Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XV

  THE WORK THAT GLACIERS DO

  The next morning the sea was as calm and placid as if its surface hadnever been ruffled by a gale, and the canoe pushed along at a good rateof speed. During the early part of the afternoon Jack saw on a long,low rock, close to which the canoe would pass, a number of shore birds,running here and there, busily feeding at the edge of the water, butdid not recognize them, and asked Fannin what they were. After a closelook, Fannin replied: "Those here are turnstones; those others seem tobe black oyster catchers."

  "Oh!" said Jack, "try and kill some of them please. I have never seeneither bird. I know the oyster catcher of the Atlantic coast, for Ihave seen several that were killed on Long Island. I should like tohave some of these birds in my hand."

  Fannin got his gun ready and presently fired both barrels at the birds,and in a few moments Jack was admiring them, and comparing each sortwith its corresponding species of the Atlantic coast. Before the gunwas fired, he had noticed that the oyster catchers acted very muchlike those he had seen on Long Island. They had the same sharp whistleand ran along the shore in the same way; but these in his hand wereentirely black, while those that he had seen in the East were brownishwith much white, and only a little black.

  During the day they saw many old squaw ducks, which Jack knew in theEast only as winter birds.

  About the middle of the afternoon the wind rose again, and began toblow so violently that it was necessary to go ashore and camp. Atthe point where they landed, deer seemed to be plenty, and the beachwas dotted in many places with their tracks, made during the day. Therecent rains, however, had made the underbrush quite wet, and as therewas plenty of fresh meat in camp, there seemed no special reason forhunting.

  During the night a deer passed along the beach near the tent, and whenhe had come close to the place where Charlie had made his bed, theanimal saw the tent or smelt its occupants, stopped and stood for awhile, and then jumped over Charlie, running off with long bounds, intothe forest.

  The next morning the wind still blew hard, and it was uncertain whetherthe party could get away or not. The two Indians therefore askedpermission to hunt, and Fannin loaned his rifle to Jimmie. An hour ortwo later Hamset returned without anything; but a little later Jimmiecame in with a broad grin on his face, his clothes in tatters. He wassoaked to the skin, but in a high state of delight, for he had killeda deer--his first. He was quite exhausted, for he had carried theanimal quite a long way through the woods down to the beach, where hehad left it, unable to bring it farther. Fannin and Charlie at oncewent off to get it; and while they were gone, the boy, in a mixture ofChinook, English, and signs, told Hugh and Jack the story of his hunt.He had gone a long way through the forest, but at last had seen a deerfeeding, and crept up close to it. It had looked at him. He had firedtwice at it, the last time striking it in the throat and breaking itsneck, and it had fallen dead. He ended his account with a loud shout oflaughter and the words: "_Hai-asmowitch_ (big deer), me kill." Later inthe day he confided to Fannin the information that "the hearts of hisfriends were very good toward him because he had killed a deer that wasbig and fat."

  As they coasted along the shore that day they saw a blue grousesitting on a rock, on a small island, and landing found about a dozenfull-grown birds. The shot-gun accounted for four or five of them, andJack and Hugh shot the heads off several more that took refuge in thebranches of the trees. Food, therefore, was now plenty.

  As they were passing near the mouth of the Hotham Sound, and close tothe shores of Hardy and Nelson Islands, the remarkable Twin Falls,just within the entrance of the Sound, came into view. They seemed soattractive that it was decided to visit them on their return trip. Onrounding a point on the shore of Hardy Island, two moving objects, ona low seaweed-covered point half a mile ahead, were seen. For a timethey puzzled Indians and white men alike. They were not deer, forthey were too low; nor bears, for the color was not right; nor seals,for they had neither the shape nor the movements of those animals. Sothere was much guessing at random as to what they were. But at last,when the canoe had come close enough for the creatures to be seendistinctly, white men and Indians made them out to be eagles. They wereyoung birds, so young and inexperienced, in fact, that they permittedthe canoe to approach within fifty feet of them without moving fromtheir places, and when at last they did consent to disturb themselvesthe canoe was within thirty or forty feet of them. Then one flew to apine, a few yards distant, while the other hopped on a log six feetfrom where he had been sitting, and surveyed the canoe with the utmostindifference. Though full-grown they had probably never seen white menbefore. They had been feeding on a dog-fish, which lay there among theseaweed, still breathing and writhing, although the birds had torn agreat hole in its side.

