Wildest Alaska: Journeys of Great Peril in Lituya Bay 9780520930285

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
I. BEGINNINGS
II. THE PLACE
III. THE TLINGITS
IV. THE FRENCH
V. THE RUSSIANS
VI. THE AMERICANS
VII. THE WAVE
VIII. THE PRESENTS153
IX. TOMALES BAY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCES
INDEX

Citation preview

WILDEST

ALASKA

Also by Philip L. Fradkin

CALIFORNIA, T H E GOLDEN COAST A RIVER N O MORE SAGEBRUSH COUNTRY FALLOUT WANDERINGS OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALIST T H E S E V E N STATES O F C A L I F O R N I A MAGNITUDE 8

WILDEST

PHILIP L. FRADKIN

University of California Press Berteley Los Angeles London

THEF A I R W E A T H E R R A N G E T O W E R S A B O V E L I T U Y A BAY. The dark, squat shape of Cenotaph Island appears in theforeground. To the right, above the loneftshing boat, is the bare ridge that was swept to the 1,740-foot level by thegiant wave of 1958. (Photo 0 1966, 1967 by Dave Bohn. First reproduced in Glacier Bay: The Land and the Silence [San Francisco: Sierra Club, 19671.)

T h e paper u x i i in rhi\ pahl~rrtlon1s both arlil-ircc and totall! um 01 chlonnz-hre ITC'FI. I t nlrcts the m ~ n ~ n ~rcqulrcrncnt\ ANSI~NISOZ j i l 48-1984 (K ~ i ) i j j i) J J y ) r n o n r , ~ < r C ) i P ~ z p ~ ~ i

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There always jornething a b ~ t over the mark, 2 7 2 sea yurm. Should be.

These are the true narne.i of the places-but why it has been thought necessui-)!to name them at all, i~m o w thun either you or I can undei.stand. Do you hear any thing? Do you jee any change in the wuter?

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PROLOGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi11 BEGlNNIN(;S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T H E PI..\CE

I

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8

T H E T L I S G I T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 T H E FRENCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . zy T H E RUSSIANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 T H E .\\lERICANS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

T H E \VII\~E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 4 T H E PRESENT

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

T O L l h L E S BAY

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

153

. \ C K N O U ~ L E D C . ~ ~NFT. s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 1

SOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163

INDEX

175

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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D O N MILLERU'AS on a

U.S. Geological Survey vessel the night

of July 9, 1958, when a strong earthquake shook Glacier Bay. Since earthquakes were not that unusual in Southeast Alaska and the damage in the immediate vicinity was n ~ i n i n ~ aMiller l, did not react until he h e x d on the r a d ~ early o the next rnornlng that some boats h ~ been d 5wm1ped and people drowned in Lituya Bay. T h e geologist had spent time in the remote bay on the Gulf of Alask,~coast and had notlced the Larylng treel~nes,which suggatecl massn e d~sturbancesIn the pa5t. H e wondered wh,lt had occurred t h ~ atlnie. plane \\as q u ~ c k l ychartered. M ~ l l e rand the p l o t departed at 9:1j AM. that same mornlng for L ~ t u yBay, , ~ a s ~ x t y - m ~flight le o\ er the towerlng Fa~rweatherRange. T h e ) droppcd do\\ n to the coast at the point where the La Perouse Glacier disgorges its ice directly into the gulf, then turned north. Five miles south of the bay large rafts of severed tree trunks were floating on the surface of the water. T h e freshly denuded trees had been stripped clean of branches and bark and resembled the naked victims of a genocidal act of nature. As the plane swung right and approached the bay from the gulf, Miller and the pilot could not believe what they saw. T h e bay is a shambles, the destruction is unbelievable, Miller hurriedly jotted in his field notebook.

...

Xlll

xiv

PROLOGUE.

Using the altimeter, they judged the maximum height of the wave that had swept the bay from the mountains to the sea at 1,800 feet above sea level. That figure was later adjusted to 1,740 feet, which is 257 feet higher than the world's tallest skyscraper, currently the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.? There was a fresh scar, and rocks were still falling from the flank of a mountain directly across the inlet. The nearby sealevel snout of the thick Lituya Glacier had been shortened by a quarter mile. Where there had been dense forest along the shoreline the day before, all was now bare rock. T h e surrounding hills bled. Rivulets of salt water seeped back into the ice- and logchoked bay. Miller marveled at the tremendous power of the giant wave: "Cut a channel across the top of Cenotaph Island, washed away the cabin there, stripped entire La Chaussee Spit bare, removed lighthouse and several hundred feet of trees adjacent to it at Harbor Point. Washed into Fish Lake to north and across to sea east of The Paps." Those names and places summoned to mind other waterrelated tragedies that had contributed to the mournful history of the bay. They dated back to before the first written account in 1786. T h e two astonished men flew back and forth over the sevenmile length of the bay for an hour and a half looking for the cause of the miracle of destruction.

'The wave was 300 feet higher than the Sears Tower in Chicago, the second tallest building in the world, and it would have cleared the Empire State Building in New York City with 500 feet to spare.

1958 GIANT WAVE. (Photo by Don Miller, US. Geological Survey.)

LITUYA BAY JUST BEFORE T H E

LITUYA GLACIERCOVERS DESOLATION VALLEY, thesu$ace

manifestation of the Fairweather Fault, in the center. The scooped-out mountainside is on the rigltt. Thegiant wave bounced offthe ridge to the left and rolled out to sea, sweeping along everything in inpath, including threejshing boats. (Photo by Don Miller, U.S. Geological Survey.)

THEWORLD'S HIGHEST KNOWN taller than the tallest skyscraper-decapitated the snout of Lituya Glacier and completely denuded the south end of the ridge to the I, 74o-foot level, leaving gleaming rock and a new tree line. (Photo by Don Miller, U.S. Geological Survey.)

TALLTREES WERE

SNAPPED OFF at root levellikeso many toothpicks. (Photo by Don Miller, U.S. Geological Survey.)

Harbor Point Cormorant Rc

o

o I

I

2

2

j

-354iIomr mik

4

LITUYA BAY AND ITS ENVIRONS

I TOOK MY YOUI\'C;SON X L E X to Alaska for two months d u r ing the bicentennial summer of I 976. T h e idea was for a divorced father to spend some quality time with his son in a wilderness setting. In the back of my four-wheel-drive vehicle, in which we braved heavy traffic on unpaved roads during the peak of pipeline construction, were

3

two-person kayak and paddles neatly

stored in three bags. W unpacked the bags, assembled the kayak, and paddled in rivers, lakes, and eventually Glacier Ray. T h e sightseeing boat took us to the head of the bay, where we launched the kayak and began a leisurely five-day rcturn trip. \4Te paddled near glaciers and icebergs, passed through pods of bvhales, and celebrated Alex's tenth birthday with a flaming match stuck in chocolate pudding. Alex hunted for notes hidden about the tent that described the presents awaiting him in the car on our return to Juneau. It was wet and cold, but we managed to stay comfortable. Grizzly bears and wolves were about on land. O n water we felt vastly superior to the tourists aboard the huge cruise ships, w h o lvatched the scenery on closed-circuit television monitors. My involvement with Lituya Ray began with the purchase o f a book at the visitor center upon our safe return. It was titled GIG

c-iei.Bay: The Land and the Silence and was written and photo-

graphed by Ilave Bohn. T h e conservationist David Rrower had noted in the preface: "Every nolv and then a man steps onto a landscape and stubs his toe, violently, on the wonder of it d . "

I shelved the book on my return home and didn't take it down for another year or so. O n e lvinter night I retrieved it and sat by the wood stove. T h e r e Lvas a storm outside. Strong gusts of wind pushed the srnoke donm the chimney and into the living room, where it gathered against the ceiling with the same density as the fog that rolled in from the nearby Pacific Ocean.

I Lvas immediately captured by Bohn's book, or, more precisely, by the first chapter. It dealt with Lituya Ray, a small portion of Glacier Bay Nritional Park far removed from the more accessible inner bay that attracts most airborne visitors a n d cruise ships. T h e chapter consisted of eleven pages of text, footnotes, photographs, and other illustrations. T h e text began rvith the sightings o f t h e Alaska coast in 1741 by Russians and went on to relate their misfortunes. It rnent i m e d the offshore passage of the English expedition under Captain Jamcs Cook in 1778, recounted the Tlingit Indian legend of the conling of the French in 1786, and described the fite of t~venty-onesailors and officers under the command of JeanFranfois tie Galaup, conite de Lap6rouse.' T h i s kvas follo\vetl by briefer accounts of subsequent events: the arrival of the Americans in the mid-nineteenth century, the

T l i n g i t is most comrnonl!. pronounced "Klink-kit." I n f o r m d r e k r ences, official records. m d g e o g r ~ p h i cnomenclature, it is L a Pkrouw o r L a Perouse, but the m\-al o f i c c r and explorer signed his n a m e Lnp6rouse. I have opted for 1,apkrquse. except for geographic designations.

murder and the lynching at the turn of the century, the time of the hermit, and the giant waves that scoured the heights inside the bay at periodic intervals. Lesser waves intermittently claimed victims at the bay's entrance. Bohn wrote: "Lituya Bay, wild and incomparable, the thread of violence." An accomplished photographer, Bohn had selected the illustrations with care. A frontispiece shows Mount Fairweather and the other saw-toothed peaks towering abo\ e the snow-clad coastal hills immediately surrounding the bay. Cenotaph Island is a black, squat presence in the middle of the bay. Just to the right of the island is a tiny fishing boat, dwarfed by the immensity of the scene. T h e boat faces toward the end of the bay and the ridge that was stripped of its thick growth of vegetation by the 1958 wave. When I visited the bay twenty-two years later, the difference between old and new growth along the shoreline was clearly visible. T h e other illustration that I found riveting was an engraving rendered in the overwrought European style used to depict the western half of the North American continent in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Balance is indicated where there is none. In the foreground, two small boats are in the process of capsizing in the tumultuous waves at the entrance to the bay; the masts of two anchored ships peek above the island; two obscure figures, poss~blyTlingits, gaze upon the scene from a rock.

I ask: Who n ould not be caught by this powerful place p H o w and ~ v h yLvere people maimed and destroyed by it' I don't know the answers to these questions, and I suspect they are the wrong ones to ask. Perhaps there is no need for questions,

just the necessity to experience such a con~pellinglandscape, at least once in a lifetime. W h a t is clear, however, is that the bay is an excellent laboratory in which to stud) the power of^ place. It is a singular pomw and a d a r k place, to be sure-definltelj

not a glowing inountain,

a tneandering stream, or a can!-on n.ilclerness, the types of places

usually selected to depict the in\-igorating anti healing aspects of nature. T h e r e is another side to nature, however, one that we ignore at o u r peril. 01er the last fort\ Iears I h a e experienced firsthand the destructive forces of nature in California, be they earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, torn'~does. or tsunmlis. To

'I

certain extent these phenomena ha1 e shaped o u r culture, made us n h o me are, made m e w h o I a m L I ~ L,lIBay I is a more extreme and ~solatedexample of this shaping process that occurs througho u t the

\\

orlt1.-

California plays a small part in this history and memoir, too. For Lituya Bay is connected to the bay on whose shoreline I have lived since 1077. T h e line of constant fracturing runs through Lituya Bay and Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco, and then loops around the world w h e r e ~ e rtectonic plates meet to grind the grist that is k n o ~ v nas history. But history, especially of a wild place, is not continuous. T h e r e are total blanks and ~vafer-thinlinks in the chain of evidence that runs through this Gothic nature tale. What is missing -Landscape, or nature, as a f k t o r in determining history a n d destiny is a t h e m e I also explore in m y most rccent books. The Seven States o f California: A iVUtunl1 and Human H i i t o q (1995). a n d ,Llagnitude 8: Ea~.thquake.i and L@ d410ngthe San .-indwas Fault ( I 998).

represents the inadequacies of history and ourselves-what

we

can't know and what we don't want to know. 1 F I N D ~ I Y S E L Fconstantly edging toward Alaska. Every Sunday morning, and sometimes during the week, ~veatherand tides permitting, I row upon Tornales Bay. T h e thick, dripping vegetation o n the fog-enshrouded Point Reyes Peninsula, which borders the bay, reminds m e of Southeast Alaska. T h e peninsula is, in fact, advancing toward Alaska with every new seismic displacement. Tomales Bay is no ordinary body of water. It is the surface manifestation of the San Xndreas Fault, which is why it is arrow straight and long and narrow. Like Lituya Bay in Alaska, Tomales Bay was formed by the tremendous forces that push and pull the earth apart at the ragged margins of the North American and Pacific plates. T h e two bays lie athwart the Pacific ring of violent movement and fire, that tectonic trough where the huge continental plates are restlessly joined. Their startling movements cause disruptions of greater or lesser magnitudes that work insidiously upon the h u m a n psyche. In terms of direction, I have one choice: to row toward the northwest. T h e outlet is in that direction. Tomales Bay ends a short distance to the southeast. Should I row far enough north-assuming

that I had the req-

uisite stamina, my skiff was seaworthy, and I was able to portage short distances over land-I

would wind u p on the Fairweather

Fault, which is the crossbar on the T that slices through the terminus of Lituya Bay.

Ko, I'm not in training for that seismic journey. Rather, I note

the

connection

bet~veenthe two bals as I dip my o m Into the

pl,ic~d\vater m d silently glide past curious seals, startled loons,

1 n ho 'ire on their way either north , ~ n dother r n i g r ~ ~ t i n~vaterfon g or south, dependmg upon the s e ~ 5 o n . T h e rh! thmic pull on the o ~ r iss h! pnotlc, and my mind dwells upon the cornmonalt~esof p l ~ c e . Both haj 5 h a e treacherous \.r

JI

e\ at t h e ~ rnarron. entrances;

d both h'ne a single island In thelr nn~dst;both are s u r r o ~ ~ i l d eby varying degrees ofhcights; both are contained within units of the national park system; a n d both have had recent seismic spasms, the two tectomc pldtes pulling clvent! feet Apart in 1906 in

As A result, both are k n o n n a5 e'lrthquake baj S. Others, more scientificall) inclined than I, h a e commented on the similarities. Don Tocher, a seismologist at the Uni\.ersity of California at Berkeley ~ v h oedited the Br~llrtitzqf the Sriimologicul Society o j

.imrricu, visited both bays. H e noted in that publication: "The physiography ofthis valley [Desolation \'alley] in the Fairweather f d t zone is similar in many respects to that of the trough In the San Andreas fault zone between Tomales and Bolmas ba!s In Californ~a." e had to row for my life In Tomales Bay, as the So far, I h a ~ not Frenchmen did in that other bay more than two hundred years

'Ron Redfern documents the similarities bet~veenLituya and Tomales bays, using ivords and photographs, in The .2fui@ng of a Continent (1986), nrhich was the basis for a PRS series.

ago. There is always that possibility, however, given the strong winds that rise suddenly and the periodic sneaker waves that crash upon the bar at the mouth of Tomales Ray.

I don't know what all this means, other than the fact that somehow these two places are yoked together, and I have been drawn to both and fused to each.

I,ITUY.I R~\>.,the principal character in this tale, is con~pelling for its deadly beauty. It is surrounded by a \vildly spectacular and volatile landscape. whose history has been punctuated by the grinding action o f t h e glacial ice that rapidly advances and retreats across its surface; by destructive earthquakes; by freakish giant waves that move with blinding speed to\vard the gulf: and by other lethal Lvaves that unexpectedly burst upon its entrance from the opposite direction. T h e glaciers ha1.e scraped the landscape to bare bone, the earthquakes have toppled mountains, and the waves have periodically decimated the vegetation and a large percent, the time o f t h e Tlingits, have inage of the f e ~ vpeople ~ v h osince frequently visited the hay. Like a n island, Lituya Bay is a separate place. It is \valled off by mountains and the Gulf of illaska from the outside world. T h e only access is by small boat or seaplane; and when it storms or when the fog closes in and the waves build u p at the entrance, that place is locked u p tighter than a concrete crypt. Juneau, the state capital and nearest small city, is one hundred and twenty miles to the east. Yakutat, the nearest village, is one hundred miles to the northwest. To the \vest is the GulfofAlaskn, one of the wildest bodies of water in the world. Fierce, rainwhipped gales from off the gulf, clumped together in successive

9

T H E PI* -ICE.

series of four or five, can close down the coast for weeks at a time. Screaming winds are at their strongest in the late fall and early winter months, with gusts regularly approaching o r exceeding hurricane speeds. 17iolent squalls, known as williwaws, unexpectedly swoop down mountain slopes and rake exposed anchorages. T h e r e is fog year-round; and even if there is no fog, most days are cloudy. O n e of the best descriptions of the liquid aspect of this region is contained in the novel The Sea Runners. Ivan Doig observes: "\'aster stretches can be found on the earth, but not all so many, and none as fiercely changeable. . . . Within this water world the special law of gravity is lateral and violent. Currents of brine and air rule." Ice is a barrier on the other three sides of Lituya Ray. Cutting offaccess on the north is the outfall of the Fairweather Glacier, and on the south is the La I'erouse Glacier, a n even more impenetrable harricr. Ice from the latter glacier spills direct11 ~ n t o 1

'

the gulf, making it the only glacier in Alaska to disgorge its contents directly into the open water. T o the east, toward the populated areas of Southeast Alaska, there are three barriers. First, there is the three-thousand-foot Coastal Range. T h e n there is the rubble and glacier-strewn gutter of Desolation Valley-the

surface manifestation of the Fair-

weather Fault. Towering above all are the frozen wastelands of the Fairweather Range, whose highest peak is over fifteen thousand feet. This range is the southeastern extension o f t h e Saint Elias Mountains. Kowhere else in the world d o mountains tower so far above the ocean. T h e second and fourth highest peaks in North Xmerica lie within this region, as well as a dozen other ~iiountainsthat

THE PLACE.

10

are higher than the highest mountain in the lower forty-eight states.+ This is not a still place. There have been nine major earthquakes since 1899. Because of frequent violent movements along the fault lines, the mountains are rising rapidly-forty-seven

feet

in the 1899 earthquake and fifty feet in 1958. FROMEARLIEST TIMES,Lituya Bay has encouraged animism.

I see the T-shaped bay as a maddened mother-whale attempting to tear herself from the grip of the land. Her flukes are grasped by the stone mountains that rise abruptly from the head of the bay, her open mouth is the narrow outlet to the sea, her teeth are the rocks at the entrance, and Cenotaph Island is her single bloated eye. Despite her strenuous efforts, the leviathan is trapped forever within this rock-ribbed cage. Her frantic thrashings cause the unusual waves. Names and dimensions have been attached to this crazed mammalian presence over the years. The flukes, which span three miles, are Gilbert Inlet to the north and Crillon Inlet to the south. Snaking down from the mountains above, Lituya Glacier empties into Gilbert Inlet, and North Crillon Glacier spills into the inlet of the same name. Splitting them is Cascade Glacier, which drops directly into the center of the tail. The whale's body extends east and west for a distance of seven miles and has a width varying from three-fourths of a mile to

? T h e second and fourth highest peaks are Mount Logan, 19,524 feet, and Mount Saint Elias, 18,008 feet. Mount McKinley, or Denali, 20,320 feet, is the highest peak in North America. hlount Whitney in California, at

14,494 feet, is the highest mountain in the contiguous states.

T H E PL'1CE.

II

two milec.' T h e jaw juts one mile into the gulf and the o ~ e r l a p ping upper lip is La Chaussee Spit, nearly one mile long and five hundred feet wide, with a maximum elevation of twelve feet. T h e spit, a terminal moraine, marks the furthest advance of the most recent glacier three to four hundred years ag0.T Harbor Point anchors the lower jaw. Cormorant Rock, just off the point, and two nearby rocks are the sharp incisors, which have ripped the hulls of a significant number of vessels over the years. T h e navigable portion of the mouth is one hundred and fifty feet uride. T h e glacially scoured bay reaches a maximum depth of seven hundred and twenty feet, enough for the occasional whale seen swimming within it. T h e heights immediately surrounding the fjord-like bay rise steeply to between two thousand and six thoucand feet. There is a maximum tidal range of fifteen feet. With such a tremendous volume of water pouring in and out twice during a twenty-four-hour period, currents at the constricted entrance reach speeds of nearly fifteen miles per hour. Treacherous waves can form instantaneously on an ebb (outgoing) tide, particularly when an opposing wind blows from the gulf. When the U.S. C o a ~ tPilot, the navigator's bible, employed more descriptive language, this was the warning issued for the entrance to the bay:

'Xlore

n c ~ u r a t c l ~the , orientation for the body is approximately

northeast-southn~est a n d for the flukes northwest-southeast. but

I have

sirnplitied it for storytelling purposes. -Chausste, a n a m e bcstowcd by the French, means e m b a n k m e n t o r causeLvny. I t appears as Chnussee o n maps and charts.

T H E PLACE

I2

T h e ebb currents, running out against a southwest s ~ i ~ e l l , cause had topping seas or combers across the entire entrance, through which no srnall boat could live. Small-po\vered vessels inside the bay should keep away from the entrance on the ehh to avoid being swept through. T h e ebb current flo~vs in a Ilarrocv stream for several miles out to sea, and can be seen at a distance of several miles. forming a prominent mark for the entrance. O n the tlooct the entrance is smooth, and with a calm sea local fishing boats often enter, being quickly swept through the center of the channel by the powerful current. Hmvever, no stranger should attempt to enter cxcept at slack \vater. Slack water lasts from

10 to 20

minutes.

T h a t deadly Lvaves emanate from the land as eve11 is a function of the surrounding mountains' great heights, the deep water of the bay, and periodic seismic disturbances, which loosen huge amounts of rocks and ice and pitch them directly into the hay, thus causing a massive displacement of water. T h e immediate results are great splash cvax-es that decimate vegetation, cvildlife, and any humans unfortunate enough to be found in their paths as they ricochet wildly toward the sea. T h e North Pacific, and the Gulf of Alaska in particular, has the most fearsome cvaves in the world. T h e giant wave of 1958 that reached a height of 1,740 feet \vas a \vorld's record.' T h e second highest wave was also recorded in the !gulf. A wind-whipped wave encountered in the open sea north of Hawaii reached a feet, as measured on board the USS Rarnupo on

height of

I 12

February

7,1933.

' For official recordkeeping purposes, types of Lvaver are not differentiated.

T H E PL.ICE.

13

Inland from the coast the dark-green interior is virtually inaccessible. It is guarded by a dense rain forest consisting of interlocking trees, thick shrubs, and the spikes of devil's club plants. T h e vegetation, sbvamps, and coastal streams are fed by 1110rc than one hundred inches of rainfall annually. It is an outsized land dominated by water in all its forms: glacial ice, snow, and rain; rivulets, streams, creeks, and rivers; fogs, mists, vapors, and low clouds. T h e r e :ire bogs, swamps, ponds, pexlands, heaths, and muskeg. I n the dark fall and winter months there are frequent gales. Snow drifts pile u p in the lowland forest ~f Sitka spruce and western hemlock that shades into Xlaska ycllow cedar and mountain hemlock on the hillsides. Lituyri Bay is an easier place for the abundant wildlife than for humans. Black and grizzly bears roam with ease through the forests and u p onto the lokver reaches of the mountains. Their tracks and scat can be seen everywhere. Bear trails are one way to get around in the dense undergrowth. Gray wol~restravel in packs across the open hillsides. Mountain goats live on Billy Goat Ritlgc and elsewhere. T h e r e is a teeming bird population, the bay being a major stop on the Pacific Flyway. O n a bare cliff o n the south side of Cenotaph Island there is a resident colony of some three thousand black-legged kittiwakes. Bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and ravens prey upon the colony, as d o humans with guns. At such times, or shortly before an earthquake, the white gulls sound their raucous :llarrn cry ofkittittake, @ttiwuke, kittiwuke and scatter to the nearby black sand beaches.

HULINS H.II'E E X P E R I E N C E D this place and testified to its power, some with their lives. More, perhaps many more, than

I4

T H E PI..iCE.

two hundred people ha\ e dro\vned

\X

ithin the narrow entrance

and the enclosed bay. An exact detern-m,lt~on of the nuniher of cle,~thsis irnposs~ble,gi\ en the

ag,mes of recordkeepmg o\ er

thousands of years in this isolated region. T h e Tlingits thought o f l i t u y a Bay as a bad place. T h e y had no expres51on to descrlbe blue sL~es,but plent) of M ords co\ ered stormy weather. From the time o f t h e S a t n e ; i m e r ~ c a n sonward, people clung onl) ~ntermittentl>to the edges of thls hostile land, Lvhere the magnetic compass anations are cxtremt. T h e French c m l e to k n o n it s i m i l x l \ , as d ~ others d

h o fol-

lowed in their make O n e such person ~ v a sGeorge T . Emmons, a n X m e r ~ c a nnal a1 I~eutenantand collector of n,lti\ e artifcicts w h o \er\ ed on b o ~ r dt\vo p ~ t r o Tl essels t h ~ phed t the gulf c o x t during the late n ~ n e t e e n t hc e n t u n t h e time of greatest usage

of the ha). Lmnion$ n rote: " O r i g ~ n ~ d the l \ bed of ,l great glacier, ~t has long since been taken posse5sion of by the sea, t h ~ floods t and ebbs through its restricted e n t r m c e n ~ t ah force that i n l k e s it the most justly feared harbor on the Pacific coast." T h e scientist lvho k n e w this rcgion best lvas D o n hliller. For Miller, it represented the extremes of ~vildestAlaska. T h i s was ho\v the geologist described the area shortly before the giant Lvave of 1958: T h e Gulfof Lllaskaarea is one of hold contrasts: within a short distance, the traveler may experience many extremes of environment characteristic of the territory; forest and unclesbrush as dense as any in the southerim~ostpart of Alaska adjoining vast ice-covered lands as desolatc and more arctic in a p p r a n c e than northern .llaska; the fog, heavy rainfall, dense cloutls, violcnt storms, and uniform tempcraturc of the .lleutians; the aridity and extreines ofsurnmer and \vim

T H E PL.l C E .

ter temperatures characteristic of the upper Yukon Valley. Mount St. Elias, rivaling Mount McKinley in height, towers over a coastal plain that, in part, is as flat and swampy as the Yukon [River] Delta. . . . Within the area lie thousands of square miles of wilderness counted among the least known and least frequented parts of Alaska. George Plafker was a n authority on the Fairweather Fault. X colleague of Miller's, Plafker worked in Lituya Bay in the early

r g 50%Some years later he told me: "Knowing what I know now, I get nervous about being there. It is a brooding place with those &ciers, the large masses of rock, and the lour clouds. W h e n it is clear, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. From a geologic point of view, it is a very interesting place. T h e deformation is quite active."

I have emphasized the violence of the bay. In between cataclysmic events, however, there were periods of tranquillity, which lulled the occasional human visitors into believing that they were in a normal place. A fortunate feu,-mostly tain climbers-escaped

unscathed.

moun-

SOMET\I'F.NTY I-EARS .\GO I isited the Tlingit villages of , i n goon and Hoonah, touched t l o ~ v nbriefly at Yakutat, and spent time at the native corpor~ltionheadquarters in Juneau. Xcceptable prehistory, as n.e knon. it. doesn't emanate from a writer talking to such sources or from the unfiltered words of the natives themselves. It comes from professional recorders and interpreters of culturrs k n o ~ v nas ethnographers. Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that produces Lvhat are considered scientific descriptions of cultures. ;CIost ethnographers are acaclemics w h o belie\-e they practice objectivity. H o w ever, they face the basic problem o f h o w to produce scientific texts based on personal experiences. Casual travelers, like myself, produce readable texts from archival research and personal experiences. T h e r e arc, howe\-er, similarities. Scholars w h o have written studies of the Tlingits are, like me, white and middle class and from the lower fortyeight states..' ' T h e preeminent ethnographer of the Tlingits \\.as Fredericn cie IAg u m , :I ;it

of anthropology ,it Bryn l l a l v r College in Pennsylvania.

the other end of the spectrum from d e L,lguna's "real as seashell" '111-

proach to e t h n o g r ~ p h yis Carlos Castaneda's "sorcerer's apprentice" methodology. T h e r e is little agreement a m o n g ethnographers o n h o w to ducument "exotic others."

T H E F I R S T H U X ~ A Ninhabitants of interior rllaska migrated across the Eering land bridge some fifty t h o u s a d to fifteen thousand years ago and then, because it took additional time to penetratc the coastal mountain barrier, settled in the protected interior fjords and channels of Southeast Alaska around nine thousand years ago. T h e r e they hegan to establish, as one anthropologist put it, "the spectacular culture ofabundance that is famous in the ethnographic literature." It took even longer for humans to reach the more isolated coast. T h e earliest inhabitants came on foot along the shoreline, through the A s & River corridor to Dry Bay, paddled northward from Cross Sound, or drifted eastward on the current from Japan. Within the last three thousand years, these Pnleo-Indians were displaced by the Tlingits, who moved in and out of Lituya Bay in accordance with the seasons and the ebb and flow of the glaciers. T h e last ice-free period began in the late sixteenth century. T h e most recent seasonal inhabitants had thus occupied the bay for only two hundred gears before the coming of the first Europeans in 1786. T h e Tlingits, like the bvhite strangers, had their creation myths involving a flood and an immaculate conception that were rich in metaphor. Raven was to the Tlingits what the trickster Coyote was to the Southwest Indians. T h e Raven cycle was at the center of their creation stories, and Raven kvas in\-olved in accounts of natural phenomena, such as earthquakes. T h e r e are countless versions of the Tlingit flood story, depending on which ethnographer heard it from what informant in which year and through what interpreter. What follows is the

oldest recorded erslon,

2s

c o m p d e d b! t h e G e r m a n anthropol-

o g ~ s Aurel t K r u s e , uslng F r e n c h orthograph): Kitkh-oughin-si, the first inhabitant of the earth, had several children by his sister w h o m he killed so that mankind would not multiply. His p o n v extended over all inhabitants of earth and hc punished them for their misbehavior by a flood. However he could not destroy them all, because they saved thernsel! es in boats o n the tops of mountains ~ v h e r e one can still see the remains of the boats and the ropes hy which they fastened themselves.T h e sister of Kit-ki-ositiyi-qa [.iic] separated herself tluring the flood from her cruel brother a n d along a beach met a large and handsome man. ~ v h o lvhen , he discovered the reason for her flight, made her swallo\v

,I

and promised her that she \vould bear

small round stone 3

son \vhom noboil)

could kill. T h e result of this was the birth of Raven. Incest a n d Ral e n v e r e ~ l s assoc~ated o m ith earthquakes. T h e F r e n c h a n t h r o p o l o g ~ s Claude t Le1 i-Strauss related the follon m g T l ~ n g $tor1 ~ t a b o u t t h e m o \ e m e n t of t h e a r t h . A n incestuous brother and sister had to part. T h e brothcr became the Thunderbird \vho is respon,ible for hurricanes and tcinpcsts. Once a year, in the stormy season, he comes back to visit his sister. T h e latter, named .Igischmak in the old sources, Hayicanak in more recent ones, went underground at the top o f a mountain. Since then, she has supported the column on nrhich the earth rests; she likes hu-

T h e tops of the mountaint \vere iJentificd Fair\veather anti Xlount L i n t Eliar.

'1s

thc surnlnits of hIount

THE TLISGITS.

mans who make a fire to warm her, because each time she gets hungry, the ground shakes and the humans burn grease to feed her. According to other versions, the quakes occur when she fights off Raven, the trickster, who, to destroy men, jostles her and tries to make her lose her grip on the column supporting the earth. T h i s story is similar to myths of other indigenous people around the world w h o attributed earthquakes to a susceptible support system manned by an elder, a n animal, or a god.

