RECREATION. 



Volume I. 



NOVEMBER, 1894. 



Number 2 



ALASKA.* 



Gen. John Gibbon, U. S. A. 

 II. 



L A 



[copyright, all 



eaving Wrangel, with its squalid 



houses, its bad smells, its dirty 

 Indians, its totems, and its 

 curios, both real and bogus, we 

 steamed all day and all night, through 

 more beautiful and still wilder scenery 

 than that passed below, and the next 

 morning opened our eyes upon our 

 first glacier, its surface lit up gloriously 

 by the first rays of the morning sun. 



We were lying by in Toku inlet, at the 

 foot of Toku glacier, and it seemed 

 almost sacrilege that, with a hoist- 

 ing apparatus, we should be picking up 

 and stowing away in our hold, tons 

 upon tons of beautiful, clear ice, float- 

 ing all about us in pieces varying in 

 size from that of a bushel measure to 

 that of our great steamer, or, for all we 

 knew larger, for what we saw was above 

 the surface of the water, what was below 

 we, of course, could not see. Those 

 who claim to know tell us that the un- 

 seen part of an iceberg is three times 

 as great as that above the water. 



We had full opportunity to speculate 

 on this subject when, early the next 

 morning, we ran into Glacier bay. 

 For miles ahead and as far as we could 

 see on every side was a vast field of 

 floating ice bergs, large and small, and 

 these began to thicken so rapidly that 

 for a time it looked as if we should 

 never be able to get through to the 

 head of the bay where is situated the 

 Muir glacier. A short distance ahead 

 of us was another steamer which had 

 the appearance of being jammed in the 

 ice, as she seemed to be making no pro- 

 gress at all, and slowly as we were 

 moving, we soon passed her. Our 

 captain was at his post on the bridge, 

 and every minute or two spoke some 



RIGHTS RESERVED.] 



earnest words to the man at the wheel. 

 We crept slowly through the masses of 

 ice, bumping against and pushing aside 

 a piece here and skirting alongside of 

 a great ice island there. The immensity 

 of some of these was demonstrated by 

 the fact that as we passed along the 

 steamer's waves did not move them, but 

 broke against their sides as on the 

 rocky shores of some mainland. The 

 most daring would not dream now of 

 waking up the Polar bear in that stone 

 man on the bridge. He watched every 

 turn of the wheel, every block of ice in 

 his way as if the very fate of his vessel 

 depended on his breathing in the 

 right direction. The ice-bergs became 

 larger and more formidable and a col- 

 lision with one of these, if direct, or 

 too heavy, might send us to the bottom; 

 and then, as far as escape was con- 

 cerned, we might as well have been 

 within the Arctic circle searching for 

 the north pole. 



On every side was this great sea 

 of loose ice, far beyond which were 

 high percipitous rocky mountains, in 

 the valleys of which were to be seen 

 vast masses of snow-covered ice as far 

 as the eye could reach. Behind us, 

 hull down, in the distance, was the 

 other steamer, her masts dimly showing 

 above the ice in away decidedly sugges- 

 tive of a half sunken vessel. Fortu- 

 nately the air was almost perfectly still. 

 What might have been our fate had a 

 stiff gale been blowing, grinding these 

 great bodies against one another and 

 against us, was not a pleasant subject 

 of inquiry. Yet the bear up there on 

 the bridge, knows what he is about. 

 The steamer which preceded us failed 

 to make its way through this ice and 



