the john muir exhibit - writings - travels_in_alaska - chapter 19
Travels in Alaska
by John Muir
Chapter XIX
Auroras
A few days later I set out with Professor Reid's party to visit
some of the other large glaciers that flow into the bay, to observe
what changes have taken place in them since October, 1879, when
I first visited and sketched them. We found the upper half of
the bay closely choked with bergs, through which it was exceedingly
difficult to force a way. After slowly struggling a few miles
up the east side, we dragged the whale-boat and canoe over
rough rocks into a fine garden and comfortably camped for the
night.
Floating Iceberg, Taku Inlet
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The next day was spent in cautiously picking a way across to the
west side of the bay; and as the strangely scanty stock of provisions
was already about done, and the ice-jam to the northward
seemed impenetrable, the party decided to return to the main camp by a
comparatively open, roundabout way to the southward,
while with the canoe and a handful of food-scraps I pushed on northward.
After a hard, anxious struggle, I reached the mouth of the Hugh Miller fiord
about sundown, and tried to find a camp-spot on its steep, boulder-bound shore.
But no landing-place where it seemed possible to drag the canoe above
high-tide mark was discovered after examining a mile or more of this dreary,
forbidding barrier, and as night was closing down, I decided to try to grope
my way across the mouth of the fiord in the starlight
to an open sandy
spot on which I had camped in October, 1879, a distance of about three
or four miles.
With the utmost caution I picked my way through the sparkling
bergs, and after an hour or two of this nerve-trying work,
when I was perhaps less than halfway across and dreading the loss
of the frail canoe which would include the loss of myself, I came
to a pack of very large bergs which loomed threateningly, offering
no visible thoroughfare. Paddling and pushing to right and left,
I at last discovered a sheer-walled opening about four feet wide
and perhaps two hundred feet long, formed apparently by the splitting
of a huge iceberg. I hesitated to enter this passage, fearing
that the slightest change in the tide-current might close
it, but ventured nevertheless, judging that the dangers ahead
might not be greater than those I had already passed. When I had
got about a third of the way in, I suddenly discovered that the
smooth-walled ice-lane was growing narrower, and with
desperate haste backed out. Just as the bow of the canoe cleared
the sheer walls they came together with a growling crunch. Terror-stricken,
I turned back, and in an anxious hour or two gladly reached the
rock-bound shore that had at first repelled me, determined
to stay on guard all night in the canoe or find some place where
with the strength that comes in a fight for life I could drag
it up the boulder wall beyond ice danger. This at last was happily
done about midnight, and with no thought of sleep I went to bed
rejoicing.
My bed was two boulders, and as I lay wedged and bent on their
up-bulging sides, beguiling the hard, cold time in gazing
into the starry sky and across the sparkling bay, magnificent
upright bars of light in bright prismatic colors suddenly appeared,
marching swiftly in close succession along the northern horizon
from west to east as if in diligent haste, an auroral display
very different from any I had ever before beheld. Once long ago
in Wisconsin I saw the heavens draped in rich purple auroral clouds
fringed and folded in most magnificent forms; but in this glory
of light, so pure, so bright, so enthusiastic in motion, there
was nothing in the least cloud-like. The short color-bars,
apparently about two degrees in height, though blending, seemed
to be as well defined as those of the solar spectrum.
How long these glad, eager soldiers of light held on their way
I cannot tell; for sense of time was charmed out of mind and the
blessed night circled away in measureless rejoicing enthusiasm.
In the early morning after so inspiring a night I launched my
canoe feeling able for anything, crossed the mouth of the Hugh
Miller fiord, and forced a way three or four miles along the shore
of the bay, hoping to reach the Grand Pacific Glacier in front
of Mt. Fairweather. But the farther I went, the ice-pack,
instead of showing inviting little open streaks here and there,
became so much harder jammed that on some parts of the shore the
bergs, drifting south with the tide, were shoving one another
out of the water beyond high-tide line. Farther progress
to northward
was thus rigidly stopped, and now I had to
fight for a way back to my cabin, hoping that by good tide luck
I might reach it before dark. But at sundown I was less than half-way
home, and though very hungry was glad to land on a little rock
island with a smooth beach for the canoe and a thicket of alder
bushes for fire and bed and a little sleep. But shortly after
sundown, while these arrangements were being made, lo and behold
another aurora enriching the heavens! and though it proved to
be one of the ordinary almost colorless kind, thrusting long,
quivering lances toward the zenith from a dark cloud-like base,
after last night's wonderful display one's expectations might
well be extravagant and I lay wide awake watching.