THF,TL.INGITS LII'EU in a n abundant land and revered wealth, social status, and n w . In this, they were not unlike the French at the end of the eighteenth century, w h o were the first Europeans to come into contact with the Lituya Bay Tlingits. T h e r e are also clcar parallels with the Americans at the beginning o f t h e twentyfirst century. Iron, gold, and financial stocks mere the coins of thr resirctive rralms. O L Iof~ necessity thr Tlingits were principally a water-oriented people, with a culture h:~setl o n the southern arctic tradition. The!. cultivated tobacco but practiced n o other agriculture. T h e y subsisted mainly on fish, sea n~anirnals,and berries. T h e i r only tlorucstic animal ivas the dog. They lived in groups no larger than one thousanti, a n d often n ~ u c hsmaller. T h e acquisition of \l-enlth led to leadership and social standing. \l'ealtli Lvas not only received or taken, it was also given in Tlingit society. \?:ealth given honored a house's dead, since the tlc~adrcceivcd thc spiritual equivalent of the gift.

I t was not the accumulation but the circulation of wealth that ~ i v ewas a cIistingui~hedthc Tlingit culture. T o receive and not L'

gra\e offense; ~t m e m t a rclat~onshlp\vas s e ~ e r e d J., clrcle hroken. Not only the spirltud health of the community depended upon the exchange of

ealth. usuall! d u r ~ n ge l ~ b o r a t eceremo-

nies called potlatches, but also its economic \veil-being. C o n ~ n ~ u n i c a t i obetlveen n the scattered groups among the islands, fjords, and channels of Southeast ;Ilaska Lvas by boat, and they used their slim kayaks antl

flared war canoes very

skillf~~lly indeed. Their totem poles have becorne well known. and their anlmlstlc mC1sks.lodged In the Almerlc,mbluveurn of N a t u r d Hlstory In N e n h r k antl elsen here, g r e x l j ~nfluenced the surrealist and abstract expresionist painters of the t~ventieth century. O f these masks, Lt1.i-Strauss said thcy combined the "contemplatne serenltj of the st'ltues of Chartres m d the E g ) p t ~ n tombs n i t h the gn'lsh~ngartifices of Hallon een." They were m x r l a g e s ofopposltes. llke the plumed serpent of the anclent Xztecs. Their void-like, protuberant. or cylindrical eyes represented a penetrating \-ision.

T h e Tlingits had

:l

strong sense of territor!.. T h e independent

clans Lvcre thc core groups. T h e man! c l m s w ~ t h i nthe seventeen geographically deterinined tribes controlled hunting and fishing grounds, such AS Litu) a Bay. Pou er

\vets

exerased b~ the respec-

t n e clan chlefs and male councds, Lltu) a Ba) first hemg used by the Yakutat Tlingits and thcn coming under the seasonal jurisdiction of the Hoonah Tlingits. Both before and after the first Russi:ms set foot on this coastline in 1741, the different Tlingit factions fought any encroachment on their domains ~ v i t han unbridled fierceness that others came to fear. hlotlves for war ranged from the percened need for re1 enge, to a d e s ~ r efor s l a es m d property, to access to hunt-

T H E TLI'VGITS

21

ing and fishing grounds. T h e r e were specialized weapons: the slave killer, a moose or sheep horn mounted on a stick that rcsernbled a pick; a braining stone, fuvored by assassins; iron a n d copper daggers; ivory or wooden Lvar clubs; spears; bows and crossbows; and, later, firearms. T h e long-haired shamans were central to the act of war. Both priest and doctor, since he had the ability to cure, the shaman Lvas consulted on the most propitious time to wage kvar and on its likely outcome. H e replied with suitable Delphic ambiguity. T h e shaman sent his spirit to spy upon the enemy and to engage the rival shaman's spirit. H e also presided over purification rites and abstinence before battle and accompanied the \varriors in the large Lvar canoes. They raided as they went. Heads and scalps, redecrnablc later by grieving relatives at a price, were taken as trophies by the warriors, ~ v h owere clad in wooden armor, helmets, and protective masks, all as expertly wrought as the metal arrnor of medieval knights. Although mistakes were made in the heat of battle, the Tlingits attempted to avoid drowning their enemies. Death by drowning was the most feared ofall deaths, for it could haunt the living. Land Otter Men, the most powerful and feared supernatural beings in the Tlingit cosmology, were associated with such deaths. T h e Tlingits believed that following death the individual's spirit passed through a ghostly transition phase before reincarnation amongst living relatives as a newborn child. T h e absence of a proper cremation ceremony interrupted the cycle. All but the shamans, whose bodies or heads were wrapped in skins and left upon a wooden platform, were cremated. T o disturb these remains meant sickness or death.

T H E TLI.\'GITS

22

Given the absence of a drowned body, the soul of a clend person Lvas consigned to the form of a Land Otter Xlan, w h o \vandered in a n eternal abyss. T h e Tlingit expression for drowning translated to "is captured by Land Otter Men." Such a spirit, ~ v h oLvas closely associated n.ith the occult powers of the shaman, had a human body. long hair, a round mouth. and the tail of a land otter. They lived in dens in the woods, in underwater caverns, or on spits of land, there being a n easy interchr~nger~bility bet~veenland and \vater for Land Otter Men. T h e y Lvere always referred to as masculine: he appeared and disappeared, he ate r3\v food, or his voice could be identified by a stutter or a whistle. T o the Tlingits the land otter. whose whistling cry \vas well known, n.as transitional, b e t v w x two ~vorlds,anomalous, and thus unpredictable. T h e otter li\ ecl beyond the limits of society in the wild streams and remote forests bordered by devil's club. T h e North American land or river otter, Lutm cunudellxijpa-

c2fic.u,\v35 knowm as .@cka to the Tlingits. T h e ethnologist Frederica tie Laguna wrote: "Tlingit mythology is full of tales about d these creatures and everyone. myself included. has h ~ some personal experience of a sudden or startling encounter with a land otter." T h e r e were stories of ~ v h i t emen encountering Idand Otter Xlen on the outer coast. D e Laguna related the following clccount in her three-volume study of the Tlingits:

A

big storm struck

near Yakutat. Tcvo \i.hite men \Yere drowned and another Lvas found barely alive on the beach hy a friend in an airplane. T h e n a r r x o r said: "Butch Lvas landed by him and trying to help him u p to the plane. Bill refused to go. H e saw so many slim mans

THE TLISGITS.

23

around him. H e saw them himself. Those slim mans were talking excited. T h a t was Land Otter Men." These spirits were quite prevalent in Lituya Bay, where there had been many drownings. T h e r e were dangers from corporeal animals living in and around the bay as well, and none was greater than the threat posed

by the many grizzly or brown bears, with w h o m the shaman's power, or ye,$ was equated. "They say it looks like a bear, but it grows," said a Tlingit of a shaman's yek. " T h e more tribe you have, the more people in the tribe, the bigger [the ye41 is." T h e bear crest was the emblem of an important kinship group that visited the bay. It was emblazoned on totem poles, stones, hides, faces, garments, and baskets. T h e r e was a duality about the bay. For the Tlingits, Lituya Bay was the most feared place in all their vast territory. But the bay also had the advantages of being a harbor of refuge on an otherwise inaccessible stretch of coast. It offered the defense of distance from enemies and was rich in natural resources. T h e Tlingits used the bay as a summer hunting and fishing camp. Their settlements, not all inhabited simultaneously, were grouped around the entrance on both shores. T h r e e hundred of them might be in the bay at one time, with many more coming and going. T h e r e were sandy coves, where canoes could be beached, and quick access to the rich offshore fishing grounds, abundant fresh water, firewood, berries, and tranquillity-most of the time.

T H E N~,

~H O 1 U7T LEY.RKII\'C;, disaster would strike, and Lituya

Bay would become a fearsome place.

Land Otter Men \yere the principal factors in many of the Tlingits' stories involving the destructive tvaves that en~anated from both ends of Lituya Bay. T h e particulars of the stories vary, and they are, for the most part, n.ithout time elements, thus confounding the western desire for a single, chronological story line. What fol1on.s floats in time. O n e day ten canoes belonging to a visiting clan departed from the bay. There were eight men in each canoe. They were either on their \vay to make Lvar on the Chilkat Tlingits or on a trading expedition. Before leaving they knew something terrible n.as going to happen because hlount Fairlveather had given a sign.+ They killed a bald-headed man and cut his heatl off at the mouth of Chilkat River. T h e young ~varriorsgot excited: the heatl was in their \vay; thcy t h r e ~ vit overboard. T h e hairless m a n was transformed into a hairy Land Otter Alan. Big Ra\-en, the shaman. asked: "LVho threw that bald-headed head overboard?" H e pointed to each of the young warriors: ‘‘‘lieu?" "You)" "LYas it

To repair this untoward act, they wnt one of the warriors to the enemy camp to be killed; but he died on the bvay of a heart attack. D e L a g u m n-rotc o f h l o u n t Fxirn.e,ither: "Its appearance gl\e, promise of calm scas o r \yarns of storms, a n d it is therefore called 'the p,icldlerj' mountain by the n'itives."

A

T l i n p t n.onian told d e Lagun,i, "Rut that

mountain that the! go by-they

see something that give them \yarning.

T h a t showed lyhen a storm 1s cornmg up. That's the only thing the! travel by." &h' ire

whalers lvorking the offshore Fainyeather Grouncis in the mid-

nineteenth century believed that \vhen the nlountain cleared, s e ~ e r a days l of good lveather would follolv.

25

T H E TLI.YGITS.

T h e shaman of the Chilkat T l i n g ~ t s Wild , Currents, wa5 a n r gered by the loss of the head, so he upset the boats on t h e ~ return to L i t u y , ~Bay. T h e Indian source told the ethnographer: "They b e l l e ~ ethat is the cause of ~t all, because the bald-headed m a n was k ~ l l e dThat's . why the doctor gets mad at us. I t was to ~ n , i k e it even he upset the canoes." T h c r e \vas also a s ~ m p l e re x p l , ~ n , ~ t ~ for o n the drolvnings: "They were In L ~ t u l aRay for a rest. T h e y struck ~tat thc wrong t ~ t l eT . h e blg rock got them." g g hbrothers. t Regardless of the cause, all were lost, ~ n c l u d ~ ne ~ O n e brother made the sound of a frog '1s he drowned. A s15ter,

u ho \vitnessed the drownmgs, composed some songs bout ~ t . W h e n the water was smooth, she would s ~by t the e n t r m c e to the bay and alternately cry and sing. O n e song went: "Your grandfathers were watching the paddler's mountain. Close by, your hands miss it."

X third version of the story has the Russians being enticed into the bay by a trail of riches that floated out to sea from the overturned canoes. A Tlingit kvoinan said: "You k n o w that Lituy:~

Bay. Those people drowned over there. And all that good stuff washed out to sea-sea

otter skins wash out to sca. And those

halibut skin bags, it floats. T h e Russians get it. That's why the Russians came to Lituya Bay." T'ariants of this story told by other Tlingits speak of seven or e ~ g h tcanoe5. W ~ t ha maximum of ten cdnoes, a

minimum

of

se\ en, and ten men to a canoe, the death toll would have been between seventy and one hundred, thus making it perhaps the single greatest tragedy in a bay that specialized in that particular genre. T h e French arrived just after another mass drowning. In I 886,

26

T H E TLI-YGITS

one hundred years after the French entered Lituya Ray, a Tlingit chief told Lieutenant Emrnons the following story: Before the coming of the white m a n , when the natives had no iron, the Chilkat and Hoonah Tlingits made long canoe trips each summer to Yakutat to trade for copper. O n e spring a large party under the command of three chiefs headed north. O n entering Lituya Bay, four canoes were swallo\ved by the waves, and all their occupants, including one of the chiefs, were drowned. While the survivors were mourning the loss, tulo French ships entered the bay. T h e Tlingits, through sign language, told the French of the most recent tragedy. In this vrrsion, seven canoes n w e lost. Lapkrouse recorded it thus:

E\ er) da)

e s m fresh cmoes enter the ba\ ; and c\ er) day

hole L 111,igesdeparted, anti g ~ erplace to others. These Indsms seemed to ha\ e c o n s ~ d e r ~ bdre'ld le of the passage, and ne\ er \ entured to approach it, unless ~t the slack nater of

flood or ebb. By the help of our gl.isses cc11ed, t h ~ t\.ihen the!

n ere

ne

d~stlnctljper-

bet\\ een the two polnts, the

c h ~ e for , at le'lst the prlnclpal Intllnn, 'lrose, stretched out 111s arms to\r,rril\ the sun. to n hlch he clppearecl to ~dtlrecs'1

prayer, ~vhilethe rest paddled awa!, \vith all their strength. In the coursc of our inquiries respecting this custom, \ve learned, that se\ en ver!, large canoes had lately been lost in this passage, lvhile an eighth escaped. This [the eighth canoe] the Indians ~ v h oLvere saved consecrated to their god, or to tht. memory of their comrades. Ifre salv it by the side of a [tomb], which no douht contained the ashes of some who lvere shipvrecked.

T H E TLI.VGITS.

27

A drawing was rnade of the eighth canoe by an artist who accompanied the French expedition. It was a large canoe with wooden frames and a skin cover, not like the local dugout canoes. Such canoes could hold twenty men. Given that between four and seven canoes were lost in the combers at the entrance, I would arbitrarily assign fifteen men to each offive canoes, which would yield a death toll of approximately seventy-five. Again being conservative, perhaps one hundred and fifty Tlingits died in these two separate incidents. Other drownings went unrecorded, and thus were lost to history. T h e mwes became myths communicated in symbolic form. O n e legend of the waves at the entrance to the bay was de. h e tenpicted on a carved wooden pipe collected by E n m ~ o n sT inch-long pipe was used by the Hoonah Tlingits at important ceremonies, such

:IS

to honor the dead.

Squatting at one end of the pipe was a frog with glittering abalone shells for eyes. At the other end a bear slave sat on his haunches. They held the surface of the bay between them and agitated it, much like a blanket being violently tossed. T w o tria n g ~ i l aprongs r represented the waves. Sinking beneath the waves Lvas a copper canoe with two occupants. T h e frog, who represented the spirit of Lituya Bay, was also the crest of a clan that intermittently used the bay and a figure in Tlingit mythology that was greatly feared, since it had the same amphibious characteristics as Land Otter Men. T h e frog captured people and was associated ~ v i t hdeath. In the legend that the pipe illustrated, a monster of the deep, knoum as K a h I,ituya, which translated "Man of Litupa." lived in an underwater cavern near the entrance. H e resented any in-

28

THE. TLI\ G I T S

trusion into his domain.

lookout was stationed top h h n t

Famveather. W h e n essels ,ipproxhed the entrance to the b q , a warning was g11en, and the frog figure and the bear s l a ~ e grabbed the s u r f x e of the water m d

iolentl! shook it. Those w h o en-

tered the ba! were s e ~ z c dand m d e b a r sl'u es. T h e r e were f e n e r t J e s concernmg the p a n t nra\ es, perhaps bec,iu,e the! n e r e far less frequent. D~srespectshown to Land Otter 3Ien could cause such n a i es. T h e Litu! ,l BJJ T l i n g ~ t sboasted t h they ~ n e r e not d r a ~ dof things t h ~ stuttered t or d ~ not d \peak correctly, character~cticsof Land Otter hlen. T h e s h a m m , n h o 1n ed d o n g the Xlsek RI\ er, heard of this blasphemy and predicted that a disaster would befall his neighhors to the south in Lituya Bay. Soon thereafter tm o m e n from L~tu!a

Ra) went hunting on a

nearby h111 m d s m a great a a l a n c h e or flood descend into the bat. "Thls flocrd

1% as

caused b! an a\ alanche w h ~ c hpoured Into

[the ba! J and filled ~tup, forcmg the \vater out." according to one 1 ersion.

T h e hunters returned to t h e ~ camp r and found the hod-

~ e of s t h e ~ rrelatn es m d frlends h m g i n g from the branches of trees. T h e y belle\ ed that the massn e wa\ e had been caused by angry L m d Otter LIen. o f t h e ba! n as recorded by 'an ethnogT h e T l i n g ~ t sperception ' rapher, w h o made the follon.ing notation concerning his informant: "J. E. says that Lituya Bay is a bad place."

T H EF I R S T EURC)PE;\K EKCOL'NTEK with Alaska set the precedent for later disappearances and deaths. I'itus Bering, a Dane in the employ of the Russian czar, and Alexis Chirikov, who commanded the Russian packet boat Suint set offon a voyage ofdiscovery in I 741. They sailed together P~ul, froin Kanichatka in two vessels and then became separated. Chirikov spied land on July 15th, one day before Bering did. "Thus was the great discovery achieved," wrote Hubert Howe Bancroft in his History of;ilus&. Chirikov noted in his log: "The

land was f ~ d of 1 mountains, some covered with snow and all with trees." Three days later, and somewhere to the northwest, Chirikov sent a boat ashore containing eleven men armed with muskets and a small brass cannon. They were to reconnoiter what seemed like an opening to a bay and were given precise written instructions. They should ascertain who lived there, to whom the land belonged, the size of the population, the form of government, the location of valuable ores, and the nature of the vegetationall within twenty-four hours. T h e sailors were to treat the natives kindly and distribute trifling gifts, including ten rubles. O n landing, they were to build a large signal fire. Where exactly did they go ashore? Historians who specialize in the exploration of the Northwest are split on the location.

3"

THE FRE.\'CH

Some sal Litu)a Baj and others Lis~ansklS t r u t , M h ~ c hl ~ e sselenty mdes to the south between l k k o b i and C h i c h ~ g o fislands. C h l r ~ h m ' sdescr~ptlonfits both places.l T h e boat m d ~ t crew s fnllecl to reT h e r e w'is n o s ~ g n a fire turn. Bad v, eather obscured the lantl. T h e Sumt Paul wore a path In the se'l, s'1111ngon m d off shore O n J u l j z j r d smoke n a s spotted. as mere h u m a n figures. X11 that n ~ g hat c m n o n boomed at regular Inter\ nls from the mother s h ~ pand ,

CI

l m t e r n \\as hung In the rlgglng.

O n Jul) 24th the

\T

eather \\as f'ur m d the sea c ~ l mA second,

smaller boat was dlsp'ltched carpenter and

,I

U ith

four m e n aboard, including a

caulLer. The1 v, ere to r e p m the first boat and

then return ~ m m e d ~ a t e l \ salled close enough to l m d to see the surf hreakT h e S u ~ nPaul t ing upon the rocks Xgaln, there n ,IS no p r e x r a n g e d \ignnl T h e cannon boomed all nlght; there

\\,IS

,I

fire on the beach

s be seen settlng out from shore. T h e next d , ~ )tmo b o ~ could T h e Kuss~anssalled hopefull\ tom ard them before ~t \\as ascert a ~ n e dthat the t ~ v ocmoes were filled

lth nati\es. T h e larger

canoe ho\ ered protectn elr In the bacLgrounc1 T h e smaller one .ipproached the e~ght!-foot 1eswl. T h e four I n d ~ a n sstood and shouted, "Agal, dgai

"

The d o r s

d ~ dnot k n o n \z hat to make of such strange nolscs. (Scholx5

'Thc American F. A. Golder (1914)tirst said Litu!.n and then (1922) Lisianski. T h c E n p l i s h m m 1. C. f3c.c~plehole(rqh;), ( h p t a i n James Cook's biographer and cditor o t his j u u r n A , combined the t w o x p a r a t e place5 into one and then quotctl n description of Lituya i 3 ~ yfrom the 15:s.Cmijt Pilot. G l y n n Karratt ( 1 9 8 1 ) ~1' Nexv Z~~11:indprofessor of I i u s i a n , aaid

Litu\-a. (See Sources for the hill citations.)

THE FRBSCH.

3'

would later translate them as meaning: "Come here," or "Follow us.") T h e Russians implored the natives to come closer, but the Tlingits paddled away so quickly that the slow ship could not catch them in the light airs. There were no more small boats to send in pursuit. Two canoes later appeared momentarily. That night there was another fire on the beach There was nothing else to conclude but t h ~ the t dark continent had swallowed the fourteen pale men. Chirikov thought that the Tlingits had either killed or captured the sailors, as did a later Soviet historian. Others believed they had drowned in the

roiled waters of the entrance to either the bay or the strait. O n July 27th, nine days after the first boat disappeared, the remaining Russians departed for K m ~ c h a t k a not , having set foot on shore. They were low on water m d had no means of landing to refill their w'iter casks; nor, perhaps, was there much enthusiasm for continuing what seemed like a doomed venture. Chirikov and his crew returned safely. Bering died in a shiplvreck on the homeward voyage, but the survivors feasted on sea otters and returned with the pelts, which they sold for a handsome profit, thus foreshadowing the near extinction of the species in coming years.

T H EN E X T F L E E T I N G European contact with Southeast Alaska occurred in early May of I 7 7 8 Captain James Cook, commanding H M S Rejolution, sailed past Litupa Bay on what was to have been his third voyage around the world. O n board was a young navig:itor by the name of Williarn Bligh, who kvas later to command the Nourzty. (The tattered remnants of Bligh's and Lapkrouse's expeditions would later

cross paths in the distant South Pacific.) Captain Cook had a vague desire to rescue Chirikov's men, should they still be alive, but he sailed too far off shore to be of much help. It npasexcellent weather. T h e r e \ v e x gentle breezes, and the

Kejolutiorz and its sister ship. the Diicot~ety,crawled north\vestward along the coastline. Cook \\.as concerned about a leak o n the Keiolution and flirted with the notion of seeking a protected harbor. Fortunately the leak n-as not serious, or his crew might have encountered the same fate as Chirikov's men. Sailing off the coast. in the

I

icinity of Lituya Bay, Cook ob-

served: "These mountains lvere n.holly covered n i t h Snow from the highest summit dmvn to the Sea Coast, some fen. places excepted n.here \ye could perceive trees, as it were, rising their heads out of the Sea." H e supposed such trunkless trees " g r o ~ v on low land or islands bordering upon the Sea Coast." Cook gave Cape Fairlveather its name to counterbalance nearby Cape Foulurathcr. H e also named Llount Fainveather, ~ v h i c htolvers above the cape-both

F a i r n w t h e r s being mis-

nomers, to bc sure. In the vicinity of l h k u t a t Bay,

A

boat was put over the side

mith carpenters aboard to repair the leak. Cook then sailed on to his destiny. MTithina year he would be hacked to death by natives on the island of Hawaii.

I T 1% 45 T H E ;\(,E OF R E -\SO\

2nd the late Enlightenment; m d

the French, b a n g the most enlightened ofall Europeans, nietlculously p l m n c d W hat the) called tht: "greatest of all \oyages." T h e y were lookmg. '1s others had before them, for the North-

T H E FRE,VCH

13

west Passage, attempting to establish a presence on the illaskan coast, and ascertaining the possibility of a fur trade with China. Never mind that it was near the end of the great era of exploration o f t h e Pacific Ocean, and there was little left to tliscover. King Louis XVI, slow at governing but a demon at geography and other crafts related to ocean voyages, personally shaped the journey and dictated its specific objectives. T h e king had selected a T oydge of explorat~onto ensure his place In h~story,not knowmg that hlstory h ~ other d plans for h ~ m . H e chose J e a - F r a n p s d e G'ilaup, comte de Lapkrouse, to cornmmd the exped~tlon.X product of the m m o r nobdity from the south of France, Lapkrouse had joined the navy at the age of fifteen. His career alternately stagnated and took great leaps forward. T h e advances w w e aided by friends at court and acts of d'irlng-some

of substance, some not.

At a great cost of lives to the crews of his two ships, Lapkrouse captured a couple of minor trading forts in Hudson Bay during the Revolutionary War and returned home a hero. T h e French reveled in the daring raid and individual glory, no matter the real cost. T h e r e was even a phrase, furiufi.unceje, that described such exploits. Plump, socially indecisive, and ambitious, a capable commander who Lvas skilled in the bureaucratic infighting of theunclen ~kgirne,Lapkrouse might have remained outside the history books had it not been for the eventual disappearance of his expedition in the South Pacific.

' "Is there a n y news of Lap6rouse:" the king asked on thc eve of facing the guillotine in 1793. No. there was none.

T H E FKE.\-CH

34

T h e explorer had to operate under

:I

number of royal con-

straints. Fainthearted Louis was adamant that there should be n o deaths, ~ v h e t h e amongst r the crew from sickness and accident or to the Noble Savages from guns and swords. T h e king subscribed to the prevailing theories of thephiloiophez; such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who conjectured that native peoples lived in a state of perpetual grace. Nothing was spared. T h e stores Lvere voluminous, the personnel the best, the input of the learned societies encyclopedic, and the two hundred pages of instructions highly detailed and exceedingly daunting. T h a t francophile Thomas Jefferson \vas in Paris at the time, and some twenty years later he used these preparations as a model for dispatching I,e\vis and Clark to the American West. Scientists and artists, the best France had to offer, made u p one component of the expedition. T h e commantier chose mostly former shipmates to accompany him as cre\v members. T w o of LapCrouse's relatives, less qualified than the rest, Lvere among the officers. Kapoleon Bonaparte, then a student at the Ecole Militaire, where two members of the expedition taught, expressed interest in the voyage; but another student was selected, and history continued as we know it. T h e king and his designated explorer venerated Captain Cook, although England was France's traditional enemy. But Lapkrouse felt compelled to distance himself from the English navigator. While in Hawaii, xvhere he paused briefly before sailing on to Alaska, Lapkrouse commented on Cook's violent death: "It is more natural for navigators to regret the loss of so great a m a n than coolly to examine whether some imprudence on his

T H E FIZESCH.

35

part might not in a manner have compelled the inhabitants of Owhyhee to have recourse to a just and necessary defense." In his subsequent dealings with native populations, the same could have been said of Laperouse.

THEwIr\'r) \I'M F.~VOR.\BLE all the way from the Hawaiian Islands, and during the fourth week the sailors on board L'Astro-

iubr and Lu Boujsole spotted the first signs of land.' Large whales surfaced around the two ships, ducks alighted on the water, and the balls anti long strands of bull-whip kelp lay entwined on the surface. At four o'clock the following morning, two days after the longest day in the year of 1786, the fog lifted and a majestic chain of mountains covered with snow burst with blinding light upon the two hundred and twenty-three sailors, marines, and scientists. T h e voyage, u p to that point, had gone quite smoothly. T h e r e had been n o illnesses o r accidents during the first eleven months. But there were discomforts. T h e vessels, both poor sailors, were harely one hundred and thirty feet long and mwe crammed with pro\ isions and equipment for a four-year journey around the ~vorld. They had rounded treacherous Cape H o r n in January weather that was reminiscent of July off the coast of France. After clearing the cape, they stopped at Concepcihn, Chile, relocated inland

:\n astrolabe is an instrument for dctcrrnining latitude. Boussole means compass. T h e problem of accurately fixing longitude hacl just been s o l ~ c d

hy the English, ancl the French proudly carried two of Cook'a instruments.

THE FREICH

j6

after a tsunami spawned by an earthquake had devastated the port city. At Easter Island they vien.ed the "rude busts." In XIay they sailed past the two snow-covered \.olcanoes on the island of H a ~ v a i iand stopped for a day at Alaui, [vhere they ohservetl the ravages of venereal diseases imported earlier by other European visitors. T h e y sailed northward and on June zjrtl the glistening nlountains rose precipitously in the distance. T h e Frenchmen should have been o\ crjoyed to sight their destination after being at sea for so long. Instead, there was a sense of foreboding. T h i s craggy land Lvas not gentle France or the soft tropics. T h e sea broke violently against a tableland three or four hundred feet high. T h e r e was n o place to land. Rack from the cliffthe plain n x s blackened, as if scourged by fire, and kvas totally lacking in verdure, as Lapkrouse phrased it in his journal. From the hare plain rose t o n ering walls of ice and snow. In their first few days off this strange coast, these men of reason seem to have been confused and indecisive. They advanced and retreated gingerly, as if they sensed \vhat lay ahead. Xs they drew closer trees came into view, and it seemed as if it might be possible to find shelter among the lo\vlands they took to he islands. T h a t proved to be a p x s i n g chimcra. T h e r e were

no islands here, just surfcrashing on the broken mainland. Suddenly, the sky darkened. Lapbrouse thought it prudent to haul the wind, which set toward land, and mrlke avay until better conditions prevailed. It cleared. They took advantage of the brief respite to m a k e

observations with their state-of-the-art instruments. They were s of their principal always fixing latitude and longitude; it ~ v a one

instructions. They located their physical presence with great precision in unknown waters. T h e fog rolled back in, but on June 26th the weather was brilliant once again. T h e ships, always sailing within hailing distance

of each other, coasted southeast searching for an entrance into the p r i m e ~ a land l and a passage through it. They anchored in a dead calm at what appeared to be the mouth of a river, a channel, or a bay. T h e lantlforrns were ~ ~ n f m i l i a r . Three small boats nw-e sent to investigate the river, the channel, or the bay. It turned out to be Yakutat Bay, but LapCrouse's men only brushed its outer fringe, where the sea broke violently on a shore littered with bleached-gray driftwood. They saw no landing place. With the barorneter falling rapidly, Laperouse made the signal to prepare to get under way; the two ships ran to the southeast to gain an offing. T h e mind blev. hard for twentyfour hours. O n June 28th the barometer rose and the weather cleared. They took bearings on distant objects, cornpared results, and determined latitude and longitude. Fog shut down the coast again on June 29th, but it cleared the next day. They stood toward the land with all sails set and spied a deep bay, most likely Dry Bay near Cape Fairweather. ( I n closer inspection the bay turned out to be the delta of what seemed like a great river.+ TWO channels disgorged milky glacial water into the ocean. They anchored and boats were dispatched. T h e r e was a sandbar across the river's entrance, on which the waves pounded re'The Alsek.

38

THE FRFI CH

Icntlessl~.T h t boats shuttled b ~ c h and forth for fi\ e or

SIX

hours

lookmg for 1' break in the n a\ es T h e r e \ \ A S none X pe,~cefulIagoon 1'1) t a n t a l ~ z ~ n g bl \e h ~ n dthe lme of bre&ers. T h e Frenchm e n s m r smoke and concluded that thr land u a s ~ n h a b ~ t e d . T h e ) \velghed anchor and a g u n ran along the co,~stto the , lookmg, for an entrance Into t h ~ 1n1s southeast, l o o k ~ n galnays penetrable land

h e r t the) could tahe on mood and water and

unpack m d mount

SIX

cannons for use ag.unst the plr'ltes ex-

pected in the C h ~ n aseas, m h ~ t h e the\ r \\ere bound. At

2

I'.M

the next da), after p'15slng LIount F a r \ \ e a t h e r , they

s p e d an ~ n l e t behlnd , m hlch there appeared to he "a \ e r ) h e b q . " The! steered ton"~rd~ tand , three boats

\l

ere sent to probe

the opening From the se,l Lapkrouse 1 ie\r ed a long, rock) s p t , which he termed a mole-a

stone

\I ,111

t h ~ protected t ,I h x b o r

Behlnd the s p t 1'n a calm b a ~ so . n ~ d "that e nature seemed to hd\e constructed In the remotest p,lrt of h m e r ~ c a.I h,~rborr t sembllng t h ~ of t Toulon," L,~perousenoted, "but on

,I

glgmtlc

scale, adapted to her dmpler p o n ers " T h e b o ~ returned s and the officers made f a o r ~ b l ereports. T h e ) had gone In and o u t of the e n t r m c e s c era1 ~ tlriies n 1t11 no dlfficult!, m d ~tn a s deep. "Thelr report dctermlncd nic to steer for the pC1ssage,"nrrote Laptrouse In 111sl o u r n d , \\ h ~ c hhc I \ n c \ ~ \ V ~ Sdest~netl for

the c\ es of his klng and thc n orltl ,-\Sthe\ [ire\\

closer, the! "percen ed some sal ages, n ho rn'lde slgrls of f r ~ e n d s h ~ p .b~ t l l s p l ~ ~ ~and n g u a \ ~ n gn h ~ t enl,lntlcs . ~ n dtiitfcrent shms " -

T h r quot'ltions come from the 18o; L o n d o n cdition. the l:inguagr of rvhich comes closer to e~okingLaperouse'j t i ~ n eth,rn t h ot'thr niclre lit-

T H E FKE,VCH.