  That night camp was made on Nelson Island. It rained very hard,and everything became wet. There was a fine chance for grumbling atthe weather if they wanted to, but these were old travellers, andaccustomed to meet with philosophy whatever fortune sent them in theway of weather and discomfort. Besides this, they were getting used torain, for some had fallen every day since they had reached the headof Bute Inlet. The next day they would enter Jervis Inlet, of whosebeauties they had heard so much that they thought it would be almost aswonderful as Bute. A study of the Admiralty charts, with which Fanninhad provided himself before leaving Victoria, and which were carried ina tin case in the provision chest, seemed to confirm all that they hadheard of Jervis; and it was with anxious hearts and earnest hopes forgood weather that the party went to bed that night.

  They were not disappointed. The day dawned fair, an early start wasmade, and they paddled toward the mouth of the Inlet. For some miles along point ahead of them cut off the view of the Inlet, and when theypassed this point, its beauties were revealed as a real surprise tothem. Directly before them, but on the farther side of the Inlet, rosea superb snow cone, five thousand feet in height; and beyond that couldbe seen a broad bay leading up to a narrow dark green forest, closelyshut in between two ranges of mountains, far down whose sides extendedthe white mantle which in this region crowns every considerable height.

  A little farther on the travellers found themselves directly in frontof Marlborough Heights, mountains which, even in this land of grandscenery are unequalled for majesty. Two of them rise almost sheer fromthe water's edge to a height of over sixty-one hundred feet, and thethird, standing a little farther back from the water, lifts its greathead between the two, as if looking over its brothers' shoulders. Thesummits of these do not run up into peaks and needles of rock, butappear rather like blunt cones of solid granite. There is a littletimber on the slopes, but except for this nothing is to be seen but theblack rocks. Scarcely a patch of snow was visible, for the unceasingwinds, which blow on these lofty peaks, sweep the snow into the valleysand lower lands before it can lay hold on the smooth bare granite. Someof these peaks rise in unbroken cliffs. Other heights come down tothe water's edge in a long series of steps, many of them showing therounded, smoothing action of the great glacier which passed over themas it cut out this canyon.

  Down near the water, tall grass and underbrush grow among these dark,rounded, naked rocks, which look like the backs of so many greatelephants sleeping in a jungle, whose growth is not tall enough to hidethem.

  Though for the most part narrow,--not more than a mile in width,--theInlet often broadens out and has a lake-like appearance, especiallywhere side valleys come down into it, showing the course of tributarystreams of the old glacier.

  At Deserted Bay, a little river enters the Inlet, and at its mouth is awide stretch of meadow land.

  Long before they reached this point something white could be seen onthe shore. Hugh and Jack were curious to know what it could be, andappealed to Fannin and the Indians for information. No one could tell,and the glasses only made the white objects appear a little larger.Gradually, however, as the canoe approached them, it was seen that herewas an Indian v
illage and a burial place, and that the white objectswere the white cloth coverings of the crosses and the houses of thedead. There seemed to be no one at the village, and the canoe did notstop, but kept on until sunset, reaching a level, grassy piece of landat the mouth of a mountain torrent, where the party put ashore andcamped.

  Evidently this was a favorite camping-ground, for there were foundhere the remains of fires, a rude shanty put up for protection againstthe weather, many old poles, and a scaffold erected for the purpose ofdrying fish.

  Down the side of the mountains came thundering the large stream whichhad formed the little flat where they camped, and which was more than abrook and rather less than a river.

  After camp had been made, Hugh, Fannin, and Jack climbed the mountainfor a few hundred feet along the stream's course, and they were greatlyimpressed by the tumultuous rush with which it tumbled from pool topool in tempestuous descent. The hillside was so steep that climbingwas done by pulling one's self up by the trees, underbrush, and rocks.The ever rising spray of the torrent had moistened the earth, grass,and moss, making the ground so slippery that it was often difficultto keep one's footing. The stream made leaps of twenty, forty, andfifty feet at a time, falling with a dull sullen roar into the deeprocky basins which it had dug out for itself, making the milk-whitefoam which they contained surge and whirl over and over in unceasingmotion. The constant moisture of the stream nourished a rank growthof vegetation. Rocks and fallen tree trunks were covered by a thickgrowth of long, pale green moss, into which the feet sank ankle deep,and from which water could be wrung as from a well-soaked sponge. Inthe crevices of the rocks grew bunches of tall grasses, sparkling withdrops of water, as though there had been a rain storm. Everywhere therewere tall flower stalks, brilliant with blossoms of yellow or blue.Back from the bed of the stream grew a thick tangle of undergrowth andyoung trees, which it would have been very hard to penetrate.

