142 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 24, 1900. 
The Harriman Alaskan Expedition 
Itinerary. 
It was early in 1899 that Mr. E. H. Harriman, of New 
York city, having determined to make a trip to Alaska, 
conceived the idea of combining with his pleasure ex- 
cursion a contribution to science, and at the same time 
of giving a great amount of pleasure to a number of his 
fellows, by inviting a party of scientific men to accom- 
pany him on his journey. 
In the selection of his party he was assisted by Dr. 
C Hart Merriam, of the Biological Survey, Washing- 
ton, D. C. ; and Dr. Lewis R. Morris, of New York. 
These two gentlemen have a large acquaintance among 
men of the character whom Mr. Harriman wished to ask, 
and by the early spring the list of guests was practically 
m_ade up. There were of necessity some declinations of 
the invitations given, but as finally made up the party 
.<;tood as follows: 
Edward H. Harriman, host of the expedition. 
Mrs. Harriman, Misses Mary and Cornelia and Carol, 
William Averell and Roland Harriman, of Arden, N. Y. 
W. H. Averell, Mrs. Averell and Miss Elizabeth Averell, 
of Rochester, N. Y. 
William H. Brewer, Yale Universit}', botanist and 
geologist. 
John Burroughs, author, student of nature, West Park, 
N. Y. 
Wesley R. Coe, Ph. D., a-ssistant professor of compar- 
ative anatomy, Yale University; student of invertebrate 
life. 
Leon J. Cole, collector of vertebrate and invertebrate 
life. Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Fred V. Colvilie, botanist of the Department of Ag- 
riculture: authority on the floAvering plants of western 
North .America. Washington City. 
Edward S. Cu'-tis. oflicial "photographer, Seattle, 
Wash, 
Dr. William H. Dall, honorary curator of mollusks in 
the National Museum. Washington City; one of tlic 
earliest American explorers of Alaska, familiar with it 
for thirty years, and probably bttter acquainted with its 
history, geography and resources than any one. 
Fred S. Dellenbaugh, artist, Cragsmore. N. Y. 
VV. B. Devercux, mining engineer, Gkiiwood 
Springs, Col. 
Miss Dorothea Draper, New York city. 
_ Daniel G. Elliott, curator of zoology in the Fidd 
Columbian Museum, Chicago, 111.; ornithologist, mam- 
malogist. explorer and author. 
Benjamin K. Emerson, professor of geology in Am- 
herst College, Amherst, Mass. 
B. E. Fernow, professor forestry of Cornell University. 
Formerly U. S. Forester, Department of Agriculture." 
Dr. A. K. iMsher, ornithologist of the United States 
Biological Survey, Washington City. 
Louis A. Fuertes, bird artist, Ithaca, New York. 
^ Henry Gannett chief geographer of the United States 
Geological Survey, Washington City. 
R. Swain Giftord, artist, New York city. 
G. K. Gilbert, geologist of the United States Geolog- 
ical Survey, Washington City. 
Dr. George Bird Grinnell, New York city. 
D. G. Inverarity, Seattle. Wash., assistant to the pho- 
tographer. 
Julian L. Johns, stenographer, Washington City. 
Thomas H. Kearney, Jr., assistant botanist of the De- 
partment of Agriculture, Washington City. 
Charles A. Keeler, ornithologist and author; director 
of the Museum of California, Academy of Sciences, San 
Francisco. ' 
Capt._ Luther S. Kelly, scout, Washington, D. C. 
T. Kincaid, entomologist, Seattle. 
Dr. _C. Hart Merriam, Chief of the United States 
Biological Survey, Washington City. 
Dr. Lewis Rutherford Morris, physician to the ex- 
pedition, New York city. 
John Muir, specialist on glaciers, and author, Martinez 
Cal. ' 
Rev. Dr. George F. Nelson, chaplain, New York city 
Dr. Charles Palache, geologist of Harvard University' 
Cambridge, Mass. 
Robert Ridgway, curator of birds in National Mu- 
seum, Washington City. 
William E. Ritter, professor of biology in the Univer- 
sity of California, Berkeley, Cal. 
De Alton Saunders, botanist of the South Dakota ex- 
periment station. 
Edwin C. Starks, preparator of the United States Bio- 
logical_ Survey, Washington City. 
Louis F. Timmerman, New York city 
Dr William Trelease, Director of Shaw Botanic Gar- 
den, St. Loms, Mo. 
Dr. Edward L. Trudeau, Jr., assistant physician to 
the expedition, New York. 
