NEW LAND: ALASKA 229 



Going up Tracy Arm, a narrow waterway 20-odd miles long and 

 often not more than one-fourth of a mile wide, a boat passes icebergs 

 glistening in the sun. Generally the tops of the bergs are white snow-ice 

 worn by wave action into caverns and overhanging shelves. The lower 

 ice is usually a deep, steely, cold blue. 



The boat heads, time after time, straight for a rocky cliff, and appar- 

 ently into a cul de sac. Suddenly a narrow way opens up, almost at a right 

 angle. The boat turns and goes on. Weaving and dodging icebergs, it 

 comes without warning to the head of the Arm and there two immense 

 glaciers rise 250 feet sheer from the water. The boat slows to a crawl through 

 broken ice, bumping its way through small chunks. Avoiding large bergs, 

 it approaches a mighty ice cliff. The engine is killed. The boat drifts. 

 Suddenly the glacier cracks like a pistol shot. Then with a rumbling sound 

 a hugh piece breaks off and falls into the bay, leaving a streaming trail of 

 powdery ice, and slowly sinks. A wave breaks, widens, and rocks the boat. 

 The berg rises slowly from the water, turns, revolves, finally comes to. rest 

 and floats slowly with tide and current. Wheeling above the water, along 

 the cavern-filled face of the glacier, is a flock of gulls. A streak appears on 

 the still, intensely blue water. It is a hair seal swimming with his nose out 

 of water. 



On the return trip one may pass an old Indian and his woman paddling 

 a dugout canoe, or on a rock point a lone Indian with a rifle watching. 

 They are seal hunters. Here in the cleft of a cliff an Indian gathers his 

 kill six hair seals. He skins them and lowers hides and bodies with a rope 

 to his canoe. A bounty of $3 is paid for each seal killed and the salmon are 

 made safer from destruction. Clothing and moccasins will be made from 

 the seal hides. The blubber will be dried and stored in gasoline cans against 

 the cold of winter. He clambers down, carefully loads his skiff, and, disdain- 

 ing to wave at the visitors, rows away. 



Above the forest-rimmed sea lanes are great glaciers. They move slowly 

 down the valleys of high coastal mountains and drain off ice from the 

 extensive icefields of their origin. Many glaciers terminate on the ocean 

 border, with towering fronts from 200 to 300 feet in height and miles in 

 width. These fronts are daily pushed forward by gravity, only to be under- 