On the third night I reached my cabin and food. Professor Reid
and his party came in to talk over the results of our excursions,
and just as the last one of the visitors opened the door after
bidding good-night, he shouted, "Muir, come look here.
Here's something fine."
I ran out in auroral excitement, and sure enough here was another
aurora, as novel and wonderful as the marching rainbow-colored
columns--a glowing silver bow spanning the Muir Inlet in a magnificent
arch right under the zenith, or a little to the south of it, the
ends resting on the top of the mountain-walls. And though colorless
and steadfast, its intense, solid, white splendor, noble proportions,
and fineness of finish excited boundless admiration. In form and
proportion it was like a rainbow, a bridge of
one span five
miles wide; and so brilliant, so fine and solid and homogeneous
in every part, I fancy that if all the stars were raked together
into one windrow, fused and welded and run through some celestial
rolling-mill, all would be required to make this one glowing
white colossal bridge.
After my last visitor went to bed, I lay down on the moraine in
front of the cabin and gazed and watched. Hour after hour the
wonderful arch stood perfectly motionless, sharply defined and
substantial-looking as if it were a permanent addition to
the furniture of the sky. At length while it yet spanned the inlet
in serene unchanging splendor, a band of fluffy, pale gray, quivering
ringlets came suddenly all in a row over the eastern mountain-top,
glided in nervous haste up and down the under side of the bow
and over the western mountain-wall. They were about one and
a half times the apparent diameter of the bow in length, maintained
a vertical posture all the way across, and slipped swiftly along
as if they were suspended like a curtain on rings. Had these lively
auroral fairies marched across the fiord on the top of the bow
instead of shuffling along the under side of it, one might have
fancied they were a happy band of spirit people on a journey making
use of the splendid bow for a bridge. There must have been hundreds
of miles of them; for the time required for each to cross from
one end of the bridge to the other seemed only a minute or less,
while nearly an hour elapsed from their first appear ance until
the last of the rushing throng vanished behind the western mountain,
leaving the bridge as
bright and solid and steadfast as
before they arrived. But later, half an hour or so, it began to
fade. Fissures or cracks crossed it diagonally through which a
few stars were seen, and gradually it became thin and nebulous
until it looked like the Milky Way, and at last vanished, leaving
no visible monument of any sort to mark its place.
I now returned to my cabin, replenished the fire, warmed myself,
and prepared to go to bed, though too aurorally rich and happy
to go to sleep. But just as I was about to retire, I thought I
had better take another look at the sky, to make sure that the
glorious show was over; and, contrary to all reasonable expectations,
I found that the pale foundation for another bow was being laid
right overhead like the first. Then losing all thought of sleep,
I ran back to my cabin, carried out blankets and lay down on the
moraine to keep watch until daybreak, that none of the sky wonders
of the glorious night within reach of my eyes might be lost.
I had seen the first bow when it stood complete in full splendor,
and its gradual fading decay. Now I was to see the building of
a new one from the beginning. Perhaps in less than half an hour
the silvery material was gathered, condensed, and welded into
a glowing, evenly proportioned arc like the first and in the same
part of the sky. Then in due time over the eastern mountain-wall
came another throng of restless electric auroral fairies, the
infinitely fine pale-gray garments of each lightly touching those
of their neighbors as they swept swiftly along the under
side of the bridge and down over the western mountain like the
merry band that had gone the same way before them, all keeping
quivery step and time to music too fine for mortal ears.
While the gay throng was gliding swiftly along, I watched the
bridge for any change they might make upon it, but not the slightest
could I detect. They left no visible track, and after all had
passed the glowing arc stood firm and apparently immutable, but
at last faded slowly away like its glorious predecessor.
Excepting only the vast purple aurora mentioned above, said to
have been visible over nearly all the continent, these two silver
bows in supreme, serene, supernal beauty surpassed everything
auroral I ever beheld.
The End
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