The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-08-24
ALASKA, TRANSFORMED DURING
SUMMER INTO LAND OF FLOWERS
AND SUNSHINE, SEEN AT BEST

They come to us in the midst of our
broiitng summer weather expecting
to find land of ice and snow instead
! of flowers and hot sunshine. They
| think we are all wicked and drunken,
or else very brave and noble, and are
surprised to find how. commonplace
we are. But something would be
lacking from our lives without them,
for they keep US amused and give us
a chance to show off. There is that
| much value in them. And we do love
to hear them getting hysterical about
the beauty of. our country. Without
1.-The gasping tourists we might hardly
realize how beautiful was the land we
lived in. When a little fairylike Ice
| berg comes drifting down the chan
mel past our town we thing Of how
many boxes of salmon or, halibut 1t
| will provide with ice, and perhaps
some businesslike fisherman goes out
and hooks on to IT. but the poor city
| people who come up from the States
| to look at lis think that the iceberg is
| most beautiful and most wonderful,
and that the sweating fisherman is
the embodiment Of romance In this
way the zest of living is kept up for
us, and monotonous things become
] enchanted.
But to return to Alaska summer in
the interior is dry and warm and lux
uriant, very, beautiful but { spoiled
often by insects. Summer on the
coast is less dry and warm, but far
more comfortable.
Summer at Taku! Taku is a, de-
serted Indian village near Juneau,
the capital Of Alaska, and not far
from It is the great Taku glacier
flowing right down into the sea and
there breaking up into numberless
little icebergs that drift far and wide
up and down the coast ,e.r ID out among
the islands; and when summer
morning breaks loose .,ver Taku there
4 comes combination of tenderness,
homely beauty and the rfggedness of
4 mountains, of cold and heat and VI
color and dreariness that would be
hard to match in any other place on
4 earth. The village itself is all clut-
tered up with wild flowers and
\ grasses growing shoulder high or
more glistening and shining with
dewdrops, but above them stand out
the curfously shaped roofs of the old
s houses and the old burial monuments
Of an earlier generation of Indians.
Down. near the shore not breath of
wind is blowing The little baby
q waves are very quiet as they come
if1uttering up over the stones. Most
. | wonderfully placid is the sea on these
summer mornings and a thin mist
covers it SO that it seems to have no
. horizon but just to end in cloud.
. Through the cloud, supported by moth
|, ing visible, floats a pale gray iceberg
or two, and above the cloud lie range
q after range OF black mountains cut
away from the world and ready to
: drift into an empty sky. It is on
: them that the sunlight plays first.
The pallor Of the night sky turns to
!. blue, the white snow and the dark
rock of the mountains change to a
glowing red, and by and by the nists
on the water slip away into nothing.
: ness and the blue sea stretches out
: tos the foot Of the now green-footed
mountain ranges on either side, and
away into the endless distance in
! front-for there is In front lies the
. channel to the south. long and
. straight, with mountains and Islands
. sheltering it as far as the eye car
reach. Near at hand the blue water Is
. dotted with the shining blue and white
of the icebergs looking small and In
nocent here, not like the great bergs
. Of the Atlantic, but still the fisher
mans enemy rather than his friend
!. And even while gazing at them, and
! while ones eyes are busy with the en-
81 chanted distance, the mountains, the
ice and the icy water, there suddenly
:. | comes disturbing buzz and swoor
!. quite close at hand, and hummine
! bird. an actual humming bird, from
! 1.-THE sunny South, comes towering over
: / the wild roses and the honeysuckles
I of the village and making the all
thrill with it's passionate little wings
! Twirling round and round in the all
7 it goes, it's red breast flashing in the
: sunlight, and round about 1t the air ii
:. alive with butterflies and the hum Of
: insects. Humming birds and icebergs
blue sea and sky snow streaket
: green mountains in the distance, the
!. strange half heather shapes of the ole
!, neglected village in the foreground
7 and butterflies and red roses and
s i floneysuckle on every side. what coult
: be better than this? This is Alaska a
I its best This is the world at 1t.
= lloveliest. Christian Science Monitor.
2 The Russian elections was post
: poned until Nov. rs.