Читать книгу An Expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska (Illustrated Edition) - Israel C. Russell - Страница 6

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ORGANIZATION.

A long-cherished desire to study the geography, geology, and glaciers of the region around Mount St. Elias was finally gratified when, in the summer of 1890, the National Geographic Society made it possible for me to undertake an expedition to that part of Alaska.

The expedition was organized under the joint auspices of the National Geographic Society and the United States Geological Survey, but was greatly assisted by individuals who felt an interest in the extension of geographic knowledge. For the inception of exploration and for securing the necessary funds, credit is due Mr. Willard D. Johnson.

The names of those who subscribed to the exploration fund of the Society are as follows:

Boynton Leach.	Henry Gannett.
Everett Hayden.	Charles J. Bell.
Richardson Clover.	J. S. Diller.
C. M. McCarteney.	J. W. Powell.
C. A. Williams.	J. G. Judd.
Willard D. Johnson.	A. Graham Bell.
Israel C. Russell.	Gardiner G. Hubbard.
Gilbert Thompson.	A. W. Greely.
Harry King.	J. W. Dobbins.
Morris Bien.	J. W. Hays.
Wm. B. Powell.	Edmund Alton.
Z. T. Carpenter.	Bailey Willis.
Charles Nordhoff.	E. S. Hosmer.
Rogers Birnie, Jr.

I was chosen by the Board of Managers of the National Geographic Society and by the Director of the United States Geological Survey to take charge of the expedition and to carry on geological and glacial studies. Mr. Mark B. Kerr, topographer on the Geological Survey, was assigned as an assistant, with the duty of making a topographical map of the region explored. Mr. E. S. Hosmer, of Washington, D. C., volunteered his services as general assistant.25

Mr. Kerr left Washington on May 24 for San Francisco, where he made arrangements for his special work, and reported to me at Seattle on June 15. I left Washington on May 25 and went directly to Seattle, where the necessary preparations for exploring an unknown and isolated region were made.

From the large number of frontiersmen and sailors who applied for positions on the expedition, seven men were selected as camp hands. The foreman of this force was J. H. Christie, of Seattle, who had spent the previous winter in charge of an expedition in the Olympian mountains, and was well versed in all that pertains to frontier life. The other camp hands were J. H. Crumback, L. S. Doney, W. L. Lindsley, William Partridge, Thomas Stamy, and Thomas White.

The individual members of the party will be mentioned frequently during this narrative; but I wish to state at the beginning that very much of the success of the enterprise was due to the hard and faithful work of the camp hands, to each one of whom I feel personally indebted.

Two dogs, "Bud" and "Tweed," belonging to Mr. Christie, also became members of the expedition.

All camp supplies, including tents, blankets, rations, etc., were purchased at Seattle. Rations for ten men for one hundred days, on the basis of the subsistence furnished by the United States Geological Survey, were purchased and suitably packed for transportation in a humid climate. Twenty-five tin cans were obtained, each measuring 6 x 12 x 14 inches, and in each a mixed ration sufficient for one man for fifteen days was packed and hermetically sealed. These rations, thus secured against moisture and in convenient shape for carrying on the back (or "packing"), were for use above the timber line, where cooking was possible only by means of oil stoves. The remainder of the supplies, intended for use where fuel for camp-fires could be obtained, were secured either in tin cans or in canvas sacks.

For cooking above timber line, two double-wick oil stoves were provided, the usual cast-iron bases being replaced by smaller reservoirs of tin, in order to avoid unnecessary weight. Coal oil was carried in five-gallon cans, but a few rectangular cans holding one gallon each were provided for use while on the march. Subsequent experience proved that this arrangement was satisfactory.

Four seven-by-seven tents, with ridge ropes, and two pyramidal nine-by-nine center-pole tents, with flies, were provided, all made of cotton drilling. The smaller tents were for use in the higher camps, and the larger ones for the base camps. The tents were as light as seemed practicable, and were found to answer well the purpose for which they were intended.

