing just before we left the ship.  Our party was made up as I described and we left the Elder at 4 P.M. at a point as far up the Bay as the ice would allow the steamer to proceed.  It was a straight-away row of 12 miles to our first stopping place.  Mr. Muir took the steering oar, and the three packers rowed, Gilbert and I taking the fourth oar by turns, the man not rowing sitting in the bow of the boat with a boat-hook to ward off ice-cakes from the path.  This was our order through the whole three days of the outing and I never rowed so much before nor do I like it any better than I did before after the experience.  Our camp was in a pleasant sandy cove and while the men put up a tent and got supper we wandered off to see the glaciers of that inlet, the Charpentier and the Hugh Miller which have  retreated far back from the point which they occupied twenty years ago when Muir first visited them.  This comparison of the present position of the glaciers with their former extent was the chief aim of our trip.  It was nearly midnight and still light when we turned in after a fine supper.  We had luxurious beds —air matresses—inflated with a pump like a bicycle tire—which made us independednt of the rocky treeless shore on which we were camped.  We all scorned the tent and slept under the open sky—a fine sensation which I have not enjoyed for many a day.  It was not altogether pleasant to turn out at 3:30 but the glorious sunshine of a perfect morning summoned us and we were up—had breakfast and had packed up our multifarious traps by 6:00 o'clock.  The boat was all loaded and we were ready to start when we discovered that the rapidly receding tide had left us on the rocks and we had to unload and by great effort drag her down to deeper water.  This kept us an hour.  We spent the morning in the bay studying the rocks and glaciers and then coasted along the rockbound shore to the next cove 10 miles further.  Thence we tried to cross to the further shore but found the ice packed hard and had to turn back to the cove we had last left where we made early camp—4 P.M.  I was thinking of you particularly all day, wondering what you were doing and thinking.  I sat on the bow of the boat, poking at ice cakes and in the intervals where the water was clear indulged in day dreams with you as the central figure.  The day was a most glorious one.  The clouds which had concealed all the mountain-tops since we had come into the bay all rolled away and the sun shone with a vigor hard to bring into consonance with the ice cakes floating about us and the vast fields of snow which clothed the rocks and peaks above.  Here we are indeed in a region of real mountains.  Mt. Fairweather, 15,000 feet and over, and Mt. Crillon nearly as high dominate the sea of peaks that circle about the bay.  Right by our camp near the shore was a delightful mossy bank where quite a variety of dainty plants were growing—prettiest of all the arctic willows which trail along the ground and perfume the air with their wealth of blossoms and a big bumble bee made a homelike humming.  But outside this narrow circle little else was to be seen but bare rocks and loose gravel.

     We turned in in broad sunlight about 9 o'clock and had a fine refreshing sleep so that it was not so hard so get up when we were called to breakfast at 4.  The sun came up behind a fine group of jagged peaks into a clear sky at first but by 5:30 when we got away the clouds had come up and the day remained overcast and cold all the day.  We found a skin of fresh ice on the bay which made the rowing hard and where the ice cakes were numerous, cemented them into masses thro' which we could not force our boat.  We coasted the shore for 10 or 12 miles and landed on a fine projecting knob of beautiful white marble cut by innumerable dykes of green rock.  On reaching the top we were surprised to find just beyond a fine glacier which was unnamed upon the map so we called it the Harriman and spent most of the day surveying and mapping it.  Our way back was a long one and when we finally landed in a sheltered cove it was 7:30 P.M. and we had rowed over 23 miles.  We found a couple of Indians already encamped—making a hearty supper on boiled gulls' eggs, with celery and dried fish while a couple of marmots newly shot indicated what the next meal would be.  They were there to hunt seal and when they started off next morning their boat was draped in white cloth, white hats on their heads and a big white cloth screen hung in front, all to make the boat look like an ice cake so that they may draw up to the seal and spear him before he takes alarm.  It was windy and so I slept in the tent for a change and as we did not have to get up so early we had a good sleep.  The next day Tuesday we had our longest row.  We went down the coast beyond the point where we left the steamer to see an arm of the bay we had passed by and then on coming out we saw the steamer again passing up the bay out of hailing distance.  We had agreed to meet her up the bay but the ice was so bad we did not think she could get in so had counted on intercepting her at the mouth of the bay.  As it was we had a ten mile stern chase before we found one of the launches and were taken in.  The boats all came in by about 6 P.M. and we started off for Sitka where, after travelling all night we are just arrived.  As for me, after I had had a bath and cleaned the first coat of dirt off my hands I felt fully ready for dinner and for bed soon after and am on the whole in much better trim after the 75 mile row and rough living than I expected to be. 

                                          Thursday P.M.

                                          June 15th 1899

     I had to drop my writing yesterday morning to go ashore on the launch.  I had a letter of introduction to a Lieut. Emmons of Sitka whom I found and who proved a very delightful gentleman.  He has just retired from the navy and built him a house here where he hopes to regain his health.  He has been here off and on for 17 years and knows more of the Indians and game of this archipelago than any other man so he is intresting to talk with.  To my disappointment there were no letters for me in the packet at the P.O. but another steamer comes in today which will take this letter back and she may bear me longed for tidings from my dear. 

     It was a wet drizzly day but still we all went to see the sights of this old Russian town which is the seat of what little government Alaska boasts.  What with looking for jade and hunting thro' Indian huts for baskets and seeing the Russian church the day passed quickly and not unpleasantly.  In the evening the Governor, Mr. Brady, Lieut. Emmons and one or two other gentlemen with their wives came to dinner on the ship and the champagne fizzed and the Graphophone [?] sang and all was very festive.  I forgot to mention that I called at the Emmons house in the afternoon and had a very cosy cup of tea. 

     Today we went down the beautiful harbor of Sitka to what is known as the Hot Springs, dropping a hunting party by the way.  I went off with Gilbert for a ramble over the boggy moor to a good lookout point over a lonely lake and then back along the shore.  We returned for lunch and now are on the way back to Sitka having again taken the hunters aboard, their game consisting of one deer killed by Mary Harriman with the aid of a shot from Merriam's rifle.  She is an enthusiastic hunter and had already shot a deer in the Adirondacks.  Her ambition is to kill a bear!

     By the way here is her effusion written the other day with the aid of the other girls the writing being with her left hand for some unknown reason.  They are perpetrating these things on all the party.  Also I include the invitation just received for tomorrow night.  The Gov. went with us today as well as several other Sitkans.

     Well here we are in Sitka and as this must be mailed tonight and is already so long that I don't believe you'll read it anyway I will stop here.  Give my love to Jeanette and remember me to Miss Búcher and any other of my friends you may see.  And for your self—good-night —with all that that sad magic word would imply were I with you.

                                          Devotedly

                                                Charlie