39

In the early evening the wind lessened, the tide turned, and it u.as impossible to make headway against the surprisingly strong ebb current. T h e ships were pushed out to sea, where they anchored for the night. Laptrouse was uncertain what to d o next: " T h e ~ ~ e rapid ry current, of which our officers had made n o mention, abated my eagerness to put into this harbor." H e thought it might be a trap:

"I Lvas sensible that a forced stay in a harbor, the departure from which required a combination offavorable circumstances, would be considerably detrimental to the success of my expedition." T h e ships stood off and on all night. In the morning of July 3rd LapCrouse hailed Fleuriot d e Langle, the captain ofL'Ajtrolube and a long-time comrade, and they conferred. They again questioned the officers, who held firm to their favorable opinions. They had stemmed the current several times, they said. D e Langle thought this was the place for their explorations to commence. "His reasons appeared to m e so good, that I hesitated not to yield to them," said the commander. LapCrouse had hitherto been following in the tracks of Cook and other explorers, but this bay was his very o w n discovery. H e was exultant. "This port was never seen by any navigator," he exclaimed. "So that it appears to me if the French government entertained any project ofestablishing a trading post on this part of the coast of America, n o nation could have the least pretext for opposing it." L a p h o u s e declared: "I give this place the name of Port des Francais."

eral, and quite thoroughly footnoted. 1994 Hakluyt Society edition. O n factual matters, I have checked the former ,igainst the latter.

But the French \vould on11 he a passing presence, ,lnd the n m l e did not adhere. T h e multitude of names attached to the hay attested to the transience of its occupants and their inability to come to trrms lvith this difficult place.T ..it 6 ;\.\l.

the tn.0 ships, lvith L'Aiit~.ol~be in the lcad. headed

in a stately niunner toivard thc entrance at ~ v h a nt x s judgccl to be the end of the flood current. T r ~ m~111,111bouts, acting as huo)ss, Lvere st,lt~onrd~t e'lch rock) p a n t . T h e r e n as a h l l o n ing n ind. "Er er) thing appe,ired to be in our far or," s a d LapCrouse. T h e n m d sutldenl) shifted abeam. T h e helmsmen thren. the ships into the wind and frantically attempted to come about and retreat, hut thcy Lvcre caught in the grip of a strong current thst sucked them into the hay. Narrowly missing the rocks off Harbor Point, the) mchored lust inslde the cntr'lnce on rock> ground. Lapirouse u,rs h g h t e n e d . "During the thirt) ! e x \ that I hare follon.etl the sea I n r l er s m tm o essels so n a r b a n g lost, and to har e experienced such ,In er ent at the \ erge of thc n orltl n ould h,n e enhmccd o u r rnl~tortuncs;but v, e h d n o n e\caped

t h ~ clmger." s T h e t ~ d ekll r a p i t l l ~and , t h t Letls scr'lpcd the rock) bottom. T h e iolcnt outgoing current tr~ggeti. ~ tht. t ships and thre~tenecl to drLlgthem onto the rocks, or back through the entrance.

' T h e Tlingits called it In's, meaning "the lake ~ v i t h i nthe point [or spit]." After the French departed, it was k n o w n for a time a Frenchman's

Bay o r Skeeter Bay, Skeeter being the phonetic equivalent of the Tlingit n a m e for sea otter. It was alro called Port Francais, Skector, Entrada de ;iragon, Zaliv L'tua, Altona, Alituya, Ltooa, Ltuya, Ltua, L e t u y ~Latuya, , a n d Lituya bay.

THE FKEYCH

4'

T h e wind freshened. T h e sailors flew about at the various commancls. Additional anchors were thrown out. T h e stern of

Ln B o M . ~ .sbvung ~ o ~ toward the rocks. LapCrouse ordered all sails struck, and the anchors finally held. O n e of the officers reconnoitered the island, which seemed like an ideal spot on which to locate :m observatory, a n d rowed a chort d ~ s t a n c ebeyond it. T h e narrow bay was choked w t h floating Ice. Laperouse commented: " H e saw the entrance of two \ ,15t channels, but, being eager to return with an account of what he had done, had not explored them. F r o m this report our imaginations pictured to us the possibility of penetrating into the interior of America by one of those channels." T h c inythic

Passage that many had sought in vain

for so many years non7seemed near at hand.

THE TLINGITS H A I ) T H E I R o w n version of the arrival of the two French ships, as told Inter to Lieutenant Ernnions: While mourning the recent drowning victims, two s h i p came into the bay. T h e people did not know byhat they mrcre, but believed them to be great black birds with far reaching n,hite wings, anti, as their bird creator, Yehlh, often assumed the form of a raven, they thought that in this guise he had returned to earth, so in their fright they fled to the forest and hid. Finding after a \vhile that no harm came to them, they crept to the shore and, gathering leaves of the skunk cabbage, they rolled them into rilde telescopes and looked through them, for to see 'u'ehlh with the naked eye was to be turned to stone.

As the sails came in and the sailors climbed the rigging and ran out on the yards, in their imagination they saw the

great birds folding their hvings and flocks of small h l ~ c k messengers rising from their bodies and flying bout. Tllesc. latter they belie\.ed to be crmvs, and again in fkir they sought the shelter of the woods. O n e family of warriors, bolder than the rest, put on their heavy coats of hide, the \j,ootlen collar and fighting headdress, and, armed with the copper knife, spear, and ho\v, launched a xvar canoe. But scarcely had they cleared the beach when a cloud of smoke rose from the strange apparition follo\ved by a voice of thunder, which so demoralized them that the canoe \vas overturned and the occupants scrarnblecl to the shore as hest they could. N o w one nearly blind old warrior gathered the people together, and said, that his life 1v3s far behind him and for the common good he would see if l'chlh \vould turn his children to stone, so he told his slal-es to prcpare his canoe, and, p ~ ~ t t on ~ nagrobe of the sea otter. he embarked and paddled seawarcl. But as he approached the s h ~ p the \ sla\es lost heart and mould turn b ~ c k and . all dejertecl him m e t n o, w h o finallj placed h m cilongs~clr H e c l m b e d o n board, but b a n g h a d ) able to d ~ s t ~ n g u ~ s hohjecth. the Inan! black forms m o \ Ing about stdl appeared as crows, and the cooked rlce that the) set before him to eat looked like Lvorms, and he feared to touch it. H e exchanged his coat of fur for a tin pan and with presents of food he returned to the shore. W h e n he landed the people cromded about surprised to see h ~ m all\ e, and they touched h m m d smelled of h u n to see ~f~t \\ere real11 he, but the! could not he persudded to eat the strange food that he had brought to them. After much thought the old man u 1' s con\ lnced thdt it n a s not Yehlh that he had gone to and that the black figures

T H E FKk.YCH

must he people, so the natives, profiting by his experience, visited the ships and exchanged their furs for many strange articles. It bvas at this time that two boats were lost at the mouth of the hay and many of the white men were drowned.

F I R \ T T H I h G 4 Ll'EhT IVFLL. T h e T l i n g ~ t srecened the E u -

ropeans w t h the ceremony t h ~ demonstrated t the) were ready to trade. C e r e m o n ~ e s\\ere

J

large part of the Tlingits' culture,

lust '1s thej were for the French. A n in[ ocmon m d singlng. followed b) dmcmg-dll the proper responses-preceded

~71th

f o r m d trading n ~ t he q u J s .

KTlth ~ O C L I I mferiors, m a k e r people, or those w h o did not rets w z e d what spond In the proper manner, the T l ~ n g ~nierel) the) co\ eted.

ii I'lrge cmoe, the type thdt \vas used in w,lrfare, sl~ppetiout from the encampment near the entrmce and made toward Bo~lj-

d e . T h e canoe was hewed from red cedar and held

tn enth -one

men. T h e high prow m d the cur\ ed stern were undercut like 1' gondola's; but the graceful canoe m as astly m o r t seaworthy than the I E n e t ~ a ncraft, thought the Europems. Such a n elegmt \ essel, some fort) -fi\e feet in length-th,~t bemg roughly o n e - t h ~ r dthe length o f L u Bou~,ole- belonged to a house chief. T h e p d d l e r s dipped t h e ~ ox-S r in unison, and the l essel shot forward. As the canoe c l e a ed the w x e r , J t ~ l figure \toocl in the stern and graduallj rused h ~ arms s to the sky. "Refore he came on board, he appeared to address

1 '

praler to the

sun. H e then made 1' long h'lrangue, n h ~ c hwas concluded b! a kind of song, h j no means d~sagree'lble,and greatly resembl~ng the chant of our churches," Laptrousc ohsen cd.

T h e canoe circled the ship, and the chief coulcl be seen more clearly. Hc n.as a bearded m a n , with long hair that cascaded do\vn his hack. His nose \vas pierced by a copper ornament, and he wore

3

conical helmet atop his head. His leathery skin h u n g

in folds. Hc ltrolietl disgusting to the French officers a n d sailors. \\.h0 crossed :11lti recrossed the deck in order to keep the circling craft in sight. T o the Tlingits, the strangers appeared to gibber avay like angry cron.5. T h e canoe e \ entuall!. came alongside. T h e chief ancl his entourage climhetl up a rope ladder to the deck o f t h e ship, and the representatives ofthe tnw races appraised one another. LapCrouse

had instructed his cren. to display respect. T h e Tlingits ~vaitcd,but there \\as no response. So ~ v i t hn a n ing conviction, they launched into the last part of the cercmony that initiated trade bet~veenequals. For nearly an hour they danced in grave steps that matched the rhythm of their voices. 1,apCrouse then distributed sniall gifts anti dismissed them, giving the Tlingits no chance to reciprocate.

T H E LYFL( o \ ~ I \ ( , PIRT 1 L)tT31KTTLl, and the French mo\ ed their ships to a safer anchorage on the far side of the island.

.A In ell trade soon commenced. L,lpCrouse as aston15hed h) the trading skills of the I n d ~ a n s n . horn he compared n ~ t h"the ablest b u ~ c r In s Europe." Trading

1\35

sport, entert,unrnent, and

s u n I\ a1 for the Tlingits. I n d ~ m In s c,lnoe$ clustered round the t n o ships. T h e French sought otter skins. T h e T l i n g ~ t straded for hatchets, adzes, and bar iron. Skms to generate wealth; iron to aid Lvarfare. T h e item\ flew back m d forth ~ v i t hgreat a\ ldit! between the two races.

THE FRESCH.

45

Laptrouse foresaw the start of a great trading enterprise in sea otter furs. Missing the playful qualities and anthropomorphic characteristics of the otters, he went to the heart of the matter for the French: "The sea otter is an amphibious animal, better known for the beauty of its skin than by any accurate description." The two frigates-their

three masts and numerous spars be-

ing but puny matchsticks set against the massive mountainsswung slowly back and forth on their anchors. Their squat bulks were at the mercy of the sharp winds that swept down off the mountains or roared in from the gulf and the strong tidal currents that rushed past the island. The French erected an observatory on the north side of the island and set about determining their exact position. Sailmakers, coopers, and the smith were sent ashore, and tents were erected on the beach for these craftsmen, who set about repairing the torn sails and water casks that had begun to leak. Much to the disgust of the Tlingits, the island soon became a bustling French colony. LapCrouse thought they would be secure from theft on the island, but the Tlingits were soon pilfering from the French. The island was as easily accessible to them as it was to the occasional grizzly bear that swam across the channels on either side. As u7as his wont, LapCrouse underestimated his native adversaries: "Experience had taught us that the Indians are great thieves; but we did not suspect them of sufficient activity and perseverance to carry into execution difficult and tedious schemes. In a short time we learned to know them better." The French had proved themselves inferiors and had infringed upon the Tlingits' territory and their rights to natural resources-such

as fresh water, firewood, and fish-without

$3

T H E FREAVCH

just compensation. T h e Indians retaliated. They set about taking everything in sight. Ever mindful of the instructions of their king, the French attempted to gently dissuade the Tlingits from stealing, a crime that was extremely offensive to the Europeans and was punishable by imprisonment in their own country. Lapkrouse established the Spartan law amongst his men, meaning that the person robbed was punished. H e called a group of Tlingits together and had a marine fire his musket into a sample of their wooden armor that he had purchased. T h e ball pierced the vest. H e fired off a cannon to d e m onstrate that objects could be destroyed from a distance. Next, an expert marksmen shot birds from the sky. These demonstrations of armed might were for naught.

A few nights after the observatory Lvas established on the island, a small band of Tlingits landed on the opposite shore and, in the words of Lapkrouse, "creeping on their bellies like snakes, almost without stirring a leaf," crossed the island through the thick woods the French had been unable to penetrate during the day.

A dozen marines were on guard duty around the small encampment. T h e Tlingits glided past the perimeter guards and into the very tent of the observatory, where two officers slept. They then crawled back past the guards, carrying with them a silver-mounted musket and the officers' clothes that had been carefully folded beneath their pillows, the better to preserve the creases. But the greatest loss, when the burglary was discovered the next morning, was the sheet of paper on which all the astronomical observations had been made since their arrival in Port des F r a n ~ a i s .

T H E FRENCH.

47

THEFRENCHMOI'ED off the island and hastened their preparations for departure. Shore parties under the command of armed officers took on wood and water. The summer season was fast approaching, and Laptrouse wanted to visit Monterey in Alta California before the onslaught of winter storms and their departure for Asia. But first they needed to explore the headwaters of the bay in order to ascertain whether "we might penetrate into the interior of America." Laptrouse added, "We conjectured it might lead to some large river, taking its course between two of the mountains, and originating from one of the great lakes north of Canada." One of those "lakes" was Hudson Bay, with which Laptrouse was personally familiar. Laptrouse and de Langle provisioned two boats and set off with a retinue of officers, scientists, and artists. T h e two crews rowed across the smooth water toward the head of the bay, which LapCrouse described as "perhaps the most extraordinary place in the world." He added, "To form an idea of it, it is necessary to conceive a basin of water, unfathomable in the middle, bordered by peaked mountains, of great height, covered with snow, and without one blade of grass to decorate this vast heap of rocks, condemned by nature to eternal sterility." The calm was so great that the voice of a man or the cry of a gull could be heard from a great distance, as could the crack and splash of huge chunks of glacial ice falling into the bay. They turned left into what they labeled a cul de sac on their detailed map of the port. T h e enormous glacier that spilled into Gilbert Inlet from the mountains and ended in precipitous cliffs that towered above the small boats dashed any hopes of an easy entrance into the interior of America. Some officers boldly

48

T H E FRENCH

mounted Lituya Glacier, at great risk to themselves, "but they could only perceive one continued mass of ice and snow," said LapCrouse. It was a miracle no Frenchmen were killed that day. A large block of glacial ice fell into the deep bay. A wave swept across the water, lifted one of the boats, and deposited it upon the land. Fortunately, Laptrouse had been standing some distance above the water. T h e boat was repaired and returned to its proper element. T h e disappointed explorers rowed back to the vessels, "having finished our voyage into the interior of America in a few hours," commented LapCrouse rather dryly. Never a true believer in the existence of a Northwest Passage, but certainly not one to ignore the instructions of his king, Lapkrouse also employed irony to describe the purchase of the island. T h e next day an imposing Tlingit-whom

Lapkrouse iden-

tified as the chief, although he knew no such single authority existed-accompanied by a large escort came on board La Boussole and offered, at least that was the convenient interpretation, to sell the island to the French. "Tacitly reserving, no doubt," Laptrouse said, "to himself and the other Indians, the right of robbing us upon it." Crossed out in the original journal was the added phrase: "as much as they could." Although doubting the chief's right to conclude such a negotiation on behalf of the diverse population, but allowing himself to be persuaded by the presence of so many Tlingits, who surely, he reasoned, must represent a consensus, Laptrouse concluded the deal for what would become known as Cenotaph Island with some red cloth, axes, adzes, iron bars, and nails.

THE FRENCH.

49

H e thereupon took possession of the small island in the name of the king of France. A bottle with a note recording the transaction in official language was buried, as were bronze medals that had been struck before they left France. Except for some furs, later sold at very low prices, the island was their only tangible, albeit brief, acquisition in the Northwest. T h e chart of the bay was completed, and wood and water were replenished. There was nothing left to do but take soundings at the entrance and then quit this forlorn land. Laptrouse emphasized what had already been made clear in order to soften what came next: "In short, we considered ourselves as the most fortunate of navigators, in having arrived at such a distance from Europe without having had a single person sick, and without an individual of either crew being attacked with the scurvy."

BUT ALAS,Laptrouse lamented, "Here the greatest of misfortunes, and most impossible to be foreseen, awaited us." Following the tragic events of July 13th, a lachrymose Laptrouse retreated to his ornate cabin and penned the following passage: It is with the most pungent sorrow that I proceed to give the history of a disaster a thousand times more cruel than disease, and all the other events incident to long voyages. But I submit to the severe duty I have imposed upon myself of writing this account; and I am not ashamed to avow, that my sorrow for the event has a hundred times since moistened my cheeks with tears; that time has not effaced my grief; and that every object, every moment, recalls to my remembrance our loss, at a time when we had so little reason to apprehend such a disaster.

50

THE F R E T C H .

T h e day began in a pleasant enough manner. LapCrouse organized a bird hunt and breakfast outing for his officers with the additional purpose of taking soundings at the entrance to the bay. It was a brilliantly clear morning, one of those rare, tranquil days that delude the casual visitor into believing that all is peaceful. T h e French sailors were in good spirits. Soon they would leave this bleak landscape and set sail for sunny California, the domain of the relatively civilized Spaniards. T h e three officers who were in command of the three small boats were the cream oftheir country's aristocracy and navy. They had medals, campaigns, and backgrounds in common. Charles-Gabriel Morel d'Escures, a commander of warships, second officer of La Boussole, thirty-five years old and impulsive, commanded that ship's pinnace and the expedition of pleasure and mild work. In his boat went Pierre de Montarnal, a g a ~ d de e

la marine and a distant relative of the childless LapCrouse, who regarded him as a son. Lieutenant Charles Boutin had charge of La Bou~jole'sjolly boat. T h e son of a powerful intendant desfinances, the stolid Boutin had taken part in the capture of Grenada and the battle of Savannah, been captured by the English, commanded two ships of war, and received the Cross of Saint Louis. Edouard de Laborde de Marchainville, an ensign in his midtwenties, commanded L'Astrolabe's pinnace. X gentle man well versed in naval sciences, he was the scion of a financial dynasty with close ties to the king. With him on this fateful day went his younger brother, Midshipman Boutervillers. It was the first time that de Langle had permitted the two brothers to go together in the same party. Their fervent pleas that they be allowed to shoot and have breakfast together under the trees won his consent.

THE FRENCH.

5I

LapCrouse was quite mindful of d'Escures's zest for adventure. The night before the outing he called the lieutenant to his cabin and handed him written orders for the next day. H e then related why he had formalized the order. Much offended, d'Escures cut his commander short. "Do you take me for a child? I have commanded ships of war!" Holding up his hand, Lapkrouse calmly explained that he and de Langle had sounded the passage two days before, and that the officer in charge of the other pinnace had passed so close to the point that the boat's bottom scraped the rocks.

"I know young officers think it a feather in their caps to mount the parapets of the trenches during a siege; and the same spirit leads them to brave rocks and breakers in boats," Laptrouse continued. "But please consider, my dear sir, such inconsiderate boldness might be attended with the most fatal consequences in such an expedition as ours."

H e read the lengthy orders out loud, first to d'Escures and then to Boutin, who had been summoned to the cabin as a witness. Lapkrouse was careful to copy the detailed instructions in his journal. D'Escures was "expressly ordered" not to approach the passage if there were any breakers. The best time to pass through the entrance was at 8:30 A.>I., he was advised, when the water was slack. LapCrouse scribbled in the margin of his journal: "and at 7:15 he was drowned." "After instructions like these, could I entertain any apprehensions?" Lapkrouse queried his king and posterity. The island blocked the view of the entrance, so it was not until the three boats emerged from behind it early that morning

52

THE FRESCH.

that the three officers could perceive the line of breakers that sealed the passage. T h e boats left perfect wakes in the placid water, which mirrored the white peaks and the dark forest. T h e still water was deceptive. Unbeknownst to the excursionists, the powerful current was speeding out of Lituya Bay. D'Escures's pinnace was in the lead, Boutin's jolly boat was next, and hlarchainville's pinnace brought u p the rear. D'Escures set a fast pace. W h e n Boutin approached, d'Escures pulled ahead. Much to the annoyance of Boutin, d'Escures repeated this childish maneuver w e r y time the other boat neared. T h e sailors and marines rowed while the chief pilot heaved the lead and called off the marks, ~ v h i c hwere duly recorded on the chart. At 7:15 the lead pinnace halted about a thousand feet from the entrance, allowing the jolly boat to catch up at last. Marchainville's pinnace was three-quarters of a mile distant. Ascertaining that the breakers were impenetrable, d'Escures made his decision. H e called to Boutin, "I believe we can d o nothing better than go to breakfast, for the sea breaks terribly in the passage." Boutin replied, "I think so too; and I fancy we must content ourselves with fixing the limits of the sandy-bottomed bay on the larboard of the entrance." Another officer cvas about to shout something to Boutin from dlEscures's boat, when he happened to glance at the land. Boutin quickly followed his gaze. T h e land was flying past. T h e distance to the pounding breakers, which could now be heard more distinctly, had been halved since they had stopped but a few moments ago.

T H E FRENCH.

53

Their concern, however, was not great. They thought that they could easily stem the current and row to shore. But to no avail. They were held in an implacable grip that sucked them into the narrow passage. The two boats plunged from smooth water into a froth of broken waves. The oarsmen were splashed by dollops of water as they continued to pull in unison toward shore. Spent waves broke over the gunwales. The growing roar of fresh breakers obliterated shouted commands. Discipline began to give way to confusion. Boutin threw an anchor overboard, but it did not hold. Unattached to any stanchion, the anchor and line slid overboard. The two boats were tossed about; the oarsmen were thrown from side to side. They could not get a firm bite on the water, and their rhythm disintegrated. From a disciplined military unit, they collapsed into a band of badly frightened men. Faces swiveled about. Masks of obedience gave way to oaths and screams of terror. Mouths opened, but sounds could not be heard within the howling maelstrom. The sailors gripped the gunwales. An oar was lost. Two, four, five more oars were swept away. The pinnace slithered sideways to the breakers. D'Escures raised his arms, as if imploring God. Cold, numbing water poured into the boat. Boutin's crew quickly found themselves in the midst of the largest waves, which almost filled their boat, yet it still answered the helm. Boutin was able to hold the stern toward the breakers, and this gave him hope.' While poised atop a wave, he saw the

'Nowadays this maneuver is well known to boatmen who row through whitewater rapids.

54

THb FKESCH

other boat sixty to eighty yards away, half submerged and minus its crew and oars. Boutin looked about and sa\v that the waves formed a n unbroken chain across the entrance. If they could row a hundred yards to the east, there was a slight chance of weathering a lessdangerous sea. Between the solid sheets of ice-cold water that inundated them, the rowers pulled with desperation toward shore. By 7:2jten minutes after d'Escures's decision to make for shore-they were out of danger. T h e shivering sailors bailed their boat, then looked about. X11 seemed hopeless. N o swimmer could possibly overcome the current or survive the violent agitation of the frigid water for more than a few moments. Nevertheless, they went in search of their comrades. They rowed with great trepidation in the quieter water. Every few moments they sakv an object float by and feared it might be a body. It proved to be either a seal, an otter, or drifting seaweed. W h e n the jolly boat \vas lifted high atop a large s~vell,even when Routin was hoisted upon the shoulders of a fellow officer, they could still see no sign of the other boats or the sailors w h o had been in such high spirits just a few nlornents earlier. T h e y passed through the remainder o f t h e entrance on calmer swells. Boutin spotted figures on shore waving what appeared to be cloaks. H e thought it was hlarchainville and his crew, who were waiting for slack water to come to their rescue.

At 8 4 j there were no breakers across the passage, just a heavy swell. Boutin searched in the direction the ebb current would have carried d'Escures a n d his men, but saw nothing.

THE FRENCH.

55

At 9 o'clock the flood current set in and, with a depleted crew to consider and the possibility that they might not be able to enter the passage on the full force of the flood, Boutin headed back into the bay on smooth water. H e kept toward the spit. When he drew near, he saw that it had not been Frenchmen who had waved, but rather Tlingits wearing fur capes. The natives made signs that two boats had sunk in the entrance.

A saddened Boutin hoped that he had misunderstood, or that the Tlingits had lied to him. When he reached the ships on the other side of the island at ro o'clock and was told that Marchainville had not returned, he concluded that his brave shipmates had attempted to save their comrades and perished. "Assuredly a glorious death," concluded the lieutenant. Upon reflection, Boutin was puzzled by the great force of the current that had so quickly and silently grasped the three boats.

It had been d'Escures's plan just to approach the entrance, he insisted to Lapkrouse. Where they had paused should have been distance enough to ensure their safety. To see the land flying by with such "extreme velocity" had greatly astonished him. Why, just two days before, neither Laptrouse nor de Langle had had any problem going out with the ebb and returning with the flood. There must have been "special circumstances" on the 13th of July, he concluded. Soon after Routin's return, de Langle came on board La Bow-

jole to confer with Lapkrouse. De Langle related that the two brothers had been in one of the lost boats. Laptrouse said his relative was anlong the missing. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the two comrades.

56

T H E FRENCH.

Laptrouse then lashed out at d'Escures's poor judgment and at the voracious savages who surrounded the two ships at that very moment and, like a Greek chorus, were chanting news of the drownings and presence of the new Land Otter Men. Although he would have preferred to reply with a broadside, Lapkrouse answered in the only way he could, considering the king's wishes. H e showered the Indians with gifts and raked them with his pen. "Nothing could be more powerful in awakening their humanity [than gifts]," he noted. "They now hasten to the shore and spread themselves over both sides of the bay [to look for bodies]." Laptrouse dispatched boats to search for survivors; none were found on the black sand beaches. Twenty-one men had been drowned within moments, balanced against not a single life lost in eleven months. His mood veered toward the dark side; bitterness and depression replaced self-assuredness. "NOTHINGR E M A I N E D FOR US but to quit with speed a country that had proved so fatal," wrote Laptrouse. But there were appearances to consider; he owed the families of the missing men a few days' search. His countrymen would not understand "that the fury of the waves in that place left no hope of their return." The expedition lingered. T h e weather turned against the French, and a few days stretched into seventeen before they could depart that cursed place. T h e furies were unleashed. Strong gales raked the bay from the gulf, and fierce winds tore down from the high peaks swathed in thick clouds. The ships were tossed about and barely held their ground.

T H E FRENCH.

57

The French constructed a monument of stones upon the newly named island. Underneath the cairn they buried a bottle with an account of the tragedy. It was five days before they could move from behind Cenotaph Island to an anchorage nearer the Tlingit settlement in the northwest corner of the bay. Should any of the twenty-one men have survived, the thinking went, their comrades could more easily spot them from this vantage point near the entrance. Then contrary winds sealed the ships in the bay for another twelve days. They waited. For hours on end they watched the entrance of the bay through a telescope. Laptrouse noted the great respect the Tlingits displayed for the entrance to the bay. On July zznd there was news. A canoe pulled alongside La Boussole, and four Indians handed up some pieces of wreckage from the boats and made signs that they had recovered a body. Lapkrouse dispatched a search party consisting of three officers. The Tlingits were inundated with cheap gifts. They promised to lead the officers to the body, or this was what the French believed them to say. Considering the Indians' great fear of Land Otter Men, it was doubtful whether they wanted to get anywhere near such an object. There was a rough trail south along the coast that alternately bisected the thick forest and black sand and boulder-strewn beach. The round boulders were particularly difficult to walk across because they were slippery. The officers lagged behind, and soon the barefoot natives had outdistanced them. They called. The Tlingits reappeared, were given more trinkets, and disappeared again-this time for good. The officers returned and made their report. Laptrouse wrote: "We were not

58

T H E FKE,YCH

surprised at the account they gave us of the stratagems of the savages, who in knavery and theft were unparalleled." W I T H T I M E O N T H E I R H;\NDS, the French explored the bay

and its immediate surroundings more fully. They managed to desecrate two Tlingit burial grounds in the process of gaining insight into native customs. They termed a burial ground near the village on the south shore of the bay a morai, giving it the Polynesian designation. One of the artists sketched the scene. T h e more agile sailors and scientists hoisted themselves atop a wooden platform supported by four posts. They opened a box. Inside they found cremated ashes and a mummified head, most likely that of a shaman. T h e head was tightly wrapped in skins. They unwound the skins, thus exposing the head to the deleterious effect of the moist air. After carefully examining the head and taking measurements, they replaced it "with scrupulous exactness, adding presents of iron and beads." T h e Tlingits were uneasy, an understatement since witches were known to scatter similar small items about the dead, thus endangering the living. T h e trinkets were placed on two successive days and were twice removed, demonstrating the Tlingits' supposed greed to the French. At another burial site the explorers found more cremated remains and the surviving canoe from the recent disaster at the mouth of the bay. They surmised that the natives had most likely come from elsewhere, since the sealskin-framed canoe did not resemble local craft. They measured the covering, sewn with the

T H E FRENCH.

59

exactitude of European workmanship, and briefly considered taking it back to France. It was left out of respect for the dead. The living, as well as the dead, were ravished. The French repeatedly descended upon the villages, and the Tlingit men rushed to hide their wives, described by LapCrouse as "the most disgusting beings in the world." Those crew members "not of the most delicate taste" copulated with the women in the open after they "were overcome with presents," thus sowing the diseases that would decimate the Tlingits in coming years. While Laptrouse had little use for the natives, to the point where his French editor felt it necessary to excuse him on the grounds of his recent loss, he thought the place idyllic. There was no better location to establish a trading post and fort, he noted. Nowhere else in the Pacific Northwest could furs be gathered in such great quantities. A single battery of four guns could command the entrance and put any invasion force to route. The fort, magazines, warehouses, and lodgings could be constructed on Cenotaph Island, which had sufficient wood, water, and soil to cultivate. The surrounding land was a virtual cornucopia. Wild celery, sorrel, lupine, wild peas, yarrow, succory, and bastard foxglove were gathered and put in soups, ragouts, and salads. The lowlands near the bay were filled with raspberries, strawberries, and gooseberries. The rivers abounded with trout and salmon, while one-hundred-pound halibut were caught in the bay. Mussels lay in heaps upon the intertidal rocks. There were plentiful amounts of game in the forests. Laptrouse had the good fortune to visit the bay at the height of its seasonal fecundity. An account of winter was lacking.

60

T H E FRENCH.

Also missing was a description of a recent natural phenomenon of gigantic proportions, but how were these Europeans to know of such things as the rapid movement of sea-level glaciers or giant waves? Although the evidence was writ large upon the bay, it would take scientists another one hundred and seventyfive years to decode it. Two sketches by the landscape artist who accompanied the expedition, Ducht de Vancy, show a neatly shaved tree line along the lower reaches of the hills surrounding the bay. The exactitude of the cut on the north side, which matches the steady grade of the lateral moraine known as Solomon Railroad, strongly suggests a very recent, rapid retreat of the glacier that filled the fjord. There is another possible explanation. Since geologists estimate that the last glacier to scour the bay retreated two hundred years before Laptrouse's visit, conceivably the bare rock and dirt depicted in the drawing indicate the very recent passage of a giant wave.

THEWEATHER TOOK a turn for the better, and the French departed with haste. LJAstrolabe and La Boussole weighed anchor on July 30th and, aided by a favorable breeze and current, cleared the entrance with no difficulty. Lituya Bay would not immediately release the two ships, however. The winds were light and varied, and fog enveloped the vessels day and night. They hovered just offshore. They sailed upon a ghost-like sea, and land was but a fleeting mirage. Laptrouse named a cape in honor of Chirikov, the Russian navigator whose men had disappeared.

THE FRENCH.

