June-July 1899, Harriman Expedition to Alaska, Part II Image 24

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1899
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Kodiak; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2682; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3681/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

palemonium, geranium, cypripedium, empetrium not now in [flower], ferns and grass very rank. 19 trees, Sitka [spruce] brought from Kodiak 100 [years] ago in hills, 101 Unalaska and Dutch Harbor, nearest latter, alive and thriving the largest 2 [feet] 1 inch [diameter], 25 or 30 [feet] [high], broad branching to the ground and now fairly red with magnificent purple or crimson velvety [flowers] and young cone 1 inch to 2 inches long. Never saw a more fertile or more magnificent mass of bloom on any spruce. Was told that grass burned every [year], a dry day or two even in spring or summer when the grass is green on [account] of mass of last [years] grass below and stems alive or dead of empetrium made fires possible, and that constant running care was required to protect these trees and others on adjacent island [which] were raised from the seeds of those brought from Kodiak. Also at Kodiak when the brushy spaces begin there is the same tendency to running fires. [Captain] Kelly told me that 10 [miles] from Kodiak he saw a whole [mountainside] that https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3681/thumbnail.jpg