  Many questions suggested themselves to Jack during the climb. Butthe noise of the fall was so great that it was impossible to hearconversation, and it was not until they had reached camp that he wasable to try to inform himself in regard to any of the matters aboutwhich he had wished to ask.

  That night as they sat around the fire after dinner, he said to Fanninand Hugh: "I want to know how these big arms of the sea came to beformed. Why is it that every little way here we find an immense canyonrunning away back into the mountains, and the sea ebbing and flowing init? Of course there's some reason for it. I don't understand what itis, but somebody must know."

  Hugh smoked in silence for a few moments, and then, taking his pipefrom his mouth and clearing his throat, said: "Yes, somebody must know,of course, and I expect to them that does know, it's mighty simple. Iexpect likely your uncle, Mr. Sturgis, knows about all these things,but I don't. I've got an idea from what I've heard him say, and fromwhat I've seen up in the northern countries, that these big canyons werecut out by glaciers,--these big masses of ice, very heavy, and movingalong all the time. It's easy for any one who has ever been around aglacier to see something of the terrible power that such a mass of icehas, and to see how it cuts and grinds away the surface of the earthand rock that it passes over. You've heard, and I've heard your uncletalk about these here canyons on the coast of Norway, that, from histell, seem about just like these that we are travelling up and down,except that maybe these are bigger. We can all understand that if avery big glacier got running in a certain course, and kept running forthousands and thousands of years, it would cut out in the surface ofthe mountains a deep, narrow groove that might be like these canyons;but as I say, I don't know anything about them. I'm just guessing fromwhat I've heard say."

  "Well," said Fannin, "I don't know much about them either, but judgingfrom what I've read, you're about on the right track. The books I'veread say that there was a time, a good way back, when the whole ofthe northern part of North America was covered with a big sheet ofice, thousands of feet thick. That is what was called the glacialperiod, or ice age. This ice, if I understand it, was thicker towardsthe north--where it was piling up all the time, and getting stillthicker--than it was toward the south, where the climate was milder,and where it was melting all the time. Now, although ice seems tous, who perhaps don't know much about it, about as firm and solid asanything can be, yet really it is not so. Learned men have made lotsof experiments, which show that ice will change its form; and we allknow that these glaciers that we see here are moving all the time, and,what's more, that they are moving faster in the middle than they are atthe sides, where they rub against the mountains; in other words, wherethere is friction. That shows that ice is plastic, somewhat we'll saylike molasses in January. It will flow, but it flows very slowly, andto make it flow at all the pressure on it may have to be very great. Inother words, there's got to be a great force behind it, pushing it. Nowthe books say, that in the time of the ice age the sheet of ice thatcovered the country, being thick toward the north and thin toward thesouth, was constantly moving slowly from north to south; and I thinkthe men that have studied them have seen in the scratches that the icesheet made on the rocks and in the gravel and boulders and so on, thatit carried along with it from one place to another strong evidence ofthis motion. Then, after a while, as I understand it, the weather gotwarmer, the ice sheet kept melting faster and faster from the southtoward the north, and gradually the land got bare of ice. Of course itmelted first on the lower lands, and last on the hills and mountainsand peaks. It melted very slowly, and as it melted it left behind iton the mountains and in sheltered places where it was coldest, massesof ice which continued to flow along as ice streams, long after thegeneral ice sheet had disappeared. These masses that were left did notmove from north to south, because they were no longer being pushed inthat direction. They just flowed down hill.

  "If I understand it, there is only one place now in the world, in theNorth at least, that is covered by an ice sheet, and that's Greenland.But in the Northern mountains there are still a lot of remnants of theold ice sheet, and it is these remnants, I think, only thousands oftimes more powerful than they are now, that cut out these inlets thatwe are travelling over.

