THE STIKINE RIVER IN 1898 7 



bank, the crest of one terminal moraine towering in cliffs of de- 

 bris far above the tree tops of the river bank. Beyond this first 

 forested edge of the river, there is a lake or backwater cut, on 

 which moraines and ice slopes front, and the steamers pass more 

 than a mile away from the ice itself. When directly abreast of 

 the Orlebar, one can see its grayish surface, striped with the fine 

 lines of medial moraines and cross-hatched with the seams of 

 crevasses, sloping up and disappearing through further gaps to- 

 ward great snow-fields half seen on the shoulders of distant 

 peaks. This glacier has been visited by several geologists, but 

 none have had time to explore it back to the source of its main 

 stream, to follow its tributary branches, to note its rapid motion, 

 or arrive at any idea of its recent retreat and shrinkage. . Two 

 young Russian officers once came down from Sitka to explore it, 

 but never returned from their expedition, and prospectors are 

 said to have been lost in its crevasses. Miners who knew it in 

 early Cassiar days, when there was a busj'' trading station at the 

 hot "springs on the opposite side of the river, claim that the 

 front has receded and the whole glacial mass shrunk surprisingly, 

 and Dr John Muir's visit in 1879, although but a reconnaissance, 

 proved to him a very rapid recession within recent times. 



A small glacier descends through a gap on the opposite shore 

 directly facing the Orlebar, fed by the snow-fields of Mt Laura, 

 which is so perfectly framed in the opening, and Indian tradi- 

 tions tell that this little glacier once joined with the Orlebar and 

 the river ran through a tunnel in the ice. The Indians, who 

 had come clown stream from the interior, were convinced by the 

 annual runs of strange fish that the river must reach the sea, 

 and chose the two oldest members to test the theory — since these 

 aged ones must soon die anyhow. The veterans ran the tunnel 

 safely, and, returning in due time, were held in great veneration 

 for the rest of their lives. 



From Orlebar glacier on to the Little canon, the Stikine pre- 

 sents its most splendid panorama on either hand. The scenery 

 is on such a scale and of such magnificence, with hardl}' an in- 

 terval of ordinary or commonplace mountain scenery, that one 

 loses all measure of comparison and hardly appreciates to the 

 full the unusual grandeur of his surroundings. There are gla- 

 ciers everywhere and of every type — hanging on the mountain 

 side, plunging down ravines and through gaps, curving around 

 spurs, fretting and pricking through the surface of vast snow- 

 fields, and everywhere debouching toward the river's edge in 



