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# 2018-10-06 - Travels In Alaska by John Muir | |
John Muir resting on a boulder with walking stick in 1907 | |
# Chapter 1, Puget Sound and Alaska | |
"The scenery of the ocean, however sublime in vast expanse, seems far | |
less beautiful to us dry-shod animals than that of the land seen only | |
in comparatively small patches; but when we contemplate the whole | |
globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and | |
islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and | |
shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite | |
storm of beauty." | |
The author describes the agricultural excellence of glacial moraine | |
soil in BC. He discusses the Douglas Fir and its many names in | |
different regions, plus regional variation in its morphology. | |
# Chapter 2, ... | |
The author discusses the glacial origins of the dramatic scenery. | |
The author describes an experience where he went off into a storm and | |
built a bonfire 30 to 40 feet high. He accomplished his objective, | |
lighting up the old-growth trees so he could see how they appeared | |
and behaved in stormy weather. | |
# Chapter 3, ... | |
The author describes Wrangell Island, which was mostly undeveloped | |
but had an economy as a winter base camp for remote gold mines. | |
He spent a little time describing his observations of first nations | |
lifestyles in that time. He mentioned an unparalleled abundance of | |
berries, including huckleberries half an inch in diameter. He | |
accompanied a group of 9 first nations people on a berry picking | |
foray. They ate berries first before setting up camp and working. | |
They saved the largest berries to hand-feed the toddlers when they | |
got back. They harvested crab apples to flavor their salmon. | |
That night the tribal people hosted a dinner. They served Boston | |
(White) food from cans. They gave traditional dances, followed by | |
self-effacing disclaimers that they had given up their old ways for | |
Christianity. Having read John Muir's autobiography, i know that he | |
was raised in a harsh Calvinist way, and was not treated kindly. So | |
i season his neutral observations with an imagined grain of salt, an | |
unwritten sympathy on his part. | |
# Chapter 4, The Stickeen River | |
The author gives his version of a fantastic story about rescuing Mr. | |
Young on a dangerous mountain climb. | |
"In his mission lectures in the East, Mr. Young oftentimes told this | |
story. I made no record of it in my notebook and never intended to | |
write a word about it; but after a miserable, sensational caricature | |
of the story had appeared in a respectable magazine, I thought it but | |
fair to my brave companion that it should be told just as it | |
happened." | |
# Chapter 5, A Cruise In The Cassiar | |
But every eye was turned to the mountains. Forgotten now were the | |
Chilcats and missions while the word of God was being read in these | |
majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the sky. The earnest, childish | |
wonderment with which this glorious page of Nature's Bible was | |
contemplated was delightful to see. All evinced eager desire to | |
learn. | |
One bird, a thrush, embroidered the silence with cheery notes, making | |
the solitude familiar and sweet, while the solemn monotone of the | |
stream sifting through the woods seemed like the very voice of God, | |
humanized, terrestrialized, and entering one's heart as to a home | |
prepared for it. Go where we will, all the world over, we seem to | |
have been there before. | |
... thanking the Lord for so noble an addition to my life as was this | |
one big mountain, forest, and glacial day. | |
Standing here, with facts so fresh and telling and held up so vividly | |
before us, every seeing observer, not to say geologist, must readily | |
apprehend the earth-sculpturing, landscape-making action of flowing | |
ice. And here, too, one learns that the world, though made, is yet | |
being made; and that this is still the morning of creation... | |
So abundant and novel are the objects of interest in a pure | |
wilderness that unless you are pursuing special studies it matters | |
little where you go, or how often to the same place. Wherever you | |
chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the best; and | |
you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in any other | |
for those who may not be happy here. | |
[regarding the construction in a first nations village abandoned 70 | |
years ago] | |
Their geometrical truthfulness was admirable. With the same tools | |
not one in a thousand of our skilled mechanics could do as good work. | |
Compared with it the bravest work of civilized backwoodsmen is | |
feeble and bungling. The completeness of form, finish, and | |
proportion of these timbers suggested skill of a wild and positive | |
kind, like that which guides the woodpecker in drilling round holes | |
and the bee in making its cells. | |
[Is this last comment a little condescending and de-humanizing?] | |
# Chapter 7, Glenora Peak | |
The setting sun fired the clouds. All the world seemed new-born. | |
Everything, even the commonest, was seen in new light and was looked | |
at with new interest as if never seen before. The plant people | |
