While making a study of ocean highways at the Naval War College I happened one day to stretch an elastic across a globe from Puget Sound to China and Japan and found that it passed close to several points on the coast of Alaska. From that time I felt an urge to know more about Alaska waters and determined that when I had rank enough I would seek assignment as inspector of the Thirteenth Lighthouse District, which then embraced all our northwest coast from California to the Arctic Ocean.
I later went to Washington and made request in person for the Thirteenth District. The detail officer looked at me in astonishment. “Surely you can have he exclaimed. “Nobody ever asked for that district before. You’ll find it the most harassing, hazardous, thankless job you ever undertook.” He was right. It was, with the compensation that I had four comfortably fitted lighthouse tenders at my command and was at liberty to cruise in them at discretion. I selected the Armeria for Alaska. She was approximately a 1,000-ton vessel capable of carrying coal and supplies enough for all Alaska light stations.
On the first inspection cruise I realized that there are two Alaskas. The narrow Panhandle strip of mountain coast and elands bordering Canada is practically severed from vast western Alaska by a glacial field across its narrowest neck near Yakutat, and the picturesque channels and villages in this strip, reached in the shorter summer excursions, constitute all hat is generally known to most people as Alaska. In that strip at that time were most of our major light stations, immaculately kept by faithful keepers. In fact, at one station, Lincoln Rock, the three bachelor keepers kept their floors and other woodwork lacquered and provided me with heavy woolen socks to wear over my shoes while inspecting.
Inspection of beacons and replacement of buoys take a lighthouse tender to Skagway, the farthest point north in the inside passages, famous for its lawlessness during the Klondike gold rush and the outlaw reign of “Soapy Smith,” but now the terminus of the White Pass Railroad which gives ingress to the headwaters of the Yukon. A trip over this road is a beautiful, steep, and intricate scenic climb comparable to only two others that I know in the world, the road from Rio de Janiero up to the Brazilian summer capital at Petropolis, and the road from La Guayra to Caracas in Venezuela.
To a tourist uninformed as to Alaska grandeur an excursion through southeastern Alaska would seem to be a very full and satisfying tour, covering the fisheries of Ketchikan, Father Duncan’s Indian Industrial School at Metlakatla, the old Russian town of Wrangell where the husky white and Indian women dance “ladies choice and ladies buttinsky” and are never wallflowers, the Taku Glacier, and Sitka; yet in such a tour the grandeur and beauty of Alaska has scarcely been seen or suspected.
It was with eager anticipation, therefore, that I headed the Armeria out to sea past Cape Spencer and coasted on to Yakutat. In that little harbor we first enjoyed one of the grandest nature contrasts I have ever seen. In a warm, sunny meadow and a 70-degree temperature, under a turquoise sky, we gathered buckets of wild strawberries, with 5 snow-clad peaks, including Mount St. Elias, towering 15,000-20,000 feet above us. Yakutat was mainly an Indian settlement, where one can get their beautiful handmade baskets. It is also a favorite center for the Indian festivals called “potlatches,” one of which we missed by a few days, but I had no official excuse for waiting to see it.
When we landed at Cape St. Elias to select a site for the present lighthouse, thousands of sea parrots literally blanketing the rocks squawked their expostulation against intrusion. Since the lighthouse has been built they probably have had to seek a new home.
Upon rounding the cape I was tempted to explore Controller Bay, chiefly through an urge to look into unsurveyed and difficult harbors, but found it packed with fog and had no excuse for taking a chance. At Cordova I had reason to regret that I did not.
There we were almost the first outsiders to make a trip over the newly finished Copper River Railroad, going as far as Chitina with its builder, Mr. Hawkins, in his official car. This is, by all odds, I believe, the grandest and most beautiful scenic highway in the world. I am familiar with similar ones in Europe and the Orient and with our famous Columbia River Highway, but none can compare with the Copper River, as it winds between crashing glaciers, along sunny, flowering shores, and around and into mighty, snow-clad mountains.
Railroad building in Alaska encounters certain difficulties not found in milder climates. As we were purring along a comparatively straight and level stretch between the river and a long, low bank covered with shrubs and flowers, I remarked to Mr. Hawkins that here at least was an easy stretch of engineering. “Huh!” he grunted, “it’s the one over which I feel the most anxiety.” “Why?” I asked him. He replied with an enigmatical smile, “Because we are having an exceptionally warm spell of weather.”
When we reached this point on our return trip the bank was gone for over 100 yards and the track, with its ties, hung like a suspension bridge over a rushing torrent of water, which was rolling huge bowlders and ice blocks into the river. “Now you see,” said Mr. Hawkins, “there is a glacier behind that bank and it has melted on top and broken through.” So we cooled our heels in the car until two o’clock in the morning when the flood had spent itself and a construction crew had come from Cordova and made temporary repairs.