Each man was supplied with one double Hudson Bay blanket, a water-proof coat, a water-proof hat (the most serviceable being the "sou'westers" used by seamen), and an alpenstock.26 Each man also carried a sheet made of light duck, seven feet square, to protect his blankets and to be used as a shelter-tent if required. Each member of the party was also required to have heavy boots or shoes, and suitable woolen clothing. Each man was furnished with two pieces of hemp "cod-line," 50 feet in length, to be used in packing blankets and rations. The lines were doubled many times, so as to distribute the weight on the shoulders, and were connected with two leather straps for buckling about the package to be carried. The cod-lines were used instead of ordinary pack-straps, for the reason that they distribute the weight on the shoulder over a broader area, and also because they can be made immediately available for climbing, crossing streams, etc., when required. Several extra lines of the same material were also taken as a reserve, or to be used in roping the party together when necessary. Several of the party carried rifles, for each of which a hundred rounds of fixed ammunition were issued. Two ice-axes for the party were also provided.

A canvas boat was made by the men while en route for the field, but there was no occasion to use it, except as a cover for a cache left at one of the earlier camps. Subsequent experience showed that snow-shoes and one or two sleds would have been serviceable; but these were not taken.

Our instruments were furnished by the United States Geological Survey. The list included one transit, one gradienter, one sextant, two prismatic compasses, one compass clinometer, four pocket thermometers, two psychrometers, one field-glass, two mercurial barometers, three aneroids, steel tape-lines, and two photographic outfits.

FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA.

Preparations having been completed, the expedition sailed from Seattle June 16, on the steamer Queen, belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, in command of Captain James Carroll, and reached Sitka on the morning of June 24. This portion of our voyage was through the justly celebrated "inland passage" of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska, and was in every way delightful. We touched at Victoria and Wrangell, and, after threading the Wrangell narrows, entered Frederick sound, where the first floating ice was seen. The bergs were from a neighboring glacier, which enters the sea at the head of a deep inlet, too far away to be seen from the course followed by the Queen. The route northward led through Stephens passage, and afforded glimpses of glaciers both on the mainland and on Admiralty island. In Taku inlet several hours were spent in examining the glaciers, two of which come down to the sea. One on the western side of the fjord, an ice-stream known as the Norris glacier, descends through a deep valley and expands into a broad ice-foot on approaching the water, though it is not washed by the waves, owing to an accumulation of mud about its extremity. Another ice-stream is the Taku glacier, situated at the head of the inlet. It comes boldly down to the water, and ends in a splendid sea-cliff of azure blue, some 250 feet high. The adjacent waters are covered with icebergs shed by the glacier. Some of the smaller fragments were hoisted on board the Queen for table use. The bold, rocky shores of the inlet are nearly bare of vegetation, and indicate by their polished and striated surfaces that glaciers of far greater magnitude than those now existing formerly flowed through this channel.

After leaving Taku inlet, a day was spent at Juneau; and then the Queen steamed up Lynn canal to Pyramid harbor, near its head. For picturesque beauty, this is probably the finest of the fjords of Alaska. Several glaciers on each side of the inlet come down nearly to the sea, and all the higher mountains are buried beneath perpetual snow. On returning from Lynn canal, the Queen visited Glacier bay, and here passengers were allowed a few hours on shore at the Muir glacier. The day of our visit was unusually fine, and a splendid view of the great ice-stream with its many tributaries was obtained from a hill-top about a thousand feet high, on its eastern border. The glacier discharges into the head of the bay and forms a magnificent line of ice-cliffs over two hundred feet high and three miles in extent.

This portion of the coast of Alaska has been described by several writers; yet its bleak shores are still in large part unexplored. To the west of the bay rise the magnificent peaks of the Fairweather range, from which flow many great ice-streams. The largest of the glaciers descending from these mountains into Glacier bay is called the Pacific glacier. Like the Muir glacier, it discharges vast numbers of icebergs into the sea.

The day after leaving Glacier bay we arrived at Sitka, and as soon as practicable called on Lieutenant-Commander O. F. Farenholt, of the U. S. S. Pinta, who had previously received instructions from the Secretary of the Navy to take us to Yakutak bay. We also paid our respects to the Governor and other Alaskan officials, and made a few final preparations for the start westward.

FROM SITKA TO YAKUTAT BAY.

All of our effects having been transferred to the Pinta, we put to sea early on the morning of June 25.