61

O n August 8th they finally lost sight of Mount Crillon, which towers above Lituya Bay.' S A I L I N GSOUTHW.4RD they could see a mountain, perhaps

Mount Shasta in northern California, in full volcanic eruption. After passing by the mouth of Tomales Bay and Point Reyes in dense fog, the two ships anchored off the Spanish settlement of hlonterey in mid-September. They were the first foreign vessels to visit Alta California and left an invaluable record of the region's natural surroundings and the Spanish colony's human institutions. From hlonterey Laptrouse wrote his minister a carefully worded letter to accompany the portion of his journal that recounted the events in Lituya Bay. "I make bold to claim that no other plan of voyage has been so vast," he began. "You will be happy to tell the King, My Lord, that so far not one drop of Indian blood has been shed, nor is there a sick man in the Bous.iole." Then, backing into the matter, he described the tragedy. Lap h u s e recounted the loss of his beloved relative and two distinguished officers, adding, "as for M. d'Escures, his foolishness and his pretentious vanity, pitting himself against rocks and currents that are beyond all human efforts, were the cause of our misfortunes." They left California and sailed on and on across a trackless ocean. Three months later they made a perfect landfall at Macao,

iMount Crillon was named for Lapkrouse's friend the comte de CrilIon, a general. Crillon's home on the Place de la Concorde in Paris would become the luxurious HBtel de Crillon. Subsequently, a glacier, lake, river, and inlet in the Lituyn Bay region would receive the same name.

62

T H E FKE.VCH

where they were briefly reunited lvith their naval counterparts and obtained news of home. T h e anticipated arrival of English ships bearing furs from the North~vesthad depressed the market, so what they had obtained in Lituya Bay was sold for a pittance. T h e best furs were sent to Queen Marie Antoinette. Sailing from Macao to Manila, then northward along the coast of Asia, the French believed they ivere the first Europeans to explore the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. From the Kamchatka Peninsula, \vhence Bering and Chirikov had set sail, Laptrouse dispatched his young Russian interpreter to the court of Louis XI'I with correspondence and his journals. Jean-Baptiste Rarthtlemy d e Lesseps's travels across the Siberian wilderness rated its own published journal. D e Lesseps, uncle of Ferdinand d e Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal and the first to attempt to construct a sea-le\.el canal across the Panamanian isthmus, would become one of the fortunate few who departed the voyage in time to survive it. Turning south to Australia, the French hurried to beat the first English colonists to K e w South \h7a1es. They anchored off the Samoan island of Tutuila in December of 1787 T h e voyage had been extremely taxing; their tropical desires were heightened; their guard was down. T h e r e were incidents with the stoutly built natives, and finally a pitched battle erupted in what became known as Massacre Bay. Twelve Frenchmen Lvere killed; twenty were severely wounded. T h e r e was no estimate of the number of Samoans killed and

wounded. D e Langle, Laptrouse's constant shadow in L ' L 4 ~ t ~ . ~ -

labe, was among the fallen, a n d his bitter commander squarely placed the blame for the tragedy upon his dead comrade.

T H E FRENCH.

63

They reached Botany Bay eighteen years after Cook's first visit and six days after the arrival of an English fleet bearing a human cargo of seven hundred convicts. The English soon moved, finding a better harbor at what would become known as Sydney. T h e French fended off native depredations in Botany Bay and apologetically returned escaped convicts to their nearby captors. A robust Laptrouse had left France at the age of forty-three. Now, nearly three years later, he had lost all his hair and teeth and muttered about "secret presentiments." L'Ast~olubeand La B o u ~ sole departed on March ~ o t h 1788, , from Australia and headed toward Tonga. The two vessels and their crews were never seen again by European eyes.

FR~ N C EBECAME E M B R O I L E D in the madness of revolution. But that did not prevent the equivalent of a modern media frenzy evolving around the tragic disappearance of a national hero. Lapkrouse was most often depicted as having been shipwrecked in a tropical paradise, where he was surrounded by comely native women who ministered to all his earthly desires. T h e reality, of course, was quite different.'

? T h e Laptrouse legend was later recounted in Jules \'erne's Twentjl

Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Captain Nemo opens the panels in the salon of the submarine h'uutilus m d shows the professor Lapkrouse's final resting place on a coral reef. Fish swim through the wreck of a vessel carpeted with living flowers. "'Ah! it is a fine death for a sailor!' Captain Nemo says. 'A coral tomb makses a quiet grave; and I trust that I and my con~radeswill find no other."'

64

THE FRESCH

In 1791, Captain Edward Edwards of the British navy sailed past an uncharted isle that would become known as LTanikoro Island. Here the two ill-fated expeditions, one English and the other French, nearly touched. Edwards was searching for Fletcher Christian and the remainder of the Bounty mutineers?having already captured fourteen on Tahiti. H e sabv "very thick smoke" rising from the island but did not pause in his relentless search that also ended in shipwreck. Captain Edwards was later called a "blinkered horse" for missing this obvious signal. Two years later the two rescue vessels that had been dispatched from France, having been delayed by revolution and timidity, slipped past the same island in the Santa Cruz group. T h e captains of both ships and half their crews died of various illnesses. T h e vessels were seized by the Dutch, who were at war with the French. Finally, it was a rogue Irish sea captain financed by British mercantile interests who located the remains of the French expedition on the reef off LTanikoroin 18z7.' Peter Dillon arrived on the island shortly after the last French survivor had died, those preceding him having fallen victim to shipwreck, battles with the natives, and sickness.

A French vessel, hastily renamed L'htrolabe, set sail to confirm the finding. Half the crew was stricken with a mysterious fever on the island, most probably malaria. With a sick captain

* T h e Vanikoro reef on which the two ships were wrecked achieved a measure of scientific fame. It is described in Charles Darwin's monograph

The Stvucture and Dijtvibution of Covul Reef;: ( I 842).

T H E FRENCH.

65

in command, the skeleton crew barely managed to extricate itself from the island that had claimed Laptrouse's expedition. Captain Dumont d'urville, who later discovered the famed statue of L'enus de Milo, wrote of their escape: "And so, despite our exhausted condition, after several anxious minutes when we saw that we had cleared the reefs of this ill-fated island, all of us experienced a surge of joy similar to that felt by a prisoner who has escaped the horrors of the most inhuman captivity."

C H A P T E R 1..

THE

L I K EM U C H

QSSIANS

OF THE HISTORY

of other frontier lands, and the

American West in particular, the pattern in Southeast Alaska was to probe tentatively, exploit commercially, explore scientifically, and then settle. For the remainder of the century the Spanish, French, English, Americans, and Russians probed the coast and one another's intentions. I n the waning years of the 178os, some thirty foreign vessels hovered at times off the coast of Alaska. Their purpose was, according to a Russian report, "to attempt to cultivate the acquaintance of the tribes allied with us and, in the long run, to make them tributary to their country." T w o years after the departure of the French, the Russian galLot Three Suintj entered Lituya Bay and anchored off Cenotaph Island. T h e mission of the Russians Lvas to secretly bury any evidence of prior possession and thus preempt the claims of other European nations. T h e Russians found many tools, implements, and an anchorall embossed with the royal$eur de lii. T h e Tlingits told them that foreign vessels had visited t ~ v oyears previously. T h e r e is no mention by the Russians in their accounts of the mound of stones, the two buried bottles, and the bronze medals on Cenotaph Island, which either the Tlingits or the Russians themselves may have removed.

T H E K L'SSJA.VS.

67

T h e Russians left their marks in other parts of the bay: a buried copper (or iron) plate bearing an inscription stating "Russian Territory" and a wooden cross. They claimed the bay for Catherine the Great and accepted what they conveniently interpreted to be a n offering of fealty from the chief, whom they suitably reimbursed.

X lively trade in furs and iron ensued. O n e stormy night the Tlingits stole a n anchor belonging to the Russians, w h o did not linger, noting "the dangers of this place." They departed without incident at "full tide."

A memorandum describing "Ltua Bay" was forwarded to Catherine in 1790. It stated: It is inhabited bp the Koloshes [Tlingits] who have been brought under Russian domination. One emblem and one board, number 19, were left there. T h e toyon [chief],as a token of his loyalty, made a gift of one sea-otter. A11 these islands and bays, as well as those not enumerated here but mentioned in the first memorandum, abound in timber and other resources. As for the inhabitants, they have already become more attached to the Russian traders than to the foreigners who used to visit them.

A more fulsome report by the governor-general of the easternmost Russian province, w h o oversaw Alaskan affairs, elaborated on the advantages of Yakutat and Lituya bays. T h e empress was told: T h e first bay, called Yakutat Bay and the second, called Litua Bay, are endowed by nature itself not only with favorable location but with abundance in everything. Both of them are distinguished by the vastness of their areas and the

68

T H E RI. S S I A S S

number of their inhabitants. . . . In spite of everything, even of opposition to their savagery. they [the resident Tlingits] all with one mind, as a result of the affable attitude toward them on the part of the Company, came not only to understand the grandeur of Your Empire but to give themselves up into complete obedience to it. T h e fur trade flourished, for a time. T h e Russians explored one bay after another, and their Aleut hunters followed with an armed escort and speared, clubbed, and shot the sea otters. T h e waters of Southeast Alaska ran red. Lituya Bay was not spared; nor, in return, did it spare.

A strange character-an

Englishman, seemingly a merce-

nary, and perhaps a spy-made

a brief appearance on the scene.

His name varies, and he is an elusive presence in the archives, surfacing here and there, as does the history of Alaska and Lituya Bay during this interregnum. T h e sources are not wholly reliable and are sometimes contradictory, but they can be forged into a story, and that is what counts. Although a navigator and shipbuilder by profession, James George Shields served in the Russian military service for a time.' H e then returned to the sea as a sublieutenant for the Russian mercantile interests, wfho were seeking to develop the Alaskan fur trade. Shields oversaw the construction of the packet-boat ~Yorthetx

Eagle in Okhotsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. H e then sailed the vessel to Kodiak, where Alexander Baranov was in charge of

'The Russian-;\merican Company's historian, P. A. Tikhmenev. gives Shields's russitied name as Iakov Egorovich Shil'ts.

THE R C S S I A S S .

69

the company's interests. O n board were all the manufactured items needed to build a ship. The Russian colonists were henceforth expected to be self-reliant in shipbuilding. Shields helped with construction of the first ship built in the colony, the threemasted, seventy-three-foot Phoenix. Baranov did not trust the foreigner. The instructions from his home office said not to alienate Shields, but to ply him with "promises of rewards," so that he did not "seek his fortune elsewhere." It was good advice, for Shields had vainly sought to make contact with the English explorer George Vancouver, who was sailing along the gulf coast at this time. Shields was dispatched eastward in the Northern Eugle. The historian Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote, "Rumors of the existence of unknown islands, rich in seals and sea-otters, in various parts of the new possession had been afloat for some time." The Englishman was sent to find these riches. Shields was also to ask any Indians that he encountered along the way if they, or neighboring tribes, held any Europeans as slaves. "It was thought that some of La Pkrouse's men might have escaped drowning, only to fall into the hands of the savage inhabitants of the country," Bancroft explained. With Aleut slaves manning a fleet of four hundred and fifty bidarkas that accompanied the heavily armed Northern Eagle, Shields entered Lituya Bay in July of 1796, almost to the day a decade after Lapkrouse's visit. T h e mother ship and its accompanying swarm must have seemed like an invading army to the Tlingits. The resulting carnage was commensurate with the large numbers of hunters. Nearly two thousand sea otters were killed in a few days. Shields described Lituya Bay in a report to Baranov:

70

THF K L S S I 4 \ S

T h e entrance is most tiangcrous; the strong currents, rushing over hidden rocks occasion rapids which almost entirely conceal the channel, and thus add to the danger. I n fair weather my vessel was being [pulled] in, when the water [behind] m e appeared one and a half fathoms higher than in the bay, and we shot the descent with irresistible speed and great danger.. Once inside, all immediate danger ceased. T h e bay is large and filled with rocks and sands; no wood at the immediate entrance, and no position for a settlement. T h e bay is destitute of fish, except halibut, which abound only in spring and summer. I n the winter the bay abounds in sea lions, but the common seal is seldom seen. T h r e e years later Shields was in c o m m a n d of t h e Phoenix, b o u n d f r o m the Russian m a i n l a n d to t h e struggling colony. T h e following account bvas written by W i l l i a m H. Dall o f t h e S m i t h sonian Institution, a n early explorer of Alaska: " T h e Company's vessel Fenie [Phoenix] ~ v i t hits newly consecrated bishop Jo5saph, eighty-eight passengers, a n d a valuable cargo, in charge of C a p t a i n Shultz, was lost w i t h all o n board. Most of t h e ecclesiastics w w e o n this vessel, a n d it is said that f r o m this time to 1810 only o n e m o n k Lvas left in t h e colonies."'

-One and one-half fathoms would be nine feet, a considerable drop. 'Shields, Shil'ts, Shiltz (Davidson, 1869). and Shultz; they all seem to be the same person. P. X. Tikhmenev wrote: "It n.as suspected that the loss of the ship was caused by the terrible fever then raging in Okhotsk and K a n chatka. If the crew succumbed to this infection, owing to the poor and crowded conditions on board, they may have been unable to bring the ship to its destination."

THE RUSSIANS.

7'

T h e northern Gulf of Alaska was awash with wreckage in

1799. T h e Northern Eagle was also lost, with twenty-two thousand otter skins on board. Many Russian vessels sank or were wrecked because of inexperienced captains and crews, faulty construction, and stormy seas. T h e Russians returned to Lituya Bay that same year to hunt sea otter again. This time there was no mother ship; rather, two or three Russians accompanied the Aleut hunters in their frail bidarkas across the stormy gulf, where they faced "the anger of the Tlingits who bitterly resented this poaching on their hunting grounds," according to the ethnologist Frederica de Laguna, who carefully examined nineteenth-century documents as they related to the Tlingits. Near the end of the century there was a decided shift in power. T h e Tlingits began acquiringguns from New England merchant vessels in exchange for furs. De Laguna wrote: "I think it more likely that these firearms had been obtained from American traders, not from the Spanish, British, or Russians, since the reckless 'Boston Men' had apparently neither scruples nor fear ofarming the Tlingits, provided they made their own quick profits." T h e English, however, also armed the Tlingits. Both countries and their mercantile interests had much to gain from weakening the Russian hold on Alaska. And it is very possible that merchants from the countries involved in the trade of arms cheated the Tlingits. Lieutenant Emmons noted: "It is on record that trading vessels sold the natives muskets with the lock-spring partly sawed through, which shortly broke and rendered the guns useless. Upon the return trip of the vessel, these were repurchased for a trifle, and after being repaired and again tampered with, were resold to the Indians."

72

THE R C S S I A S S

T h e Tlingits used the weapons that fired correctly with devastating effect. They destroyed the Russian-American Company outposts that straddled Lituya Bay at Yakutat and Sitka and massacred those inhabitants they caught. A few colonists escaped. T h e Russians retaliated by lobbing shells onto native settlements from ships lying safely offshore. They retook Sitka, but there were further revolts. T h e increasing number of whites, smallpox, and homemade liquor-the

latter being another gift of the newcomers-took

their toll on the Tlingits, who could not be defeated by arms. T h e home-brewed liquor, whose ingredients consisted of whatever was handy at the moment, Lvas called "hooch," or a derivative of that word.? There was a flurry of Russian sea otter hunts in Lituya Bay in the mid 1820s, but the catch had diminished to a few hundred. What sea otters remained were now hunted mainly by the Tlingits, who employed the same deadly techniques as the Russians. They traded the skins for the manufactured goods that they had come to believe were necessities. Looking back from mid-century, a Russian historian noted: "Sea otters are found in the vicinity of Yakutat and Ltua Bay to 'There was this account of American trading practices later in the century: "They [the Tlingits] are very fond of coffee, sugar, and molasses, and like all other Indians easily become fond of ardent spirits, to obtain which they will sometimes sacrifice nearly everything in their possession. In this manner they are imposed upon by those ~ v h oknow no principle or law, who have been known to sell them essence of peppermint, Stoughton's bitters, and absinthe, charging them four dollars a bottle (holding one pint). Absinthe is a compound which, if used as a constant beverage, soon unseats the mind, produces insanity, and sometimes death."

THE RUSSIANS.

73

the present day, but not in such multitudes as in early days, and besides, the entrance to these bays is very dangerous, so that the Company does not hunt there any more." American whaling vessels began showing up in increasing numbers, and Russian authorities complained about the behavior of their crews: "Moreover, in their rowdiness they have often demolished native huts and small company posts, answering with threats or derision when reminded of the existing regulations and of the prohibition against whaling near shore. . . . Not many colonial districts were spared such visits, always accompanied by some sort of violence." From three to four hundred vessels worked the offshore Fairweather Grounds in the months of June and July between 1846 and 1851. A few must have been wrecked trying to gain the entrance to nearby Lituya Bay. Some must also have made it inside to escape storms and seek fresh water and firewood. No written records exist of these activities, nor would such private enterprises want to divulge their inner workings to potential competitors. Then, for a moment, history was obliterated by the first giant wave known with any certainty to come roaring out of Lituya Bay and spill its contents-be ural objects-into

they humans or manmade or nat-

the gulf.

Sometime between mid-August of 1853and early May of 1 8 5 ~ , a wave, originating near the head of the bay as a huge splash, swept the shoreline to a maximum height of four hundred feet during its mad plunge toward the gulf. It swept inland for a half mile at a low point along the shoreline. The erosive power of the wave was far greater than what was needed to instantly reduce a living human to a spare skeleton or completely denude a thick cedar of all branches and bark.

74

T H E RLSSI.i,YS

Such a wave would have certainly destroyed the Tlingit villages seen by Laptrouse near the entrance; and, in fact, there was a story about such a village being ~ v i p e dout at about that time.

A woman who was picking berries on a hillside was the lone survivor. T h e date was determined by counting the annual growth rings of a large cedar that grew. just above the devastation. T h e tree had been damaged, possibly by debris, on the side facing the bay. T h e r e were one hundred rings outside the injury to the twohundred-year-old tree, from ~ v h i c ha section was cut in 1953. D o n Miller of the U S . Geological Survey ivrote: " T h e assumption that the injuries were caused by the wave was convincingly confirmed by the many similarly damaged trees found along the trimline of the 1958 bvave." Miller, who also used old photos to determine wave heights, thought the 1853-54 wave had been caused by an earthquake that generated a rockslide at hludslide Creek on the south shore. T h e highest point of the wave was directly opposite on the north shore, that being the flank of the same ridge that was denuded in 1958. T h e initial Ivave subsided to an average height ofeighty feetdouble what was needed to qualify it as a mountainous sea-as it careened from shore to shore of the narrow bay. T h i s wave came closer than succeeding ones to matching the destructive power of the 1958 kvave, and it marked the end of effective Russian control of the region.

A L A S K AC H A N G E D H A N D S I N 1867, and the governance of its indigenous peoples deteriorated further. W h e r e before there had been laws, rules, and customs accumulated over one h u n dred and twenty-six years of Russian hegemony, now there was no effective government or law enforcement. Chaos ruled, and the Tlingits were its victims. T h e G e r m a n ethnologist Aurel Krause, w h o spent six months among the Tlingits fifteen years after the transfer of sovereignty, wrote:

X ne\Tr spirit moved in with American possession which destroyed that individuality of the native tribes which had up to that time been fairly well maintained. T h e Russians who lived among the natives adapted themselves to their customs and habits of living so that, as \'ancouver remarked, they differed little from them. The Americans, on the other hand, who now poured into the country to seek their fortunes, concerned themselves very little about the customs of the Indian population and pursued their own purposes with no consideration of them even when they lived in blockhouses in their midst as traders and prospectors. History is in the pen,or word processor, ofthe particular scribe. T h e naturalist and U S . Treasury Department agent Henry W. Elliott was in Alaska at the same time as Krause. H e saw the Rus-

sian legacy quite differently. Elliott wrote: "The wild savage life which the Russians led in these early days of their possession of this new land-their

bitter personal antagonisms and their bru-

tal orgies-actually

beggar description, and seem well-nigh in-

credible to the trader or traveler who sojourns in Alaska today." Following the American acquisition of this vast territory, scientists arrived to take its measure. T h e first American descriptions of Lituya Bay were obtained from a distance, for the entrance to the bay already had a fearsome reputation, and the remote fjord lacked the amenities that might entice visitors. William Dall was director of the Scientific Corps of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition charged with the ill-conceived task of finding a route for a telegraph line from the United States to Europe via the Bering Strait. T h e boat that was taking the scientists north passed offshore of Lituya Bay in 1865. "It presents the appearance of a great fissure or rent in the high plateau which forms this part of the coast," wrote Dall. T h e Western Union scientists had a sense of history, for they named a peak south of the bay Mount La Perouse. Dall would return n few years later and enter the bay. George Da\.idson tvas in charge of a U S . Coast and Geodetic Survey party that was hastily organized in 1867 to chart the coast while the negotiations for the purchase of Alaska were under way. T h e party was onhoard the revenue cutter Lincoln, and matters of navigation took second place to rescues and attempts to control the arms and liquor trades. T h e Lincoln also passed off shore of Lituya Bay. Dayidson drew on existing accounts for the description of the bay in the first edition of the Coust Pilot of

.4las/p, published in I 869.

T H E ,-I\IEKIC:i.\~S.

//

Relying herwily on Lapbrouse's journal, Davidson cited the narrowness and danger of the entrance and said it was best entered at slack water-low

tide slack for a sailing vessel and ei-

ther tide for a steamer.' Once inside the bay, Ilavidson wrote: "No sound but the fall of great masses of ice disturbs the silence

of this terribly grand but gloomy gorge." Some Tlingits still inhabited the bay on n seasonal basis, there being a small settlement on the south shore ~ v h e r ethe French had handled the shaman's remains. A trail led north for two or three miles to a Tlingit fishing camp. Later editions of the Coust Pilot were more narrowly focused, but in this first edition Davidson, who drew his impressions from "a comparatively short and late season," did not hesitate to state how the Tlingits should be governed: "Uniform kindness, strict justice, prompt decisions, and rigid execution of purpose are the corner-stones of any policy by which they can be humanely governed." I)a\ridson rcturned to Alaska in I 869 and then became a professor of astronomy, geodesy, and geography at the University of California. In the following decade, Dall headed another government surveying party, which spent four summer seasons along the gulf coast gathering material to update the first edition of the

Coust

Directions in hucceeding editions of the C o ~ . i tPilot have \ - a r i d over the years. Local fishermen believe the tide tables published h!. the governm e n t are inaccurate for Lituya B q . T h e trick i \ to dcterminc w h e n the current changes. T h a t \\.ill indicate slack \vater a n d a ten- to tnvcnty-minute mindow of opportunity. H i g h tide slack is no\\. p r e k r a b l e for all types of vessels.

Pzlot. T h e ) entered L i t u p Ba! on hIa) 15, 1874, and spent the next fit e days there. T h e c ~ p t , ~ iof n thelr schooner, the Yukon, ~ v a sEdward P. Herendeen. H e \\as farnili'~rtvlth the bay, h a ~ i n gcommanded a whaling T essel four years earlier that had passed through the entrance In s c x c h of deserters ~ v h ohdd made off in a whaleboat. Herendeen dld not know t h they ~ had been killed elselvhere b! t h t Tlingits.

11,111 notlced ~ o f a giant

~ " 1 e; 1

v would h ~ come to be recogn~zedas e\ idence

but he did not knon. of, or even suspect, the ex-

istence of such an unusual phenomenon.' T h e coast s u n e y assistant e m p l o ~ e dthe methodolog! of rmondl deduction, which did not fit the realit) of the pl'ice. Froin obserl ing the floatmg gldcial ice in summer, Dall deduced that the ba! froze aohd in winter. (Not true.) W h e n the ice began to b r m k up, ice dams Lvere formed at the entrance, "backIng u p the n ~ t e r of s the b+ behind them, '1s drift m d e\ ldences of flooding m d \\ashing height of

X

t\

ere obserled J o n g the shores

. . . to a

least ten feet a b o ~ ethe hlgh-\vater mark," he ob-

serted. H a d Da11 been a n a r e of the giant w'ites, the "flooding and washing"

L\

ould ha1 e been a perfect fit.

Dall reg'lrded L ~ t u ) aBay

TT

ith

I'

rnlxture of awe m d trepida-

tion. H e referred to the mountains as "the magnificent sierrawall of a l p " and thought the Saint Elias Range "includes the

' T h e r e may have been another giant \va\-e d u r i n g the interim, or it could easily have been debris left over from the 1853-54 e\.ent. D o n Lliller wasn't sure. H e thought there \vas a tree line in photographs that suggested a Lvave rnid\v'~ybetween 1854 a n d 1899.

THE AMERICANS.

79

highest uplifts yet known on the North American continent." Down the precipitous slopes that surrounded the bay "five or six glaciers fall in true ice cascades to the water's edge." T h e bay was "a sort of Yosemite Valley

. . . with

its floor submerged six or

eight hundred feet." H e concluded: "The scenery is grand." Danger lurked at the periphery of magnificence, however: At the narrow entrance in rough weather the breakers, except at slack water, extend clear across and in moderate weather there are breakers on both spits.. . . In perfectly calm weather the incoming tide shows a bore of considerable magnitude and the same is true with the first part of the ebb, especially when the wind is from the southward. It is only practicable to pass through the entrance at slack water. Once in the tide-way, the vessel is carried through instantly as if sailing down hill.+ T h e language is reminiscent of Laptrouse, and a footnote accompanying this passage mentions the loss of the twenty-one sailors in 1786. Indeed, the French explorer was very much on their minds: "To him is due much of our knowledge of the bay," Dall wrote in the 1883 edition of the Coast Pilot. T h e surveyors named La Perouse Glacier and Mount D'Agelet, the latter after the noted French astronomer who accompanied Laptrouse.

+Dall called the waves at the entrance "a bore or tidal waves." A bore is a wave or a set of waves caused by the sudden onset of the flood current u p a narrow estuary or river. A tidal wave is a misnomer for a tsunami, since

no tide is involved. Dall was confronted with a new phenomenon and was at a loss for words and an appropriate concept to describe it.

T h e party set u p an nstronomical observatory on La Chaussee Spit and then warded off the Tlingits who sought to board the

Yu@tz. T h e natives \yere well armed and fortified with homebrewed liquor. Fortunately, there \yere no violent incidents. T h e surveyors set about determining the heights of the nearby mrtjor mountain peaks. T h e position of the entrance to the bay on most charts was found to be erroneous. LapCrouse's chart of the inner bay "was tested," Dall said, "and proved to be generally accurate." Dr111 did not mention changes in the locations of the glaciers since the time of LapCrouse, Lvhich meant that either there had been none, or he did not explore the end of the bay.' T h e Tlingits were seasonal occupants of Anchorage Cove on the north shore. They resided in "a few temporary huts." X11 that remained of the village near the entrance on the south shore lvere "a f e u tombs of ~vooci."They found no evidence of the cenotaph that LapCrouse had erected on the island nearly ninety years earlier.

As testimony to the thoroughness of Dall's navigational work, the third edition of the Coujt Pilot in 1891 remained virtually unchanged from the previous one. It was this edition that was used most extensively, because it was available during the frenetic gold rush period. rind Dall's sketch of the entrance to Lituya Bay, a masterpiece of clarity (see the title page of this book), was included in the 1950 edition of the navigator's bible.

Tbventy ).cars later a party from the Canadian Topographical Survey. w o r k i n g o n a determination of the international boundary, found that the glaciers in both a r m s had advanced about three miles since I 786.

8I

T H h .1.21BKfC.-lLYS

Dall, whose name was given to numerous animal and marine species in Alaska, visited the territory in 1895 after retiring from the survey.' T h e Smithsonian naturalist related his impressions in a speech given later that year to the Philosophical Society of Washington. " T h e state of the law is uncertain, the seat of authority is obscure, divided illegitimately between naval officers, the re\ enue cutter ser\ Ice and a powerless go1 ernor..

. . T h e day

of the ethnological collector is past. Southeastern Alaska is swept clean of rellcs; hdrdly a shaman's grd\e remains inviolate."

THOSEPERSONS charged with law enforcement, meaning the crews and officers of revenue and naval vessels, were the greatest desecraters of the dead. Cheap transportation was a necessary ingredient in the econonlics of the trade. O n e of those naval officers and grave robbers was Lieutenant Emmons, a n occasional visitor to Lituya Bay on board two patrol vessels. I t was Emmons w h o termed the hay the most feared harbor on the Pacific Coast. Hc added that "the constant ~varfare of the ocean waves and tidal currents have formed a bar over which the rollers break with terrific force, and, except in fair weather, at slack \vater, the passage is fraught with extreme peril." It was also Ernmons ~ v h osecured the pipe that told the story of Kah Lituya and who sold the American hluseum of Natural

'Both Davidson's and Dnll's names adorn m a n y Xlaskan landscape features. In terrix of nomenclature, the government lncn \\.ere very kind to themselves a n d each other. T h e y also f k o r e t i historical figures like Lapemuse and his associates. I t is a miracle that the m t i \ e n a m e for the bay has survived.

H ~ s t o r yin New York C ~ t ymore t h m fi\ e thousand T l ~ n ga~mt facts between 1888 .md 1897.- (One hundred years later I would examine some of those same items in a storeroom on the sixth floor of the museuni.) Altogether, Ernmons would sell more than elel en thousand objects of Tlingit

JIt

m d e\ er\ da) use to such museums as the

Snuthson~an,the F ~ e l dhluseum of S n t u r d Histor! in Chicago, H a r ~ a r d ' s Peabod) hluseum, the Thom'ls Burke hlemorl,d Washington State hluseum In Seattle, and the hluseum of the s York. n here the plpe n ~ acquired.

American I n d l m in sen

X r t ~ f x t scollected 'CIJ Ernmons found their way to museums In Kerlm m t l S'unt Pelersburg. T h e leadmg a u t h o r ~ on t ~ the Tlingits, Frederica d e 1,aguna. later nrote: "Through direct purchase from 111111, or

exchmge betn een instltutlons, there ls not Inalor museum In this country or abroad that does not

now

A

ha\ e

specimens

collected b) Emmons."

T h e r e was a feedmg f r e n n x n o n g museums for I n d ~ a nartlfact5 from the Pac~ficS o r t h n est. him) objects, such a\ masks, totem poles, m d at least one skull, n ere taken from illages and s h m ~ ~ ngra\ s ' es at ,I tlme

M

hen museum collecting was pursued

In a much less politic all^ correct manner Emrnons fudged on his methods of acquisition, mostly so that other collectors couldn't tap his sources. T o increase prices, he played one museum against the other. "It is possible that his acquisitiveness overcame his sensibilities," wrote his biographer, Jean Low.

' O n c of the more urlusual and pcrhdps private artifacts x a s a baby boy's

first stu01, deposited in a wooden box in the forest by his mother, n.ho desired h i m to g r o \ r u p

SI

rong a n d powerfill.

