Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-07-31
ALASKA.
SOBae Things About the Country and
Climate Not Generally known.
To the Hon. JOHN 3. HENDERSON,
Chairman of the Committee.

The name Alaska is touchstone to
most peoples minds to call up an
image of Arctic desolatiOn; great ice
bergs and snowy W es swept by
chilling winds, with solitude broken
at long intervals by the shutting tread
of the polar bear, or an occasional
Esquimaux with sledge and dogs creep
ing over the white landscape. Much
of the same feeling filed the writer's
mind when, few years since, he left
the Golden gate for the shores of Behr-
ing sea. 1t was in early May when, one
calm morning, with the sky only hid
den by a light fog cloud here and
there, we steamed slowly through a
pass in the Aleutian islands to the
harbor of Unalaska.
On either hand, across the islands
in great cliffs or rocky precipices,
with an occasional silvery thread of
water falling into the sea down their
rugged faces, the snow still lay in
great masses on the higher clopes and
about the SUBMITS of the island noun
tains. On the lower slopes, bare
rocks, alternated with russet-colored
slopes, showing where month later
would bloom myriads Of handsome
flowers and a rank growth Of grass
would spring up. Not a tree or bush
showed itself, and the only relief to
the harsh, repelling character of the
scene was in the CLASSY sea, on whose
bosom foated thousands upon thous-
ands of water-fowls. Scattered here
and there, or gathered IN scattered
groups, they splashed and plumed
themselves, enjoying to the full the
rare and welcome sunlight. Coasting
along the cliffs struggling lines few
great northern gulls, and at intervals
tiny dove-colored petrol filtered bv
on airy wing like a graceful butterfly.
In few hours we steamed slowly into
the harbor of Unalaska, in an island
of the same name, and, passing a
number of islanders codfishing in the
sealskin kayaks, we were soon on shore,
eagerly examining everything to be
seen in this odd little town, which
seems to a new conner to belong to a
new world.
The Aleutian islands extend from
the Alaska coast westward In a long
line of a thousand miles or more. and
divide the waters of Behring sea
from those Of the North Pacific; at
the same time their point of departure
from the coast might readily be used
as a division line between two widely
different climates and consequent diff
ference in the animal and plant life
of the two regions even extending to
| the aboriginal occupants.
Along the coast of the territory
south of these islands are innumera-
BILE small islands, which, with the
rising shores of the mainland. are
| covered with dense growth of
spruce, pine, and cedars.
| The warm, damp air of the Japan
csc gulf stream here makes itself first
felt ON the American shore, and the
magnificent forests so well known as
found IN Oregon and Washington
territory are rivaled by their northern
continuating along the southern
coast Of Alaska.
This part of the coast is very noun
famous, and the numerous deep lords
cut back into the shore are frequently
crowned at their upper end by great
glaciers, in comparison with some of
which the glaciers of the Alps are but
pigmles. The scenery among the
islands there is of the grandest kind,
and at certain seasons, when fine