[June 4th - June 7th]

                                           Sunday June 4th 1899

My dear—

     What a contrast dose my Sunday make to yours in Cambridge in every detail!  And yet there is one point in common.  For each of us a church service was a possibility.  Did you unlike me make use of your opportunity?  Do you, now my evil influence is removed, again resume your well ordered life of church going?  But imagine comparing the service in Christ Church with that at the Indian Mission we were visiting today.

     But let me tell you how I happened not to go to church.  We came into the cove on the western side of Annette Island where the village of Mettakahtta [? Metlakatla on the 1997 map] is situated soon after eight o'clock this morning, drew up to the wharf and were soon all ashore.  The greatest uncertainty prevailed as to the length of our stay and consequently when I started off alone for my walk I only knew that we might start at eleven o'clock.  Had I known we were to stay till 1:30 I would have had a more interesting tale to tell.  It was a morning of cloud and sunshine but the latter finally got the advantage and once more proved the unreliability of the couplet

                     "Rainbow in the morning

                      Sailors take warning,"

for a splendid bow spanned our waterway as we came to the harbor.

     I went off toward some bold hills a couple of miles away down whose front spilled a fine cascade but found the way a slow one over a boggy flat.  Its surface was covered with a deep mass of sphagnum moss—a perfect sponge full of water into which the foot sank deeply at each step.  But there were interesting flowers growing by the roadside and my shoes were good so I did not mind.  Finally I got clear of the bog and down to the sea side where I gained ground much faster.  By the time I reached the cliff my time was more than half gone and I had reluctantly to turn back without seeing the lake above or the broad view which the summit of the cliff would have afforded.  But I had my bag full of rocks and flowers by the time I again reached the ship, and the return was more interesting being along the shore.

     Reaching the ship and depositing my load I found there were still two hours before sailing as the party wished to attend service in the church, beginning at the usual hour of 11.  I went up with the rest to the huge formless pile of the church and watched the Indians filing in with much interest.  Indeed I even went in but it was damp and cold and I had not removed my clothing after my brisk walk so I took warning by my premonitory chill and went back to the ship, changed clothes, had a warming drink of that which cheers and may inebriate and then a smoke and a nap which lasted till the party returned and the ship started.  But you will be wondering I am sure what is this Mission I have spoken of but not described.  I will give you a brief abstract of what Dr. Nelson told us last night and I heard with half an ar while still writing to you. 

     Forty years ago a Mr. Duncan made up his mind to devote his life to missionary work among the Northwest Coast Indians and selected as his field a tribe known as the Mettakahttans—a most degraded set, cannibals, improvident, inhabiting hovels and altogether beasts.  He went and lived with them, learned their language, taught them gradually a certain self-respect, made them give up their bestial religious feasts and become outwardly at least Christians.  He showed them how to build decent houses, helped them make saw mills and can salmon so that they  became self supporting.  In short he made men of them and by carefully keeping out the liquor traders built up their characters and resources. 

     His practical common sense was what made all this possible and he became a sort of prophet to his little people of 400.  He was independent of all churches and tho' himself a layman made up a service to suit himself.  Amongst other things he administered communion but, knowing that the merest taste of liquor would start his Indians on the down track he gave them only the bread and no wine.  He was in British territory and hence under the administration of a meddling bishop of the church who was highly shocked at this frightful desecration of the service and declared it must be changed.  After a long discussion Duncan at last, led by advice of friends moved across the Alaskan line to Annette Island where he was out of the Bishop's jurisdiction followed by nearly all of his flock.  They took their houses to pieces and moved them; the school-house, built half by outside contributioins, half by their own labor they literally sawed in two, taking their half to the new home and so they moved over to flourish under the stars and stripes.  This move was made in 1887.  Since then the colony has grown to over 1000 and they have a most prosperous looking community.

     Dinner and the sunset have intervened—and such a sunset has never delighted my eyes before.  How I wish my pen could describe a tithe of its beauty.  As we swung around a wooded point a great range of snowy peaks came one by one into view until a whole glorious panorama was before us and then just as the whole range came into view it was lighted up by the alpine glow which seemed to fairly set the snowfields on fire so brilliant was it.  This is the first really high range we have seen on the coast—Peaks of 6 to 9000 feet with glaciers upon them—which reach the sea.  As I write we are making a landing at the wharf of Fort Wrangell where this letter will be mailed in the morning.  It is ten o'clock and still light enough to read outside and the sharp pinnacles of the uppermost crags of the mountains which reach above the snow stand out against the sky in sharp relief.  We lie over here tonight, have a chance to see the town in the morning and leave at 8 A.M. and as I must be up at 5 I must go to bed now though I could write on indefinitely if I chose.  Good night my dear!!

                                           Monday—5 P.M.

     I found at Wrangell that this letter would go as soon if mailed tomorrow at Juneau so I kept it to continue till then.  This has been one of the finest days of the trip in many ways.  Weather perfect —too warm for comfort almost when out of the light wind and the grandest mountains always before, behind or all around us to ever delight the eye with vistas new and changing at every new turn.  I was up betimes and had a lovely ramble to the summit of a little knoll back of the town.  I am rapidly learning to respect the hills of Alaska—a short ramble up one of them is equivalent to a day's work in any other country of my experience.  It is the fallen timber that makes the greatest difficulty—great tree trunks piled up upon one another 3 or 4 thick in all possible directions.  You jump from the log on which you have been walking onto what seems a mossy rock—and plump you are up to your mid leg in rotten wood and are swearing at the prickles which you have driven into your hand from the "Devil's Club" you have grasped to break our fall—a plant marvellously well named for it has a long thick stem closely armed with prickles, bearing at its end a bunch of fine large leaves.