T H E 4 \ I E R I C 1 \'S

X3

HISpractices and motlves were truly despicable, judged by modern standards. T h e r e are no clear indications of how he was judged by the Tlingits at the time, although h e was supposedly welcomed because of his impressive naval uniform and his unusual interest in their culture. Rut it was mainly Emmons's acquisitions that inspired an early appreciation for primitive art in this country. T h e r e were shows and expositions in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York that featured his purchases. T h e noted anthropologist Clautle Lkvi-Strauss was fascinated by them. T h r o u g h Lkvi-Strauss such surrealists as Max Ernst, Andre Kreton, and George Duthuit were influenced by a n art form that suggested the world of the unconscious, as explored by Freud and Jung. Although he Ilved to the age of n~nety-three,Emmons's l ~ f e bvas discordant. T h e son of a distinguished admiral, he ranked near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and was considered a poor officer. T h e r e is n o question, however, that he was

a n avid collector who used military service to f ~ l r t h e rhis own means. W i t h no degree in anthropology, E ~ n m o n sreceived the accolades of the profes51on. As an amateur mthropologist, Emmons reluctantly wrote

'1

feu journal articles on scattered aspects of T l i n g ~culture, t but he could not produce a major work. O f his repeated attempts to L\

rite a n overarchmg monogr'lph on the T l l n g ~ t sEmmons , sa~d

in 1898: "I find the work lery c o n f u m g and dttrlbute my health

W

111

hall! to that cause." H e was to struggle 1 ~ 1 t the h project

for fifty-eight years. T h e book was left for de Laguna to complete from fragments r e m a n i n g after Emmons's death. The Tltngtt Indzans, published In 1991 b) the Un~cersityof Washington Press and the A m e r ~ c a n

Muscum of Natural History. n x s the result, i i n introduction and biography kvritten by others xvere appended. E m m o n s arrived in X1ask:r in 1882 onboard the USS .-ld~t72j and transferred t ~ v oyears later to the USS Pitltiz as executive officer. These small gunboats lvere mainly concerned with lacv enforcement. \IThile on duty, the lieutenant came across two important items that bore upon the Tlingits' history of Lituya Bay. His account indicates the manner in ~ v h i c hthese primary source materials Lvcre acquired: In 1882 upon reaching Juncau at four .-\.hi. in Scpt. I xv5.a~ ordered to take an armed boat cren. ashore and avcrt a supposed murder in the Auk \-illage. Having first arrived in the for turn years' service in Alaska, I had no sloop of n.ar A-id~~t??.i idea in \\,hat house in the ranch the man li\,ed or as to his identity so I took the old ChiefI-ahe gave me the hill account of the first meeting of several canoe parties of his Tlingit forebears who mere in the bay at that time and their astonishment at seeing the ships and white men and their old legend ofthe spirit of the tide bore that enters the ha! nncl 1 later got at Hoonah a large old carved feast pipe that illustrated the spirit. I had a copy of IA Perouse ~ v i t hme in Alaska and n,as familiar \vith the catastrophe hut Kowie's account that had been h m d e d do\vn by \\wrd of mouth through a century proved the accuracy of natk e history 2nd Lvas most interesting. W h d e E m m o n s went to unusual lengths for m ;\mencan officer to u n d t r s t m d the culture o f t h e Tlmgits, neither he nor the

missionaries had any use for the long-haired Tlingit shamans, w h o practiced a different type of magic and medicine. " E r n n ~ o n s himself was present and may even have taken a n active part in apprehending and punishing such shamans, done by publicly cutting off their hair," tle Laguna wrote. Perhaps the shamans retaliated, silently. In a n editor's introduction to Emmons's book, d e Laguna noted: "The person who approached a shaman's grave or handled his things Lvas believed by the natives to risk serious illness or death." In a n article in the

.-llax~anJournal, Low wrote: "Emmons knew of this taboo, yet helped himself many times to the priceless ethnological treasures contained in these forbidden places." D u r i n g his Xlaskan service, Emmons Lvas plagued by unspecified "ill health" and had to take numerous sick leaves. T h e Na\.y declared him unfit for service in 1899 H e wrote Franz Boas at the N e w York museum that year that he had "suffered a complete collapse." Low commented in the biographical material contained in the book: "Forty-eight years old, ill, and forced to retire, he found his clays of active service in the Navy and his residence in Alaska were both at a n end. His Kavy career, though far from illustrious, had served as a stable base for his career of collecting, f i r more important to him. H e suffered from both psychological and physical ill health and was plagued by recurring bouts of both the rest of his life."

THL TK-\KSIENT

GOLD hII\ERS

a r r n e d In the 189oc. These

a\'mc1ous seekers after Instmt wealth dm1aged the land, the M

ddhfe, and t h e m s e l ~es.

86

THE A W E R I C . 4 S S

T h e Russians may, or may not, have sporadically mined the placer deposits of gold on the black sand beaches to the north and south of Lituya Bay. T h e idea that they had was cited in American government reports at the time; but there was never any attribution, and the Russians did not mention such an activity. T h e Americans, however, went about attempting to extract the rare metal with a vengeance. At the height of mining there were between one hundred and fifty and two hundred people spread along the beaches. T h e miners, who both preceded and coincided with the Klondike gold rush of 1897-98, arrived in late spring and left in early fall with little to show for their intense efforts. T h e tiny, floury particles of gold, along with minute amounts of platinum, were flushed from the mountains by coastal streams and became embedded in ruby-red sand layers one to two inches thick. Flowing water and mercury, an attractor, were applied to the beach sand in sluice boxes, rockers, and long toms. Toextract the diminutive flakes between storms and other natural distractions was hard work. Grizzly bears were constantly about, clouds of mosquitoes settled on exposed flesh in good weather, rain brought rheumatism, and the wind that either howled down from the icy heights or came straight off the stormy gulf buffeted all with equal violence. There is this description of placer mining by J. B. Mertie Jr., a government geologist: Mining at Lituya Bay is carried on along the beach. It is said that 1896 was one of the best years on record, because the storms during that year were particularly heavy and frequent. Yet the miner has to work quickly after a storm, as another storm may arrive before he has cleaned up the beach

THF 4 VERIC 4SS

concentrates and either dissipate or cover them. These conditions make small-scale beach mining an intermittent and uncertain undertaking. T h e results were medger, which led to frustr,~tion,anger, and murder. F r o m 1894 to 1917, perhdps $75,000 worth of gold mas extracted F a r m d its h m d m d e n s , cruelty m d iolence, M ere about. Seals were shot from shore, be'trs n e r e shot on land, bald eagles mere shot in the air, and one hundred m d eighty trout mere t net. scooped from a lake with a smgle haul of a m a k e s h ~ f burlap Instant riches were o n e \ erjone's minds. T h e r e \\'IS this storj: "Look at these diamonds," said one miner lvho held something in his hand. "Show me you bastard," said the other. Whereupon the first miner laughingly displayed the glittering eyes of a fish into which he had incised facets. "1'11 kill you," screamed his companion.

A I m'ltlon on the same theme \ v ~ related s by m o t h e r miner: One day I found a dried fish eye in my pocket. Taking my knife, I cut facets around it to make it resemble ;I diamond, and told the men I had found a diamond. Being mineralconscious and expecting anything of Alaska, they half helieved me. I had to be careful, however, not to let any of thern get it into their hands. It was not until half the summer was m.er that they really knew what I had. W i t h the increased acti\,ity came disappearances, shipwrecks, miraculous tales of survival, and deaths. In January of 1892 ten miners were stranded in the bay, and Captain Washburn Maynard, with Lieutenant E m m o n s as exec-

88

T H E .i\IERIC.i.YS

u t n e officer, motored north from Sltka In the dilap~datedPztzta. T h e entrance Lvas a stormy me5s. T h e captain d e c ~ d e dhe mwuld not t&e thc coal-burning con\ erted tugboat through thc breakers. H e saw 5ome Tlmglts on the b e x h . T h e Plntu repe~tetll) blew its stem1 whistle, but there was n o response. T w o men got off the coastal steamer in Sitka later that year and told a remarkable story of survival. They had sailed from Juneau in August ~ v i t hsupplies for a mining party in Lituya Bay; they misjudged the current at the entrance and their vessel was swept on the rocks b! "a re1 011 Ing current." They s\vam to shore. W i t h winter 'ipproaching and no desire to spend those dark, stormy n ~ o n t h sin that p l x e , the men decided to hike the one hundred milcs north to Ihkutat. They took six days of supplies, thinking it n.ould be a five-day trip. Xs far as they knew. no one had ever made the 01-crland journey. T h e trip actually took eighteen days, and the men would ha1 e star\ ed to death except for the fact that the! \r ere a ~ d e db! Tlingits, from whom they stole a canoe for the List leg of the journe). Tlvo jears h e r Hans Jensen,

'I

\\ell-known sea capt,iln In

Sitha, brought a prospectmg part) Into the bay. There w ~ 3s 10lent storm, and his anchored schooner broke its mooring and Lvas cast upon the rocks.

A feu

n eeks l x e r Jensen went huntlng

in the mountains and wounded a mountain goat. While pursuing the goat, he fell oi-er a cliff. T h e unfortunate captain lived for a few days and then died.

A few Tlingits still visited the bay in the 1890s. T h e r e they crushed berries in a canoe and let them ferment, creating hootch that was exceedingly potent. Ten Tlingits were killed when they got Into

,I

drunken brawl amongst thernsel~es

89

T H E AMERICANS.

There were other wrecks and drownings at the entrance to Lituya Bay during the period of the gold rush-too

many to

mention them all, even if they had been adequately documented at the time. Little was known about the exact fate of the steamer

Discovery. She was known to be unseaworthy and sank off the entrance in November of 1903 with an undetermined number of passengers and crew that could easily have reached fifty. T h e Tlingits watched the vessel flounder from the vantage point of the spit.

THEY E A R PRECEDING the end ofthe century was quite eventful. It was the year that the chief of the Hoonah Tlingits, Kooghsee, made the following speech to the territorial governor: Now not very far from where I live is Lituya Bay, where our people, our ancestors, used to go hunting for sea otters and hair seal. Now that place is taken away from us. Great many schooners going there. White people are there now. These white people, when they make camp, they make lots of smoke. That scares animals, sea otters especially. . . . And when we talk to those white men they say the country does not belong to us, belongs to Washington. We have nothing to do with that ground. All our people believe Alaska is our country.

T h e Harriman Alaska Expedition sailed blithely past Lituya Bay in the early summer of 1899. T h e floating Gilded Age university was, in the words of a later Smithsonian Institution publication, "perhaps the most remarkable private expedition of all

90

T H E dMERIC.4NS

time." The wilderness historian Roderick IVash said the expedition consisted of "the foremost scientific, literary, and artistic talents in the country." Another way to put it would be to say that never had so much talent and brains been rented for two months by one American. Nearby Alaska was considered exotic, but safe, thus making it an ideal destination for such a group. The railroad tycoon Edward H . Harriman chartered a steamer and, at his expense, filled it with fourteen members of his family, twenty-five of the most celebrated scientists in the country, and assorted artists, photographers, taxidermists, stenographers, and what not. The ship was stocked with multiple cases of champagne and a fivehundred-volume library, mostly dealing with Alaskan matters. The passengers included William Dall of the Smithsonian, by that time regarded as the dean of subarctic explorers; the naturalists John Burroughs, John Muir, and C. Hart Merriam, the latter being chief of the U S . Biological Survey; the publisher and ethnologist George Bird Grinnell; the geologist and glaciologist Grove Karl Gilbert, after whom one of the inlets in Lituya Bay was named; the chief geographer of the U S . Geological Survey, Henry Gannet; and the Seattle society photographer Edward Curtis, who would go on to photograph Indians in the Southwest. There were high jinks, learned discussions, bruised egos, some research, and the plundering of Tlingit villages of artifacts, such as totem poles.+ The Victorian members of the expedition, trav-

'The expedition stopped at Cape Fox, a small Tlingit village that had been temporarily abandoned. T h e crew labored a full day to dig out and float a half-dozen of the best totem poles to the ship, from where they were transported to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the

cling in the splendid isolation of the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot steamship George W Elder were oblivious of the condition of the Tlingits and many other realities of Xlaskan life at the time. T h e expedition stopped in Sitka, where George Emmons, ne~vlyretired from the Navy, showed the distinguished visitors Tlingit artifacts not normally seen by outsiders. They rowed ashore to gaze at the towering face of the La Perouse Glacier and then passed Lituya Ray, where thick clouds obscured the mountain heights. They explored Tiakutat Ray and then departed on June zjrd, touching the Siberian coast briefly before heading back. O n the return trip, they passed offshore of the Fairweather Range in the afternoon. Muir, no slouch when it came to appraising mountains, wrote in his journal that "the Fairweather Range was absolutely cloudless, and glowed in its robes of snow and ice with ineffable beauty and glory of light. . . . This is the grandest range, the richest in sculpture, with infinite gables and V-shaped valleys and canyons." hlerriam hurried to the other side of the ship, where Harriman and his wife gazed from deck chairs upon an empty ocean. "You're m~ssingthe most glorious scenery of the trip," said hlerriam.

"I don't give a damn if I never see any more scenery," growled the multimillionaire, who was in a hurry to get back and run his railroads.

Field Museum in Chicago, the Peabody Museurn at Harvard. and the universities of hlichigan and Washington. Expedition members entered the empty houses and removed artwork, and grave markers n.ere taken from the cemetery. It !!,as not science's finest hour.

92

THE i . \ f F K I C 4.1 S

T h r e e months later

'I

huge earthqu,lke, greater In m,lgnltude

than the 1go6 S m Frmcisco temblor, struck l"~kutat Bay m d ~ t s environs.

As f i r as Lituya Bay is concerned, the September 1899 earthq u a k e is one of those black holes of history. Little is k n o ~ v nnrith certamty about

\\

h ~ occurred t there, although a giant \va\ e once

dgain scoured the baj's shorelme to

,I

inaxirnurn helght of t'ivo

hundred feet In Crillon Inlet Llost probably the w,n e was caused by a landslide In the Inlet. Perh'lps

fi\e I n d ~ n n n.ere s drowmed on

Cenot'lph I h n d m d a natn e \ illage and fish salter!. n ere destroyed near the entrmce. T h e beache\ n e r e clogged \ v ~ t huprooted trees torn from the forest b! the destructnc force of the \va\ e. At the time there \vere nllmerous miners in m d around the b q , hut no t1etCded accounts of the edrthquake m d n ,I\ c in L ~ t u y aBaj emerged exthquake

\\A\

-

seemlnglr thorough report o n the

published thirteen )ears ldter b~ the U.S. Geo-

logical S u n ev; but ~t focused on the There

M

t.1 ents

in Ynkutat BJ!, and

ere reasons for Litut 1' Ba) 'S omission In the report.

r T l i n g ~ t \Yere \ not noten orth\. T h e scientists confined t h e ~ field - T h r r e \vas a reference to the giant wave, o r Lvaves, in a Juneau nelvsp p r r th'it hintcil at a massive rcarrangcmcrlt of the herlrh just north of I i t u y a Hay rind rupl,~ined why the ~ q o omining seawn \vould hc a bust: "Last fall :ila\ka \\as suhlect to earthquake thocks. These \yere accompanied by tidal naves which either sucked the gold bcaring sands into deep \vater o r ca\t boulders 2nd rocks upon the beach to a great extent. W h a t e \ e r happenetl, the shore is piled four feet J e e p \i.ith a mass of rock ~ v h l c h the sea \vill ha\ e to remove as the expense of clearing a\vay the mass o f m a terinl is too great to consider."

T H E AMERIC.ISS.

93

observations to Yakutat Ray, and when they sent out six hundred questionnaires asking for descriptions of damage, all went to the mailing addresses of governmental agencies and businesses. N o such entities resided in Lituya Bay, nor was there any post office. mThat transpired at Yakutat Bay in September, however, could have easily taken place in nearby Lituya Bay a n d is worth recounting on its own merits. T w o parties of prospectors, totaling eight men, were camped astride the Fairweather Fault on Disenchantment Bay, an a r m of Yakutat Bay thirty miles distant from the village. T h e r e had been constant earthquakes. T h e prospectors rigged a makeshift seismograph consisting of dangling hunting knives that emitted a wind-chime noise when they jiggled. Fifty-two foreshocks were counted on September 10th before the big shake. T h e shoreline instantly rose between seven and forty-eight feet; elsewhere it sank beneath the waters of the bay. T h e prospectors were thrown to the ground or clung to tent poles while the ground shook violently for two to three minutes. One prospector later recalled:

We ran from our tents, leaving everything behind. . . . In the course of five minutes the Hubbard Glacier, five miles across its face, ran out into the bay for a half a mile. . . . This lake broke from its bed and dashed down upon our camp while we ran along the shore and escaped its fury. Everything went before it or was buried by the thousands of tons of rock that came down. This deluge was almost immediately follonwl by one from the sea. A wall of water twenty feet high came in upon the flood from the lake and carried all debris back over the undulating morainic hills.

94

T H E .I.\fERIC i X S .

Another prospector described the scene In the follou lng manner: "We heard a terrible roar in the direction of the ha), and on lookmg that m a! n e saw '1 t ~ d v, d a\ e coming toward us which appeared to be about twent? feet h ~ g hand

M

as preceded b~ some

great ge\ sers shootmg into the alr. some of m hich m ere seLernl feet across .md thirt\ or fort\ feet high." T h i s tumult understand'~bl\ unnerL ed the men. T h e senior author of the go\ erninent report, Proteswr Rnlph S. Tarr, commented o n the sitLution Threatened thus from both front and rear by waves and floods, with the ground trembling beneath their feet, and the thunclcr of crashing bergs anti a\-alanches in their ears, it is small wonder that the prospectors ran to and fro aimlessly, not knowing lvhether to run to the high land first or to return to their tents for some of the provisions ancl blankets which were threatened by thc Lvaves. T h a t night the m e n huddled in the rain. They torc strips of clothing and bound themselves to small saplings so that they would not be shaken loose. Fearsome noises surrounded them on that Walpurgisnacht: the crack of disintegrating glacial ice, the roar of landslides. the thud of huge boulders tumbling in swollen streams. Daylight brought a means of escape. X claniaged Tlingit canoe was floating in the fjord. T h e y brought the large canoe ashore, patched it, and loaded a f e n provisions aboard. As on a polar expedition, they had to portage across large masses of ice that had been shaken loose from the glaciers. T h r e e days later they arrived in the \-illage, where they found the frightened resit known as Shivering Hill. dents camped on ~ v h a became

T H b 4 LIERIC IA\5

95

There had been a series of giant waves. "The entire Yakutat Bay Inlet was thus swept by at least one great water wave," wrote Tarr. T h e northern tip of Khantaak Island dropped into the gulf, as it would again in 1958. T h e effects of the earthquake were widespread throughout the Northwest. At Lake Chelan in Washington State, twelve hundred miles to the south, twenty-foot waves were set in motion and a small boat was cast ashore. Tarr wrote: "The writers /of the report] have seen no description of a region being shaken longer, more vigorously, or more continuously, even in Italy, Japan, or Formosa, since the beginning of the seisn~ographicrecording of earthquakes. For four weeks the earthquakes were to be counted by the hundreds and on four or five days world-shaking disturbances took

II\ T H F s - \ h l r Z I O U T H as the exthquake, Hans and Hannah

Nelson arrn ed in Lituya Bay. T h e couple unknow~ngl);pro1 ided the ingredients for a human drama that would parallel in kind, if not extensiveness, the recent natural acts of violence. T h e Nelsons had been lured to the bay by p r o m i m that could not posslbly be kept. But how were they to know? T h e pron~isesmere contained in the widely distributed prospectus of the Latuya [jic] Bay Gold Placer Mining Company

Prokssor Tarr ofCornell University died suddenly in his Ithaca, K.Y., home at the age of forty-eight while ~ v o r k i n gon the final proof shcets of the USGS professional paper, which was published later in 1912. He had been

3

decade.

frequent visitor to the Gulf of Alaska coast during the previous

96

THE 4.ZI.kKICdSS

that failed to mention lvaves or dronmings or earthquakes or, for that matter, anything questionable about the bay. It was depicted as a wild Eden that could easily be tanled, where riches could be effortlessly plucked from the sands. T h e stock offering had all the aspects of a scam. Company officers came from New York City and California, where the firm had offices in San Francisco. O n a m a p depicting railroad and steamship transportation routes supposedly linking Lituya Bay and San Francisco, both places were shown in the same-sized type. T h e company's t~velvehundred acres of mining claims extended north to Cape Fairweather. ; lone-hundred-and-sixtyacre town site was designated on the bay. T h e prospectus recalled Lapkrouse's glowing commercial expectations, the only difference being that gold instead of furs Lvas ilarge factory or factories ivould now the principal inducement. ; be constructed there to refine the gold. T h e r e would be a town with wharves extending into the bay. T h e climate Lvas mild. T i m ber, water, salmon, wild game, and wild berries, enough of the latter to support a cannery, were plentiful. Potatoes, turnips, parsnips, radishes, lettuce, and cabbage could easily be grokvn in the "naturally irrigated" soil. T h e r e Ivas n o mention of nrinter. True, there had been n o bonanza at Lituyn Bay, yet. But this was because "crude and unrninerlike" techniques were being employed. Still, as much as $40 a day could be extracted by a single person. hluch more could be taken out kvith "the best and latest improved mining machinery," ~ v h i c hof , course, the company would willingly provide, at a cost. ".it a low estimate, many millions of dollars ~ v o r t hof the precious metal are stored in our clain~s,"said the prospectus.

T H E .4WERIC.IAVS

97

T h e company gave a small "button" of gold, supposedly from Lituya Ray, to the superintendent of a California mine. T h e superintendent wrote, "I will say if the sample is an average one, then you have the biggest fortune ever dreamed of." T h e superintendent's letter was displayed prominently in the prospectus. It took a careful reading of that document to determine that the five owners ofthe California mine were the major backers of the Lituya Bay venture; the superintendent, therefore, had a vested interest in deception. The prospectus concluded that the company owned the "most extensive and most promising" placer claims in the Northwest and would be "honestly n~anagedon business principles." T h e Nelsons bit, along with at least three other minersFragnalia Stefano, Sam Christianson, and M. S. Severts. T h e five were to continue working the claims and act as caretakers for the company during the long winter months of 1899 and 1900, when most miners left the region. Nelson was a large Norwegian (some said a Dane) who had a good sense of humor. H e was a carpenter and the foreman of the mining crew. His wife, an Englishwoman, was small and quiet but full of spunk. She had been a domestic servant. They may have met in Chicago. T h e couple and the three miners lived separately but took their meals together in the Nelsons' cabin next to either Justice or Echo creek, the exact location north of Lituya Ray not being clear from contemporary accounts. T h e log cabin, just a few hundred feet off the black sand beach, was a world apart from that open terrain. T h e thick undergrowth of devil's club and ferns, over which towered a dense

o\ erstor),

enclosed the occupmts In

A

\l

et cr) pt. T h e llquid op-

presm eness of the ddrkenmg fall month\ bore down upon all. They were edtlng d ~ n n e rIn the cabin on October 6th when Se\erts got u p and n e n t outslde. T h e others continued eatlng and t a l k ~ n g .

X few mlnutes later Selerts returned, leveled

A

.qj-callber

Colt re\ 011 er at Stefmo, and shot h m dead.- H e then swung the meapon droiind and fired

Chrlst~~xnson. T h e bullet struck a

\tone j ~ and r creased the flesh of the m ~ n e r ' sneck. H e tell to the floor In \hock. Sekerts next a m e d the meapon at Llrs. Nelson. H e r husband jerked Se\ erts's hand dom n, and the bullet tore Into the kdler's leg, n here ~tleft an ugl) n ound. Mrs. Nelson choked S e ~ e r t sw t h a dlsh towel whde her husband tled h m up. It cvas o\ er In a felv mmutes; then the) had a wounded m u r derer to guard for the remamder of the long winter. They found h ~ packed s \ al~se outside the c a b ~ nW . h e n asked if he had attempted the klllmgs for the $800 In jomt

earnings,

"maybe" wcis Se\ erts's e n ~ g m a t ~ms\rrer. c At this point accounts began mentioning "miners," indicating ,I

\ v ~ d e rinvolt ement than just that of the Nelsons In what e\ en-

tually transpired. T h e r e n e r e other mining claims in the area, ,md the cornpan! may ha\ e had more than one caretakmg crew. M m n g law e\ ol\ ed from code5 d o p t e d at rnass meetings, and civil and criminal matters n e r e handled similarly in remote min-

'Some accounts say a .j8-caliber rrvol\er, others a double-harreled

shotgun. In any case, it \vas not a trifling weapon.

X passing steamer was hailed but did not stop. Tlingits were hired to carry Severts to a cabin closer to the bay and guard him. After a few weeks the Indians, ~ v h odid not relish being implicated in the white man's affairs, refused to mount guard duty. T h a t left no alternative but to attempt to observe the proprieties. T h e miners conducted a trial, and Severts supposedly confessed to planning to kill his four companions for the small amount of gold. H i s festering wound was torturing him, and he begged to be killed. It was not clear from local newspaper accounts w h o exactly hanged Severts from a tree on the north end of La Chnussee Spit. Such matters were usually joint affairs. W h e n the coastal steamer docked at Sitka in May of 1900 with news from the north, the local newspaper noted: " T h e Exceljioi. also reports a lynching bee at Lituya Ray. T w o men urere m u r dered thcre last fall and, it being impossible to communicr~te with the authorities at Sitkn and fearing to set the murderer at large in the community, being satisfied of his guilt, the Lituynns thought it proper t o take the law into their own hands, hence the elevation of the ~ r i m i n a l . " ~ T,ynchings, although not uncommon in the history of the West. \vere apparently a rarity in Alaska. A study ofcriminal justice found n o other reported lynchings in the state's history. Christinnson recovered to become a popular beer-wagon driver in Juneau. where he frequently told the story of the shooting. T h e Nclsons, lvho \yere exonerated of any wrongdoing, dabbled in mining m d operated a general store in Atlin, British

Thc. original ncLvspaper story mistakenly had t ~ v ominers killed. I havc follo~vetlthe m o r e trustworthy account subsequently published in

T ~ (Sir@) P , - l / ~ . i @ t i~ ~ October f 13, 1qo6.

I00

THE .-lJIERIC:i.YS.

Columbia, before retiring to Bellingharn, Washington. T h e Latuya Bay mining company faded from sight after encountering numerous difficulties, not the least of lvhich \vas a lack of gold. Jack London \vrote a story, "The Unexpected," that was based on this incident. It was cribbed from an exaggerated account of the murder/lynching that ran in the lurid Sunday magazine of William Randolph Hearst's San Fmnciico Exumirzel; a n exemplar of the era's yellow journalism. T h e headline, designed to strike terror in male readers, read: "TT7oman Hangs a Man And the Law Upholds Her." A\n accompanying d r a ~ v i n gshowed Mrs. Nelson decked out in her T'ictorian finest, demurely holding a hanging rope in her gloved hand. London neatly paired the strengths and weaknesses of the two sexes. Hans was parn1l;zed by the enormity of killing a man. Hannah had the strength to pull a barrel out from under Severts. She then had an emotional breakdown and had to be helped away by her husband. H e concluded the story o n a melodramatic note: "Hut the Indians remained solemnly to watch the working of the white man's In\v that con~pelleda m a n to dance upon the air." T h e famous author made the mistake of labeling this fictional account as true. In Jack London und the Klondike, the scholar Franklin Walker observed: "The trouble ~ v i t hthe story, however, is that it once more illustrates the adage that truth is stranger, and less plausible, than fiction. T h e actual event remains quite incredible, even if it really took place, and the story based on it suffers in consequence." O n e of the problems of written history, or what represents itself as the first draft of history, meaning in this case a newspaper account and London's subsequent magazine story, is the tyranny

of the printed word. T h e Nelsons, and others, came to believe London's version of the events.+

THE F I R S T TWO DEXADES of the new century were a time of transition for Lituya Bay. Gold mining tapered off, and a handful of draft dodgers made the bay their temporary home during World War I. A government surveyor arrived to take stock of strategic minerals. H e did not find the iron and platinum needed for the war effort, so he departed, and the population declined further. T h e geologist Mertie visited the bay for three days in 1917. H e reported: "The mouth of Lituya Bay is a narrow entrance, beset with rocks and shoals, through which the tide runs with a velocity of ten knots or more; and unless the ocean is more than ordinarily calm the sea breaks clear across the entrance." H e quoted extensively from Lapkrouse's journal, the Frenchman still being the written authority on the bay.

'Like Bohn, I came across a note inserted in the Alaska State Library's copy of the August 1906 issue of McClurei magazine that contained London's story. A Juneau resident, ~Mrs.M. K. Keller, had met the Nelsons on the boat to Seattle some years after the incident. Mrs. Keller's short note stated that Mrs. Nelson said London's account was correct. Rohn took this as confirmation. I don't. I belie\-? that Mrs. Keller n~antedto believe that it was true, or Mr3. Nelson found it more convenient to say it lvas so, or Mrs. Nelson had come to believe what the general public had been told, or some combination of the above. Mining and journalism practices at the time, along with the few scattered contemporary references to the incident, have con\ inced me that the better story is not true. By such calls, m,lde by Bohn and myself and others, is history fixed. T h e oral tradition of storytelling allows for greater flexibility in such cases.

Mertie was credited with the discovery of the Fairweather Fault: "This depression [Desolation \Hlley], with little doubt, represents a great fault rift, which may perhaps continue for considerable distances northwest and southeast of the ice-filled valley just described." H e thought the rapid advance and retreat of the glaciers surrounding the bay were "due mainly to earthquake action, which is common in this district." hlertie missed the indications of

3

giant wave, which must have been fairly fresh.

They were spotted thirty-five years later by another government geologist. Around this time a few people gal-e some thought to living in this unforgiving region. T h e r e lvere two types of settlers; those w h o survived and those w h o died. A n example of the latter was

1: Swanson. ~ v h o s ediary Lvas found in his cabin north of Lituya Bay by two trappers. Extracts follow: Oct. qth, 1917: Getting sick packing, nobv looking for camping place. Cold in the lungs ~ v i t ha high fever. Oct. 27th: Shot a wolf and a bear cub. Oct. 28th: Winter has come. Strong wind, two feet of snow. Nov. 18th: Finished one fur coat of bear, wolf, and lynx. Kov. 2211d: Left eye bothers me. Shot one goat. Dec. 7th: The lvind is so strong that you can't stand upright. River froze except a fe\v riffles. Too much snow and too rough for sleighing. Snolv getting clceper now. Dec. 25th: T'ery cold.

good Christmas dinner. Snow

getting hard. Ki\er still open in places above camp. Feb. ~ s t1918: , Cold ~veathernearly all month of January. Lynx robhecl my meat cache up river. Salt and tea but once a clay. Gracl~iallygetting \veaker.

T H E .l,\IERIC i.VS

Apr. 1st: Got to the house with what I could carry. Wolverines have been here eating my skins, robes, and moccasins, old meat, and also my goatskin door. They tried to run me [out] last night, came through the stovepipe hole showing fight. Heavy fall of snow. Canoe and some traps down the river about five miles, close to Indian grave mark. Camp about half way. Apr. 3rd: Still snowing. Cooking my last grub, no salt, no tea.

Apr. 12th: Seen a fox track today. Birds are coming too. Fine weather. Apr. 15th: T h e no-salt diet is hitting me pretty hard. Eyes are gettlng worse, In the bunk moct of the t m e .

Apr. 20th: Fmest weather contlnum agaln, cooking my last grub, got to stay In bunk most of the time-my legc won't carry me very far. My eyes are useless for hunting, the rest of my body also useless. I believe my time has come. My belongings, everything I got I give to Joseph Pellerine of Dry Ray; if not alive, to Paul Swartzkoph, Alsek River. April 22, I y 18.

V.Swanson.

Lituya Ray's first and only settler, at least of European descent, was a hermit. Jim Huscroft was a survivor. H e arrived between 1915 and

1917. Huscroft once said that he was from Steubenville, Ohio, where he had made and lost three fortunes, but that reply was invented to quiet a persistent questioner. W h a t was certain was that he had found a place that fit his needs. Huscroft was shy and elusive. A stocky, powerfully built m a n with a sad-kindly round face, bald on top arid heavy-jawed below, Huscroft always greeted visitors w h o arrived by boat or float-

"'4

THE 4JIEKIC 4 \ S

plane at his dock with a pocket ~vatchin hand and the question:

"I make it out to be [such and such a time]; what d o you make it?" H e was alone for long stretches of time, mostly in the winter. I n the summer, Huscroft was deluged with visitors. H i s kindness, generosity, and hospitality Lvere legendary along the coast. O n e visitor recalled that when he arrived during the depths of the Depression years there was not the customary ritual of comparing time. but rather the following lament: "Say it ain't so, Bob, say it ain't so." "What ain't so, Jim?" "That the kids in S e w York City is eatin' out of garbage pails. I've been thinking about it all winter. There's all those salmon in the bay and goats in the hills. an' if1 could just get some cans 1 could help some. Tain't right for kids to he eatin' that way, you knmv, an' I want to help 'em out. Been thinkin' about it all nrinter."