seemed glad, as if rejoicing with me, the little ones as well as the | |
trees... | |
# Chapter 8, Exploration of the Stickeen Glacier | |
The curving, out-bulging front of the glacier is about two miles | |
wide, two hundred feet high, and its surface for a mile or so above | |
the front is strewn with moraine detritus, giving it a strangely | |
dirty, dusky look, hence its name "Dirt Glacier," this detritus-laden | |
portion being all that is seen in passing up the river. A mile or | |
two beyond the moraine-covered part I was surprised to find alpine | |
plants growing on the ice, fresh and green, some of them in full | |
flower. These curious glacier gardens, the first i had seen, were | |
evidently planted by snow avalanches from the high walls. They were | |
well-watered, of course, by the melting surface of the ice and fairly | |
well nourished by humus still attached to the roots, and in some | |
places formed beds of considerable thickness. Seedling trees and | |
bushes also were growing among the flowers. | |
# Chapter 9, A Canoe Voyage To Northward | |
A Hemlock, felled by Indians for bread-bark, was only twenty inches | |
thick at the butt, a hundred and twenty feet long, and about five | |
hundred and forty years old at the time it was felled. The first | |
hundred of its rings measured only four inches, showing that for a | |
century it had grown in the shade of taller trees and at the age of | |
one hundred years was yet only a sapling in size... | |
We spent the night under his roof, the first we had ever spent with | |
Indians, and i never felt more at home. The loving kindness bestowed | |
on the little ones made the house glow. | |
# Chapter 10, The Discovery of Glacier Bay | |
They had been asking him what possible motive i would have in | |
climbing mountains when storms were blowing; and when he replied that | |
i was only seeking knowledge, Toyatte said, "Muir must be a witch to | |
seek knowledge in such a place as this and in such miserable weather." | |
Then, setting sail, we were driven wildly up the fiord, as if the | |
storm-wind were saying, "Go, then, if you will, into my ice chamber; | |
but you shall stay in until i am ready to let you out." | |
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. | |
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. | |
# Chapter 11, The Country of the Chilcats | |
It [yellow cedar] is a tree of moderately rapid growth and usually | |
chooses ground that is rather boggy and mossy. Whether its network | |
of roots makes the bog or not, i am unable as yet to say. | |
Just as we were leaving, the chief who had entertained us so | |
handsomely requested a written document to show that he had not | |
killed us, so in case we were lost on the way home he could not be | |
held accountable in any way for our death. | |
# Chapter 12, The Return To Fort Wrangell | |
When we were at the camp-fire in Sum Dum Bay, one of the prospectors, | |
replying to Mr. Young's complaint that they were oftentimes out of | |
meat, asked Toyatte why he and his men did not shoot plenty of ducks | |
for the minister. "Because the duck's friend would not let us," said | |
Toyatte; "when we want to shoot, Mr. Muir always shakes the canoe." | |
... making a good deal of sport out of my pity for the deer and | |
refusing to eat any of it and nicknamed me the ice ancou and the deer | |
and duck's tillicum [friend]. | |
[In the case of the Ancou he's a watchman, he is supposed to keep an | |
eye on the area, see what's going on, and above all watch out for | |
those souls who are getting ready to undertake the journey. In order | |
to accompany them.] | |
We were out of tea and coffee, much to Mr. Young's distress. On my | |
return from a walk i brought in a good big bunch of glandular ledum | |
and boiled it in the teapot. The result of this experiment was a | |
bright, clear amber-colored, rank-smelling liquor which i did not | |
taste, but my suffering companion drank the whole potful and praised | |
it. | |
[Also known as Labrador Tea. It contains a mild toxin named ledol, | |
which acts as a stimulant in small doses.] | |
http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2015/labrador-tea-tonic-or-toxic/ | |
# Chapter 14, Sum Dum Bay | |
The blankets were not to wear, but to keep as money, for the almighty | |
dollar of these tribes is a Hudson's Bay blanket. | |
Hudson's Bay point blanket @Wikipedia | |
These cold northern waters are at times brilliantly phosphorescent as | |
those of the warm South, and as they were this evening in the rain | |
and darkness, with the temperature of the water at forty-nine | |
degrees, the air fifty-one. Every stroke of the oar made a vivid | |
surge of white light, and the canoes left shining tracks. | |
As we neared the mouth of the well-known salmon-stream where we | |
intended making our camp, we noticed jets and flashes of silvery | |
light caused by the startled movement of the salmon that were on | |
their way to their spawning-grounds. These became more and more | |
numerous and exciting, and our Indians shouted joyfully, "Hi yu | |
salmon! Hi yu muck-a-muck!" while the water about the canoe and | |
beneath the canoe was churned by thousands of fins into silver fire. | |
After landing two of our men to commence camp-work, Mr. Young and i | |
went up the stream with Tyeen to the foot of a rapid, to see him | |
