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A Summer’s Work 
A Natural 
History Expedition to Southeastern Alaska 
By FRANK STEPHENS 
I N the winter of 1907 Miss Annie M. Alex¬ 
ander organized an expedition for natural 
history exploration in the islands of South¬ 
eastern Alaska. I became a member of this 
expedition. The object was to make a collec¬ 
tion of the birds and mammals of the Alexander 
Archipelago, and more particularly to obtain 
specimens of the bears of various islands of 
this group, to aid in settling the status of the 
island forms. Incidentally shells were collected 
and a small amount of some other classes. We 
had no startling adventures and made no par¬ 
ticularly important discoveries, but we found the 
region and the work interesting in many ways. 
The party got together in Seattle early in 
April, 1907. Several days were spent in out¬ 
fitting. Miss Alexander had engaged a gaso¬ 
line launch for use through the summer and it 
should have been ready but was not. Captain 
F., who owned and ran it, had ordered a new 
and larger engine which should have been in¬ 
stalled in March, but it had not yet arrived from 
the manufacturers. We therefore went on by 
steamer, leaving Captain F. to join us as soon 
as possible. 
The three days’ journey through practically 
inland waters was very pleasant. L., one of 
our party, had killed many bears on the Aleutian 
Islands and got to telling bear stories on the 
way North. As there were several Alaskan 
miners aboard, bear stories became a prominent 
part of the talk and many were the accidents 
and hear-breadth escapes related. L. had not 
been in this part of Alaska, and by the time the 
voyage was ended he began to have great re¬ 
spect for the prowess of the huge bears of this 
region. 
We arrived in Juneau on April 14. Drifts of 
snow still lay in the streets in a few places and 
the mountains were covered with the white 
blanket; it was yet winter. The town is built 
on a little slope at the foot of huge cliffs on 
the mainland side of Gastineau Channel, which 
is about a mile wide. The only way to get into 
or out of Juneau is by water, unless one goes 
afoot and carries his pack over steep mountains. 
There are no roads in this part of Alaska. The 
town appeared to contain less than two thou¬ 
sand inhabitants and apparently had passed its 
most prosperous period. The stores contained 
fine stocks of goods which were sold at very 
reasonable prices. We could find practically any¬ 
thing that we needed to complete our outfitting. 
We noticed that the goods were all of the best 
grades, an effect of the boom days when freight 
was so high that it did not pay to import poor 
grades of goods, and residents have formed the 
habit of using the best quality. 
We desired to commence work on Admiralty 
Island, at a point about a hundred miles away. 
The only available method of transporting was 
by launch. All the launches that happened to 
be in port were very small, so we employed 
two, placing our two boats and the bulky part 
of the camp outfit on one and the human freight 
on the other. We pulled out about 10 A. M. 
Lowering clouds with occasional light showers 
made the day appear cheerless, but this was 
ordinary weather there. The light breeze was 
astern and the sea smooth. A short distance 
from Juneau we passed Douglass, on the island 
of the same name where are large gold mines 
with what are said to be the largest quartz mines 
in the world. 
Our route for some time was southward, out 
of Gastineau Channel and through Stephens Pas¬ 
sage, here two to six miles wide. We watched 
the shores with interest as being a sample of 
the region we were to work in. These shores 
were steep cliffs with narrow or no beaches at 
their feet, thickly timbered from their bases to 
nearly as high as we could see for the envelop¬ 
ing clouds. Occasionally the clouds would break 
a moment and we saw that the summits of the 
higher points reached above the timber. Along 
the beach we could see a thin fringe of small 
deciduous trees, still leafless, which we later 
found were alders. Elsewhere the forest was 
composed of spruce and hemlock of so dark a 
green as to be almost black. Through this 
gleamed more or less frequently the white de¬ 
nuded bodies of dead trees. We later learned 
to avoid the mountain sides where dead trees 
were numerous, as there fallen trunks were also 
abundant and climbing consequently difficult. 
We began to wonder where we would find 
camping places, as we could see no level ground 
at the foot of the endless cliffs, and all through 
the summer this was one of our problems. 
Usually we had to go to the head of some little 
bay where streams, pouring down from the moun¬ 
tains, had built a little delta. There, if the 
timber was not too thick, we could clear away 
the brush and string our tents along the beach. 
The edge of the mud flats at the mouths of 
these creeks usually furnished our anchorages 
also, as elsewhere the water was too deep close 
inshore to make an anchorage practicable for 
even our small craft. 
Toward night we rounded the point of Glass 
Peninsula and headed northwest into Sumner 
Canal, anchoring for the night in Mole Harbor. 
The next morning we ran on into Windfall 
Harbor, landing a mile from an Indian camp. 
This harbor was formed by an island a mile 
or more in length, and as the main anchorage 
near the southern end of the bay was closed 
by ice we went to the northern end. As the 
only bare ground was a strip between high and 
low tide lines, we had to clear away brush and 
snow at the foot of the cliff to set up our tents. 
The launch pilots concluded to remain anchored 
until morning, and the Indian wife of one of 
them borrowed our shovel and at low tide dug 
a bucketful of clams. This hint gave us many 
a feast later. 
Next morning the wind had changed, and with 
the help of the ebb tide had moved the field of 
ice out, blocking the southern entrance to the 
harbor. 
After putting the camp in order we all struck 
out to see what life was in the neighborhood. 
We soon found that our walks would practi¬ 
cally be limited to the beach. The snow on the 
hillsides was yet two or three feet deep and 
just hard enough to safely bear us for about 
two steps in three, when it would break and 
let us in thigh deep. We had no snowshoes and 
they would have been little use anyway on these 
steep hillsides in thick timber and among logs 
lying at all angles. There was very little life 
yet away from the beach. We could frequently 
hear the hoarse hooting of sooty grouse in the 
forest, but they were hard to see in the trees 
and we obtained specimens only near the beach. 
Land birds were few in numbers and in species 
