We now turned southward down the eastern shore of the bay, and in an
hour or two discovered a glacier of the second class, at the head of a
comparatively short fiord that winter had not yet closed. Here we
landed, and climbed across a mile or so of rough boulder-beds, and back
upon the wildly broken, receding front of the glacier, which, though it
descends to the level of the sea, no longer sends off bergs. Many large
masses, detached from the wasting front by irregular melting, were
partly buried beneath mud, sand, gravel, and boulders of the terminal
moraine. Thus protected, these fossil icebergs remain unmelted for many
years, some of them for a century or more, as shown by the age of trees
growing above them, though there are no trees here as yet. At length
melting, a pit with sloping sides is formed by the falling in of the
overlying moraine material into the space at first occupied by the
buried ice. In this way are formed the curious depressions in
drift-covered regions called kettles or sinks. On these decaying
glaciers we may also find many interesting lessons on the formation of
boulders and boulder-beds, which in all glaciated countries exert a
marked influence on scenery, health, and fruitfulness.
Three or four miles farther down the bay, we came to another fiord, up
which we sailed in quest of more glaciers, discovering one in each of
the two branches into which the fiord divides. Neither of these
glaciers quite reaches tide-water. Notwithstanding the apparent
fruitfulness of their fountains, they are in the first stage of
decadence, the waste from melting and evaporation being greater now
than the supply of new ice from their snowy fountains. We reached the
one in the north branch, climbed over its wrinkled brow, and gained a
good view of the trunk and some of the tributaries, and also of the
sublime gray cliffs of its channel.
Then we sailed up the south branch of the inlet, but failed to reach
the glacier there, on account of a thin sheet of new ice. With the
tent-poles we broke a lane for the canoe for a little distance; but it
was slow work, and we soon saw that we could not reach the glacier
before dark. Nevertheless, we gained a fair view of it as it came
sweeping down through its gigantic gateway of massive Yosemite rocks
three or four thousand feet high. Here we lingered until sundown,
gazing and sketching; then turned back, and encamped on a bed of
cobblestones between the forks of the fiord.
We gathered a lot of fossil wood and after supper made a big fire, and
as we sat around it the brightness of the sky brought on a long talk
with the Indians about the stars; and their eager, childlike attention
was refreshing to see as compared with the deathlike apathy of weary
town-dwellers, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and
care and poor shallow comfort.
After sleeping a few hours, I stole quietly out of the camp, and
climbed the mountain that stands between the two glaciers. The ground
was frozen, making the climbing difficult in the steepest places; but
the views over the icy bay, sparkling beneath the stars, were
enchanting. It seemed then a sad thing that any part of so precious a
night had been lost in sleep. The starlight was so full that I
distinctly saw not only the berg-filled bay, but most of the lower
portions of the glaciers, lying pale and spirit-like amid the
mountains. The nearest glacier in particular was so distinct that it
seemed to be glowing with light that came from within itself. Not even
in dark nights have I ever found any difficulty in seeing large
glaciers; but on this mountain-top, amid so much ice, in the heart of
so clear and frosty a night, everything was more or less luminous, and
I seemed to be poised in a vast hollow between two skies of almost
equal brightness. This exhilarating scramble made me glad and strong
and I rejoiced that my studies called me before the glorious night
succeeding so glorious a morning had been spent!
I got back to camp in time for an early breakfast, and by daylight we
had everything packed and were again under way. The fiord was frozen
nearly to its mouth, and though the ice was so thin it gave us but
little trouble in breaking a way for the canoe, yet it showed us that
the season for exploration in these waters was well-nigh over. We were
in danger of being imprisoned in a jam of icebergs, for the
water-spaces between them freeze rapidly, binding the floes into one
mass. Across such floes it would be almost impossible to drag a canoe,
however industriously we might ply the axe, as our Hoona guide took
great pains to warn us. I would have kept straight down the bay from
here, but the guide had to be taken home, and the provisions we left at
the bark hut had to be got on board. We therefore crossed over to our
Sunday storm-camp, cautiously boring a way through the bergs. We found
the shore lavishly adorned with a fresh arrival of assorted bergs that
had been left stranded at high tide. They were arranged in a curving
row, looking intensely clear and pure on the gray sand, and, with the
sunbeams pouring through them, suggested the jewel-paved streets of the
New Jerusalem.
On our way down the coast, after examining the front of the beautiful
Geikie Glacier, we obtained our first broad view of the great glacier
afterwards named the Muir, the last of all the grand company to be
seen, the stormy weather having hidden it when we first entered the
bay. It was now perfectly clear, and the spacious, prairie-like
glacier, with its many tributaries extending far back into the snowy
recesses of its fountains, made a magnificent display of its wealth,
and I was strongly tempted to go and explore it at all hazards. But
winter had come, and the freezing of its fiords was an insurmountable
obstacle. I had, therefore, to be content for the present with
sketching and studying its main features at a distance.
[Illustration: The Muir Glacier in the Seventies, showing Ice Cliffs
and Stranded Icebergs.]
When we arrived at the Hoona hunting-camp, men, women, and children
came swarming out to welcome us. In the neighborhood of this camp I
carefully noted the lines of demarkation between the forested and
deforested regions. Several mountains here are only in part deforested,
and the lines separating the bare and the forested portions are well
defined. The soil, as well as the trees, had slid off the steep slopes,
leaving the edge of the woods raw-looking and rugged.
At the mouth of the bay a series of moraine islands show that the trunk
glacier that occupied the bay halted here for some time and deposited
this island material as a terminal moraine; that more of the bay was
not filled in shows that, after lingering here, it receded
comparatively fast. All the level portions of trunks of glaciers
occupying ocean fiords, instead of melting back gradually in times of
general shrinking and recession, as inland glaciers with sloping
channels do, melt almost uniformly over all the surface until they
become thin enough to float. Then, of course, with each rise and fall
of the tide, the sea water, with a temperature usually considerably
above the freezing-point, rushes in and out beneath them, causing rapid
waste of the nether surface, while the upper is being wasted by the
weather, until at length the fiord portions of these great glaciers
become comparatively thin and weak and are broken up and vanish almost
simultaneously.
Glacier Bay is undoubtedly young as yet. Vancouver’s chart, made only a
century ago, shows no trace of it, though found admirably faithful in
general. It seems probable, therefore, that even then the entire bay
was occupied by a glacier of which all those described above, great
though they are, were only tributaries. Nearly as great a change has
taken place in Sum Dum Bay since Vancouver’s visit, the main trunk
glacier there having receded from eighteen to twenty five miles from
the line marked on his chart. Charley, who was here when a boy, said
that the place had so changed that he hardly recognized it, so many new
islands had been born in the mean time and so much ice had vanished. As
we have seen, this Icy Bay is being still farther extended by the
recession of the glaciers. That this whole system of fiords and
channels was added to the domain of the sea by glacial action is to my
mind certain.
We reached the island from which we had obtained our store of fuel
about half-past six and camped here for the night, having spent only
five days in Sitadaka, sailing round it, visiting and sketching all the
six glaciers excepting the largest, though I landed only on three of
them,—the Geikie, Hugh Miller, and Grand Pacific,—the freezing of the
fiords in front of the others rendering them inaccessible at this late
season.