     My point of view was well chosen and the early morning light on the distant mountains very beautiful.  but the trees made it difficult to get clear views or to photograph.  Behold me then "shinning" with mighty labor up a broken tree trunk on whose top, 15 feet from the ground I perched unsteadily while taking a time picture of a fine mountain group.  And behold me also exposing the same "film" again five minutes later for a still longer exposure at another point.  Was I mad?  By the time I got back to the village most of the party were astir, all seeking the many huge and curious Totem Poles which record the genealogy of the vanished Indian chiefs.  Great tree trunks planted upright, carved and painted into most fantastic forms of men and animals—the symbolic forms of different tribes.  Sharp at eight the boat started but not before I had obtained a first rate souvenir of the place—a huge wooden fish hook which the Indian willingly took from his line when we showed him our money. 

     By ten we were threading the intricate Wrangell Narrows with superb scenery ahead and astern which kept the cameras busy while the hunters kept up a fusillade, practisiing on the sea-fowl and eagles that were within range on either side the ship.

     Just as soon as lunch was over we made a halt at Farragut Bay and two boat loads went ashore, bristling with firearms like a boarding party but all the game they brought back was one tiny wren.  We found deer's bones and signs of deer and bear in the woods and I was admiring the virgin wilderness of the uninhabited shore when I stumbled upon the hoofs of an ox shod with iron! a relic of some lumberman's outfit.  The rocks were uninteresting so I turned botanist and captured some fine flowers which the others did not see. 

     Tomorrow we reach Juneau and a small party of us will leave the ship for a few days while she goes up the Lynn Canal to Skagway, the starting point for Klondike.  I am more interested in seeing thoroughly the great gold mine near Juneau and so I suggested that some of us take a launch and wait for the return of the steamer which is in any case necessary.  Seven men will do so—mostly botanists and zoologists and I shall have a chance to "do" the town and mine thoroughly.  It will be a sudden change from the luxurious table we have on board to a miner's boarding house in Juneau but I do not know but a simpler bill-of-fare will be better for some of us.  I am so far very well—a little cold the last few days but nothing serious and my appetite is simply enormous.  My collections so far have not been remarkable in any way but they are as much as I expected up to this time and indeed even more.

                                          Juneau, Tuesday eve.

                                          June 6th

     Two weeks ago New York and now Juneau—the largest town in Alaska—what a contrast!  Behold me at the Occidental Hotel, writing at the card table after a busy day.  It is 9 o'clock and still very light outside.  Just now the whole town is down on the wharf watching the arrival of the weekly steamer which left Seattle the same day we did so that I have no hope of any mail from you being on her.  We reached here early this morning and I have been over at the Treadwell Mine all day.  The Mine is in Douglas City just across the narrow straights from Juneau, and the steamer, after merely touching here ran across to the Mine wharf and the whole party went to see the sights.  The huge size of the excavations and the mills in which they work the ore is the chief feature to strike one but there was an additional geological interest to me in seeing the rocks.  So after the party had returned and the steamer gone I went back alone to the mine and pounded rocks all day very busily.  I go over again tomorrow morning to go underground.

     Last evening I had a novel sort of an excursion.  It was nearly eleven oclock and the light was growing faint when our ship dropped anchor at the end of a little Bay called Taku where the zoologists wished to land to set traps for small animals.  I thought I might as well join the party not being particularly sleepy and did so.  It was about a mile to shore and a pleasant ride on the whole.  It was already dark when we reached the shore but the traps were set and the rest of us wandered about the ruins of an Indian Village without finding anything of interest.  On returning to the ship I took an oar and it is no fun to wield one of those 16 foot instruments.  I am afraid I made but poor work of it but so did the others so I was satisfied not to have been knocked out of the boat by it.  It was midnight when we again got on board. 

     Juneau is an uninteresting town of the typical frontier type—board shanties, pretentious stores, bad streets, innumerable dogs, lots of loafing citizens and now and then a picturesque indian.  The hotel is better than I expected.  We have a lovely little naphtha launch to carry us around the harbor and had our supper on board last night, provisions being abundant. 

     I must bring this letter to a close and mail it by today's steamer.  I can send again from Sitka in about a week and after that I do not know when.

     Good night my dear.  I think of you often as you last said good night to me with a smile on your dear face.  Good night.

                                          Lovingly

                                                Charlie

                                          Juneau, June 7th  6 P.M.

My dear -

     You see I am still here and might have kept my other letter till now for I do not think the mail steamer has yet come in and this will go with the first.

     We have been having our first real experience of Alaska weather—pouring soaking rain all day long with hardly a break.  I am in for the day and as I write in my room the strains of a music box playing Swanee River come floating harshly up to me, mingling with the drip and beat of the falling rain.  I have [had] an easy and interesting day in the mine.  The launch landed me at the mine wharf about 9 and the supt. Mr. Corbus met me and put me in charge of the foreman who showed me the underground workings.  We went down in the "cage" and then 100 feet of vertical ladders and I collected specimens and information to my heart's content.  It was noon by the time I had my stuff packed and then all dirty as I was I went to the supt.'s house to lunch.  His wife was very cordial and gave us a fine meal and altogether they treated me in a very "white" fashion.

     I came over here on the Ferry afterwards and found at the hotel a former Harvard man a Mr. Lewis who knew this country and wanted to know the Harvard news.

     Now it is dinner time and as I must go I will close this now so that it will surely go in this mail.  I enclose a clipping from the Seattle "P-I" as it is called everywhere about here giving some biographical details of some of our party that may interest you.

     Good-night and may your dreams be none or only pleasant ones.

                                          Devotedly

                                                Charlie