Travels in Alaska 



I promise to turn back and wait until next sum- 



mer. 



Thus assured, he pushed rapidly on until we en- 

 tered the fiord, where we had to go cautiously slow. 

 The bergs were close packed almost throughout the 

 whole extent of the fiord, but we managed to reach a 

 point about two miles from the head — commanding 

 a good view of the down-plunging lower end of the 

 glacier and blue, jagged ice-wall. This was one of the 

 most imposing of the first-class glaciers I had as yet 

 seen, and with its magnificent fiord formed a fine tri- 

 umphant close for our season's ice work. I made a 

 few notes and sketches and turned back in time to 

 escape from the thickest packs of bergs before dark. 

 Then Kadachan was stationed in the bow to guide 

 through the open portion of the mouth of the fiord and 

 across Soutchoi Strait. It was not until several hours 

 after dark that we were finally free from ice. We oc- 

 casionally encountered stranded packs on the delta, 

 which in the starlight seemed to extend indefinitely in 

 every direction. Our danger lay in breaking the canoe 

 on small bergs hard to see and in getting too near the 

 larger ones that might split or roll over. 



"Oh, when will we escape from this ice?" moaned 

 much-enduring old Toyatte. 



We ran aground in several places in crossing the 

 Stickeen delta, but finally succeeded in groping our 

 way over muddy shallows before the tide fell, and 

 encamped on the boggy shore of a small island, where 

 we discovered a spot dry enough to sleep on, after 

 tumbling about in a tangle of bushes and mossy logs. 



I 194 I 



