A friend of the writer who owns mines at Cook’s Inlet thus describes his voyage north along the coast to Unalaska:
 
We were now aboard the Excelsior. About noon the next day we put out to sea and saw no more island passages such as we had seen while aboard the Queen.
 
Our first stop was at Yakutat, an Indian village on the Yakutat Bay. This bay is only an indentation of the coast, curving inward for about twenty miles. The whole force of the Pacific sweeps into it. Landing is both difficult and dangerous. In the bay are always many from the at its head.
 
Great excitement prevailed here in 1880 when gold was discovered in the black sand beaches. The hand amalgamators were used and as much as forty dollars per day to the man was often realized. The miners, however, had reckoned without their host; the[117] Yakutat chief, who suddenly developed financial ability of his white brother, exacted and from the miners.
 
This black sand mine was not yet when a tidal wave heaped the coast with fish. These decayed in the hot sun and the oil soaked down into the sand. The mercury would not work and the miners moved to a new beach, but again a tidal wave ruined the mines by washing all the black sand out to sea. Yakutat was then by the miners. The Indian women of this village are the finest basket in Alaska.
 
Soon after leaving Yakutat we sighted Mt. St. Elias and the Malispania . The Indians call it Bolshoi Shopka—great one. This snow-clad mountain, nearly four miles high, beautiful as Valaskjalf, the silver roofed of Odin, is a most magnificent sight. Such , such solidity, such poetry of color,—the white peak kisses the blue heaven,—such . Like the golden few of earth’s great ones, it stands alone, by its very greatness.
 
The Malispania glacier which flows down from a great névé field in the mountains, is said to be the largest glacier in the world. It is[118] nearly one hundred miles long and thirty-five miles wide where it pours into the sea, and rises four hundred and fifty feet above tide water.
 
Orca, on the shore of Prince William’s Sound, lies snuggled up under the cliffs, which rise sheer thousands of feet high. From the woods beyond a noisy river goes leaping down the rocks to the sea, where its power is chained to run the of a cannery. That other Orca was a powerful sea dragon, especially fond of a seal diet, but this Orca only on the .
 
Our next stop was at Valdes, where two years ago two thousand miners started for River, to for gold, but they were to disappointment, as yet no gold has been discovered on this river. Many and sad are the tales of hardships endured by these miners. Some worked their way up the Copper River and down Tanana River to the Yukon, but by far the greater number returned to Valdes . Many of the miners lost their lives on the Valdes’ glacier. In going to Copper River they had to travel eighteen miles across this glacier. Nine men lost their lives here last winter.
 
At Valdes is located a government expedition under the command of Captain Ambercrombie. The object of this expedition is to study the topography of the country and to make surveys. The government is doing much to aid miners to reach Seattle. For thirty days’ work they are paid five dollars and given a free passage to that city.
 
Prince William Sound is a fine body of water. It is almost surrounded by land. mountains rise seemingly out of the sea. It is deeply by fiords and inlets running back from ten to twenty-five miles. On the south it is protected by mountainous islands. In coming out of this sound we passed around Mummy Point, into the ocean. Presently we came to the Seal Rocks. They were alive with seals. When the engineer blew the whistle they went into the sea, making a great splash. Whales and bob their noses up through the brine—descendants, no doubt, of that crew of Tyrrhenian changed by angry Bacchus to dolphins in that dusky old time when the gods held sway over nature’s forces.
 
From here to Cook’s Inlet we had rough sailing.[120] was out on a . We realized that he was king of the sea and that we were his timid subjects.
 
The crowning glory of Alaska’s natural attractions is Cook’s Inlet. Sheltered by a great mountain wall on the west, its shores enjoy summer weather. Only the pen of a Milton or the matchless brush of a Turner could paint this fair empire of earth, sea and air. Glacier after glacier, frozen to the cold breast of the mountains, lay in the sunshine. The finest waterfalls in Alaska leap from rugged cliffs and go singing to the sea.
 
A grand of snowy peaks, smoking volcanoes, forested slopes, bright with flowers and fertile valleys, lend to this wild Arcadia of the North. Goethe truly says: “Him whom the gods true art would teach, they send out into the world.”
 
Moose graze in the open glades, mountain goat and sheep leap from cliff to rock and away. Extensive level plateaus line both shores of the inlet, which will make fine grazing country some day in the near future. The grass grows luxuriantly and in many places reaches a height of six feet. We traveled up the inlet seventy[121] miles to a branch of the inlet known as the Turnagain Arm, which is from five to eight miles wide and enclosed by high mountains. These mountains are covered with timber at the base. Tall grass covers the mountain side to the height of three thousand feet, sweet grass for all the flocks of some future Pan.
 
We landed at Sunrise, which is the largest city on the inlet. It has a population of one hundred and fifty, mostly miners. Hope, twelve miles away, has a population of seventy-five miners. Fine vegetables grow here. A storekeeper has a small garden. His potatoes are as fine as any grown in the states, some weighing one and one-half pounds. He has cabbages weighing seven pounds, and weighing eleven pounds. , peas and other vegetables are as fine as grown anywhere. People who have lived here during the winters say that the temperature rarely falls twenty degrees below zero, and that the winters are dry and without .
 
Moose, mountain goat and wild sheep furnish the towns and camps with meat, which is usually bought from the Indians, who are good hunters, but very . They are afraid of a giant who, Odin like, rides from mountain[122] to mountain on the wind, every Indian whom he finds traveling alone. White men don’t count, so if you wish to employ a guide to accompany you on a hunting expedition you must also employ a brother Indian to protect him, or he “no go.”
 
Farther south along the coast a black haunts the mountains, making life for Indians. His arrows, like the magical spear of Odin, never miss their mark.
 
In the mountains north and west of the inlet a giant floats his birch canoe on the wind, from peak to peak, seeking lone Indians, whom he with the canoe paddles. This wonderful canoe, like that good ship of Frey, always gets a fair wind, no matter for what port its oarsman is bound.
 
This portion of the inlet, Turnagain Arm, is a treacherous bit of water. The highest tides rise fifty feet. Then there is the bore, which runs up just as the tide comes in, rising eightee............