FEATURES OF THE SITKAIST REGION. 23 



around wlien the fruit is ripe ; wild strawberries appear in sheltered 

 nooks ; a wild gooseberry too is found, but it, like the crab-apple of 

 Prince of Wales Island, is not a favorite — it is drastic. 



We find in many places thi'oughout this disti'ict highland moors, 

 which constitute the level plateau-summits of ridges and mountain 

 foothills ; these areas are always sparsely timbered, covered by a 

 thick carpet of sphagnous heather, and literally brilliant in June 

 and July with the spangled radiance of an extensive variety of 

 flowering annuals and biennials. In these moorland mantles, which 

 are usually soaked full of moisture so as to be fairly spongy under 

 foot, cranberries flourish, of excellent flavor, and quite abundant, 

 though, compared with our choice Jersey and Cape Cod samples, 

 they are very small. 



Certainly the scenery of this Venetian wilderness of Lower Alaska 

 is wonderful and unrivalled — the sounds, the gulfs, bays, fiords, 

 and river-estuaries are magnificent sheets of water, and the snow- 

 capjDed peaks, which sj^ring abruptly from their mirrored depths, 

 give the scene an ever-changing aspect. At places the ship seems 

 to really be at sea, then she enters a canal whose lofty walls of sye- 

 nite, slate, and granite shut out the light of day, and against which 

 her rigging scrapes, and the passenger's hand may almost touch — 

 a hundred thousand sparkling streams fall in feathery cascades, 

 adown their mural heights, and impetuous streams beat themselves 

 into white foam as they leap either into the eternal depths of the 

 Pacific or its deep arms. 



Probably no one point in the Sitkan archijDelago is invested by 

 nature with a grander, gloomier aspect than is that region known 

 as the eastern shore of Prince Frederick's Sound, where the moun- 

 tains of the mainland drop down abruptly to the seaside ; here a 

 spur of the coast range, opposite Mitgon Islet, presents an unusu- 

 ally dreadful appearance, for it rises to a vast height with an inclin- 

 ation toward and over the water : the serrated, jagged summits are 

 loaded with an immense quantity of ice and snow, which, together 

 with the overhanging masses of rock, seems to cause its sea-laved 

 base to fairly totter under that stupendous weight overhead ; the 

 passage beneath it, in the canoe of a trayeller, is simply awful in its 

 dread suggestion, and few can refrain from involuntary shuddering 

 as they sail by and gaze upward. 



A word about the Sitkan climate : you are not going to be very 

 cold here even in the most severe of winters, nor will you complain 