  "We think that these are mighty deep, and so they are; but maybe youdon't recognize how much depth there is below the water. Sometimesthese inlets are sixty or eighty fathoms deep. There's from threehundred and fifty to five hundred feet from the surface of the water tothe bottom of the Inlet, and nobody knows how deep the mud may be therebefore you could reach the bed-rock below it."

  "I am very glad to know this," said Jack. "Most of it I have heardbefore; it sounds pretty familiar, but I never before heard it in sucha connected way, and I never understood just what it meant. It seemsto me pretty clear now, all except one point that I want to ask about.We all know how easily ice slips down over any surface, and theredoesn't seem to be much friction. Now I can't understand just how theice should cut out such a groove in the earth in any length of time,however long it might be. How is that? Can you explain it to me?"

  For a little while Fannin sat thoughtfully staring into the fire, andthen he replied: "Well, I think I understand it myself, and I think Ican make you understand it as I do, but of course I do not guaranteethat I am right about it. I only give you my idea.

  "Suppose you take a piece of pine board and tilt it up and brace it torepresent the side of your mountain. Then suppose you take a strip ofpaper, two inches wide, and we'll say of an indefinite length, becauseyou've got to draw that paper down over that board, for say a thousandyears, and never let it stop; for the glacier never stops, it is alwaysbeing renewed at its head, and keeps on pushing down the mountainsides, just as a brook does that starts from a spring on a hilltop.Now, you might draw that paper down over that board for a thousandyears, if you lived so long, and you would never wear much of a groovein the board. If you did wear one, it would be awful slow work. Butnow suppose, in the place of that strip of paper, you have a stripof sandpaper, just as wide, and just as long, and keep drawing thatdown for a
thousand years, you can see that long before your thousandyears were over you would have cut a big groove in the board, and intime, of course, you'd cut through the board. That, according to myunderstanding, is the way that the glacier acts. It isn't the ice byitself that cuts out the groove, but the ice is constantly picking upand rolling along under it fragments of rock and pebbles, and sand, andgrinding these hard substances against the hard rock that makes up thefaces of the mountains. So it is sawing down into the mountains all thetime.

  "Did you ever go into a marble yard and see the people cutting thestone into blocks there? They have metal saws that go backward andforward, sawing on the marble, but if they had nothing but the metalto saw with, they would wear out their saws before they would saw themarble, so they put fine sand between the saw and the marble; and thatsand, moving backward and forward, cuts through the marble prettynearly as a knife cuts through cheese. We have seen here, and you havevery likely seen in other places, how the water that comes out fromunder a glacier is white or gray. That is, it is full of somethingheld in suspension in the water, and that something is the fine powderwhich is ground off the pebbles and rocks that are being pushed alongunder the glacier, and ground off the face of the mountains too. It'swhat you might call flour of rock. That's my idea of how the glacierscut these deep grooves. We've seen, as we did just below here, lotsof great, rounded rocks, on the shore, and we've seen in a number ofplaces, big scratches in the rocks; and these scratches, I suppose,were made by some big chunk of rock, pushed along under the mass of theice and scratching against the face of the mountains, gouging out quitea furrow in the rock. I don't know that I can explain it any plainerthan that. Of course, it's a big subject."

  "Well," said Jack, "I don't see how anything could be plainer thanthat; and it seems to me that I understand just exactly how the thingis done. I suppose sometime, when I go to college, I will get a chanceto find out all about these things; and when I do, it will be a mightygood help to me to have seen these things here and to have had yourexplanation. I couldn't think how the ice, by itself, could cut outthese grooves, and yet I believe I have had it all explained to mebefore; but never, I think, by such clear examples. That explanation ofthe sandpaper makes it mighty clear."

  "Well," said Fannin, "we saw at the head of Bute Inlet a lot of theseglaciers. Of course they were high up on the mountains, and mightysmall compared with the ice that must have cut out these inlets; still,I believe if we could get up close to them we would see pretty clearlyhow they work, and you'd understand the whole thing a great dealbetter than you do now. If I were you, I'd be on the watch for thingsthat have a bearing on this work of the ice, and if you keep the thingin your mind, it will be likely to work itself out very clearly."

