92 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



about 3000 feet high, still covered with snow down to its 

 lowest slopes. On two sides of the lake lay a boggy marsh, 

 inhabited by nothing except a few seagulls, terns, and a 

 number of various kinds of sandpipers. These latter birds 

 are very numerous, and in great variety all along the river 

 valley, and nothing but the fact of our having no small shot 

 cartridges prevented our making a fine collection of their 

 skins. There were also great numbers of ducks along the 

 river, the harlequins predominating, but considering how 

 seldom they can have seen a human being, their wildness was 

 remarkable, for it was seldom they could be approached 

 within gunshot after they caught sight of a man. In conse- 

 quence, such as found their way into our cooking-pots were 

 bagged with a small .22 rifle, and then only after much 

 crawling along the river-banks to get near them. Along its 

 upper reaches, for a distance of some twelve miles, the river 

 followed a very winding course, through a wide valley some 

 five or six miles across. The bed of the valley was a large 

 desolate plain, covered with volcanic rocks and ashes, for the 

 greater part devoid of vegetation, though here and there 

 grew patches of scrub willow, and in places closely resembling 

 an Irish snipe-bog. The whole was intersected by numerous 

 small streams running into the main river. These, thus early 

 in the season, were still covered with deep snow, which, as it 

 began to thaw, made the travelling decidedly bad, and often 

 dangerous in places where the snow was thin, since the sides 

 of these streams were very steep, and a fall through the thin 

 crust of snow often meant a drop of 30 feet or more before 

 reaching the bottom of the gully. When clear of snow, the 

 crossing of these streams was a constant source of wet feet to 

 those unprovided, as was the writer, with a good pair of long 

 field boots. These boots will be found invaluable in Alaska, 