, The Harriman expedition left New York by special 
tram May 23 and proceeded westward over the New 
Id'^ w/'^ ^^^^^'''^ & Northwestern 
?lt.« ^""""u^ Railroads, making no stops until 
Idaho was reached, where they visited the wonderful 
Shoshone Falls. Returning to the railroad, they con- 
tinued the journey, spent a day on the svvift sLamer 
traveling down the Columbia River, left Portland Mai 
30, and on May 31, at Seattle, embarked on the steamed 
George W. Elder for the North. All along the 5oad thev 
had been picking up different members of the partA and 
at Seattle the last of these joined them. The^sa 'over 
Puget Sound occupied a night, and the mornino found 
the ship at the wharf at Victoria, Vancouver Islind A 
few hours were spent here, and while some of the men 
col ected marine mvertebrates along the harbors ntWc 
visited the town, and the Provincial Museum The???!,: 
natural hustory exhibit, in charge of the curltor Mr 
John Fannm, proved very interesting ^"'-icor, ivir. 
Sailing northward from Victoria, through the inside 
passage, the ship threaded the beautiful inlets, stoS 
at^Wrange l and at Juneau, where the great TreadweH 
mine was inspected This is one of the largest known 
bodies of ore, the Homestake, in the Black Si s bdng 
the only one as large. It does not look in the least like a 
gold mine, rather resembling a great open quarry. The 
ore body is 400 feet wide. The ore is of very low grade 
and pays only $2.30 per ton. It can thus be profitably 
worked only on a very large scale. There are 800 stamps 
at work crushing 1,600 tons of ore each day. 
From Juneau the party proceeded to the head of Lynn 
Canal, landing at Skagway.. From this point a railway 
has been built over the White Pass, which is the gateway 
to the famed Klondyke. When the Harriman party 
reached Skagway in early June the road had been com- 
pleted to the summit of the Pass, a distance of a little 
more than twenty miles, in which it climbed 2,864 feet 
above tide level. Since then the road has been com- 
pleted twenty miles further to Lake Bennett, which is the 
head of steamboat naA^igation on this branch of the 
Yukon River. 
The railway winds up along the hillside, steadily rising 
higher and higher above the narrow stream valley. It 
follows in a general way the trail up which the" first 
miners struggled on their way to the gold fields, and 
evidences of their passage are still to be seen in the 
dead horses, rotting fragments of clothing, and rusty 
utensils — articles abandoned from time to time as the 
way grew harder and the loads relatively heavier. Of the 
horrors of that passage no adequate account has ever 
been written. FoV much of the distance the way was 
wide enough only for one, or at most two animals. Men 
were streaming up the valley as thickly as they could 
travel; others were coming down, returning for their 
loads; horses were falling, giving out or dying; at every 
quite extensive trips were made, and parties who were 
studying the glaciers and making collections left the ship, 
spending two or three nights on the shore or on the ice. 
Sitka was visited next, and three days were spent in 
this quaint old town. Some of the mountains were 
climbed, collections were made, the Sheldon Jackson 
Museum inspected, and on the last evening there, which 
happened to be Trinity Sunday of the Greek Church, a 
service was attended in the old Russian Church. From 
Sitka the party steamed to Yakutat Bay, going to the 
extreme head of the bay, making collections on its 
shores, and examining and mapping the glaciers about it. 
The ship had now gone beyond the region usually vis- 
ited by tourists and treated of in the guide books, and 
from this point on much of what they were to see would 
be wholly new to a majority of the party. 
After leaving Yakutat Bay, the next landing point- 
wa,s Orca, near the mouth of the Copper River, a 
region much heralded by the transportation compa- 
nies during the Klondyke excitement, but reported by 
all who have visited it to be absolutely barren of gold; 
Orca is a very small settlement, consisting of a salmon 
cannery and its store. It has, however, a post office 
and is a stopping place for certain steamships which ply 
to the Bering Sea. 
From Orca the ship proceeded to Prince William 
Sound, a body of water which has not been mapped and 
of which little is known. It is a region of deep fiords 
and treniendous glaciers, and so far as these ice rivers 
and their work goes, is perhaps the most interesting 
point in Alaska. Here many unexpected discoveries 
SL'MMIT Of WHlTIi P.^.SS LOOKING WESTWARD, JUNE, iS^Q. 
l%oto by E. S. Cuiti.s. Copyright, 189.1, by E. H. Harriman. 
Step something happened to delay progress. y\dd to this 
the scarcity of food, the bitter temperature of an Arctic 
winter, and some slight notion may be had of the diffi- 
culties and discouragements of the way. Nothing save 
the actual experience, however, can make real to the 
imagination what the men suffered who struggled and 
fought along this trail. 