  "Well," said Hugh, "I think I begin to savvy this glacier business, alittle, myself. Fannin has, sure, given us a pretty good explanation."

  For a number of days, Jack, Hugh, and Fannin had been studying thecharts with much interest, speculating about Princess Louise Inlet, atiny branch, only four or five miles long, which puts off from the headof Jervis Inlet. On the chart, its entrance appeared a mere thread, butwithin it widened and seemed to be several miles in length, though notvery wide, while at its head were one or two quite high mountains. Thisinlet they reached the next day.

  It was yet early morning when, coasting along close to the shore, theysaw a narrow break in the precipice under which they were passing. Asthey advanced, they saw that it stretched some distance inland. This,they believed, must be the entrance to Princess Louise Inlet, but noone knew. It was almost low water and a current of considerable forcewas drawing out of the narrow channel. The men landed, and Fannin andHamset walked a little way up the beach to see whether the passage waspracticable or not. They were soon turned back, by coming up againstthe vertical walls of the precipice, but the Indians declared that ifthey started now they could go through.

  Re-embarking, the canoe was pushed up into the narrow channel, wherenow the water seemed to be almost still, and a few strokes of thepaddle sent the vessel in between high walls, which could almost betouched by an outstretched paddle from either side of the boat. Out inthe main Inlet the sun had been warm and bright, but here the water,shadowed by the tall rocks which rose on either side, was overhung bya thick, cold mist. Although passing along close under the walls of theInlet on either side, they could only occasionally see them, and theygroped along aimlessly, not knowing where they were going. The sun doesnot penetrate this narrow gorge until it has risen high in the heavens,and in the darkness and utter silence of their surroundings, the placeseemed very solemn. The strangeness of the situation awed them all, andhardly a word was spoken, or if one ventured a remark he spoke in a lowtone.

  Hamset in the bow was keenly on the lookout for rocks or obstructionsof any kind, but the chart had said "Deep water," for the Inlet, andthey paddled on with confidence. As they advanced the mist grew thickerand the canoe's bow could not be seen from the stern. No sound washeard save the regular dip of the paddles, and each one of the crewwas wrought into a high state of expectancy, not knowing what the nextmoment might bring forth.

  An hour after their entrance into this twilight, the mist before themgrew a little lighter, and in a few moments, without any warning, thedark curtain was lifted from the water and rolled away up the mountainsides. The mist rose slowly, and there appeared, first the trees on thebeach, then, immediately back of them, the piled-up rocks which hadfallen from the precipice; and lastly, as the clouds and vapor rosehigher and higher, the black vertical cliffs and snow-clad peaks of themountains.

  In a few moments not a cloud or a trace of mist was to be seen, exceptin one long, narrow ravine where it still remained, shut in by highwalls of granite.

  The Indians continued the regular movements of their paddles, butthose of the white men were idle, and for some little time not a wordwas spoken. Before them was a basin, which they were now entering,less than a quarter of a mile in width. All about them was an unbrokenline of snow--here close at hand, there miles away--patched towardits lower border with occasional masses of green or gray. Beneath theedge of the snow line was the sombre gray of the mountain side, darkand forbidding. Still farther down the slope scanty and ill-nourishedtimber grew in scattering clumps or single trees, down to the verge ofthe precipices that overhung the water's edge. To the south and eastthe hills rose sharply and continuously, forming an unbroken wall untilthe snow level was reached; but toward the northeast this wall did notexist, and a wide but steep valley, the ancient bed of a tremendousglacier, stretched away for miles toward the snowy heights of theinterior. The water before them seemed like a beautiful lake lyingamong the mountain peaks. In its unruffled surface each detail of thewalls of rock that shut it in on every hand was mirrored with faithfulaccuracy.

  Down the great valley which opened to the northeast, among, over, andunder enormous masses of rock, whose harsh and rugged outlines weresoftened by no appearance of verdure, a large river, the course ofwhich could be traced far back toward the heights, poured, in a seriesof white falls. They could watch it until it became no more than adelicate white thread, and at last it could not be distinguished fromthe snowdrifts that lay in the ravine near its source.

