Douglas Island news., 1899-09-27
oo9aY8oao oG1st
,Row THE PACIFIC" SAN FRANCISCO, CALF

The Taku Glaciers, Alaska.
 DEAR PACIFIC,
 The au Glaciers Gan pronounced Tar koo) the nearest and the most interesting n w We had learned that excursions to them during but always Sundays and as that would leave dismissed the question of going from our 
 The way however opened unexpectedly by the Odd Fellows Lodge arranging celebrate their first annual anniver sar and harterng all credit to them for week day trip To this outing gladly accepted special invitation
 Leaving Douglas pier 2 others Friday morning in August we sailed Channel about five miles passing +b a mills of the Alaska Mining full on to the ouhey point Island then turned due east to go up au twenty miles the foot the glaciers The Inlet S @ Two fonr miles wide with water deep enough largest steamers while beyond called Tau River which runs forty or fifty miles farther up country too shallow for navigation
 thought know and have seen in pictures or noun tans and valleys fancy the valleys with water and sailing among the mountains on pleasure excursion and you approach our experience
 The Inewh their messy lodges bits sandy beach, pointed a bold ownng headands here and there cascades eapng from cliff to cliff down to the sea- 3 g%es @ 9bn ot of an until the reached and then their peaks and piercing oftmes the very of fail
 T3o sG R 5 P 9n soft @ ao % the appearing close cut garden " wg m % m R mnasaabIe: these patches along banks which never melt % away ant growth the long days and the warmth and moisture smooth an @ I24G @ % of the mainland wherein @ e dacers thousands of ebers and of conceivable shape regu DIG exquisite % the blue of the sky above or the green of the sea
 glaciers reached which s remaraSe o0d tb e tn6 thl t fa5 between them facing each other me apart on ine The live in notion vast rlVer or ce Wh
 stenng beautiful sublime moving out into the desp "aep underneath breaks oil the ceoergs rom ne the Inlet to in the warm currents @ 0 @ 6e Pacific dirty dull desoate oppressive ana at US se flowing bank of mud sand and stones deposited by itself it's perhaps to be it's own desruco
 It was strange powerful fascinating contrast great impressive to life and death even n snow and lce Mur ana other glaciers Ill miles the north on the summer excursion route say gandera to yet they do not sur pass the Taku Glaciers variety and suggestlVene
 ashore to tell account of souge or ses ana others because greater aacveness of city life and Douglas earnings than hunting and hshng be this the cabins and houses going to pieces their windows boarded the trails oVergroWn With weeds little octagonal Greek church where the natives used worship the lonely toaken graves m the grotesque Indian burial place.
 there remarkable far reaching views and beyond the Inlet when mountain and valley and forest through sunshine and shadow the rape mist and storm the oveness of without its neat point perspective seemed veaby and again an enchanted
 and will be remembered as the one single enjoyed the most of mingled beauty and grand eur of Gods material world we have known H. HAMMOND COLE Douglas Alaska, Sept. 8th, 1899
 6 oS>16