His home was on the \vest side of Cenotaph Island. T h e r e Huscroft built a comfortable L-shaped cabin, with a hardwood floor of birch, and numerous outbuildings. H e had a vegetable garden and also raised foxes, ~ v h o s epelts were the latest in wornen's fashions. Most of the foxes ran free on the island, which served as a natural pen. X pet fox, named Tuffy, came u p to the back door at each meal to be fed, and another perched on his broad shoulder. T h e r e was a small dock off bvhich his boat was moored. H u s croft fished, trapped, and did a little prospecting in the bay and along the coast in both directions. His Lvas a shipshape operation.

THE .4JfERICdLVS.

l05

Huscroft was a man of habit, and every morning he cooked enormous sourdough pancakes. Snuff was a basic necessity; he always had a plug of it under his upper lip. Once a year he hitched a ride on a passing boat to Juneau. T h e hermit became seasick and frightened when the boat passed through the entrance. In Juneau he loaded up on his favorite salted mackerel and snuff and other essential supplies, drank copious amounts of factory beer, picked up his mail at the post office, and collected the previous year's newspapers, saved for him at the Elks Club. Back at his island home, each morning Huscroft read the newspaper that had been published exactly one year earlier while eating his customary huge breakfast. H e never looked ahead to determine the resolution of some issue: "It don't matter which year it is. T h e news is all the same anyway," said Huscroft. "Only if I peeked ahead, it'd take away the fun." Huscroft loved the solitariness of that place. He developed the habits of a recluse. His money-a said-was

considerable amount, it was

kept in a cigar box secured by a rubber band. H e

talked very little, just scraps of thoughts uttered aloud and then completed in his head. T h e climax of the year for Huscroft was Christmas dinner, which he planned and executed in lonely splendor. H e picked the wild strawberries, blueberries, and salmon berries. H e canned the vegetables and made home brew. When the time was right, he shot the wild goose. Then he sat down all alone and ate roast goose, vegetables, and a variety of pies. But the world began to intrude. Salmon cannery executives who flew the coastline kept caches of fuel for their seaplanes at the

bay. Occasional parties oftrappers and prospectors dropped in to take a quick look around. Comn~ercialfishermen who worked the offshore Fairweather Grounds used the bay for a harbor of refuge. Then. begmnmg In 1930, the sport of mountam cl~nibingdescended upon L ~ t u y aKny and Jlm Huscroft In the form of the summer presence of p r n ileged 11) League college boys who kvere looking for a dry roof and some of the hermit's famed pies. While nrciitingout a storm in the snug cabin, the boys h a r d the hermit recite his f a ~ o r i t editty: L ~ t t l edrops of water, Commg down as big as !our fist, That's Litu) a Bay hlist. It was a bit like the Hardy Boys discovering China. Huscroft was from another planet. This kvas the story the Harvard boys related to explain who Jim Huscroft was:

All of the gang ~ v sittlng ~ s around the cabin one rainy day talking nhout Harvard. I t was the one word being mentioned most frequently.

Jirn got one of the climbers aside and asked him, "What the hell is this Harvard anyway?" The gang thought that was great. Not where is it, but what is it.-

'The story re\-eals more about the teller than the person whom it tvas being told about. What was Harvard, anyway, in comparison to Lituya Bay?

Those boys were a charmed bunch. T h e climbers went about their business upon the mountain heights that decade and somehow managed to escape unscathed. They were fleeting presences in the bay. Dave Bohn, who participated in the first ascent of Mount Lituya in 1962, wrote: "For we were just passing through on our way to the mountains beyond, with no intentions of leaving behind the mess usually found after men (climbers and mountaineers included) defile the wilderness with their garbage." T h e Harvard University and Dartmouth College expeditions kvere all led by Bradford Washburn, an instructor in geographical exploration at Harvard. When the Harvard expedition of 1930 first entered the bay in a rickety vessel, the current was so strong and the engine so weak that the water spun the boat around, and they entered backward. T h e seven climbers only made it halfLvay up 15,300-foot Mount Fairweather. No climb was more dramatic than the first ascent of Fairweather in I 93 I . M e n Carpk, a noted New York mountaineer, led a fourperson expedition that had planned to land at Cape Fairweather. After ten days of stormy weather on their boat ride from Juneau, they were forced to come ashore at Anchorage Cove in I,ituya Ray. O n the hike north along a beaten path that paralleled the coast, the group, with the addition of two Russian trappers who helped carry supplies, encountered the remnants of the gold mining era. "The woods are full ofdecaying sluice-\\rays, tumbledown cabins and rusting equipment disintegrating before the inexorable advance of the wilderness," Carp6 wrote. "Today the region is deserted. Twenty miles down the coast Lituya Hay, a

I 08

THE 4 Z I E R I C . I S S

beautiful harbor with a narrow and difficult entrance, is the natural base for operations." After twro months of h ~ k ~ n bushwhacking, g,

ere\

asse hop-

ping, and dodging numerous

alanches in unrnapped terrain,

Carp6 and Terns ;LIoore, who

ould later become pres~dentof

the U n n erslt) of X l ~ s k a reached , the s u n m ~ ~They t . \ \ w e complmented b) the London edltor of the .-ilpme Joutnul for "a magn~ficente x p e d ~ t ~ o nthat " Lvas "the hardest yet accomplished among the 'Arct~c'mountalns of North ;imer~ca." Another H a r l a r d expedition returned in 1932. In 1933 a Harvard-Dartrnouth expedition combined scientific research wlth mountam c l ~ m b m g .After coming n ~ t h i n340 feet of the 12,726-foot

sumnut of Mount Crillon, the climbers descended to

Huscroft's cabm to a n a t their tleparture date. Robert Rates, one of the cl1mber5, rec,dled: LVe had just finished a salmon supper in Jim's cabin. and Bradford MTashburnwas proudly holding up a heavily iced cake we had baked in Jim's oven, when the door opened and in came six gaunt, bearded men. They lvere five Dutchmen and a Finn ~ v h ohad been prospecting and run lolv on food. When they saw the cake, our one cake of the whole summer, their eyes lit up. It turned out they had been living on bear meat for the past week and were sick and tired of it. We filled them up on salmon and beans before cutting the cake.

A few moments after they had polished off an apple pie and a n orange-frosted cake for dinner on LAugust3oth, 1933, there were two sharp jolts. T h e hanging lamp swayed; the attached

shed pulled away from the house. Jim told the college boys that earthquakes were a frequent occurrence in the bay. A Harvard-Dartmouth expedition reached the summit of Crillon in 1934. Washburn wrote an article explaining the difficulties of climbing in Southeast Alaska, as compared to the Alps of Europe: Most Alpine ascents start at four thousand, or even f i e~ thousand, feet, and then, usually, the next three or four thousand are covered in a funicular or aerial tramway. T o climb the peaks of the Fairweather Range one starts by \vading waist-deep in seawater, unloading supplies in the surf. There are no trails through the thick lower forests. T h e glaciers which are usually veritable highways in the Allps,are for the most part honeycombed with crevasses hidden under a thin, treacherous blanket of winter snow ancl blocked by stupendous icefalls. There are no huts, no porters, no guides, and no fresh food. Mountaineering in Alaska is still little short of Arctic exploration, with all of its attendant difficulties and hardships. But the beauty of the country casts a spell which is well-nigh impossible t o shake off. T h e lowlands, through which the climbers had to tramp, were a mysterious place: Little is known about the Fairweather Peninsula, even in Alaska itself. At Juneau, a hundred miles to the east, prospectors and boatmen tell fabulous tales of the enormous patches of wild strawberries which line its western beaches, the terrific tide rips at the mouth of entrancing Lituya Bay, of sparkling glaciers dropping headlong to the sea, and of vir-

I 10

THE .-1,MERICdSS

gin forests draped with Spanish moss, dark and mysterious as the jungles of the Tropics. Accompanying Washburn's story, which appeared in the March 1935 issue of National Geographic, was a photograph of a suspender-clad Huscroft standing in his garden with a plate of newly dug potatoes in one hand. When Huscroft went to town the next fall on his annual trip, stacks of mail awaited him from readers. There were recipes for jam, questions about what it was like to be a hermit, and seven marriage proposals. A badly frightened Huscroft beat a hasty retreat to his island. PRECIPITATION FOR T H E M O N T H of October

1936 was far

above normal for southeastern Alaska. There was more rain, hail, thunder, and lightning during the predawn hours of October 27th; or it was clear. Accounts varied. It was that kind of place. Two fishermen, Nick Larson and Fritz Frederickson, were on board the thirty-eight-foot trolling boat Mine, anchored off Fish Creek on the north shore. They heard a loud, steady roar beginning at 6:2o AM. T h e fearful noise continued for half an hour. T h e fishermen saw a steep wall of cresting water, perhaps one hundred feet high, extending across the head of the bay at 6:50 A.M. They were under way and in deeper water when the first of three waves raised their small ~ e s s e fifty l feet into the air and then dropped it close to the bottom of the bay. Huscroft's seine boat, anchored nearby in fifty feet ofwater, actually touched bottom. T h e second and third waves, each successively higher, passed underneath at about two-minute intervals. Smaller waves sloshed

T H E .l,bfERIC.ISS

111

back and forth for a half hour. Broken trees and pieces of glacial ice floated on the bay. Huscroft and a guest, a young m a n by the name of Bernard Allen, w h o was seeking adventure, heard a roar coming from the mountains. It sounded like "the drone of one hundred airplanes at low altitude," said Allen. Jay Williams of the Forest Service visited the bay shortly after the lvaves and gathered the following account from Huscroft, \vho said he was preparing breakfast at the time: H e m7assuddenly startled by a terrifj~ingroar much louder m d more ominous than the usual artillery-like booming and cracking of the near-by glaciers to which he was accustomed. Rushing outside he was appalled by a slght comparable to the one which must hme met the gaze of the children of Israel when the Red Sea rolled back. It appeared as though all the water in the bay was rushing out to the entrance in one mountainous tidal wa\.e. Spellbound and uncertain for the moment he hesitated long enough to see an imrnense back wave, the reaction of the initial rush of water dammed by the heavy ocean swells and the narrow bay entrance, seeking to restore the normal water level. Jim said that his dominant thought at this moment was to reach the highest ground on the island and that he started for it at no lingering pace. T h e y ran u p the trail that led to a spring, which furnished the cabin with running water through an iron pipe.' T h e older m a n watched the tumult through the trees. T h e waves demolished I would find the spring and pipe forty-four years later, and it would furnish me with water on the otherwise dry island.

I 12

THE 1 I f F R I C - I Y S

one of his outbuildings and lifted another up and set it down far

inland. Luckily his main cabin, ~ v h i c h\vas on higher ground, was only flooded. Huscroft's boat was not damaged. T h e r e u a s a considerable loss, ho\ve\er. T h e laboriously accumulated topsoil in his garden Lvas nashed away. and the vegetables spoiled in his flooded root cellar. Huscroft faced a bleak winter T h e young man returned to Juneau on the next available fishing boat. Don Miller h e r determined that the biggest wdve had reached a height of four hundred and ninety feet along the northeast wall of Crillon Inlet. From the head of the bay, successi~ewaves rebounded toward the gulf at lessening heights, reaching as far inland as two thousand feet along the lower reaches of the bay. Near the entrance to the ba), crab5 and clams were found half a mile inland. X feu d a ) \ later the trunks of trees \lathed up on beaches fifty mile\ to the south of L i t u \ ~Bay. T h e geologist was ne\ er able to find a suitable explanation for the 1936 \vave\. There lvas no e a r t h q u ~ k eor earthslide, nor was there any release of ice-dammed nater from abo\ e hliller also discounted the falling meteorite theor1 of another scientiTt. H e thought "some kind" of sudden mo\ ement of the Crillon Glacier was to blame but could not determine the exact cmse or the source of that continuous roar.

H U ~ I ATR;\GEDIES N continued to abound. O n e year after the waves, two greenhorns from the Midwest showed u p in Lituya Bay, where they planned to trap that winter. Jay Williams encountered them and pointed out that jumping trap lines was not regarded as a friendly act in Alaska. They

THE. A.ZfERICA,\-S

'I3

agreed to move to one of Huscroft's cabins north ofthe bay, where a diary was found later that winter. Williams recalled in his book,Alajhp Adventuw: "They were practically out of food and without snowshoes. Trapping had been very poor and the diary stated that they would try on the morrow to reach Lituya Bay with their skiff if it looked at all favorable. They said they hoped to obtain a larger boat from Jim and move their belongings to the island inside Cape Spencer. That was the last ever heard of them." The three waves of 1936 sapped something inside Jim Huscroft. His health began to deteriorate. He complained of rheumatism, a not uncommon affliction in that moist environment. His foxes died of the mange, and the cabin and vegetable garden fell into disrepair. He did what little needed to be done in order to avoid starving to death and seldom strayed off the island. When the small coastal freighter Patten-on was wrecked on the beach north of the bay in the winter of 1938,Huscroft-ever good Samaritan-hobbled

the

painfully a few miles north along

the coast to leave a note and a cache of food at one of his cabins for the stranded crew, who were later rescued by the Coast Guard.

A concerned friend stopped at Huscroft's place and persuaded the old man to go to Juneau with him on board his boat, named the Cenotuph. AS Huscroft passed through the entrance to the bay for the last time, there were tears in his eyes. They put into a small harbor to wait out a storm, and it was on board the boat that the hermit died on March 23,1939, at the age of sixty-six. Washburn made sure that a cenotaph was erected in Huscroft's memory on the island.

W I T H T H E DEATH OF HUSCROFT and the ascendancy of Glacier Bay National Jlonument under the nlanagement of the N a tional Park Ser\-ice in the ~ g j o sthe , human history o f l i t u y a Bay went into a precipitous decline. T h e bay dropped from sight during World War I1 and the immediate postwar years. It was as if one continuous fog bank obscured that place and did not begin to lift until 1952. For the next six years there was a gradual emergence; then the bay shook itself mightily in 1955, and the world took brief notice. O n June G, 1952, a young geologist ~ v h owas ~ v o r k i n gfor the U.S. Geological Surl-ey's oil investigation program in the gulf arrived in Lituya Bay. Don J. XIiller poked around for a few days. H e found the hermit's cabin, lvhich he made his base camp. It was in fair shape. H e noticed the difference in the trim lines. T h e n Miller talked to the fishermen whose vessels were anchored there. They told him of the giant u.aves that had periodicall!. swept the hay. T h e geologist was caught by that place-to

the point of obsession.

hliller had graduated with a master's degree in geology from the University of Illinois and gone to work in Alaska for the survey in 1942. H e was a serious person, dedicated to his work, organized, methodical. and a keen observer with a logical mind.

H e was extremely strong, a quality that contributed to his being quite capable in a wilderness situation. A photograph shows him standing with his face cast down in an introspective mood. Miller was a loner and close to nobody except his family. Miller returned to Lituya Bay in the summer of 1953 for a three-week stay. H e camped on the island and at the mouth of Topsy Creek, a few miles south of the bay. H e resumed his work, which was to map the oil-bearing strata, but at the same time he doggedly pursued the matter of the giant waves. He cut sections from trees and gave them to the Forest Service Research Center in Juneau. A tree-ring count disclosed that there had been a tiisruption in 1936 and another in the 1853-54 growing season. Miller reported his preliminary findings at the Seattle section meeting of the Geological Society of America in March of 1954. H e asked his fellow scientists what they thought generated the giant waves. H e dismissed other causes, like a glacially dammed lake suddenly emptying, and guessed it was earthquakes; but he had no proof. T o be in the right place at the right time for a rare movement of the earth is the fervent wish of all geologists. It becomes a reality for only a few. Miller was one of the chosen ones. He thought his destiny had been fulfilled. After flying over Lituya Bay the day following the 1958 earthquake and noting the wave's elevation at 1,800 feet, Miller returned to Glacier

ay.^ H e listened to a radio interview with Rill

T h e altitude Lvas lntcr corrected w t h a handheld altimeter. T h e tree line

LVJS

at

1,720

fect, but there \vas untnistr~kahleevidence that water had

sloshed through the forest up to the 1,740-foot level.

I

16

T H E M -11 E

Swanson, one of the surviving fishermen, a n d accounts by others of a cataclysmic event of its type unmatched in history.

THELONG SUMMER

E\-ENIN(;

Lvas clear and a n oily swell un-

dulated across the surface of the gulf as three fishing boats headed toward the calm entrance of the bay to anchor on the night of July 9th. T h e Edrie was first into the bay at 8 P.hI. O n board were Howard Ulrich and his son, Howard Jr.. nicknamed Sonny. T h e y rvere tired after a long, unsuccessful day trolling for salmon. Ulrich was tempted to anchor in the lee of Cenotaph Island but instead selected a cove on the south shore about one mile from the entrance. H e \vas in a contemplative mood, and the black-legged kitti~vakeson the south end of the island were unusually raucous, filling the bay's still air with their piercing cries of kittiwake, kittituuke. Father and son ate dinner, vvashed the dishes, and then settled down in their bunks. Another long day of fishing lay ahead of them, or so they thought. Just before falling asleep at g P.\I., they heard a boat's engine. It was the Badger, with Bill and l'ivian Swanson on board. T h e Swansons headed tokvard the end of the bay to get some glacial ice and then reversed course and put their hook down in Anchorage Cove. At about the same time, the Sunmoi.e entered the bay and anchored just behind the spit, about halfmxy between the Badger and the entrance. Orville and Mickey b'agner, a young couple who had purchased the Sunmore a f e n months earlier, were friends of the Swansons. T h e couples exchanged waves. T h e J u neau fishing community was a tight-knit group of people w h o looked out for each other on the high seas.

As the last two boats entered the bay, a climbmg party of ten Canadians departed. They were the first Canadians to have successfully climbed Mount Fairweather, whose summit is bisected by the international boundary. British Columbia's centennial was that year, and a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television crew had accompanied them partway up the mountain. Their base camp was on the beach, close to where the Swansons anchored. The exhausted climbers had returned earlier that day from the long trek down the sterile heights, across the Fairweather Glacier, and along the coast. Their expedition had taken two weeks. They took long baths in the nearby freshwater lake, collected sou1 enirs, such as sea urchin shells, and relaxed in the momentary peacefulness of the lush surroundings. T h e expedition was scheduled to leave the following day, but the pilot of their Royal Canadian Air Force amphibian arrived at 6 P.M. that night and told them to pack immediately. H e was

worried about the possibility of fog and wanted to get the climbers safely back to Juneau that night. T h e climbers cursed the pilot's nervousness. They missed dinner in the hurry to pack and departed at g P.M. Another party of ten climbers was due that day by boat, but they had been delayed. Some of their supplies had already been delivered to Huscroft's old cabin, which would serve as their base camp. H a d the two groups proceeded as planned, there would have been a total of twenty climbers camped on the shoreline of the bay that night. As the Canadian climbers flew away, so did the nervous blackand-white kittiwakes. T h e gulls ascended like so much confetti blown upward. T h e high-intensity alarm call of thousands of

118

T H E 1r.ii'E

birds echoed through the still bay. T h e y passed over the R~zdger and splattered the boat with droppings. Some crashed into the vessel's rigging and plummeted to the deck. T h e Suansons were frightened. Just before the earthquake another fisherman noticed the birds squatting on the black sand beach north of the bay, as if they were waiting for something. Not all the kitti~vakesescaped. Afterward, the bodies of gulls littered the shoreline of the bay. T h e gulls of Lituya Ray \vere not the only wildlife exhibiting strange behavior that evening. Some Yakutat families were fishing in the Situk River and picking berries nearby when they noticed terns and other small birds suddenly taking flight. T h e birds circled in the air and made frantic cries. Each cast hooked a fish shortly before the earthquake. T h e ~vildflo~vers trembled from foreshocks.

I T \v;\s S U K S E T in the high latitudes \vhen the earth shook and the land was ripped apart at 1o:rb P.M. R'hen it was ovcr-some three or four minutes later-the

earth had moved 21.5 feet hori-

zontally and 3.5 feet \-ertically at one point along the fault line.' T h e land danced, as did c\-erything upon it. O n e mountain peak rose fifty feet in an instant. T h e tip of Khantaak Island in Yakutat Bay sunk one hundred feet beneath the water, sucking three berry pickers to their deaths. X11 that remained of the outing ivere the paper plates that floated upon the roiled waters and a nlnngled outboard motorl T h r grrate\t horizc~ntaldiaplacsment in the 1906 San Francisco qu'lke was twenty fcet. T h e shaking lasted one minute. T h e periods cuf sh'lking

for the ruinous 1989 Lorna Prleta/S,m Frmclsco anti the 1994 Los A i n g e -

lec quakes Lvere measured in seconds.

boat belonging to the berry pickers. T h e sides of the fiberglass hull had been compressed and the cabin sheered off, but flotation within the hull had kept it afloat. T h e three bodies were never found. T h e Yakutat postmaster and his wife had left the island just moments before. Glancing back, they saw a wall of water obscure their friends and the trees on Turner Point. Going twenty-five miles per hour, they could not have outrun the wave. By the time it redched them, however, the wave had diminished greatly In the deep nT,lter.Witnesses on l m d said the bay "looked d n e " and was "heavy, dark, and boil~ng." Nature was turned upside down. What looked like ocean swells rippled across the land. Sand blotvs and water geysers erupted eight feet into the air. Fissures snapped open and closed like giant clam shells. Rivers rocked like cradles, flowed upstream, or were blocked temporarily by ice darns formed from collapsing glaciers. Downstream flows lessened and then surged when the temporary dams gave way. There was a deep, continuous rumbling from the very bowel5 ofthe earth, a phenomenon that accompanies many earthquakes.

A putrid, sulfur-like smell from long-decayed organic matter was released from the fractured ground and settled over the landscape. Wildlife was stricken: coyotes howled, grizzly bears fled, bull moose broke their horns in panic-stricken flight through the forest. In the water, whales became airborne and shellfish and barnacles were swept from their rocky underwater perches, their attachment plates neatly severed in the process. Lituya Bay was a charnel house ofnature. Fish rotted on shore and the bloated carcasses of mammals floated upon the surface

I20

THE It 41 E

of the water. hlarine plants lvithered on land, and fresh-\vater plants atrophied in the salt water. For humans. the quake \vas no less devastating. Ulrich was anakened by a deafening roar. T h e \\,ater around the Edrie began to vibrate. T h e stoutly built thirty-eight-foot boat seemecl to jump out lofthe water. Ulrich looked toward the mountains in the Jvaning light and San. them smoking from avalanches. T h e n he srtu the huge wave, perhaps one hundred feet high at the outset, then diminishing in height as it caromed down the sides of the bay. "Christ, it looks like the end of the n.orld in here," he yelled into his radio microphone. Other fishermen heard him and stopped their chatter. "The noise is terrible and it looks like there's a fifty-foot tidal Lvave heading toward me. It's a solid \?.all of water coming at me. I'm going to try to head into it and sec if I can ritic up over the top of it." T h e n another hurried transmission: "AIayday. Mayday. This is the Edrie in Lituya Bay.

&l11hell has busted loow in here. I

think we've had it. Good-bye."

In the single photograph that I have seen, Ulrich, a solidly built m a n in his thirties, has one large hand on the shoulder of a smiling seven-year-old Sonny, n-ho has both of his hands in his pockets. They look like true partners. Their boat was strong and graceful. T h e three seemed like a unit that functioned together smoothly. They would need all of that solidarity. W h e n Ulrich first saw the wave, he remained rooted to the deck. T h e n he moved fast. H e t h r e ~ va life jacket on Sonny and started the engine while putting out his call for help.

T H E IZ 4l'E

121

H e tried to haul in the sixty-four-pound anchor with the power winch. It would not budge, so he let the anchor chain out to its two-hundred-and-ten-foot limit and maneuvered the boat so that it was pointing into the oncoming wall of water. T h e wave was cresting as it sped by the north end of the island, but on the south side it had a smooth face some fifty or seventy-five feet high. It pushed the boat back and lifted it upward. T h e anchor chain snapped. The Ulrich looked down and saw trees underneath the Ed~ie. wa\-e carried the boat over the shore and then back into the bay, where Ulrich turned it about to face the backwash that rebounded frorn the shoreline. Other fishermen heard him say: "It's awful." T i m e passed slowly. "Well, we rode to the top of it. We got over the top okay."

X confused sea with high, steep waves of twenty feet or more buffeted the boat as Ulrich made for the center of the bay. Large chunks of glacier ice, each a veritable iceberg, and huge tree trunks flowed on the strong ebb current toward the Edrie, threatening to entrap it and pierce its thin skin. T h e fishing boat Lumen arrived off the entrance to the bay and Stutz Graham, Ulrich's radio partner, asked if he should come in and help. "No, for Christ's sake don't come in here. Stay out." T h e listening fishermen, concerned about the deadly waves at the entrance, gave Ulrich advice. "There's big trees, branches, leaves, roots, and everything, everywhere I look. All around me. I've got to get out of here. I never saw anything like it. I've got to get out of here."

T H E It i l t

I22

O n e fisherman ~ o i n t e dout that the current in thc entrance \ w s at its most dangerous stage, and Ulrich's boat might be swamped in the breaking waves. Instinct told Ulrich to flee. "The big timbers are closing in all around me. I have to get out. I'm heading toward the entrance. T h i s looks like the end of everything. I don't knmv if I can make it, but I can't stay here. I have to get out. I'm heading t o ~ v a r dthe entrance." "We're right in the middle of the entrance." "\VC made it. We're on the outside." It \vas

II

PAI. Their ordeal had lasted forty-five minutes.

T h e Wagners n e r e not as fortunate. T h e S u n r n o t ~was last seen by Slvanson heading toward the entrance. It Lvas picked up by the giant wave and hurled over Harbor Point, where it disappeared from sight. A n oil slick marked the young couple's watery grave. Like those of the French sailors and the three berry pickers, their bodies cvere never found. T h e Swansons also felt their boat ibrate. They looked out the door arid s x v the side of a mountain collapse into the upper end of the bay. T h e n they s a n the cresting wall of water heading to\vard them. "As it came up out of the deep \vater and hit the shallow bvater, then it just piled sky high. It just seemed like it gre\v about fifty feet right thert near the entrance. A n d it Lvas just a matter

of seconds later that the base of the nave hit us, and that popped the cable," said S v m s o n in the radio inteniew. T h e boat rose and kept rising to a point \[,here it was eighty feet above the trees on the spit. It n a s hurled stern-first, like an outof-control surfhoard, over the spit. T h e r e was a horrible crash in the gulf at the end of the mild ride, and the boat began to sink.

Huge trees were landing all about like so many spears. One came through the door and hit Swanson in the chest, driving him toward the stove. T h e tree exited the mortally wounded boat the same way it entered, leaving Swanson with four broken ribs. T h e couple clambered into their eight-foot skiff with only their underclothes on. It was a cold night, and when the wind came up it became chillier. They were seized with cramps. They heard an engine. A searchlight swept the water but missed them. T h e boat disappeared, reappeared, then disappeared again. T h e couple cried for help. Mrs. Swanson passed out. Her injured husband was just about to give up. It \vas shortly after

II

P.>I., and Graham and an exhausted Ul-

rich were searching for survivors in their separate boats. About a half hour later, Graham and his son decided to make one more sweep through the area on the Lzrmetz. T h e Grahams saw a light on shore and headed to~vardit. It Lvas described as a "small flickering light" in the notes of D i m e Olson, who monitored the radio transn~issionsthat night on board the fishing vessel White Light, thirty-five miles from Lituya Bay. Graham cut the engine and drifted in order to hear better. There n.as a plaintive cry. H e turned on his searchlight. T h e cry was louder. T h e Swansons \yere found huddled in their halfsunken skiff in a direct line between the Lzmef?and the mysterious light. They were taken to a Juneau hospital, where Swanson was interviewed. H e recovered quickly. \'i

Swanson's hair changed

color from brown to white that night. It was the last time she \vent fishing with her husband.

U l r ~ c hand h ~ son s c o n t ~ n u e dto sea-ch for the Wagners until 5:3o -\.;\I. T h e ) m ere exhausted and headed home to Pcl~canBay. Ulrich's b o ~ went t aground exactlj one )ear later H e repaired the Ed~zeand floated ~t off on the next high t ~ d e Shortl) . thereafter, U l r ~ c hgale u p c o r n ~ n e r c i fishing ~~l hIILLER RETURXEC, YI.4 H E L I C O P T E R to Lituya Ray for

a one-

day visit in early August and then came back for a three-day stay later that month. H e took no chances and located his campsite at the peak of the t~vo-hundred-and-ilinety-foothill on Cenotaph Island. LVith him was Don Tocher, a seismologist from the University of California at Berkele!. They heard rumbles from the head o f t h e bay and small Lvaves lapped at the shoreline, but Ililler \vas disappointed. "Kothing unusual," he \vrote in his field notes. O n September 2nd they f l a v back to the Bay Area and began to reconstruct Lvhat had happened on July 9th from the accounts of eyewitnesses and the scientific evidence Lvrit SO large upon the landscape. Beginning at 1o:16 P.hI., the \vest side of the fault moved northwestward and u p v a r d in a scries of violent lurches. T h e r e \vas churning along the entire one hundred and fifteen miles of the Fairweather Fault from Palrna Ray northward to Nanatak Fiord. T h e epicenter lvas forty-h\-emiles southeast of Lituya Bay in Cross Sound. T h e moment magnitude, a more accurate measurement for large quakes than the Richter scale, was 8.3, compared to the

7.7magnitude

of the 1906 San Francisco quake.'

-In terms ofamplitude, the shaking was four times greater i n 1958 than

in 1906.

T H E M:li'E

I 25

T h e gigantic temblor \vas felt nine hundred miles to the south in Seattle, where twenty musicians in a floating orchestra pit bounced up r ~ n ddown for five minutes. I n Whitehorse, Canada, one hundred and eighty miles to the east, there was panic in a movie house and two \vater mains burst. Submarine cables

snapped between Skagway and Juneau, and the quake was felt in Anchorage, four hundred and seventy miles to the northwest. Rockslides and avalanches tore down the mountains surrounding Lituya Bay. Clouds of rock dust and snow rose into the air-thc

smoke that Ulrich saw. Not less than one minute nor

more than t ~ v oand a half minutes after the first shock, the flank of an unnamed 5,616-foot peak on the east side of Gilbcrt Inlet \ I ~ Sshaken

bay-the

loose and plunged en masse into the head of the

falling mountain that Swanson saw.

T h e noise was deafening. T h e violent impact of forty n~illion cubic yards of rock, ice, and coarse soil weighing ninety million tons-an

amount equal to eight million medium-duty d u m p

truck loads-was

heard fifty miles to the north. Ulrich said it

sounded like "an explosion." T h e resulting surge of water wiped the trees off the granite spur of the opposite ridge. T h e splash w x e had tremendous force, a conservative estimate being twenty-five million foot pounds of pressure. (Only three hundred thousand foot pounds of pressure are needed to uproot a tree.) Trees were instantly severed at root level and stripped of all their bark and branches by a force far greater than that used to peel logs at a pulpmill.