  Beyond this valley, to the north, the rocks again became steep withoverhanging precipices rising from the water's edge. About them greatsnow fields stretched away toward Mount Albert, showing here and there,by their broken white or sky-blue color some ice river that ploughedits way down the slope.

  It took the white men some time to take in all the Inlet's details, andto become accustomed to their tremendous surroundings. At last Hughturned to Jack, and said: "Son, did you ever imagine a place likethis?"

  "No," said Jack, "I never had a notion that in all the world there wasanything like this,--so grand and so beautiful. It makes one feel as ifhe dare not speak aloud. It comes pretty near like being in church."

  "Right you are," said Hugh. "I don't believe I ever felt so solemn inmy whole life.
Did you ever see such rocks, or such snow, or such ariver as that one over there? Did you ever see anything that seemed toyou as big as this does? I thought I had been in sightly places, andseen high mountains, but this beats them all."

  "It's a wonderful sight," said Fannin, from the bow. "I've lived twentyyears in British Columbia, but this beats anything I've ever seen."

  "Yes," said Hugh. "It's something that you can't talk about much, infact. A man is poor for words here."

  "And just think," said Jack, "how cold and dark it was when we startedin, and then how suddenly the light and beauty of everything came tous."

  "Yes," said Fannin, "but that's not so surprising. You see this inletis so narrow and shut in on every side by high mountains, that the airhere does not feel the sun until near midday. The temperature of thisplace must be a good deal lower than that of its surroundings; but justas soon as the air is warmed up it rises and carries the mist away withit."

  "Oh, Hugh," said Jack, "look at these rocks here, where the sun strikesthem. Don't they look as if they were painted? See that patch ofyellow there--just about the color of a canary bird. Part of that isreflection from the water, I guess; and I suppose it must be some mossgrowing on the rock that gives that rich color. Then there is a redbrown, that looks like iron rust, Sometimes it is red, and sometimesit is yellow, and sometimes it is brown, and again it is red. Andthen, see the flowers and plants up there! There's a fern growing froma crack in the rock, and there are some mosses, some of them brown,some goldcolor, and some bright green. There's a red flower! Look atthat cluster of hare-bells! What a contrast all that brilliant lightand color is to the white and the gray of those outstanding mountains!"

  "Well," said Fannin, "I suppose we ought to be moving, for we shouldpaddle up to the head and get back to the Inlet in time to go out withthe ebb. The Indians say that at half tide the water runs so swiftly inthat narrow channel that it is dangerous."

  "Come on, then," said Hugh. "I hate to think of anything but this showthat is before us; and I'd like mighty well to camp here for one night,but I suppose we haven't got the time."

  "Yes," said Jack, "we've got to think of what is coming to-morrow, ofcourse; but I do hate to leave this place."

  They dipped their paddles into the water, and the canoe moved swiftlyover its glassy surface. As they paddled on, Jack suddenly called:"There's a seal, the first living thing I've seen in here!" From timeto time the seal showed his smooth round head above the water, not farfrom the canoe.

  A few moments later Hugh called out: "There's a brood of ducks inthere, near the shore!"

  "Where are they?" asked Jack; "I don't see them."

  "There," said Hugh, "close into the shore you can see them or theirshadows, though they are a good deal blurred and made indistinct by thereflection of the trees above them."

  "Yes," said Jack, "there seems to be mighty little life visible here.Down toward the mouth of the Inlet I have once or twice seen a gull,but beyond these things and the starfish, clinging to the rocks,there's mighty little that speaks of life."

  Near the head of the Inlet Fannin got out the longest fishing linesthat they had, and, tying a few rifle cartridges to it, let it downover the side of the canoe, trying to find the bottom, but he wasunable to reach it.

  On the way back toward the mouth of the inlet they paddled alongclose to the shore, in many places under the cliffs which overhungthe water. Here it was possible to examine them closely and to studytheir details, and Jack was astonished to see how much vegetation theysupported and how varied was the life that they exhibited. Everywherenear the water the granite was patched with lichens of different kindsand different colors, giving a brilliant effect to the rocks. Nearthe mouth of the inlet they landed on a low point of shore that ranout, and stood there for a little while, taking a farewell look at thenarrow fiord. It was an impressive sight, and with full hearts thewhite men turned their backs on the wonders they had seen and tooktheir way back out into the broad channel of Jervis Inlet.