Glacier Bay 



after we landed a huge berg sprung aloft with awful 

 commotion, and the frightened Indians incontinently- 

 fled down the fiord, plying their paddles with admir- 

 able energy in the tossing waves until a safe harbor 

 was reached around the south end of the moraine. 

 I found a good place for a camp in a slight hollow 

 where a few spruce stumps afforded firewood. But all 

 efforts to get Tyeen out of his harbor failed. "No- 

 body knew," he said, "how far the angry ice moun- 

 tain could throw waves to break his canoe." There- 

 fore I had my bedding and some provisions carried 

 to my stump camp, where I could watch the bergs as 

 they were discharged and get night views of the brow 

 of the glacier and its sheer jagged face all the way 

 across from side to side of the channel. One night the 

 water was luminous and the surge from discharging 

 icebergs churned the water into silver fire, a glorious 

 sight in the darkness. I also went back up the east side 

 of the glacier five or six miles and ascended a moun- 

 tain between its first two eastern tributaries, which, 

 though covered with grass near the top, was exceed- 

 ingly steep and difficult. A bulging ridge near the 

 top I discovered was formed of ice, a remnant of the 

 glacier when it stood at this elevation which had been 

 preserved by moraine material and later by a thatch 

 of dwarf bushes and grass. 



Next morning at daybreak I pushed eagerly back 

 over the comparatively smooth eastern margin of the 

 glacier to see as much as possible of the upper foun- 

 tain region. About five miles back from the front I 

 climbed a mountain twenty-five hundred feet high, 



[263] 



