THE ILLUSTRATED WEST SHORE.
2-tt
THE DEVIL'S THUMB.
Just why his Satanic majesty should be honored, or burdened, as the
case may be, with the position of god-father to an endless variety of freaks
of nature in the west has never been made quite clear. The " slide," " foot
stool," and other objects thus associated with his name, and even the " punch
bowlj" might as properly have been christened with the name of some
ancient saint as of him who took that headlong plunge to " bottomless per
dition." Certainly the reason for naming the peak shown in the accom
panying engraving " Devil's Thumb," can find no special warrant. Neither
the water in the foreground nor the snow and ice above which it projects is
, suggestive of that long-tailed and double-horned gentleman and the region
that owns his kingly sway. However, irrespective of propriety in its title,
the object itself is a most striking one, and attracts the attention of every
Alaskan tourist, sated though he may be with the wonderfully grand and
beautiful scenery that has passed in procession before his eyes from the
time he first took passage on the shore of Puget sound. Beyond all ques
tion, the Alaskan trip, with its almost continuous passage through narrow
and sheltered channels, protected from the roughness of the open sea, and
with its constant succession of vernal hills and Alpine mountains, is one of
the most delightful open to the tourist, be he the most inveterate "globe
trotter " that ever carried a binocular.
INDIAN RIVER, ALASKA.
To those who suppose Alaska to be a land of perpetual snow and ice,
the summer resort of Jack Frost and his minions, the engraving of Indian
river will come as a revelation. Could anything be more quietly beautiful
or more suggestive of sunny skies and opening flowers? Could anything
be more tempting to the enthusiastic angler than such a dashing stream,
with its singing waters and deep, quiet pools under the shade of overhang
ing firs, where lurk the wary and sprightly trout? Alaska, at least that
portion along the coast that falls under the tourist's eye, is in summer a land
of sun-
7 H
V
' " - I I Hill II I 1 iiiuiimi
DKVII.'S THl'MII, ALASKA.
T
INDIAN KIVKR, ALASKA.
shine and
flowers,
and in
winter is
almost
constant
ly veiled
in a mist of rain, instead of being buried beneath a mass of snow, while the little streams
that leap down from the mountains to the sea seldom feel the fetters of the ire king. The
terrible winter of Hiawatha, when
Kvcr ihickrr, thicker, thicker pew ihe Ice on hike and river,
Kver deeier, dceier, deeper (i ll Ihe mow o'er all the luroUcai,
familiar as it is to those who dwell in the region of the great lakes, is unknown on the south
eastern coast of Alaska, though the latter lies a.ooo miles farther north. Across the range
of rocky and snow-covered mountains that border closely upon the ocean, there are climatic
conditions so radically different that Hiawatha himself might learn a few things about hard
winters i and yet, in the summer time, for a few weeks, the almost continuous sunshine trans
lorms even that bleak region into a land of flowers.
One of these typical coast streams is Indian river, whose beauty all tourists admire, and
which many endeavor to carry away with them by the " youpress-the-button " process.
Across the stream it one of those bridges of aboriginal construction to common In the
western mountains before Ihe more scientifically constructed bridges of the Caucasians tup
planted them. These bridges are made by felling i tree to that it will fall across the ttream
at a desired point. Short pieces of tnplings are then laid transversely across ihe tree trunk,
at a distance of a few feet, and firmly tecured by willow withes or thongs cut from liidet.
Upon Ihese it laid a matting of brush, or, in later yeart, a footway of boards. When the
stream is too wkle for one tree, a place it telected where two of them stand on opxitc
banks in such a position thai they can be felled to as to meet In Ihe middle of the stream,
resting upon some natural or artificial support. These bridges are such as would not inspire
confidence in the breast of a timid man, who would hesitate to put his fool uxm them, and
yet in pioneer days those sturdy men who conquered the mountains and dcserti of the west,
often transferred their wagont acrott prccipiloui canyont and mountain ttreamt upon bridges
of a tomewhal similar nature and constructed hastily for temporary use only. This, however,
it not Ihe only thing the pioneert did boldly and tafely llial those not reared in the tame
school of self reliance shrink from as impossible or loo dangerout,
The reason for Ihe mild climate on the Alaskan coast it the great Jaan current, that
river of warm water in the Pacific which correspondi to the Gulf tin-am in the Atlantic.
Flowing northerly along the Asiatic coast from the Iropics, il it deflected eastward and soulh-