“No, no,” you insisted. “I’m perfectly fine. Look as long as you want.” I stepped to the forest floor and looked down into your kind eyes.
Never before had I felt such wonder and magnitude?—?I told you I wanted to see a humming bird nest, and you heard me, not just my words, but my longing.
Was there such a moment for you, when you knew for certain? I cannot imagine it was that same afternoon?—?as I recall, I advised that we should take a shortcut through the forest, and I managed to walk us into a marsh where I was forced to pick up my skirts and our boots were traipsed through mire and muck. Yet I was too elated to give it any care. I had found your love in a humming bird’s nest.
Come home safely to me, my dear Allen.
With all my heart’s love,
Sophie
Kings Glacier, April, 1885
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
April 9, 1885
At last some evidence of progress! We stand at the base of Kings Glacier, with Stone Glacier in view upriver. Even through the sleety haze, they are a grand sight. Having many times read Lieut. Haigh’s account of this section of the river, I recognize the landscape. Near the delta, the Wolverine is a wide plain of braided channels, but here it narrows to a deeper flow, bordered by these glaciers. Haigh reports that in spring the water rises 40 feet, overturns boulders weighing half a ton. In this season we see little sign of this impending force but for thick slabs of ice jammed into piles along shore.
Kings Glacier is a wall of ice with a vertical reach of at least 300 feet. There are rough fractures where, in warmer months, large sections must break away, crash to the river. Some cracks stretch higher than a city building. Such a falling mass would surely sink a row boat, kill a man.
The shades of the ice hypnotize?—?Tillman & I stood beside each other, stared, speechless for some time. Even from this opposite shore of the river, a man is pulled into the blue of the deepest fissures. Within are the hues of cold itself. The sight chills me, yet I thirst for more. I wish Sophie could see it.
Pruitt measured width of river & height of glacier using sextant. He then quickly assembled camera tripod. He curses the weather. Even in sunlight, I suspect the colorless photograph could never capture this grandeur.
We camp tonight in the lee of giant boulders near Stone Glacier. The boulders number more than a dozen, some taller than three men standing on shoulders. Without our tents, we are grateful for the shelter they provide. The size, scope of these rocks is an oddity set down in the middle of this vast riverbed. Tillman conjectured they rolled a long ways from the mountains. Pruitt says it is the work of the glaciers, carrying the rocks down valley thousands of years ago, then dropping them as the ice melted out from beneath. Tillman is skeptical. It is a wondrous truth to be sure.
April 10
We are shut in an ice fog. This morning we left our boulder field, pressed on through Haigh Canyon where waterfalls of ice rupture from the cliffs. We then emerged onto a wide flat section of the river. The fog is settled in the lowlands so that we can see only a man’s length in front of our own feet. More than once I bumped into the sled in front of me. I believe had I closed my eyes, turned thrice, then tried again to find my way, I would not have known upriver from downriver, left from right. Only a white nothingness in all directions. Pruitt keeps compass in hand.
Difficult enough to find our course, but added is the problem of Boyd. Based on Indian reports, Samuelson believes his partner’s cabin should be near. But which side of the river? It is doubtful that he would build on the river’s plain, as spring flooding would threaten any structure. Hills rise at some distance on either side of the river. None of us would be able to spot a clearing or cabin.
Samuelson advises us to watch for any sign of a trail, as Boyd should be coming down to the river to run traps. We do not speak it, but must consider it the same: if Boyd is dead, there will be no tracks to find.
Such icy stillness. Our breath turns to hoarfrost in our beards, hair. Our eyelashes stick together in clumps of frost. Our lungs ache with cold. The others look to me like creatures with fur of snow; no doubt I to them as well. The harder we work, the more our sweat & breath encase us in ice. The Indians at times lag far behind, so appear like phantoms trailing us up the river. Our voices become lost to the fog; we cannot tell who is speaking or from where. It adds to our disorientation.
Though it is several hours until sunset, I have decided to halt, set camp. Perhaps overnight the fog will dissipate or be blown down the valley.
April 11
My hope was unfounded. We woke this morning to the same conditions, if possible even more chill & impenetrable. Tillman fried flapjacks & bacon. Pruitt has estimated our location as best he can with no ability to track stars, sun, horizon. The men would like to wait out the fog, but I think we had best pack up. The Indians, too, are reluctant. One of them would not leave his fire until I put it out with snow.