Our only lighthouse at the entrance to Prince William Sound, Cape Hinchinbrook, was in the early stages of construction. Landing through surf to inspect it was hazardous but we reached it in a very smooth sea. The ocean swell, however, humped up in domes here and there offshore which, from previous ocean survey experience, I knew indicated pinnacle rocks, so I cautioned the tender captain to heave-to well off shore when sending boats in. A few years later a civilian inspector, lacking such experience, urged a closer approach and the Armeria was impaled on a pinnacle and quickly sank, fortunately without loss of life. This illustrates a lesson to Alaska navigators and I hope this article will illustrate several more.
Prince William Sound is a vast irregular amphitheater of magnificent mountain beauty incomparably more thrilling than southeast Alaska waters. One of its grandest sights is the Columbia Glacier, one of the livest and tallest in Alaska, which crashes into a deep water bay west of Valdez Arm. Glaciers such as this one, which complete their course to the sea and plunge into it, are known as live glaciers, while those, like the Bering Glacier back of Controller Bay, which are melting off at their fronts and receding from the sea, are known as dead. Incalculable mineral wealth probably will be found under these dead Alaska glaciers in years to come as they melt away.
The waters in front of Columbia Glacier were then unsurveyed, but a small island stands close in front of it, and on this we landed to watch the mighty ice wall break away and fall with thunderous roars, crashing into the sea and sending huge waves across to the island shore. As Alaska has developed, Columbia Glacier has become one of our most magnificent tourist sights in western Alaska tours.
There was little besides sight-seeing to detain us in Prince William Sound, except a visit to Valdez to replace some buoys. Lying at the head of the most northerly arm of the Sound, it developed as the water terminus of an overland dog team trail to Fairbanks and the Yukon -River. The Valdez Trail has since been developed into the Richardson Highway over which one can go by automobile or bus to Fairbanks and Circle City with a side highway to Chitina on the Copper River Railroad. Valdez, however, lacks arbor value, its waters being too deep for anchorage.
Later we passed through the wild, rocky entrance to Resurrection Bay, now known as the Harding Gateway, and secured to the dock at Seward, a thriving town which and come into importance as the terminus of the Alaska Railway, projected to connect Fairbanks and the Yukon valley with the sea, and to tap the Matanuska coal fields.
Seward is at the head of one of the grand scenic bays of Alaska. In the summer season, hillsides purple with violets and crimson with fireweed slope rapidly upward to snow-crested peaks. Unfortunately, it is at all points too deep for anchorage except in hazardous proximity to the shore. Vessels using the port have to lie alongside the dock. This is sometimes impracticable in rough southerly weather on account of the inrolling swell. There is, however, a 15-fathom knoll about 5 miles south of the town which can be located by bearings and soundings.
Again we had a railroad trip over the unfinished Alaska Railway up through the Seward Peninsula to Turnagain Arm, a branch of Cook Inlet, which was as far as the road had been constructed. We skirted beautiful Kenai and Trail Lakes and even crossed Turnagain Arm although the track at this point had been partly submerged in a glacial freshet much like the one we encountered on the Copper River. Our car lurched and sagged crazily over the weakened roadbed but we enjoyed the thrills and only regretted that we could not linger long enough to see the famous tidal bore come in. It rolls in, a roaring wall of water over 4 feet high, on the flood tide.
As we were skirting Trail Lake on our return I witnessed one of the worst cases of “buck fever” imaginable. A big bull moose came up out of the lake on to the railroad embankment ahead of us and paused in astonishment. He was so close we could have hit him with a shoe. We stopped the car and everybody in the party with a gun, including a game warden, took a shot at the animal as, with contemptuous and dignified deliberation, he went back into the lake and swam away. Two members of the party found a skiff and, with an old board for a paddle, followed him some distance, firing as they went. The only one who shot him was my son, who did it with a camera but forgot to turn the roll. The moose was never hit, and we saw him climb out of the lake on the far side, shake himself, and disappear into the forest.
I asked the railroad manager why they had carried the road 80 miles down through the Kenai Peninsula to find an outlet instead of cutting across about 15 miles from Turnagain Arm into Prince William Sound. He said the western part of the Sound was unsurveyed and reports indicated no better anchorage conditions there than at Seward. I doubted this and made my second harbor hunting resolution—to explore the western arms of Prince William Sound if and when I had the opportunity. I little dreamed that I would finally do it in a 12,000-ton vessel drawing nearly 27 feet of water.