A giant gravity wave with a steep front surged outward and, supplemented by the splash wave that washed over the spur, slammed into the steep cliffs near hludslide Creek. X slide tore down the two-thousand-foot heights, adding to the chaos of the

I 26

T H E [f . ~ I . E

moment. T h t c o m h ~ n e d\\.I\ e sped clon n the ha) ,it u p to one hundred and thirt) miles per hour Four square mdes of Lituya

K q '5 shorel~ne\\ere s t r ~ p p e dof ~ l I legct,itlon, lea1 Ing the hedrock exposed and b l e e d ~ n g . T h e r e ~vei-emore than two hundred aftershochs. T h e ocean beaches ten miles on both s ~ d e sof the entrance to the

~ J Twere

littered m ~ t h~ c and e the flayed trunks of trees. If someone had needed rescuing, there a ould hCne been no place for a floatplane to land T h e r e u'is m'issi\e sho,iling Ketn ccn the 14and m d the south shore the bottom became t n o hundred feet sh,illon er. , I n oce,inogr,iphcr n ith the U.S Co,ist mcl Geodetic S u n e r concluded t h there ~ had been "consitlerable ~nst~intaneous dtposltlon

. from c u d 1 shocks 'irid

huge n a t e r - \ \ a e stripping "

F o r t u n a t e l ~ ,the fantas\ of Laperouse m d others of

corn-

A

m e r c ~ d settlement l In the b q hcid not m ~ i t e r ~ ~ ~ l h~lz~el lt el r.noted. in L i t u B ~ a~ X the tlme of the 1958 "Feu \forks o f ~ m rexisted i w ~ ~ but e , luclging from the effects on the \egetation m d the boats, the n ,l\ e

ould h,n e n r e A e d tnormous destruction o n

o r d i n x ) buildings m d on shore structures such as docks." T h e r e m x nothmg left of Huscroft's cdbm except tor

1 '

fen

scattered utensdc T h e u n r n m n e d l~ghthouseon concrete piers at H x b o r Point \\as no more. E q u ~ p m e n left t b\

,l

mlning com-

p m ) on the south shore h ~ \danished, m d most of the brass sur\

e! r n x h e r s 5et in (oncrete b! the U S Coast 'ind Geodetic Sur-

\

e) disappe'ired After the 1958 u x e , the P x h Ser\ Ice ,rbandonttl plans to es-

tablish

1'

permanent ranger station In the b q Although h l ~ l l e r

calculdted t h a~glant

TX

a\ e occ~lrred bout e\ err quarter cen-

tury, he estimated that the odds of it occurring on any single day were nine thousand to one. T h e wave became the subject of academic conjecture. Such

,I

wa\e and the resulting destruction were theoret~cally

~ossible.X scale model was constructed by Robert L. Wiegel,

,l

civil engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert on oceanographic engineering. T o generate such a wave, he said, the slide needed to fall quite fast and as a single unit. Wiegel added: "It is a well-documented fact that waves with large energy content are generated impulsively by such varying mechanisms as underwater seismic disturbances, islands exploding, atomic bombs, and large n ~ ~ sof e water s xldetl suddenl) to a body of \vater." T h e first indication that the wave might be an unprecedented event was a small item published in the October 1958 issue of the

Brrlletin of the Seiimologicul Society of Ameticu, edited by Tocher: "The water wa\.e in Lituya Ray was perhaps the most remarkable wave on record." Others soon recognized the uniqueness of the L erified h e ~ g h t of the ~ . ve.a Eliott Roberts of the US. Coast and Geodetic Sur\

e), wrlting in the May 1960 issue of the U.S. LVuvulIn~tztutePio-

ceedmgx, termed it the highest wave known to oceanographers, the previous record being the one-hundred-and-twelve-foot ocean NJLy

LT.a\

e encountered twenty-fi~e J ears earlier by the U S .

ship In the North Pacific.-

' In uceanograph~cliterature, thc Lituya Bay wave is called a splash, surge.or impulsil-elygenerated wave. There are also wind-gencrnted Lvaves in the open ocean and t.illnut??zj(tidal wa\.es) caused by earthquakes. T h e

I 28

THE ti:ir'~

T h a t same year LIiller published his findings about the giant waves in a U.S. Geological Survey professional paper titlcd

Giant IV~vcjin Lituyu Ray .-Jlils/p. A shorter version ran in Tocher's seismological publication. Advancement in the federal agency was dependent to a great extent o n publication. Aliller had reached the pinnacle of his short career. POSTSCRIPT E'OLL(~)\VED POSTSCKIPT. for an event of such magnitude never truly ends. It continues to reverberate, like the aftershocks following an earthquake, through history. T\vo titanium prospectors, lvho had met the Canadian clinibers on the trek u p the coast, \ v e x ivorried. They flew over lvhat had been thc site of the base camp on the shore of the bay the day after the ~vaveand reported t h it~had vanished. T h e leader of the centennial expedition, Paddy Sherman. later wrote: "It Ivas the sort of shattering climax which, had it torn some othcr range asunder, would have convinced the natives forever that their gods were angry because the peak was clin~bed."

X member of the climbing party that failed to make it into the bay, on being informed of the missing cabin that n.ould have been their base camp, said: "If n ~ e ' dbeen on time. I guess n.e'd have gone, too." 1,ituyn ~ v a v e\va$ tlvice .IShigh

.I$

a \piash n.n r causetl hy

Italy'\ T7xiont Rewrvoir in 1963, when heal y rams caused

,I

.I

Irtntislitie in slope to g i \ e

Lvay, a n d approximately t ~ v othousand people Lvere d r o ~ v n e din nearby villages. A similar type ofwnve only thirty-three feet high killed fifteen thousand people along the shoreline of Shirnr~baraHay, J'lpan, in 1792.T h e

fjurds ofNor\v,ly, so similar to 1.ituya Bay, have been the site of many such destructive wn\-es.

THL

I{

11 h

I 29

Miller drowned in 1961 while on a field trip with a young assistant in southcentrd Alaska. Their hodies were found not far from their overturned yellow raft on the Kiagna River by the hush pilot who had dropped them off a few days earlier and later flown back over the area to check their progress. They n.ere lying bclo\v a canyon on separate sand bars along the glacial stream. Those urho knew Miller \vondered about the circumstances of his death, for he n.as experienced and able, and the river did not pose any unusual difficulties. U7hy was it, the!. asked, that both men drowned? There were n o answers. Miller's stature was such within the survey that the federal agency named one ofits Alaskan research vessels t h e I h n j . M/llei: T h e vessel cvas used to study the effects of the giant tsunami that struck southern Alaska after the Good Friday earthquake of 190+ In a new boat, purchased lvith the contributions of fellow fishermen, Bill Sn.anson and his brother-in-law reentered Lituyn

Bay on May zhth, 1962. It was the first time he had been in thc bay since the night of the giant wa1.c. Swanson died of a heart attack shortly after passing through the entrance to the hay. H e was fifty years old, had been fishing for nearly thirty years, and had no known health problems. A n archeologist and two field assistants from Washington State University arrived in Lituya Bay in the summer of 1965 to conduct an archeological survey for the Park Service. They quickly determined that there Lvere no sites remaining in the bay. Robert E. Ackerman, the archeologist, \\.rote: " T h e scene that greeted us when we arrived at Lituya Bay was one of desolation. X11 the inhabitable area around the shoreline of the bay had been swept clean as if by some giant hand."

I30

THE IZ 41'E

T h e ) made camp In Xnchor'lge C m e . O n the first night a fierce storm from off the gulf blew d o w n their tents. T h e y mo\ ed further inland m d then began their surle!. Using bear trails, they \v'ilked south to Steelhead Creek. n here they found a dec q i n g log c'lbin that had prob'lbl~ belonged to miners. Reside it lvas the large skull o f a v hale. Next the! hiked north along the b e x h to Justice Creek m d encountered the remains of inore mining inisadventures, some

as recent as the early 1960s. These n ere the ,~rtlf'ictsthey dlscox ered: dishe5, mason jars, rusting c m s , sand-nicked w h l s k q bottles, generators, a donkey cngine. boilers, ernpt) fuel barrels, a truck, a jeep, a bulldozer, log cahlns In 1 ar) ing st'itrs of disrep i r , m d more recentl) constructed tent p1,ltforms. T h e ) returned to their c a m p and prepared to dcpCirt.T h e n the furies struck. "Before lea\ ing Litu) '1 Bay a

I\

ell-de\ eloped gale

hich lashed u p the

\\

e

\\

1% ater

ere treated to

into ton e n n g

\va\es." X c h e r m m reported. " T h e small boat that n e h ~ left d 'safel)' anchored in Xnchor,ige C o l e

1\25

ripped from its moor-

ings and dashed against the jumble of logs that line the shore. Lituya Bay thus struck again."

S I N C ET H E G I A N T LT'.\T~EOF r 958, a n average of one fishing boat

a year has been lost at the entrance to Lituya Bay. T h e most recent victim prior to my visit was a forty-six-foot crab boat named the Sonoizl Sue. I saw the remnants of the fiberglass hull wedged in the boulders on La Chaussee Spit, much like rabv fl esh caught between the teeth of a grizzly bear. T h e haunting prcsence of such a carnivorous animal came to dominate my visit to the bay. Enough with reading books, I had thought; time to go there and experience the place. I did so with great trepidation. History c m be a light presence, if one is not personally involved. It could also be a m-eighty backpack on an internal trek through tirnc.

I needed to solve three problems before I could depart. It would be a costly trip, what with the flight to Juneau, a hotel stay, and then the chartered floatplane to a n d from Lituya Ray. I would also have to huy provisions.

I already possessed ccrtain necessary items, such as the easily transportable two-person kayak that I had used before in Glacier Bay and elsewhere. I could ship it as excess baggage on the commercial f i g h t , and it could be stowed on the small plane and then assembled on the beach. I owned a tent and all the necessary canlping gear.

I n a s then the Lvestern editor of .4udubon magazine, and I p r o p o x d a story on the bay to Ides Line, the editor of that nature

132

T H E PKESt.YT

publicat~on H e added the ~ d e aof a stor) on a World \\'X I1 battle fought 'lgalnst the Japanese on Xttu, the ~ s l m dfurthest v est on thc Xleut1'1n Island c h a ~ nmt1 no\\ a national n iltll~fe refuge. Flne, I thought, m X l , ~ \ k a nsummer to he financed h\ someone else T h e s x o n t i problem was

\X

horn to take, for I did not n a n t to

Lenture alone Into that b a . T h e r e and that

W J ~ m\

11'15

re all^

on11 one c h o ~ c e ,

,on, Xlex, n o n fourteen 1e x s old.

\17e had trar eletl through illaska and the Americ,in \Vest ton Gr,~nd gether O n e trlp d o n n the Color,~doR n er n ~ t h ~the C m \ on in

11 ooden

Other times

dories h ~ been d a rnenmrable experience.

e h'id bachp,~cl\edin the Sierra Nel J

~ J skied ,

in

Colorado ancl N e n h l c x ~ c o',~ n dcar-camped in Kaja Californ~a. Ll'ith his mother,

\I

ho n orked tor an ,~irline,Xlex 11~dbeen

around the n orltl sel era1 tlmcs. T h e \ h ~ sdu n 11 ed the s ~ n k i n g of a terr~bo,ltoff H o n g Kong, mostl) because Xlex spotted U

here the lite preserl ers n ere stored shurtlv before the ship col-

lided

M ith

another

\

essel T h e \ lumped from the list~ngferr)

into the South China Sea m d sv,,~imto He

In m \

.I

n e a r b ~lifeboat

ien, the complete k ~ d

LVJS there a r ~ s kto h ~ m :I didn't think so. In f ~ tI thought , h~s ) o u t h mtl innocence ~ i o u l dprotect him from that dark p l x e and perh'ip rub off on m e as n ell Xlex would be my good-luck ch'lrm ,lnd the \\bite sh~eltibehind n h ~ c hI \\ould con er At the s x n e t ~ ~ nhe e ,n ould be looking to m e for protection. How ironic. T h e I'15t problem

W ~ SL\

hat to d o dbout bear5. T h e r e mere

proh,~hlvmore large brown bcars (grizzly and bromn bears being the same) in a n d around Litu\a BJ\ than a n l n here elw In Xld~hd.

Bear stories were legion. Jim Huscroft hacl seen as many as nine grizzly bears feeding at one time along the shoreline of the bay. T h e hermit had distinguished five distinct types of bears: a huge b r o u n bear, a normal-sizcd grizzly, a small cream-colored grizzly, the common black bear, and a blue, or dun-colored, glacier bear. u ~ t o j are , the largest terrestrial carniMale grizzlies, GT.~US

\.ores in the world. Weighing between six hundred and t\vel\.e hundred pounds, they love fresh meat, charge at forty-two feet per second, and can crush a cow's skull as easily as I can break an eggshell. T h e r e were stories of maulings and close encounters \vith bears in the national monument. I was aware that at almost the exact spot where Alex and I had spent the first night camping on our kayak trip through Glacier Bay, an Illinois m a n had been attacked hy a young grizzly one month later. T h e man's bare skeleton, with one hand and boots left intact, was found a short distance from his camp. After talking with Huscroft in 1937,Jay Williarns of the Forest Service went for a stroll in the woods and encountered a large, aging brown bear. Both froze, and then, said Willianis, "the bear suddenly whirled and lunged off the trail directly into the forest. Before going thirty feet he smashed his head on into the trunk of a large wind-thrown spruce tree. T h e impact was so hard that it set him back on his haunches and must have given him a headache, but he soon disappeared in the woods." It was good to know,

I thought, that confrontations with grizzlies could be h u n ~ o r o u s . Opinion among old Alaska hands on the best bear kveapon was divided between a large-caliber rifle, like a .357 Magnum.

and n san ed-off t n ell c - g m g r shotgun loaded 1 ~ 1 t slugs h Alore recently, .qq-c'il~berhlagnurn re1 ol\ ers h ~ become d the less hurdensome, m c l less x c u r a t e . nedpon of choice T n o armed persons, ,K least one h , l \ ~ n gh x l pretlous evptrlence with large b a r s , \ X ~ X the o p t ~ m u mp a r i n g .

I h , ~ dh ~ hrlef d encounters

n ith h,lrmless black be'li-5

\\

h~le

b,lcl\pack~ngIn the \ITest. ;\Ithough a Cold \f'ar A r m ) Leteran \X

ho had s t r \ ecl on the

c x r \ l ,I n eapon n hilt tlec~detlnot to hu\

1 '

,I

E25t

G e r m a n border, I had chown not to

ne\\ \paper correspondent In \'letnam. I

gun, preferrmg ~ n s t e , ~loud c l ~ ~n h~stle,b m g -

Ing on 1' tin cup. and 111) o n n lust\. off-Le\ slnglng \ a c e to n ~ r n hears of our harmless passage T h e only other hdggage that I cxrlecl n as in m \ m m d ,It t h ~ t

,111 the d e t x l s oi the histor! of L ~ t u i aR a , but I \\a5 n\\,ire ot the general outlme T h e r e seemed to h t ,I t m e I did not k n o v continuum.

T I I FT\T'O O F L set off q x n for ;\l,isba In June of rq8o O n arr n a1 , ~ the t June,~u'lirport, a e ~inmecliatel\b o x d e d a commerclal f rght to gust,^ us, \X here the L isitor center and P,lrl\ Ser\ ice he'ldquarters for Gl,ic~erBA\ N a t ~ o n a Xlonument l n ere locxed. Although L I ~ L IRar \ J n '1s monument, what ex cntunll\

1 ' 1err

s m d l part of the nntlond

oultl hecomr

,I

large n a t ~ o n , ~ p lx l \

h d ~ t genes15 s there. P r e s ~ d e n\f'ootiron t \\'~lson c\ lthtlreu three n huntlred , ~ n dt n e l \ e squ'ire n11le5 tram the p u b l ~ cd o m , ~ ~that 5urrounded Lltu\n KJJ d u r ~ n U70rlcl g \I7ar I to protect the 5pruce trees for construction of a ~ r p l a n et r m ~ t sAs ~t turned out, the trees Lvere not needed for the \xar effort

X 2. j - r n i l l ~ o n - ~ c nCltlonnl re monument, \X hlch tooh In L I ~ L I J J K q , \X as C I e'ited in 1925 b~ President C a l ~ in Coohdge T h e cen-

THE P K E S E S T .

I35

terpiece was the glaciers surrounding the inner bay, celebrated by John Muir and others. During the early years, the Forest Service handled administrative matters, such as leasing Cenotaph Island to Huscroft. T h e r e was little control over or thought given to activities on the wild outer coast, regardless of whether the Forest Service or Park Service administered it. T h e virgin spruce and hemlock forests surrounding Lituya Bay were a tempting source of revenue for the Forest Service. A hill passed by Congress in the waning days of the 1936 session opened the national monument to mining. Miners hacked a road for a Model TT Ford truck through the brush on the old path to the diggings north ofthe bay.

A survey from the air by the Park Service determined there were few brown bears in Lituya Bay. "Bears indeed were there in droves," the miners on the ground reported. T h e Park Service, during one of its rare patrols of the outer coast in the mid 1g6os, counted fifty fishing boats in the bay at one time. T h e prospectors had made a mess of the shoreline. Congress designated the monument a 3.2-million-acre national park in 1980; but such an official act meant little on the remote outer coast, and it certainly did not affect our v i s i d O n arrival in Gustnvus, we pitched our tent in the campground near the visitor center. I did some research in the library

X11 the land surrounding the bay and Cenotaph Island lvere officially designated wilderness. Nu campground, visitor center, or ranger station lvould he built there. It was not until 1992 that the Park Service mounted anything resembling an effective patrol o f t h e remoter regions of the park. That year it acquired an airplane to control poaching "of some of the largest specimen5 of bromm hear left in Alaska" and the rarer glacier bear.

136

T H E PKESE.\'T.

at park headquarters ancl readied our gedr. As prearranged, the chartered floatplane arrived o n the third day. T h e mountains ivere hurled in clouds, so the p l o t tool\ the sea-le\ el route \ la the coastline. We p c k e d u p n.~spsof fog n a r Cdpe Spencer, the fog bank thickened, m d the p l o t turned b,~cL T w o da)5 Ixer, the sk!

rids

cle'lr. N'e flew m e r Glacier Kaj,

m here we had paddled four !ear5 pre\ loud), m d headed t o n a r d 1 '

low p u n t In the F'urneather Range. It Lvas the same route that

Xliller had taken t\venty-t\vo 1e'trc e a r l ~ e r . T h e mountains, truly one of the

orld's grecIt alpine sights.

glittered m ~ t hnelv s n o u . T h e jelr eled ~ v h i t eexpan5e lvds blinding. H u g e , gaping cre\ asses creased the extensn e glac~alpldm

M'e tiescendecl m d lolned the coast , ~ the t pomt u h e r e the LJ Perouse Glacier c a l ~ e dtiirectl\ Into the gulf, then h w d e d north. T h e $me

b,~nl\edto the rlght m d , ~ p p r o , ~ c h ethe d bal from

the o c e m . T h e first thing I noticed froin the alr m current was ~ n b o u n dA .

M hite-flecked

~

that 5 the tidal

V rv,~scngr'ned upon the

ndter ,lt the entrance. \tTe passed o\ er the same flood current t h ~ t had 5uckecl L,rpkrouse's t ~ v os h ~ pinto j the b q . As the flo@nne

5k1inmed o\ er the \vxer preprator! to land-

Ing, I made out the de\ sstdting h a m u t the 1958 \va\ e h ~ gdn en thc b,l\ C r o n d e d along the shorelme, lust clbole the h1ghe5t of the high tide5. v, ere the bleached rern'lln5 of tree trunks, man) still attached to thelr se1 ered roots. T h e \ resembled the lunlbled

pies of u e ~ h e r e dbones f r o ~ n,I holocdust of u n i r n a g ~ n ~ h l e proportions. T h e p l m e pulled u p to the beach on the \vest side of Cenotaph Islmcl, t h ~ bt a n g the location I had selected for o u r b a e camp. L ~ k eHuscrott, I thought there lvould be fewer bears on the island. T h e west side was also more protected from the chill

I37

T H E PKESEAYT

X r c t ~ cw n d s that blew from off the f r ~ g l dglaciers, and there w,rs a 1leu of the denwly 1 egetated coastal strlp.

We were bus) for the next few mlnutes unlo,~dlngthe equlpnient and supplies. T h e bush pilot m d I brlefy confirmed the arrmgement\ for hls return in eight days, m d then he s u r t e d the engine m d

M1 's

off.

Xlex forlornly m ~ t c h e dthe p l m e depart. H e ne1 er hhed that place. It g a l e hlnl the creeps from first to I ~ s tT. h a t mdependentminded )(lung man stuck to me-espcci~~lly around-11kt

M

hen bear3 were

the duct tape I used to r e p a r my k n e e - h ~ g hruh-

ber boot\.

b T E HE.\L)EI) TOMrL\RL) T H E T R C E S to look for a place to p t c h

our tent. T h e day was w x m ; the sun was hot. Yet as w o n '1s m e climbed A low hank and entered the forest, a coolness descended.

X short path led to 1' campsite, most probably used by Park Service rangers, I guessed, during their infrequent visits to the bay. X tarpaulin was strung over a picnic table and a tent rvas pitched on a wooden platform. I cvondcred ~ v h ocould be here. Inslde the tent there were two cots s e p r a t e d b y a metal footlocker. Books, a lantern, and field notes n ere scattered about. T h e reading ~naterialand notes suggested sc~entlficrese'mhers of some type. Alex called out, "Hey, D d , I'm hungry." "Oka), kld, glr e m e a f e n rnlnutes to figure out w h ~ t ' shappening here." Xbot t the plcnic table I saw wooden box, retr~evablebj pulleys and a rope, that serr ed '1s a bear-proof food cache. Into the box went our food. I found a flat spot for our tent with a view of

1 3 ~

THE PRESEST.

the bay a short distance from the established camp. Alex wanted to sleep closer to the others, whoever they might be, but I thought that would violate camping ethics. We ate our lunch quietly at the table. The bay was still. The view through the trees was a perfectly framed picture of The Paps. The strait and the long flat spit were also visible. The backdrop for the history I had absorbed was now displayed before me on a panoramic scale.

THAT.4FTERh'OOK, with Alex's help, I assembled the kayak. I secured it with a long line to a tree-a precaution, albeit a feeble gesture should there be a giant wave. We walked along the beach, skipped stones on the still bay, had the first of many thumb-wrestling matches, and found a creek in which there was a trickle of water. That would be our water source until it ran dry a few days later. We then discovered the hermit's spring in the forest. The water that flowed from his rusting pipe made it unnecessary to move to the mainland. Thanks, Jim. After dinner-Top

Ramen with sliced onion, canned peas,

and tuna fish, with a Kit Kat for each of us for desert-we erected the small backpacking tent. We covered our duffels with a poncho and, thoroughly tired, crawled into our sleeping bags while it was still light and immediately fell asleep. That night, and for the rest of our time in the bay, we were haunted by a grizzly bear. I can't say it was the same bear with any degree of certainty, but its near-constant presence just out of sight implied a singleness of purpose.

T H E PRESEA7T.

'39

The spirit bear followed us around the bay, delivering messages that I could not decipher: guttural sounds, steaming piles of scat, a fresh paw mark in the sand, the pervasive odor of rotting flesh, and crushed bushes slowly rebounding from the weight of a very large supine presence. We never saw him or her, just numerous signs from the black sand beaches to the subalpine heights. But that ursine presence was very much on our minds. Alex carried a wooden club in his small hand everywhere he went. The only time he felt completely safe was when he stood, club in hand, upon the high steel platform that surrounded a navigational light on the shoreline of the bay. The first contact with the bear was, for me, the most unnerving. I awakened that night to the sound of shuffling noises and a grunt or two. And then there was the unmistakable stink of bear, a smell I was familiar with from past wilderness experiences. I went rigid in my sleeping bag. I debated whether to awaken Alex but decided against it. H e might make a noise and startle the bear into some type of decisive action. Silence was our best and only defense. I was glad we kept no food in or near the tent. I had been adamant about that. The cloth enclosure felt like an open crypt. I kept envisioning claws ripping razor-like through the thin green fabric as I gazed upward in mortal terror and tried to think if there was anything I could do. There wasn't. Who could divine the thoughts of a bear, and an invisible one at that? Not I, for sure. A thousand-pound grizzly could attack either on a whim or for a very good reason that would be beyond my ability to comprehend.

W h a t crosscd my mind \vas our complete vulnerability to another species. I nras w d l aware of the destructive power of o u r species. but to have the roles reversed Lvas new to me. T h e noises camc and urent; the smell was constant; then both disappeared. I had n o idea holv much time had elapsed.

I gulped a breath of clean, fresh air and looked forward to the possibility of an unrnutilated future. It was a considernble time before I could fall asleep. T h e r e were no physicnl signs of the bear's presence in the morning.'

T H EF I R S T 11.11, nras devoted to exploring our imnletliatc environs. \VC decitied to take the kc~yc~k 2nd circurnna\.igate the island in a counterclockwise direction. T h e day Lvas cloudy. T h e leaclcn ox-ercast cut the tops off thc surrounding mountain peaks. lea\ ing just the roots of the precipitous heights visible like so many molars, n.hen yesterday they had been jagged incisors. T h e sandy beach ended a short distance to the south, \\.here granitic rocks intruded to form a cliffon ivhose ledges cmti fissures the kittiwakes nested. T h e i r white bodies and light gray wings stood out against the dark cliff stained randomly by their drop-

'I latcr rratl in Stcphen Herrertr'q hook Keui. .-1ttdcij.i: Tlieir CUMJC' and .-lvozdunce: ".-ilrhor~ghn h i n ~ s yphysicd b n r r ~ e rn, rent may be enough of ,l pychological harricr to pre\ent the early stagrc of ,m incident, hen

3

grizzly explores a person a, s o m e t h ~ n gto rat. H o ~ e v e r grizzlies , have ripped tents and tirclggcd some protection."

o u t ancl killed t h a n .

.X tent

only offrrs

pings. As we glided past, the gulls uttered their high-intensity alarm c ~ l 2nd l skittered u p v a r d , much as they had done before the 1958 carthqu'lke. Around the polnt X the southern end of the islmd, there was A

decided c h m g c In the

M

e'lther. T h e macs bore w h ~ t e c a pant1

the wind cont,uned the pierclng chill of glac~alhe~ghts.T h e

Li)A rocked u hile we put on our w~ndbreakers. We p'dtlled a mile or so t o w x d the head of the h ~ ymcl , then

I tlecldecl to g11e up nttemptlng to make m j further h e ~ d w a yIn the chop. T h e wind and waves, without an) help from uc, pushed the kay'ik back tomdrd the island, m d Lve l m d e d on the beach t h ~ faced t the he'id of the bay. Xlex played on the \and n h i l e I mmderetf to the top o f a rocky promontory that promised

J \

iew. I was surpr~sedto find a blue

p l ~ s t i cplaque embedded in a concrete baw. T h e w e x h e r had dulled and cracked the plast~c.Scattered about the f&x cenotaph kvere beer cans and the filter tips of cigarettes, the detritus of fishermen who had landed there to p ~ their y re5pects to their fellow s d o r j m d contemplate the e x p m s n e L irta. At the top of the plaque were 1nscrlbt.d the following v,ords taken from the o r ~ g i n a cenotaph l and herewith translated from the French: "At the entrance of this harbor peri5hed twenty-one bra\ e seamen. Reader, \vhoe\er thou art, mingle thy tea-s w ~ t h ours." Listed under t h e ~ rrespectn e s h ~ p m s ere t h t nm1e5 of the dead officers and crewmen. Inscr~bedalong the bottom was

"A\ 150-EscorteurAmziul Chat rnei -7 AoOt 1978." T h e French frigate L:jmuuI Chaimel, I later l e x n e d , had ho\ e to off L ~ t u v aR q in August of 1978 u i t h the Intent of lmding a party to reestablish the cenotaph on the island. T h e corn-

T H E PRESE\

112

T

mander s u n eyed the brcaLers at the entrance and, ex er mindful of the earlier ccita5tropht, denied the request of his \ oung officers to t ~ k ae h o ~ ashore. t T h e ship m l e d o n to June'lu, m here the plaque was g n en to the French lce-consul T h e next Jul) some local histor\ buffs chartered 'I boat to tclke the p l ~ 5 t l ccenot'1ph to the

bet\ K\ the time I x r i ~ e d1' jear l x e r ,

it hdd deteriorated bad11 in the harsh en\ ironinent.

I called to Xlex to come u p and 5ee A lxt of hlstor\. \Vhen I reIxed the storr behind the plaque, he s'llci it confirmed his n orst fear5 bout the b a T h e \ ie\\ from the promontor\, ho\\ e\ er, m as m a r \ elous We atched the clouds Range. T h e

U

irl bout the ramparts of the Fair\\ eather

e , ~ t h r rn a s c h m g i n g f ~ s t the ; o\ e r c a t n '1s clear-

ing. Shreds of high clouds scurried east\\ , ~ r dChill sh'~clons alternated

M

~tM h a r m sunshine It n 1 ' s trulx n ) in-) m g landsc,lpe

We de5cended to the b e x h ,

here n e ambled through an

open '11s art galler) of fancif~dice sculptures Ice from the g l ~ ciers at the head of the bai nc~shecl ,ishose at high t ~ d eand , as the n a t e r receded, the rounded pieces assumed the sh'rpes of p! gm) ,~nim,ds,or at le'15t the\ appeared

50

to us. H e r e \\as a small ele-

phant. a gir'~tfe, ,I k m g m m . and o l e r there. s ~ i dXlex, \ to m ) soliloquy. Apparently he liked what he had heard, because he

WCIS

immediately more

forthcoming. I had passed some klnd of test. H e asked, "Is ~t the mask. or is it !ou' W h e n you '~pproach something on the shelf and you see the dead-looking, deep eyes and you know it's shamanist~c,you wonder: are you re'lcting to your childhood fears. is there a scientific explanation, a psychological reason, or is it cultural? H o w d o you reconcile these feelings? I don't know. X11 I can say is that it happens, and I think along the way there is an opportunity for you to figure it out, if you want to figure it out." I said I Lvas trying to figure it out by writing a book. "Yes," Rodriguez replied, "and I think it depends on the indi-

dual who is writing the book as to how much of yourself, h o ~ v much of jour beliefs. how much of ) o u r superstitions, m d how much of your fears go into it." "What about the pomw of place:" I asked, thinking of Lituya Ray. "For instance, ~ v h a hdppens t to ) o u when you go into thdt room looking for. say. specimen number ~ 2 7 5 4 'What does that room, or any place for that matter, d o to you that is not conscious? "

"I think it's mood," he said, "I think there is an environment here. Some places \vill give you a n eerie feeling. For extmple, I know that this is an old place. I k n o ~ vit has a long and valued history, and there are a lot of characters involved in that history. T h e r e are a lot of stories that go with these names. There's a big difference when !ou look at an oblect in this room m d when 1ou go to a modern state-of-the-art storage room. W h e n you walk into a bright, ~vell-lit,air-conditioned room, it does something else to your senses."

T O J I A L E S BAY

'59

"You're not even aware of it," Dianne said. "It's on a subliminal level." "\'cry sublin~inal,"said Rodriguez. "I have been around here long enough that I've been able to compare notes, so to speak." H e motioned toward the open steel door: "This room has a special quality, a built-in quality. It is crowded, it is overwhelming, and it's not organized. There's something interesting, something attractive about disorganization, because it reflects history. Things come in slowly, and they accumulate, and you see objects as they appear intermittently in succession. By just arriving they

tell

3

story, or want to tell a story. We don't know exactly what

that story is, but we feel son~ething.Something is going on."

I thought he could easily be talking about the accumulation of facts and impressions that constituted the history of Lituya Bay and my reaction to it. Like Castaneda, perhaps I had found my insightful shaman.

I asked Diannc to take a photograph o f m e in front ofRoom 2.3, with and ~ v i t h o u at Tlingit mask affixed to my face. A n d there I am: gaunt, serious face above a dark blue blazer, and then the shaman's mask with the tufts of hair, black holes for eyes, and open mouth. Both figures wear a name tag identifying m e as a visitor. We descended the stairs, thanked Rodriguez, and left the museum.

I had lived history, and it had not beeneasy. I had only one conclusion: it was the experience that counted. I found that thought to be quietly satisfying.

