Travels in Alaska 



fiord, we came to what seemed to be its head, for trees 

 and rocks swept in a curve around from one side to 

 the other without showing any opening, although the 

 walls of the canon were seen extending back indefi- 

 nitely, one majestic brow beyond the other. 



When we were tracing this curve, however, in a 

 leisurely way, in search of a good landing, we were 

 startled by Captain Tyeen shouting, "Skookum 

 chuck ! Skookum chuck ! " (strong water, strong water), 

 and found our canoe was being swept sideways by a 

 powerful current, the roar of which we had mistaken 

 for a waterfall. We barely escaped being carried over 

 a rocky bar on the boiling flood, which, as we after- 

 wards learned, would have been only a happy shove 

 on our way. After we had made a landing a little dis- 

 tance back from the brow of the bar, we climbed the 

 highest rock near the shore to seek a view of the 

 channel beyond the inflowing tide rapids, to find out 

 whether or no we could safely venture in. Up over 

 rolling, mossy, bushy, burnished rock waves we 

 scrambled for an hour or two, which resulted in a fair 

 view of the deep-blue waters of the fiord stretching 

 on and on along the feet of the most majestic Yo- 

 semite rocks we had yet seen. This determined our 

 plan of shooting the rapids and exploring it to its 

 farthest recesses. This novel interruption of the 

 channel is a bar of exceedingly hard resisting granite, 

 over which the great glacier that once occupied it 

 swept, without degrading it to the general level, and 

 over which tide-waters now rush in and out with the 

 violence of a mountain torrent. 



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