Part of the inspector’s work in Alaska was to ascertain from local interests what additional aids to navigation were needed, and to select and recommend their location. This took us into the headwaters of Cook Inlet. As the tidal current often runs up to more than 8 knots we planned for the Armeria to make the trip up on the flood and the exit trip on the ebb tide. More than half-way up and about midway, there is a middle ground about 3 miles long and a mile wide, bare for about 2 hours at low water but with upwards of 5 fathoms over it at high water. As the tide was ebbing fast when we started out I suggested to our tender captain that we had better avoid the middle ground but he said he thought there would still be water enough over it to get us across, and added, “if we don’t we can clean the propeller.” That sounded like poor humor to me but I had the utmost confidence in Captain Gregory and allowed him to try it. When part way over we slid gently to a stop, and in about an hour found the ship resting on a smooth, almost level sandy floor, like a toy boat in a show window. As soon as the ground was bare under us the ship’s force got busy on the propeller while the rest of us played quoits and handball on the sand and took pictures around the ship. I noted that the exposed ground in all directions was free from rocks or hummocks. When the tide was again high enough we continued on our way.
I afterward asked a prominent naval constructor if a larger vessel, such as a passenger steamer or battleship, would be injured if anchored over the middle ground and allowed to settle on it, and he said if my description were accurate he thought not. It would be well for Alaska navigators to remember the Cook Inlet middle ground as an emergency dry dock.
The Alaska Railroad is now completed, passing through the Matanuska coal fields, the U.S. Government Experimental Farms, and Mount McKinley National Park, affording a scenic trip equal in beauty and grandeur to the Copper River; and in connection with it a loading and unloading port has been developed at Anchorage on the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet, although it is subject to enormous rise and fall of tide and powerful tidal currents. It is, nevertheless, a booming town and will have an exhibit this summer of Alaska animals.
We got as far as Unalaska but the season was too far advanced to go on to Nome. Unalaska, or Dutch Harbor, has been described and discussed too often to need much mention here. It is funnel shaped, wide open to the northward and mostly over-deep for anchorage, but it lies almost directly on the great circle route to the Orient, is ice free, is our farthest harbor in that direction, and it is the last way station on the route to Nome and the Arctic.
On our back trip I became greatly interested in the Shumagin Islands, which we visited to change buoys in Popof Strait. These islands, too, lie almost on the great circle between Puget Sound and the Orient and are but a day’s journey eastward from Unalaska. Here I found a vast landlocked water area, at that time almost unsurveyed, but apparently approachable from 3 directions, and with room for hundreds of ships of all sizes.
The large amount of official work to be done by a Lighthouse Inspector in Alaska waters, inspecting, revictualing and refueling light stations, changing buoys, and getting data for the need of additional lights, made reconnaissance of prospective future ports brief and superficial, but I terminated my duty as Inspector with 3 localities fixed in my mind for future thorough examination if I could get an opportunity. They were the Shumagin Islands, the western arms of Prince William Sound, and Controller Bay.
The Navy Department, about this time, became interested in Alaska coal and oil deposits. Fields of high grade bituminous had been discovered near the Matanuska and Bering Rivers and others were rumored and reported to exist in several other coastal localities. A party had been organized under Surgeon J. O. Downey of the Navy to mine 300 tons of Bering River coal and transport it to tidewater for trial in a navy vessel. I had been assigned to command the armored cruiser Maryland, and as my familiarity with Alaska waters was known, I was directed early in July, 1912, to make a summer cruise to Alaska, visit and investigate the localities where coal had been reported, and get samples where practicable; also to take on board and try out the Bering River coal. Here, then, was my opportunity. As the Bering River coal probably would not be ready till the end of summer and I would need partially empty bunkers to take it, I decided to begin at the most westerly locality where coal had been reported and work back, so I shaped a course direct for the Shumagin Islands. The following extracts from my cruise journal tell the story of the navigational hazards encountered and overcome:
July 19, 1912
Issued order for precautions in case of striking rocks or grounding in Alaska waters.
July 21
Approaching Shumagins. Moderate SW’ly wind and sea. Dense fog set in at 1:00 a.m. Soundings taken from 3:00 a.m. decreased to 34 fins, at 7:00 a.m., indicating close approach to Simeonof Island, possibly within 3 miles. Got no echoes from whistle or siren. Skirted group to SW’d till across 100 fm. curve, then stood NW’d till 1:30 p.m. Soundings very irregular and impossible to reconcile with supposed position. Circled at slow speed with 10 degrees starboard helm waiting for fog to lift. There being no improvement by 6:00 p.m., stood south across 100 fm. curve and circled throughout the night.
