REMINISCENCES OF YUKON EXPLORATION 131 



driftwood fibrous with grinding in the ice of the spring freshet and 

 stranded by the falling waters. Here and there were small patches of 

 herbage growing rankly in the day-long sunlight of the boreal spring- 

 time. Everywhere rose the harsh cries of water fowl, hovering over 

 their shallow nests hollowed in the warm sand. Ducks, geese and all 

 the smaller waders, with here and there a sand-hill crane or snowy 

 swan, all busy in the brief domesticity of spring, thronged the flats, 

 covered the pools, or rose in dark extended myriads, as far as the eye 

 can see. Violent cries and flapping wings called attention to some 

 disreputable looking fox, with the rags of his winter coat still hanging 

 to him, prowling in search of eggs of nestlings, but valiantly faced by 

 the mother birds with loud vociferation. ISTow and then the great 

 Arctic hare, looking as big as a deer in the absence of objects of com- 

 parison, lopes silently and swiftly between the tufts of succulent 

 herbage; or a great black raven croaks hoarsely overhead, watching his 

 chance to snap up a downy duckling in the absence of its defenders. 

 The sun, low in the heavens, sheds genial warmth over the noisy con- 

 gregation, and rich green patches of Mertensia, or forget-me-not, open 

 a profusion of blue petals, basking in the radiance. Dotted over the 

 sands little yellow poppies stand singly, spreading silky corollas over 

 their slender densely hispid stems. A profusion of Saxifrage, Poten- 

 tilla, sedge and Claytonia is found on every hand, except where the 

 latest freshets have been scouring. Steadily between its low steep banks 

 flows the turbid river, dividing into many channels most of which, 

 when the floods are over, become dry. 



After days of laborious tracking or rowing the main river may be 

 reached. This for hundreds of miles flows steadily, with its current 

 mainly hugging the right bank. This, if there be any high land about, 

 is high, facing the stream with bold bluffs, which are gradually eaten 

 away at the base by the gnawing current. At intervals a vertical slice 

 of the bluff cracks, quivers and plunges into the water, carrying with 

 it undergrowth and trees, which may remain as dangers to navigation 

 or join the fleet of arboreal derelicts steadily moving toward the sea. 



The left bank is usually low, with perhaps a blue line of distant 

 hills dimly visible. Islands in the lower river are not numerous, though 

 many sand-bars come to light at stages of low water. The scour of the 

 river in spate is not favorable to permanent islands. 



Ascending the river to the very center of the Alaskan territory, its 

 width is suddenly contracted, its rate of flow increased, while high on 

 either hand the banks rise steep and mountainous. This canon re- 

 ceived from the Hudson Bay men the picturesque name of ' the Ram- 

 parts.' Between the June water level and that of July, at the lower 

 end of the canon, there is a difference of seventy feet, and the maximum 

 is even greater. 



