At St. Michael's. An Arctic Summer Scene-Description of the Trading Post Yukon River Indian Trappers-Outfitting the Corwin. St. Michael's, Alaska, June 20, 1881.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1881
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; pamphlets; journal articles; speeches; writing; annotation; Arctic; Indian; Yukon; Yukon river; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/162; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmb/article/1161/viewcontent/121.pdf

Written, June 20,1881 Pub. Aug. 16, " SIGHTS HSF THE ARCTIC. jSt. MiciaeUs—Native Trailers of the Far North. "Corwin- J 2,1 tracings of tie Ancient lee Flood- Siberian Villages. $.n Arctic Hunter's Home—Esquimo Qemeteries. ttJ u2/iV 1 O at. Ml t 'V STanna and TIoto. off the Frozen Zone- [FROM THE BULLETIN'S SPECIAL COSBESPONBBNT.] The following correspondence supplementary Jo what was published in the Bulletin yesterday Was also received by the Alaska Commercial Company's steamer St. Paul, from the Bulletin's Special correspondent of the Far North : AT ST. MICHAEL'S. ftu Arcsic S-KEKiner Scene—Description of the 'iTsutaaa Fst—YuJUon River ludi&n Trap- jjei-i.—(UMtfittiiiii' the tJoi'win. St. Michael's, Alaska,\ June 2d, 1881. J Sunshine now In the far north, sunshine all the fongjaightless days,} ripe and mellow and hazy, like that-which teeds the fruits and vines„_We came into it two days ago when we were approaching . this old-fashioned Russian trading post near the mouth of the Yukon Elver. How sweet and kindly and reviving it is'after so long a burial beneath dark, sleety storm cloiidsPora __whole jnonth,.from the beginning of this'bright time,' it snowed every day more or less, perhaps only for an hour or two, or all the twenlrdTir 3ioursnot one day on which snow did n5t tall. .—-either in wet, sleety blasts, making sludge en the deck and rigging and afterward freezing last, or in dry crystals, blowing away as last as it fell. I have never before seen so cloudy a. month, weather so strangely bewildering and depressing. It was all one stormy day, broken iere and there by dim gleams of sunlight, but never so dark at midnight that we could not read ordinary print. The general effect of this conftis- - "IBgffiterMending of the hours of day and night, the quick succession of howling gales that we encounteretL.and.dufl black clouds dragging their ragged, drooping edges over the waves, was very depressing, and when, at length, we found our- " selves free beneath a broad, high sky full of exhilarating light, we ...