Honorable Lyman E. Knapp, Governor of Alaska, taking advantage of the sailing of the Pinta, accompanied us on the voyage. Mr. Henry Boursin, census enumerator, also joined us for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the Indians at Yakutak.

The morning we left Sitka was misty, with occasional showers; but even these unfavorable conditions could not obscure the beauty of the wild, densely wooded shore along which we steamed. The weather throughout the voyage was thick and foggy and the sea rough. We anchored in De Monti bay, the first indentation on the eastern shore of Yakutat bay, late the following afternoon, without having obtained so much as a glimpse of the magnificent scenery of the rugged Fairweather range.

At Yakutat we found two small Indian villages, one on Khantaak island and the other on the mainland to the eastward (both shown on plate 8). The village on Khantaak island is the older of the two, and consists of six houses built along the water's edge. The houses are made of planks, each hewn from a single log, after the manner of the Thlinkets generally. They are rectangular, and have openings in the roofs, with wind guards, for the escape of smoke. The fires, around which the families gather, are built in the centers of the spaces below. The houses are entered by means of oval openings, elevated two feet above the ground on platforms along their fronts. In the interior of each there is a rectangular space about twenty feet square surrounded by raised platforms, the outer portions of which are shut off by partitions and divided into smaller chambers.

The canoes used at Yakutat are each hewn from a single spruce log, and are good examples of the boats in use throughout southern Alaska. They are of all sizes, from a small craft scarcely large enough to hold a single Indian to graceful boats forty or fifty feet in length and capable of carrying a ton of merchandise with a dozen or more men. They have high, overreaching stems and sterns, which give them a picturesque, gondola-like appearance.

The village on the mainland is less picturesque, if such a term may be allowed, than the group of houses already described, but it is of the same type. Near at hand, along the shore to the southward, there are two log houses, one of which is used at present as a mission by Reverend Carl J. Hendriksen and his assistant, the other being occupied as a trading post by Sitka merchants.

The Yakutat Indians are the most westerly branch of the great Thlinket family which inhabits all of southeastern Alaska and a portion of British Columbia. In intelligence they are above the average of Indians generally, and are of a much higher type than the native inhabitants of the older portion of the United States. They are quick to learn the ways of the white man, and are especially shrewd in bargaining. They are canoe Indians par excellence, and pass a large part of their lives on the water in quest of salmon, seals, and sea-otter. During the summer of our visit, about thirty sea-otter were taken. They are usually shot in the primitive manner with copper-pointed arrows, although repeating rifles of the most improved patterns are owned by the natives, in spite of existing laws against selling breech-loading arms to Indians. The fur of the sea-otter is acknowledged to be the most beautiful, and is the most highly prized of all pelts. Those taken at Yakutat during our visit were sold at an average price of about seventy-five dollars. This, together with the sale of less valuable skins and the money received for baskets, etc., made by the women for the tourist trade in Sitka, brought a considerable revenue to the village. Improvident, like nearly all Indians, the Yakutat villagers soon spend at the trading post the money earned in this way.

The Yakutats belong without question to the Thlinket stock; but visits from tribes farther westward, who travel in skin boats, are known to have been made, and it seems probable that some mixture of Thlinket and Innuit blood may occur in the natives at Yakutat. But if such admixture has occurred, the Innuit element is so small that it escapes the notice of one not skilled in ethnology.

We found Mr. Hendriksen most kind and obliging, and are indebted to him for many favors and great assistance. Arrangements were made with him for reading a base-barometer three times a day during July and August. He also assisted us by acting as an interpreter, and in hiring Indians and canoes.

The weather continued thick and stormy after reaching Yakutat bay, and Captain Farenholt did not think it advisable to take his vessel up the main inlet, where many dangers were reported to exist. A canoe having been purchased from the trader and others hired from the Indians, a start was made from the head of Yakutat bay early on the morning of June 28, in company with two of the Pinta's boats loaded with supplies, under the command of Ensign C. W. Jungen.

CANOE TRIP UP YAKUTAT BAY.

