84 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



hope of finding a watery circuit of a continent, and, being disap. 

 pointed, applied to it the name of "Turnagain," presents a tidal 

 phenomena equal to that so well recognized in the Bay of Fundy. 

 Here the tide comes in with a thundering roar, raising a " bore " 

 wave that advances like an express train in rapidity, carrying every- 

 thing before it in its resistless onward, upward sweep. High 

 banks of clay and gravel, which at low-tide seem as though they 

 were far removed from submersion, are flooded instantly, to remain 

 so until the ebb takes place. The natives never fail to remember 

 the angry warning of this incoming tide ; they always hurriedly 

 rush out of their huts, scan quickly everything surrounding, lest 

 some utensil, some canoe, or basket-weir be thoughtlessly left 

 within the remorseless rush of that swift-coming flood. 



Those glacial sheets which fill countless ravines and canons in the 

 mountain ridges at the head of Cook's Inlet, especially of Turnagain 

 Canal, and avalanches of snow, from their lofty cradles thereon, all 

 sweep down together upon the wooded flanks below, and are thus 

 destroying great belts of forest and piling up innumerable heaps of 

 rocky debris to such an extent as to often change the superficial 

 aspect of an entire section of country from season to season ; mean- 

 while the tide rushing up and down over this drift of avalanches 

 and glaciers, carries the debris hither and thither, so as to con- 

 stantly alter the channels, and the very outlines of the coast itself. 



One of the oldest and best of Russian posts was early estab- 

 lished on the Kenai Peninsula, a few miles to the southward of that 

 narrowing of Cook's Inlet, caused by the two Forelands. On the 

 low banks of the Kinik River, and facing the gulf, the ruins of the 

 "Redoubt St. Nicholas" are still to be plainly seen, though at the 

 time of the transfer of the Territory, this old post was yet fortified 

 with a high stockade and octagonal bastions. But both stockade 

 and bastions have disappeared since then ; a number of new frame 

 buildings have been erected close by, and quite a colony of Russian 

 half-breeds are living here now, trading, and growing, to better ad- 

 vantage than anywhere else in Alaska, fair crops of potatoes and 

 turnips. They keep a few hardy cattle, and it is said that as much 

 as ten or twelve acres of ground are under cultivation by them. 



The aspect of the country surrounding this settlement is much 

 more suggestive of farming and cattle-raising than is that presented 

 anywhere else in the Alaskan Territory. The land is rolling and 

 hilly, the higher eminences being covered with thick spruce forests , 