The railroad is built with rare engineering skill, and 
the scenery from the car windows is wild and beautiful. 
Everywhere on either side of the valley are evidences of 
the action of the great glacier, which once filled this 
gorge, in the smootliing and rounding of the rocks on 
either side, and the manner in which a series of vertical 
steps are cut on both sides of the valley from the stream 
bed high up on the mountain side. These steps no doubt 
indicate the periods in v/hich the size of the glacier was 
stationary, alternating with others when it was melting 
rapidly. 
During much of the ascent the timber, where it grows, 
is of good size, but near the summit it becomes very 
small. In some places the mountain side has been 
burned oyer by forest fires. Owing to the great amount 
of precipitation here the hillsides are deep-covered with 
moss. Usually this is very wet, but in a time of great 
drought it may become dry, and then easily catches fire. 
A fire burning on these very steep hillsides rushes up 
the slope much as flames would rush up through an 
elevator shaft or along a burning match held flame 
downward. As the fire burns upward the draft helps 
it more and more. On the other hand, the fire pro- 
gresses down the hill very slowly, creeping back much 
as on the prairie a fire works back against the wind. 
Reindeer moss was seen from shortly above the level 
of the town, and when the summit was approached a 
beautiful white-belled heather grows over the hillside. 
At the summit the crovvberry (Empetrum) was seen, 
still carrying last autumn's black berries, on which the 
geese and curlew feed. At the summit there were still 
heavy banks of snow, in many places hard enough to 
v/alk over, but now and then letting one slip through. 
Here the bird collectors secured a number of North- 
ern birds: and a party of the Biological Survey workers, 
on their way to the Yukon, met with near here, had 
take some white-tail ptarmigan. 
Going up the hill the climb had been long and stow, 
but going down, the train moved more rapidly. Shortly 
after Skagway was reached, the party -assembled on 
the ship to sail for Muir Inlet. 
In and about Glacier Bay, or Muir Inlet, nearly s. 
week was spent in the neighborhood of the different 
glaciers, which here reach the sea. Over some of them 
wore made, which tlie geologists and geographers will 
in due time make public. After their study of this point 
a brief visit was made to Cook's Inlet, from which the 
ship steamed to Kadiak Island. On the way a party of 
collectors was left at Kukak Bay, on the Alaska Pen- 
insula, in order to make collections at a point which 
up to that time had never been visited by naturalists.. 
Some little time was spent at different points on Kadiak 
Island, and the Fourth of July was celebrated while the 
.ship was in the harbor of Kodiak. 
From Kodiak the route was westward. A party of 
naturalists was left at Unga, in the Shumagin Islands, 
t^o wait there until the ship returned from Bering Sea. 
Stops were made at Dutch Harbor in Unalaska, at 
Bogoslof Volcano, and again at Plover Bay in Siberia. 
From there the ship crossed to Port Clarence, spending- 
a day or two there among the whalers, which were 
waiting for the ice to clear from the Arctic Ocean before 
starting on their cruise. 
This w^as the most northerly point reached, and on 
leaving Port Clarence the course was to St. Lawrence 
Island, and later to Hall and St. Matthew's Islands; 
then back by much the same route followed on the 
journey northward, to Kodiak, Cook's Inlet, Yakutat 
Bay and Seattle. 
Seattle was reached July 31, after an absence of sixty 
days, during which the vessel had steamed 9,000 miles 
and visited many strange places. 
The members of the expedition, most of whom had 
heard stories of the almost continuous rain to be ex- 
pected on the voyage, were very much astonished at 
the weather that they actually encountered. Much of 
the time the skies were clear and blue, and the sun warm. 
Now and then there was a rainy day, and sometimes 
foggy weather, but there was no"t a single storm, and 
h.ardly a day when the wind blew freshly. 
It must be understood that at every stop made the 
scientific men of the party were busily employed in se- 
curing specimens of various kinds and in studying the 
local conditions. The result was that large collections 
were made in zoology, botany, geologv and ethnology 
Many birds, hitherto rare, were found in considerable 
numbers, and it is altogether probable that when the in- 
vertebrates collected shall have been worked up many 
new species will be found among them. Perhaps the 
most important results of the expedition were the ad- 
ditions to geographical knowledge. Waters hitherto un- 
known were entered and explored, and many new 
glaciers discovered and mapped. An extensive fiord 
whose existence was not suspected, and a splendid 
glacier running into it at its head, were named by the 