catch a few salmon for supper. The stream ways so filled with them | |
there seemed to be more fish than water in it, and we appeared to be | |
sailing in boiling, seething silver light marvelously relieved in the | |
jet darkness. In the midst of the general auroral glow and the | |
specially vivid flashes made by the frightened fish darting ahead and | |
to right and left of the canoe, our attention was suddenly fixed by a | |
long, steady, comet-like blaze that seemed to be made by some | |
frightful monster that was pursuing us. But when the portentous | |
object reached the canoe, it proved to be only our little dog, | |
Stickeen. | |
# Chapter 15, From Taku River To Taylor Bay | |
Before the whites came most of the Thlinkits held, with Agassiz, that | |
animals have souls, and that it was wrong and unlucky to even speak | |
disrespectfully of the fishes or any of the animals that supplied | |
them with food. | |
Toward evening at the head of a picturesque bay we came to a village | |
belonging to the Taku tribe. We found it silent and deserted. Not a | |
single shaman or policeman had been left to keep it. These people | |
are so happily rich as to have but little of a perishable kind to | |
keep, nothing worth fretting about. They were away catching salmon, | |
our Indians said. All the Indian villages hereabout are thus | |
abandoned at regular periods every year, just as a tent is left for a | |
day, while they repair to fishing, berrying, and hunting stations, | |
occupying each in succession for a week or two at a time, coming and | |
going from the main, substantially built villages. Then, after their | |
summer's work is done, the winter supply of salmon dried and packed, | |
fish-oil and seal-oil stored in boxes, berries and spruce bark | |
pressed into cakes, their trading-trips completed, and the year's | |
stock of quarrels with the neighboring tribe patched up in some way, | |
they devote themselves to feasting... | |
[This chapter contains a charming story about the dog Stickeen | |
following Mr. Muir on a thrilling adventure across glacier.] | |
# Chapter 16, Glacier Bay | |
They seem to prefer being naked. The men also wear but little in wet | |
weather. When they go out for the day they put on a single blanket, | |
but in choring around camp, getting firewood, cooking, or looking | |
after their precious canvas, they seldom wear anything, braving wind | |
and rain in utter nakedness to avoid the bother of drying clothes. | |
The very thought of this Alaskan garden is a joyful exhilaration. | |
Though the storm-beaten ground it is growing on is nearly half a mile | |
high, the glacier centuries ago flowed over it as a river flows over | |
a boulder; but out of all the cold darkness and glacial crushing and | |
grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and life to teach us that | |
what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is | |
creation finer and finer. | |
# Chapter 17, In Camp At Glacier Bay | |
Most people who travel only look at what they are directed to look | |
at. Great is the power of the guidebook-maker, however ignorant. | |
June 23 - In the old stratified moraine banks, trucks and branches of | |
trees showing but little sign of decay occur at a height of about a | |
hundred feet above tidewater. I have not yet compared this fossil | |
wood with that of the opposite shore deposits. That the glacier was | |
once withdrawn considerably back of its present limit seems plain. | |
Immense torrents of water had filled in the inlet with stratified | |
moraine-material, and for centuries favorable climatic conditions | |
allowed forests to grow upon it. | |
# Chapter 18, My Sled-Trip On The Muir Glacier | |
To shorten the return journey i was tempted to glissade down what | |
appeared to be a snow-filled ravine, which was very steep. All went | |
well until i reached a bluish spot which proved to be ice, on which i | |
lost control of myself and rolled into a gravel talus at the foot | |
without a scratch. Just as i got up and was getting myself | |
orientated, i heard a loud fierce scream, uttered in an exulting, | |
diabolical tone of voice which startled me, as if an enemy, having | |
seen me fall, was glorying in my death. Then suddenly two ravens | |
came swooping from the sky and alighted on the jag of a rock within a | |
few feet of me, evidently hoping that i had been maimed and that they | |
were going to have a feast. But as they stared at me, studying my | |
condition, impatiently waiting for bone-picking time, i saw what they | |
were up to and shouted, "Not yet, not yet!" | |
I made out to get a cup of tea by means of a few shavings and | |
splinters whittled from the bottom board of my sled, and made a fire | |
in a little can, a small campfire, the smallest i ever made or saw, | |
yet it answered well enough as far as tea was concerned. | |
Twice to-day i was visited on the ice by a hummingbird, attracted by | |
the red lining of the bearskin sleeping-bag. | |
author: Muir, John, 1838-1914 | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/John_Muir | |
LOC: QH31.M9 A3 | |
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/7/3/4/7345/ | |
tags: ebook,non-fiction,outdoor | |
title: Travels In Alaska | |
# Tags | |
ebook | |
non-fiction | |
outdoor |