Bidding good-bye to our friends on the Pinta, to whom we were indebted for many favors, we started for our trip up the bay in a pouring rain-storm. Our way at first led through the narrow, placid water-ways dividing the islands on the eastern side of the bay. The islands and the shores of the mainland are densely wooded, and appeared picturesque and inviting even through the veil of mist and rain that shrouded them. The forests consist principally of spruce trees, so dense and having such a tangle of underbrush that it is only with the greatest difficulty that one can force a way through them; while the ground beneath the forest, and even the trunks and branches of the living trees, are covered and festooned with luxuriant growths of mosses and lichens. Our trip along these wooded shores, but half revealed through the drifting mist, was novel and enjoyable in spite of discomforts due to the rain. We rejoiced at the thought that we were nearing the place where the actual labors of the expedition would begin; we were approaching the unknown; visions of unexplored regions filled with new wonders occupied our fancies, and made us eager to press on.

About noon on the first day we pitched our tents on a strip of shingle skirting the shore of the mainland to the east of Knight island. The Pinta's boats spread their white wings and sailed away to the southward before a freshening wind, and our last connection with civilization was broken. As one of the frontiersmen of our party remarked, we were "at home once more." It may appear strange to some that any one could apply such a term to a camp on the wild shore of an unexplored country; but the Bohemian spirit is so strong in some breasts, and the restraint of civilization so irksome, that the homing instinct is reversed and leads irresistibly to the wilderness and to the silent mountain tops.

The morning after arriving at our first camp, Kerr, Christie, and Hendriksen, with all the camp hands except two, went on with the canoes, and in a few hours reached the entrance of Disenchantment bay. They found a camping place about twelve miles ahead, on a narrow strip of shingle beneath the precipices of Point Esperanza, and there established our second camp.

My necessary delay at Camp 1 was utilized, so far as possible, in learning what I could concerning the adjacent country, and in making a beginning in the study of its geology. Our camp was at the immediate base of the mountains, and on the northeastern side of the wide plateau bordering the continent. The plateau stretches southeastward for twenty or thirty miles, and is low and heavily forested. The eastern shore of the bay near our first camp is formed of bluffs about 150 feet high, which have been eaten back by the waves so as to expose fine sections of the strata of sand, gravel and bowlders of which the plateau is composed. All the lowlands bordering the mountains have, apparently, a common history, and doubtless owe their origin principally to the deposition of débris brought from the mountains by former glaciers. When this material was deposited, or soon afterward, the land was depressed about 150 feet lower than at present, as is shown by a terrace cut along the base of the mountains at that elevation. The steep mountain face extending northwestward from Camp 1 to the mouth of Disenchantment bay bears evidence of being the upheaved side of a fault of quite recent origin. The steep inclination and shattered condition of the rocks along this line are evidently due to the crushing which accompanied the displacement.

In the wild gorge above our first camp, a small glacier was found descending to within 500 feet of the sea-level, and giving rise to a wild, roaring stream of milky water. Efforts to reach the glacier were frustrated by the density of the dripping vegetation and by the clouds that obscured the mountains.

A canoe trip was made to a rocky islet between Knight island and the mainland toward the north. The islet, like the rocks in the adjacent mountain range, is composed of sandstone, greatly shattered and seamed, and nearly vertical in attitude. Its surface was densely carpeted with grass and brilliant flowers. Many sea birds had their homes there. From its summit a fine view was obtained of the cloud-capped mountains toward the northeast, of the dark forest covering Knight island, and of the broad plateau toward the southeast. Some of the most charming effects in the scenery of the forest-clad and mist-covered shores of Alaska are due to the wreaths of vapor ascending from the deep forests during the interval in which the warm sunlight shines through the clouds; and on the day of our visit to the islet, the forests, when not concealed by mist, sent up smoke-like vapor wreaths of many fantastic shapes to mingle with the clouds in which the higher mountains disappeared.

At Camp 1 the personnel of the party was unexpectedly reduced. Mr. Hosmer was ill, and remained with me at camp instead of pushing on with Kerr and Christie; and the weather continuing stormy, he concluded to abandon the expedition and return to the mission at Port Mulgrave. Having secured the services of an Indian who chanced to pass our camp in his canoe, Mr. Hosmer bade us good-bye, ensconced himself in the frail craft, and started for sunnier lands. It was subsequently learned that he reached Yakutak without mishap, and a few days later sailed for Sitka in a small trading schooner. Our force during the remainder of the season, not including Mr. Hendriksen and the Indians, whose services were engaged for only a few days, numbered nine men all told.

