CHAPTER II 



ALEXANDER ARCHIPELAGO AND THE HOME I FOUND 



IN ALASKA 



TO the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one of 

 the most wonderful countries in the world. No 

 excursion that I know of may be made into any other 

 American wilderness where so marvelous an abun- 

 dance of noble, newborn scenery is so charmingly 

 brought to view as on the trip through the Alexander 

 Archipelago to Fort Wrangell and Sitka. Gazing 

 from the deck of the steamer, one is borne smoothly 

 over calm blue waters, through the midst of countless 

 forest-clad islands. The ordinary discomforts of a sea 

 voyage are not felt, for nearly all the whole long way 

 is on inland waters that are about as waveless as 

 rivers and lakes. So numerous are the islands that 

 they seem to have been sown broadcast; long tapering 

 vistas between the largest of them open in every 

 direction. 



Day after day in the fine weather we enjoyed, we 

 seemed to float in true fairyland, each succeeding 

 view seeming more and more beautiful, the one we 

 chanced to have before us the most surprisingly 

 beautiful of all. Never before this had I been em- 

 bosomed in scenery so hopelessly beyond description. 

 To sketch picturesque bits, definitely bounded, is 

 comparatively easy a lake in the woods, a glacier 



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