Letter from S. Hall Young to John Muir, 1899 Aug 31.

• Main Author: Young, S. Hall
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1899
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; correspondence; letters; Klondyke; St Michael; The Cones; Yukon; Nome; Skagway; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2439; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-correspondence/article/3438/viewcontent/muir10_0959_let.pdf

St. Michael, AlaskaAug. 31st, 1899.My Dear Friend Muir:I have just arrived in the [illegible] after an eventful & busy summer in the valley of the great Yukon. I was delayed a month in all at Skagway, more than a week after I saw you. Then I went over to Bennett, bought a Klondyke boat & Mr. Koonce navigated it with our nearly three tons of goods down to Ra[illegible]. It was the first week in July before we arrived at our first camping place, where we were to remain any time, - Eagle, just across the line in Alaska, I went at once into the woods to try to get you the cone blossoms you wished. But it was evidently far beyond the time. I chopped down a number to trees, but the cones were hardened, the blossoms gone. I am very sorry - will try to do better next summer. I have found only three species of evergreen trees in the Yukon Valley. You can best name them - two species of spruce & a fir.But I saw some wonderful country. I took one eighty mile walk across the mountains, ascending America Creek from Eagle 18 miles, then across the mountain ridges to Comet Creek which empties into Forty mile, camped in the basin of grand rugged edged mountains, the [illegible] of mountain sheep, lived three days on grayling, then across the ridges & rugges mountain slopes02615 2again down Mission br. to Eagle. The mountains are the most beautiful treeless & snowless mountains I have ever seen. At one camp, within a radius of a few [weres?] we picked 63 distinct varieties of flowers. I collected over 30 species of butterflies. The mountains of S.E. Alaska are not "is it" with these in flowers & insects. And such pastures! The herds of the U.S. might graze there.I hope you will take a trip across these mountains get botanizing & mountainizing. cant you come to me at Cape Nome the first of July next, ascending the Yukon with me to [illegible] where I am to attend a meeting of the Presbytery of Yukon the fourth Thurs. of July; thence I comtemplate going on up to Eagle 600 miles further, then take a pack ...