THE TRIP TO THE HUNTING-GROUNDS 



vessel was docked, which at the close of the salmon season would 

 carry the season's results, as well as all the employes of this 

 cannery, back to San Francisco. The odors in the vicinity were 

 almost unbearable. The air was filled and the shores lined with 

 thousands of gulls, ravens, and fish-eagles. 



Several of the sportsmen tried halibut-fishing in small boats 

 in the vicinity of the cannery, and caught some very large fish 

 weighing as high as ninety pounds. One party also saw a black 

 bear in the distance, feeding on the dead fish along the shore. 

 The small Columbian blacktail deer {Odocoileus columhianus) , 

 driven by wolves from the mainland, are very numerous on all 

 of the islands in the vicinity of Wrangel, but at this time the 

 exportation of trophies from Alaska was prohibited by the 

 United States Government, which removed any incentive for 

 hunting these animals. 



At Wrangel we engaged a white man as cook for the trip — 

 an American prospector named Hungerford, who wished to 

 look over the interior of the country for mineral wealth, and who 

 remained with me until we again reached the coast, two months 

 later. The Hazelton, which was a small, antiquated stem- 

 wheeler, started from her dock in the very early morning of 

 August 15th, and when we arose from the cots which accom- 

 modated us in the overcrowded saloon, we found ourselves al- 

 ready a number of miles up the Stikine River, in a region of 

 lofty black mountains and blue glaciers. The river, which 

 was grayish in color on account of the great amount of glacial 

 sediment, wound in and out among gravel and sand bars, the 

 flats covered with giant cottonwoods, to where spruce-covered 

 mountains, topped with peaks and glaciers, extended up into the 

 mists. Several large glaciers which completely filled valleys 

 several miles in width, and which had formerly reached the 

 river, were now separated from the waters by a fringe of heavy 

 forests, grown up since their recession. During the morning 

 we passed the international boundary into British Columbia 



3" 



