Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-11-04
AN ALASKA FOREST.
Enormous Trees Surrounded by Vast Fields

Enormous Trees Surrounded by Vast Fields
OF Ice.
Wandering around near camp I was
struck with establishment at the great
size of the trees of the forest into which
we had crept. Within twenty feet of our
campfire were two trees, one of which
measured twelve feet seven inches and the
other seventeen feet in circumference at
the height of a PERSONS arm from the
ground. The latter had it's thick, shaggy
bark stripped off nearly to the ground,
being a dead tree, and thus losing much
in it's measurement. About thirty yards
from camp was a tree that gave twenty
one feet in circumference at about six
feet from the ground. The most aston
fishing part was that such forest should
be found actually surrounded by ice ten
to twenty miles across in every direction.
Of cOnrse it is reasonable to suppose that
trees were here before the ice, and that
this forest probably once connected with
the forests of the great fiat lands. Here
was undOubted evidence that this small
forest was being Obliterated rapidly by
the advancing front of the Guvot glacier,
the fOOt-iCe grinding the huge trees into
pulp and splinters as surely as a quartz
crusher grinds the rock into powder.
Trees five and six feet through were bent
over and splintared as if they we're brush,
while some of the fallen trunks were split
IOngitudinelly into perfect kindling- wood
It was the mills of the gods grinding slow
ly, etc. Nor were they grinding SO very
slowly, either, as one could see by COM
pairing them with other glacial action
near by. But little way off, probably a
half-mile to a mile away, was small
clump of woods, into which the glacier
III the past had prOtruded, as shown by
the fallen shattered trunks that lay near
the edge of a small moraine, from which
the glacier had now retreated a great
number of rods. Out from the bristling
line of shattered tree trunks piled over
each other for nearly or fully a hundred
yards all the swruce trees we're dead but
still standing, their whitened trunks and
long gaunt limbs contrasting strangely
and conspicuously with the trees still
covered with foliage that formed their
background. These dead evergreens had
been actully killed by the poximite to
the ice without its touching them, and
either by its chilling influence, kept up
throughout the year for probably centu
RES or the constant application of the
ice-water about their roots preventing
their growth: for along this foot-ice there
was always a marshy stream of ice-water
draining off to the nearest muddy creek
or rill. This was true of the glacier foot
notrouer fifty yards from our camp in the
forest, for here we got our water for
cooking purposes, but here, also, the ice
of the glacier had evidently come for
ward so fast that the trees were rather
killed by direct crushing of their trunks
and limbs than by the slower one of the
influence of great masses of ice near by,
and it was possible to sit down on this
foot-ice of the Guvot glacier, probably
ten to twenty feet thick at that point,
and at the same time be under the shade
of huge evergreen tree, if a person de-
sired TO such cooling Influences at the
same time. Thus [ came to the conclu-
sion that the front of this glacier was
like the fingers of some huge radiating
animal prolonging themselves outward
and retracting human lives one after the
other to measure a single stride and It's