LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 59 



Where we landed at Resurrection Bay, is now quite a town called 

 Seward and the terminus of a rairoad that runs out in the direction of Sun- 

 rise, but is only finished about thirty miles. 



It seemed strange to go to bed at ten o'clock at night and the sun still 

 shining and wake up at three A. M, and the sun shining again, and between 

 sundown and sunrise one can see to read the papers at any time of night. 



Our mining venture was almost a total failure. After an expenditure 

 of twenty thousand dollars we left the mine about the 1st of November, and 

 came out, and where we crossed the lake in the spring on the ice, this time 

 we crossed in boats and at night to avoid the wind that sometimes blew 

 pretty hard in day time, but we did not escape entirely. The wind came 

 up about midnight and came near swamping us, had it not been that we 

 were near a point that made out and formed a kind of wind-break it might 

 have went hard with us, the waves breaking over the side of our boats 

 before we got under the lee of that point. We lay there for a couple of 

 hours until the wind subsided, and then pushed on to the end of the lake 

 about daylight and laid by that day and arranged our packs and got a little 

 sleep, as we had been up all night From there we had to pack what we 

 had on our backs, and some of the men never having packed before thought 

 it pretty hard work. If a man wants to take a few lessons in roughing it 

 let him go to some of those mining excitements, stampedes as we used to 

 call them. After a hard tramp we arrived again at Resurrection Bay, our 

 inland starting point in the spring. In coming out we had to wade some of 

 the streams as much as a dozen times and were wet to our middle from 

 morning until night. We had to wait there for the steamer about a week. 

 In coming down we came via Sitka, passing several glaciers and among 

 them, and the most notable one, being the Muir Glacier, which was said to 

 be sixty miles long by thirty wide. We were near enough so that we could 

 see the crevices in it quite plain. It is said that anyone falling into one of 

 those crevices never can be recovered or never has been. Parties traveling 

 over glaciers have a long rope and each man is tied to the rope at certain 

 distances apart, so that if one happens to drop in the rest are able to pull 

 him out. Very often the snow drifts over the cracks so they are not visible, 

 making it very dangerous to travel over them. The Muir Glacier looking at 

 it from a distance, looks like a large body of table land, not mountainous, 

 but more like a plain. The coast line all up and down is bold, rough and 

 rock-bound; little or no sand beach at all, and high mountains running 

 back from the coast. We could also see Mount St. Elias, the highest moun- 

 tain in North America. There are some very interesting sights to be seen 

 along the coast, the timber coming down to the water's edge all along and 

 many islands to pass, all of which are well timbered. On arriving at Sitka, 

 we found an old Russian town of perhaps fifteen hundred inhabitants count- 

 ing the Indians, in fact the Indians are largely in the majority, a great many 

 of them being quite intelligent and some of them good mechanics. They 

 are not dark like our California Indians, but very light color, some of them 

 as white as anybody and most of them quite industrious. I saw at Sitka 

 some gardens where they were raising as fine vegetables as you will find 

 anywhere. In fact, certain kinds are much better flavored than the same 

 kinds raised further south. I never tasted as fine turnips or potatoes any- 

 where as I did there. I think from what little knowldege of the Country I 



