October-December 1879, First Alaska Trip with S. Hall Young Image 25

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1879
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Ice Bay; Lookout; glacier; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/1626; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/2625/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

over nearly all the fiord out to the entrance. It seemed as if the glacier water, being lighter, had floated out over the sea water, and being nearly at the freezing point when it left the gl[acier] had frozen readily when the temp. of the air was only a few degrees below 32o. The fiord was perfectly waveless. The ice was so thin that we had not the slightest difficulty in breaking our way out, though there was a jamb of bergs, a truth that our Hoona guide took great pains to impress upon us. From the mouth of the fiord we made a straight course across to our last Sunday camp. Bergs of great beauty and variety of form were sailing southward through which we cautiously steered, having John stationed in the bow as a lookout. Landing at our old camp we found the low shore crowded with fresh bergs left by the tide in a long curving row. The sun shining through their innumerable spikes and prongs and about their scalloped sides and hollowed chambers was a truly beautiful sight. One could look through a thickness of ice of 2 ft. The whole mass glowed with small sunlets with colored rays, sharp needles. On our way back to the Hoona encampment we ran into the southmost of the fiords on the W side of the Sound, and found three gl[acier]s, one of which descends into the salt water and has a cliff face of one and a half ms. Neither of the others quite reach the sea. Arrived at the Hoona Camp we warmed at their fire, ate dinner, which we cooked at their hut, gathered into the canoe the goods we had left, and set sail for the 2d Hoona vil[lage] on the north side of the Sound not far from the E end of it. We saw the half dozen seals the Hoonas had shot on Ice Bay. They are about four feet long, with very short flippers in front, large powerful ones behind. The whole arrangement of the animal is a fishation of a quadruped, an admirable modification of the ordinary form of a land animal for its life in water. A thick layer of fur keeps it warm in the coldest water. They bring forth their young in the bay among the bergs. In the ...