On the evening of June 30 we had a bright camp-fire blazing on the beach to welcome the returning party. Near sunset a canoe appeared in the distance, and a shot was fired as it came round a bend in the shore. We felt sure that our companions were returning, and piled drift-wood on the roaring camp-fire to cheer them after their hard day's work on the water. As the canoe approached, each dip of the paddle sent a flash of light to us, and we could distinguish the men at their work; but we soon discovered that it was occupied not by our own party but by Indians returning from a seal hunt in Disenchantment bay. They brought their canoe high on the beach, and made themselves at home about our camp-fire. There were seven or eight well-built young men in the party, all armed with guns. In former times such an arrival would have been regarded with suspicion; but thanks to the somewhat frequent visits of war vessels to Yakutat, and also to the labors of missionaries, the wild spirits of the Indians have been greatly subdued and reduced to semi-civilized condition during the past quarter of a century.

Just as the long twilight deepened into night, another craft came around the distant headland, but less swiftly than the former one; and soon our picturesque canoe, with Christie at the stern steering with a paddle in true Indian fashion, grated on the shingle beach. Christie has spent many years of his life with the Indians of the Northwest, and has adopted some of their habits. On beginning frontier life once more, he discarded the hat of the white man, and wore a blue cloth tied tightly around his forehead and streaming off in loose ends behind. The change was welcome, for it added to the picturesque appearance of the party.

The men, weary with their long row against currents and head-winds, greatly enjoyed the camp-fire. Our Indian visitors, after lunching lightly on the leaf-stalks of a plant resembling celery (Archangelica), which grows abundantly everywhere on the lowlands of southern Alaska, departed toward Yakutat. Supper was served in one of the large tents, and we all rolled ourselves in our blankets for the night.

The next day, July 1, we abandoned Camp 1, passed by Camp 2, and late in the afternoon reached the northwestern side of Yakutat bay, opposite Point Esperanza. Our trip along the wild shore, against which a heavy surf was breaking, was full of novelty and interest. The mountains rose sheer from the water to a height of two or three thousand feet. About their bases, like dark drapery, following all the folds of the mountain side, ran a band of vegetation; but the spruce forests had mostly disappeared, and only a few trees were seen here and there in the deeper cañons. The position of the terrace along the base of the mountain, first noticed at Camp 1, could be plainly traced, although densely covered with bushes. The mountain peaks above were all sharp and angular, indicating at a glance that they had never been subjected to glacial action. The sandstone and shales forming the naked cliffs are fractured and crushed, and are evidently yielding rapidly to the weather; but the characteristic red color due to rock decay could not be seen. The prevailing tone of the mountains, when not buried beneath vegetation or covered with snow, is a cold gray. Bright, warm, summer skies are needed to reveal the variety and beauty of that forbidding region.

Our large canoe behaved well, although heavily loaded. Sometimes the wind was favorable, when an extemporized sail lessened the fatigue of the trip. The landing on the northwestern shore was effected, through a light surf, on a sandy beach heavily encumbered with icebergs. As it was hazardous to beach the large canoe with its load of boxes and bags, the heavy freight was transferred, a few pieces at a time, to smaller canoes, each manned by a single Indian, and all was safely landed beyond the reach of the breakers. Camp 3 was established on the sandy beach just above the reach of the tide and near the mouth of a roaring brook. The drift-wood along the shore furnished abundant fuel for a blazing camp-fire; our tents were pitched, and once more we felt at home.

Two canoes were dispatched, in care of Doney, to the camp on the opposite shore (Camp 2), with instructions to bring over the equipments left there. Kerr went over also for the purpose of making a topographic station on the bluff forming Point Esperanza should the morrow's weather permit.

It was curious to note the care which our Indians took of their canoes. Not only were they drawn high up on the beach, out of the reach of all possible tides, but each canoe was swathed in wet cloths, especially at the prow and stern, to prevent them from drying and cracking. The canoes, being fashioned from a single spruce log, are especially liable to split if allowed to dry thoroughly.

The day after our arrival, all of our party and all of our camp outfit were assembled at Camp 3. Mr. Hendriksen and our Indian friends took their departure, and the work for which we had come so far was actually begun.