IN GREEN ALASKA 



vast recesses in the mountains, scooped out by the 

 old glaciers. They are enormous rocky bowls 

 which we imagine hold crystal lakes; foaming 

 streams pour out of them into the channel. Far up, 

 silver threads of water, born of the melting snows, 

 are seen upon the vast faces of the rocks. Some 

 of them course down the tracks of old landslides ; 

 others are seen only as they emerge from dark 

 spruces. 



The snow upon the mountain tops looks new 

 fallen; our glasses bring out the sharp curling edges 

 of the drifts. Here and there along the shore below 

 are seen the rude huts of trappers and hunters. 

 The eternal spruce and hemlock forests grow 

 monotonous. The many dry, white trunks of dead 

 trees, scattered evenly through the forest, make 

 the mountains look as if a shower of gigantic arrow^s 

 had fallen upon them from the sky. Gulls, loons, 

 and scoters are seen at long intervals. 



Snow avalanches have swept innumerable paths, 

 broad and narrow, down through the spruce forest 

 Those great glacier basins on our left invite inspec- 

 tion, so we send a party ashore to examine one of 

 them. They do not find the expected lake, but in 

 its stead a sphagnum bog, through which the creek 

 winds its way. Fresh tracks and other signs of deer 

 are seen. 



In mid-afternoon we turn into Lowe Inlet, a 

 deep, narrow, mountain-locked arm of the sea on 



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