This page intentionally left blank

This book represents a twenty-five-year effort to assemble my thoughts about Lituya Bay in a coherent manner and to find a publisher. I sometimes wondered if it was worth the effort, but I felt compelled to come to terms with that place through the written word. Some people helped me along the way. Doris Ober, to whom this book is dedicated, is a close friend and my first professional reader. For the past ten years she has read almost everything I have written and commented wisely on it. I listen closely to what she has to say. My wife, Dianne, has been with me for two-thirds of this journey. She is a voracious reader, but this is not her kind ofbook. Nevertheless, she read each revision of the manuscript-and there were manyand showed me how an intelligent, albeit loyal, reader might react. Alex Fradkin, my son, now in his thirties, is a talented photographer who would like to return to the bay with his cameras. H e is welcome to do so, without me. H e was a wonderful companion on that first and last trip. One incarnation of this manuscript was fictional, and I received a small grant from the Marin Arts Council for that effort. A juror, Betty Hodson, took the time to write a letter of encouragement that kept me going for a while. Connie Mery translated portions of works about Lapkrouse that had been written in French. She and her husband, Michael, and another literate friend, Richard B. Lyttle, read earlier versions of the manuscript and helped me with their comments.

162

ACKNO W L E D G M E S T S

Malcolm Margolin, the only other person I know who is familiar with LapCrouse, saw value in a draft and suggested that the manuscript might find a home with a university press. When the University ofCalifornia Press needed a second peer reviewer of the manuscript, he replied with intelligence and wit. Monica McCormick, history editor for the Press, said with enthusiasm that she would like to publish the manuscript. She is a thoughtful and incisive editor. At the tail end of this prolonged effort, Dore Brown, senior project editor for the Press, enhanced my intent with perceptive copyediting.

T h e principal repositories for information on Lituya Bay are, from south to north: the Huntington Library in Pasadena, the U.S. Geological Survey library in Menlo Park, the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, the special collections section of the University of Washington Library in Seattle, the Alaska State Library in Juneau, and the library and files of Glacier Ray National Park. All my written notes, photocopies of research materials, and photographs were destroyed in a 1988 fire. Some were reconstructed from a computer disk stored elsewhere. Most of the research was gathered a second time. I had to rely on memory for a few incidents. LapCrouse and Miller have made the most noteworthy contributions to the specific history of Lituya Bay. Bohn, de Laguna, Caldwell, and Nickerson have added broader and more recent strokes. I have arranged the citations in the order of their first sustained use. Some were employed elsewhere. I have kept references to works used as background to a minimum and have not included materials that were only marginally helpful.

I. BEGINNINGS

Philip L. Fradkin. Wanderings of an Environmental Journalist: In Aladp and the American West. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993. Dave Bohn. Glacier Bay. Gustavus: Alaska National Parks and Monuments Association, 1967.

164

S O L RCES

Don Tocher. "The .Alaska Earthquake of July lo, 1958: ;\lovcment on the Fainyeather Fault and Field In\-estigation of Southern Epicentral Region." bullet it^ qf the Sei.inaologtc~/LSocietj, of zlvnei.icu, April rq6o. Ron Reclfern. The .\lakitzgqf~i Cot~titzent.S e w b r k : Times Books, 1986.

11. THF. Ill-.ACE

Coast ;lnd Geodetic Survey. CT.S. Coii.it Piiot, Southeclst .-llur@, Dixor~ Etztiz/uce to Yuk[~tatRay. If'ashingon, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing O f i c e , r q 52. Defcnsc hIapping Agency. Siiilit~gIjlt.ectiot7jfoi. the LVoid P(lc$c Oceat~. 3 ~ 1 ed. \f'ashington. D.C.: L . S . Government Printing Office, 1989. Howell Lr'illianis, ed. L r i t ~ d . i ~ ~qf p ~.ilii~kii. .< Berkeley: Unil-ersity of C a l i h r n i a Press. 1 9 5 8 Ivan big. 7'hc Srr~R!tr?~?eiu. s e \ v Ihrk:Penguin Books, 1983. National Park Service, Gregory P. Streveler et al. 1,ituya Buy Envii.orz~netzt(~I Stuc/\. Juneau, r 9x0. National Park Service. Geueiul 211utl~zgemrt~r Plun. Glacier Bay National Park ancl Preserve, (;uctavus, Alaska, 1984. National Pxrk Service. Fit~irlEnvii.on~nentalImpact Stutevwtzt f o ~the It'i/lri~tze..iiReco7n~net1datiotlj.Glacier Bay s ~ t i o n a l Park and Preserve. Gustavus, Alaska, 1988. National Park Serl-ice. Pi.oceeding.i of the Second Glnriei. B q Science Sympo..Jennings, ed. dnc~etltATLltiue .LItne~.icun.i.San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1978. B r i m M. Fagan. The Great Jozcmey: The Peopling of Ancient Atne~ica. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987. Frederica de Laguna. Undei.,llount Saint Elias: The Hi.it01.y and Culture of the Yukutut Tlingit. 3 vols. R7ashington, D.C.: Slnithsonian Institution Press, 1972. Aurel ILrause. The Tlingit Indiunj. Seattle: University of Washington I-'res, 1956. Fairhanks: Archimandrite Xnatoli Kamenskii. Tlingit Indian.iofz41us~a. University of Alaska Press, 1985. Xldona Jonaitis. of the "Vwthei-n Tlingits. Seattle: University of Wxhington Press, 1986. John R. Suanton. Sociul Co/~ditio~~.i, Belie$, und Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit ItzClinn,.. Bureau of American Ethnology, 26th Annual Report. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1908. John R. Swanton. Tlingit .lfyth.ia?/d Texts. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 39. Washington, D.C.: S~nithsoninnInstitution Press. 19o9. R. L. Olson. Sociul St~uctui-eand Social Lzfr of the Tlingit in Alaska. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Kalervo Oberg. The Sociul Economy of the Tlingit Indians. Seattle: UniX-ersityof Washington Press, 1973. Waltcr K. Goldschrnidt and Theodore H . Haas. Pos.iessor.y Rights of the h'utiz,e.i of Soz~theastem41asku. X Report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 1946. Livingston F. Jones. .4Study of the Tlingits of illuska. New York: Fleming H . Revell, 1914.

I

66

S O LKCES

Nora hlarks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer, edq. Hau Shziku, Ozir Atzceito~li.Seattle: Universit!. of L4bshington Press, 1987. Claude LCvi-Strauss. The L l h ) of the ALfu~ki. Translated by Sylvia Llodelski. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988. hlec Wilkinson. "The Uncommitted C,rime." The llPw Yorkei; S O vember 26, 1990.

ITT. THE

FRENCH

F. X. (;older. Ku.uiim Expiznsio?l on the Pacific, 1641-1850. Clevela~~d: Xrthur H. Clark. 1914. F. A. Golder. HeringS 1byuge.i. 2 vols. Nelv York: American Geographical Society, 1922. Lisilii ,4. Di\.in. The Greut R u i ~ i a nSaz~igator.-l.I. Chiiikou. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, rqvj. C;lynn Rarratr. Rz~ijiai~zPuc~jicLlkrefi, 1715-1825 T'ancouver: Uni\.ersity of British Columbia Press, 1981. Hubert Howe Bancroft. H1.itoi.y of .-llaiku. San Francisco: X . L. Rancroft. 18%. Williani Cose. .-lccomtzt of rhe Rzt.i~~utzl3ijcoz~erie.q bettt~eetz.-lsiu utzd .ime~.ic.u.London: Catlell and Davies, 1804. Raymond H . Fi\her. Bei.ingi T'o),i!gei:Ti'hither and IVhy. Seattle: University of Triashington Press, 197;. J. C . Beaglehole. The 1b)'age of the Retolution a t ~ dDiscovery, 17761780. 1'01. 3. London: Hakluyt Society, 196;. J. C. Kcaglrhole. The Ltfe of Cizprizitl Jurnrj Cook. London: Hakluyt Society, 107-t. Stephen Haycoa et al., rds. Enlighrenmerzr and Explorz2tiot1 ~ I the I Xorth Puc~fic,1741-1805, Serlttle: Uni\.ersity of Washington Press, 1 0 ~ 7 George Thornton Emmons. "Vative Account of the hlecting between La PProuw and the Tlingit." .heiYcan Atzthi-opology 13 (AprilJune 191I ) .

SOURCES.

1 ~ 7

Jean-Fran~oisde Galaup de la Ptrouse. The Journal of Jean-Fran~oisde Galaup de la Pkrouse. Vols. 1-2. Translated and edited by John Dunmore. London: Hakluyt Society, 1994. Jean F r a n ~ o i sde Laptrouse. A Voyage 'Round the World, 1785-1788. London: Lackington, Allen, 1807. Julius S. Gassner. Voyages and Adventures of La Pirouse. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969. John Dunmore. Paczjic Explorer: The Llfe of Jean-Francois de Galaup de la Pirouse (1741-1788). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1985. Fransois Bellec. La g h h e u s e et tragique expkdition Lapkrouse. Rennes: Ouest-France, 1985. Edward Weber Allen. The Vanishing Frenchman: The Mysterious Disappearance of Lapkrouse. Rutland, Vt.: C. E. Tuttle, 1959. Russell C. Shelton. From Hudson Bay to Botany Bay: The Lost Frigates of Lapirouse. Toronto: N C Press, 1987. Simon Schama. Citizens. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Oliver Bernier. Louis the Beloved: The Life of Louis XI.:Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984. Malcolm Margolin. Monterey in 1786: The Journals of Jean Frangois de La Pkrouse. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1989. Jean Baptiste Barthdemy de Lesseps. Travels in Kamchatka during the Years 1787 and 1788. London: J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard, '790. Jacques Julien Houton de Labillardi6re. An Account of a Voyage in Search of La Pkrouse Undertaken by Order of the Constituent Asjembly of France and Performed in the Years 1791, 1792, and 1793 in the Recherche and Esperance, Ships of War, Under the Command of RearAdmiral Bruny d'Entrkcasteaux. 2d ed. London: B. Uphill, 1802. Peter Dillon. Narrativeand Successful Result ofa Voyage in the South Seas Performed by Order of the Government of British India to Ascertain the Actual Fate of La Pkrousei Expedition, Interspersed with Accounts of the Religion, Manners, Customs, and Cannibal Practices of the South Sea Islanders. London: Hurst, Chance, 1829.

I

68

SOURCES

James W. Davidson. Peter Dillon of Vanikoro. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

\'. T H E RUSSIANS

Grigorii I. Shelikhov. A Voyage to America, 1783-1786. Kingston, Ontario: Limestone Press, 1981. A. I. Andreyev, ed. Russian Discoveries in the Pacificand in North America in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. American Council of Learned Societies, 1952. P. A. Tikhmenev. d Hiitory of the Russian-American Company. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978. Frederic W. Horway, ed. Voyages ofthe Columbia to the Northwest Coast, 1787-1790 and 1790-1793. Oregon Historical Society, 1990. Kalervo Okerg. The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973. Erna Gunther. Indian L f e on the il'orthwest Coast ofAmerica. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Henry W. Elliott. An Arctic Province. London: Sampson et al., 1886. William H . Dall. Alaska and Itj Re~ources.Boston: Lee and Shepard, '897.

\'I. T H E A h l E R I C A S S

U S . Coast and Geodetic Survey and George Davidson. Coast Pilot of Alas@. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, I 869. George Davidson. "Scientific Expedition to Alaska." Harper? Monthly, November 1868. U S . House of Representatives. 44th Cong., 1st sess. Report ofthe Superintendent of the U S . Coast Survey, Showing Progress of the Survey During the Year 1875 Washington, D.C.: U S . Government Printing Office, I 878.

SOURCES.

169

U S , Coast and Geodetic Survey and W. H. Dall. Paczjic Coast Pilot. 2d ed. Part I . Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1883. Otto J. Klotz. "Notes on Glaciers of South-Eastern Alaska and Adjoining Territory." Geographical Joumul, 1899. W. H. Dall. "Alaska As It Is and Was." Washington, D.C.: Philosophical Society of Washington, December 6, 1895. Edward A. Herron. First Scientist o f A l a s ~ a :William Healey Dall. New York: Julian Messner, 1958. U.S. Geological Survey and Donald J. Orth. Dictionary ofAlas@ Place Names. USGS Professional Paper 567. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. U S . Coast and Geodetic Survey and Lt. Cmdr. Henry E. Nichols. Paczj'ic Coast Pilot, Alas&z. 3d ed. Part I . Washington, D.C.: U S . Government Printing Office, I 891. Jean Low. "George Thornton Emmons." A l a s ~ aJournal, Winter 1977. George Thornton Emmons. The Tlingit Indians. Edited by Frederica de Laguna. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991. Douglas Cole. Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985. Aldona Jonaitis. From the Land of the Totem Poles. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1988. U.S. Geological Survey and J. B. Mertie Jr. Notes on the Geography aed Geology of Lituya Bay, Alast+z. Bulletin 863-B. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931. U.S. Geological Survey, Erk Reimnitz and George Plafker. Marine Gold Place~salong the G u l f o f Alas/p Margin. Bulletin 1415. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. C. Perry McBeth. "Gold at Lituya." Alas@ Sportsman, February 1949. John Burroughs, John Muir, and George Bird Grinnell. Alas@. Vol. I . Harriman Alaska Expedition. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1901. George Bird Grinnell. Alas@ 1899: Essaysfiom the Harriman Expedition. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995.

I 70

SOLRCES

Grove Karl Gilbert. G1aciel.x and Cluciatior~.H a r r i m a n Alaska Series. TTol.3. Wxshington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, ~cjro. Linnie hlarsh Wolfe, cd. John of the 1Iozitltt~i~1j. hladison: University of N'isconsin Press, I 979, Nancy Lord. Gr-eeu ,42u.i+~. \Vashington, I1.C.: Counterpoint, 1c)yq. H e r m a n J. T'iola. Explo,.mR the Il'est. TVashington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1987. \Villiarn H. Goertzmann and Kay Sloan. Looking FarIYor-th:T h e Hat.riman Expedition to .ilajka, 1899. N e w York: T'iking Press, 1982. U.S. Geological Survey, Kalph S. Tarr, and 1,awrence hlartin. T h e E:ui.thq~cakesut k'ukutat Ha), .ll~.iki~, in Septernbei; 1899. USGS Professional Paper 69. \5$shington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912. "Prospectus of the Latu)a Bay Gold hlining Company." Latuya Ray Gold hlining Company. San Francisco. I 899. T h r [Sit$iz].-lli~ikiz?~, h1ay 12, 1900, and October 13. 1yo0. "\J70man Hangs a Xlan And the Laxv Upholds Her." Srzn Fr-izncijco Exa m i n e ~ October ; 14, ~ y o o Jack London. " T h e Unexpectt.d." AllcClui.ei,August 1 9 ~ 6 . Franklin \\'alker. Jack London and the Klond2ke. San hlarino, (hlif.: Huntington Library, 19cj+ Earle Lahor, ed. T h e Lettei.~qf Jack London. T'ol. 2, 1906-1912. Stanford: Stanforcl University Press. 1988. William K. H u n t . Diitant Jtijtice: Policing the .-l/iz.iF;a~lFmntiei.. Norman: University of (Iklahorna Press. 1987. LIerle Colby. .i Guide to ,llaiku, Loit .itnei.iccitz F~oritiei..X e w York: hlacmillan, 1y3y. Francis E. Caldn.el1. Land ofthe Ocean J11.it.i. Edmonds: Xlaska Northwest Publishing. I 986. Xllen Carpe. "The Conquest of hIt. Fair\veather." .i/pine Joumul, November 1931. H. Bradford U7c~shburnJr. T h e H a i ~ u i d - D a i t ~ n o u t.iluskutz h Expedltionj. Geograph~calJournal, June 1936.

Bradford Washburn. "The Conquest of Mount Crillon." iYutional Geogi.uphic, hlarch 1935. 1)al.e Kohn. "Portrait of an Expedition in the Fairweather Range." .irnericun .ilpine Journal, 1963. h r t h u r Xlallory. "Lituya's Elusive Chltl." dlus@z Spoi,tsman, August 1964. Jay Willixns. "Lituya Bay, the Be\vitcher."d/~z~~a Sport.imun, February '938 Jay \I.'illiarns. L4/~.~kut2 Advetzture. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1952.

1.11. T H E \VATE

Donaltl J. hIillcr. Gian? Jlhue.~in L i i u y ~Buy, .ilirs~u.USGS Professional Pap" 354-CI.lTashington,D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. I 960. Don Tocher and Don J. hiiller et al. "The Alaska Earthquake of July I o. 1 ~ 5 8 ,B/d[etin " ofthe Sriir~olog~c~al Society qf z-ln~ericu,April I 960. Don J. Aliller. "(:ataclysmic Flood \Traves in Litupa Ray, Alaska." Bulletin of the Seirmologicul Society ~f,-lrnericu,July I y j t . Don Tocher and Don J. hliller. "Field Observation on Effects of Alaska Earthquake of 1 0 July 1958." Science, February 13, 1950 R. J. Rrazee and Jxnes S.Jordan. "Preliminary Notes of Southeastern Alaska Earthquake." Eurthquu~r,Votr.i, Seismological Society of America, September 1958 Don Tocher, ed. "Seismological Notes." Seljmological Sociery of America Bulletin, October 1958. Don J. Miller, Thornas C. Payne, and George Gryc. Geology of Poisib/e Petroleum Prouincer in Alajka. Geological Survey Bulletin 1094. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1y59. G. F. Jordan. "Redistribution of Sediments in Alaskan Bays and Inlets." Geogmphical Reuieu~(New York), 1962. Paddy Sherman. Clorld L/alkers: Six Climb5 on Major Canadian Pea@. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965.

172

SOC'RCES

Transcript of the radio interview with Bill Swanson and Diane Olson's notes on the radio transmissions, Glacier Bay National Park files, Juneau. Howard Ulrich. "Night of Terror." Alaska Spot.tsman, October 1958. Bill Swanson. "Where Hell Breaks Loose." Alaska Sportsman, October

'958. K. E. Hilmar. "The Hand That Rocks the Earth: Earthquake at Sea." Oceans, July -August 1978. Lawrence Elliott. "There's a Tidal Wave Loose in There." Reader? Digest, July 1960. Elliott Roberts. "The Day the Bay Ran Over." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1960. California Division of Mines and Geology, Mineral Information Service. The Biggest Splash in History. December 1965. Hisashi Miyoshi. "Notes on the Highest Waves in History." Jiihin (Seismological Society of Japan newsletter) 25, no. 24 (1972). Robert L. Wiegel. Oceanographical Engineering. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. hl. J. Tucker. Waves in Ocean Engineering. London: Ellis Horwood,

'99'. Robert E. Ackerman. "The Archeology of the Glacier Bay Region, Southeastern Alaska." Washington State University, Laboratory of Anthropology, report no. 44 (1968).

YIII. THE PRESENT

Jeff Rennicke. Bears of Alajka in Llfe and Legend. Boulder, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart, 1987. Stephen Herrero. Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance. New York: Nick Lyons Books, 1985. Thomas McNamee. The Grizzly Bear. iVew York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. Roderick Nash. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

Theodore Catton. Land Reborn: ;lHistory of .4dn?in1.itiution und I'ixitoi. Use 112 Glacier Bay 1Lirtional Purk and Preserve. Anchorage: National Park Service, 1995. T h e a d o r r Catton. Inhabited Ilri/der.ne.c~.:Ittdizn, E~-@no>-,and Xutional Pu1.4.i in .4lns4~~.Albuquerque: University of New, ;2lexico Press,

'997 "Glacier Ray: .l Guide to -of America. I 15 Geotge It'. Elder (steamship), 91 giant \vaves: in 1853-54, 73-74; in 1899.92-95: in 1936. 110-12; in , 1958, xi11-xlv, X L ' - X L ' I II I15-28 Giant I l ' u ~ win L ~ t i r ~Nuu ) . A / u ~ ~ u (M~ller),128 Gilhert. (;rove C u l . go (;ilhert Inlet, 10, cjo. 125. 144. See iiljo Lituya (;ldcier Glacier Ihy, X I I I , I Glizcit~iBuy (Bohn). 1-3 Glacier Ray S'ltional 1111nument: bears ~ t I .3 3: clescription of, 2: design;rtion of, I 34-35: development of. I 14 ginciers, 60, 80. 144. See ii/.co n u n m q5pec.1,fir ~ I u c ~ ~ I ~ . ~

H a r r ~ m a n Ed\\-ard . H . , 90,91 Harriman L41asknExpedition, 89-51 H a r \ x t l University, expeditions from. 106-9 Hearst, i5'illiam Randolph, I O O Herendeen. Capt. E d n a r d P,. 78 hermlt. See Huscroft. Jim Herrero. Stephen, I t o n history, as storytelling. I O U - I O I H i i t o q of.-l1u.i~~ (Bancroft), 29 H l I S B O I U Z ~64J ~ , ~, Xg H I I S D z s c o ~ e i . 31-32. H l I S Rrioiution, 3 I - 32 hoochihootch, use of term, 72, 88 H u b h x d Glacier, 93 Hudson Ba!- ( C m a d a ) , 33 Hutcroft. Jim: o n txrrs. 133; cabins oi. I I;. 120. 148: death of; I 13; lif;tt!le of. 103-6, ro8-10; October 1936 \vavc and. I 1 0 - 1 2

Gdcler, F. X.. {on gold rninlng: cclrnpany prosprctus for, 95-97; d c \ c r ~ p t ~ oof. n 85-89; gmnt \vave'\ impact on, 9211; g ~ u d e h o o kfilr, 80; rrmnant\ of, 10;. I jo, 145-4;; violence in, X;, 98-101 Gold Rcscrve LIining Inc.. 14: Grnharn. Stutz. 121. 123 Great Ilcpres\ion, 104 Grinnell, George R ~ r t lyo , grizzly bears i17rirt.iiirc.to.c): encounters \ v ~ t h 138-40, , 147-48: stories about, I 33; t h r e a oi: 23 Gulf of i\lnsk,r: drscript~onof, 8-9. 14-15: \\-3\e\ In, 12: \vreck\ In. ;I

lurk London und the Klondike (\5'cdker), I O C J ~ p l n\pla\h . \vave in. 127-2811 Jetirrwn. Thomns, 34 Jenten. H m s , 88 Juneau: distance from I i t u y a Bay, 3:earthquake felt in. 125; fi\hinji colnlnunity of. I 16; g,rtht.ring supplies in. ~ o j Juniut Rlrd IAahoratoryof South American Archaeology. I 56-77 Justice Creek, 130

H x h o r Point: description of. I I ; \ i\it to. 149- 50; xvave'~impact on, xi\, 1 2 2 , I 20

Kah Lituya, 27-28,81-82, I 51 Kamchntka P e n i n ~ u l ah8 , kay.~k\:awxnhllng of. 138; explo-

rations via, I , 140-43, 144-48; transportation of, 13I Keller, Slrs. M. R.. lorn Rhantaak Idand, 95, I 18 kitti~vakes,I 16-18 , Kooghsee ( c h ~ e f )89 Rraure, ;\urel, 18, 75 L3 C h u s s e e Splt: description of, I I : name of, I In; observatory on. 80; Severts hung on. 99; wave's imp ~ c on, t xiv, r 31 Laguna, Frederica de: Emmons ancl, 82, 83-84, 85; as ethnographer, rhn; on Mount Fairweather, 24n; on Tlingits, 22, ;I Land Otter SIen: French ditaster and, 56. 57; mythology of. 21-24, 27-28; \ ision of, 155-56 land otters, mythology of, 22-23. See n / i o tea otters Langle. F l e u r ~ o de: t death of, 62: disaster ancl. 50,51, 5;; exploration\ of, j 9 , 4 7 Laptrouse, cornte de (Jean-Franpis de Galaup): departure of, 60-63; disaster for, 49-56. 61, 79; exploration\ of, 47-48, 56-60: ~ s l a n d purch.~setihy, 48-49; legacy of, , , 79. 80, 84, I ( ) I ; organizing ex-

--,

pedition of, 33-3 5; remains of crew of, 64-65; stories recorded by, 26; Tlingits and, 41-46; voy.Ige and arri\al of, 35-41 La Perouse, hlount, 76 La Perouse Glacier, q, 79. 136 I,ar,on, S i c k , I 10 Latuya Bay Gold Placer Mining ( h n p a n y , 95 - r oo Leaseps, Ferdinanrl de, 62

Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste Barthklerny de, 6z L&-Strauss. Claude, 18-19, 20, 83, 156 Lincoln (revenue cutter), 76 Line, Les, 131-32 Lisianski Strait, j o Lituya, hlount, 10.; Lituya Bay: appeal of, 2-467-68, 95-96; I>all's sketch of, 80; departure horn, I 5 I - 52; descriptions of, 8-15, 59. 70, 76-79, 1 0 1 ; fracture line in, 4; legacy of, 152. 155; map of, xx; names oi; 4on: present-day exploration of. 140;I; Tomales Bay compared to, 6; travel to, 131-38 Lituya Bay H l s t ~ r i c ~Soc~ety, d 14211 Lituya Glacier: French encounter with, 47-48: location of. 10: \va\re's impact on, xiv, xui, xvii, '43-44 Lituya Placer's Camp, 14j n Logan. hlount, Ion London, Jack, 1oo-1o1 longitude, 3511.36-3 7.46 Los Angeles, earthquake in, I 18n LOUIS XI'I (king of France), 33-3 5. 62 T,on, Jean, 82, 85 Lzlrneu (fithing boat), 121, 123. I 53 lynching, y g - ~ o ~

The 3faking ! f a Co~ztincnt(Redfern), 6n Marchain\dle, Edouarcl de Laborde cle, 50%52,54-i5 Marie ;\ntoinette, 62 rnaska, 20, 156 ;Llasr,lcre Ray (S.S.W.),62

Mead, hIarg:~rct,I 5; Merriam. C. H.rrt, 90, 9 1 hlertie, J. B., Jr.. 80-87. 1 0 1 - 2 h11ller. C m n e l , I 53-55 hliller. Ilon J.: death oi: 129;

16, 124. 126-28. 144: legacy of. 153-55; on Lituyri BJ!- before

oil in\ esrlgatlon progrxn, I 14-16 Olson. D i m e , 123 ottcrs. See land otters; wa otters

team, I 14-10; on 1853- j4 nave.

mining; tltanlum prospecting moment niagnltude. J L L U ~ ~ Cof. T 124-2; hIontarn.11. Plerre de, 50 hloore, Terrls, lob tnotu1, 58 mountain climhlng, 106-IV 3ludslide Creek, 74, 125. 1-13 Muir. John, go, 01 M u r r u m of the .imrrlccln Indian (N.Y.),Xz mythology: on deaths, 21-23: on earthquakes. 18-19; on flood. I 7-18; on French ~ r ral. i ~41-43; retellmg of, 24-28 Nash, Roderick. 9u Sationul Geogrzphrc, r 09-10 Nationd Park Service, I 14. 126, 129. See irljo G l x i e r Bay Satlonal Alonutnent Nelson. Hnnnrrh. 95, 9;-ICH, 148 Nelson, Han5, q5, 9 7 - I ~ I

Prjrtrr:ion (freighter). I I 3 Peabod!- Lluseum (Harv,lrtl U,),82, on-9111 Philosophical Society oi\\'c~\hington. S I P/mrtiix (ship),69, ;o p11xsiTIingit). 2; P l d k e r . 61-62,68 The Sea Runnels- (Doig), 9 Seattle, earthquake felt in, 125 settlers, deaths of, 102-3, I 12-13. See alw Huscroft, Jim Severts, IM. S., 97-99 shamans, 21,23,25,28,85 Sherman, Paddy, 128 Shields, James George (Shil'ts, Iakot. Egorovich), 68-70 Shivering Hill, 94 shoaling, after splash wave, 126 slaves, search for, 69 Smithsonian Institution, 82 Solomon Railroad, 60 Sonora Sue (fishing boat), 131, 149 Spartan law, 46 splash waves: definition of, 12728n; description of, 12,48; from rockslides/avalanches, 73-74, 122-23,127-28 Steelhead Creek, 130 Stefano, Fragnalia, 97-98

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (Darwin), 64n Sunmore (fishing boat), I 16, 122 Swanson, Bill: death of, 129,15152; July 1958 wave and, I I 5-16, 118, 122-23 Swanson, V., 102-3 Swanson, Vivian: July 1958 wave and, 116, 118, 122-23; visit with,

'529 I53 Tarr, Ralph S., 94-95 telegraph, survey for, 76 territoriality, of Tlingits, 20 Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum (Seattle), 82 Three Saints (ship), 66 tidal waves (tsunamis), 7911, 1272811, 129. See also giant waves tides: power of, 39,52-55,79; range of, I 1-12; slack time in, 77; visible from air, 136 Tikhmenev, P. A., 68n,70n titanium prospecting, 128 The Tlingit Indians (Emmons), 83-84 Tlingits: American treatment of, 75,80; artifacts taken from, 27, 81-8j,84, 90-91, I 56-59; burial grounds of, 58-59,81-85; description of, 19-23; French and, 38-39,4'-4655-58; guns for, 71-72; island purchased from, 48-49; language of, 14; miners assisted by, 88,99; name of, 2n; remnants of, 146, 149-50; Russians and, 30-31,67-68,72; and September 1899 giant wave, 92-93; settlement of, 74,77. See also mythology

I 82

ISDEX.

Tocher, Don, 6, 124, 127 Tomales Bay (Calif.), 4-7, 155-56 Topsy Creek, I 15 totem poles, 20, 90 trade: alcohol in, 72; foxes for, 104; French-Tlingit, 44-46; guns in, 71; Russian-Tlingit, 67-68; sea otters' role in, 44-45,61-62, 68 trap lines, I 12-1 3 travel writing, 16 tsunamis, 79n, 127-2811, 129. See aljo giant waves Turner Point, I 19 Tutuila (island), exploration of, 62 Twenty Thouiand Leagues under the Sea (\'erne), 6 j n U l r ~ c hH , o u a r d , 116, 120-25 Ulrich, Howard, Jr. (Sonny), I 16. 120, I24 "The Unexpected" (London), looI01

U.S. Coast and Geodetic S u n ey. 76-77, 127 Cr,S. Coast Pilot (gu~debook),I 1-12, 76-78,79,80 U.S. Forest Serv~ce,115, 135 U.S. Geological Survey: Mdler and, 128, 153-54; names used on. 145"; oil investigation program of, I 14-16; on September 1899 earthquake, 92 University of Michigan, artifacts held by, go-91n University of Washington, artifacts held by, 90-9111 d'urville, Capt. Dumont, 65 USS Adams, 84 USS Pinta, 84,88

Tancouver, George, 69,75 I'ancy, D u c h i de, 60 \'an~koro Island, 64 egetation, d n erslty of, 59 Verne, Jules, 6 j n v~olence(human): In gold rush, 87, 95-10'; near Tomales Ray, '55-56 LL7agner,Mickey, 116, 122, 124 LVagner, Orville, 116, 122, 124 Walker, Franklin, loo U'athburn, Bradford, 107-10, "3 LVashington State University, expedition from, 129 waves: description of, 24; evidence of, 60,74,78, 102, 136, 142; as m) ths, 27; records of, 12; types of, 7911. 127-2811 See alto glmr waves; splash waves; tsunamis The H'hy ofthe J l ~ s k (Livi-Strauss), j I 56 ~vealth.Tlingit attitudes toward, Lveapons: against bears, 133-31; demonstration of French, 46; Tlingit, z1,71-72 weather: description of winter, 102-3; gold mining and, 86-87, 96; in October 1936, I 10-12; rapid changes in, 142; seasonal differences in, 9, 59; water's role in, 9-10, 13 Western Union Telegraph Expedition, 76 whaling, 73 Whitehorse (Canada), earthquake felt in, 125 White Light (fishing boat), 123, 153

\$'hitney, hlount, I on Wiegel, Robert L., 127 wildlife: behavior before earthquake, I I 7-18; diversity of; I j; earthquake'^ effect on, I 19-20; r a i d f o r fur, 104.See n1.w bears \i'~iliarns, Jay, 1 1 1-13. 133 \villi\v~~\vs, 9 Wilson, U'oodro~v,134 \vinctLgentrrated waves, dcfinition of. I 27-2811

Yakutat (X illage), 8. 22 Yakutat Ray: advantages of. 67-68; Cook's passage near, 32; earthquakes and Lvaves in, 92-9 j, 118-15; Laptrouse'\ men in, 37 )114012 (schooner), ;X, X o

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