July 22 & 23
At 1:00 a.m. stood in on course north true, crossing 100 fm. curve by dead reckoning calculation at same point we crossed out and reached position of yesterday as well as could be judged by soundings, supposedly IS miles SW. (mag) from Mountain Cape, then circled with 15 degrees starboard helm at slow speed. Fog denser than yesterday. Wind and sea same. In late afternoon soundings indicated that we were drifting into shoaling water not reconcilable with supposed position. Fearing we were drifting on Mountain Cape, stood out south, magnetic, for an hour, then south, true, at slow speed. Had become convinced that we were in a sea fog driven in by the prevailing wind and that it might continue indefinitely. Determined to try northeasterly side of islands. After standing 15 miles south of 100 fm. curve, ran east at 10 knots till 3:30 a.m., then NE. by N. (mag), crossing 100 fm. curve at 6:00 a.m. and soon ran into clearing weather. Got a sun sight at 7:30 a.m. which showed us to be 25 miles west of our dead reckoning.
At 9:00 a.m. weather became entirely clear, except for fog banks on SW’ly horizon. The Shumagin Islands all became visible. Sea absolutely smooth. Shaped course for Castle Rock, north end of Big Koninji Island. This proved to be a remarkable and most unmistakable landfall, over 800 feet high, of sufficient size to be called an island, pinnacled and castellated in such a manner that once seen or pictured it could never be mistaken. It should be the landfall always sought in approaching from any easterly direction.
Rounded Cape Wedge and stood in through West Nagai Strait. Ran into fog again (coming in from SW’d) abreast Eagle Harbor but continued on and ran out of it in a short time, and anchored inside Sand Point, Popof Strait at 4:00 p.m.
The coasting steamer Dora was at Sand Point and I asked her captain why I could get no echoes from Mountain Cape, which presents a bare, flat surface toward the sea. He said because it was not perpendicular to our direction vertically and probably not horizontally—that he could rarely get echoes from headlands westward of Shelikof Strait because they were bare of trees, but could readily get them eastward of the Strait because the headlands were timber-covered, the vertical and circular trunks of the trees giving back a direct echo from a sound signal coming from any direction. A good thing to remember in Alaska navigation!
The harbor facilities of the Shumagins exceeded my most sanguine expectations. A running survey of the area known as Popof Strait showed an anchorage which would accommodate at least 100 vessels of the largest size in smooth, landlocked waters, ice free and exceptionally free from fog. The depot store keeper at Sand Point, who had been there many years, and local fishermen stated that the weather from October to January was cold but usually clear and dry, and from January to the end of summer mild and clear. Snow, rain, and fog were infrequent, the fog which I encountered off Mountain Cape seldom penetrating inside the southwesterly entrances. The fishermen said the four northerly and northeasterly entrances were seldom fogbound, and that exit to the sea through the southwesterly passages, because of their width and steep- to shores, was quite safe in fog. During the week spent in Shumagin waters we had two half-days of light rain and the temperature ranged from46° to 60°Fahrenheit.
Here, then, is a commodious, landlocked harbor close to the great circle highway from North America to the Orient—a way station where transpacific vessels could land light freight and mail for distribution by local transportation to all western Alaska points without going out of their way to do so. Now that airplane freight and mail transportation has been developed for subarctic regions, the Shumagin Harbor probably will become a central transshipping depot for local water and air delivery. The whole harbor area and approaches have now been thoroughly surveyed and charted. There can be no question that transpacific airplane service will some day use the shorter great circle route as well as that via Honolulu. When that time comes the Shumagin Harbor will afford the best westward way station for refueling and reconditioning, probably the only one necessary between the North American and Asiatic coasts.
Inquiries of everyone encountered in the Shumagins as to coal and oil areas added no new ones to my list except that an oil well sunk years before at Cold Bay (the one in Shelikof Strait and not the one in the lower Alaska Peninsula) had produced a small flow but had been abandoned in 1903 because the tempestuous character of the bay and approaches made shipment too hazardous. Everyone described this bay as an open bight with an off-lying reef, remarkable for local gales and rough seas. I determined, therefore, to take advantage of the extremely smooth and calm spell of weather and go direct to Cold Bay, leaving Chignik for later inspection.
As we entered Shelikof Strait I was called from dinner by the officer of the deck who said we were passing through large patches of whale spume. With visions of ambergris I hastened to the bridge and found the smooth sea covered as far as the eye could see with a buff-colored crust which broke into blocks as we cut through it, like newly formed ice. After a few moments of perplexity I remembered the eruption of Mount Katmai some months before and realized it was pumice.
At seven the next morning we hove to off Cold Bay in clear weather but in a roaring local gale full of whorl pockets which twisted the sea in many places into spiral spouts from 4 to 10 feet high. I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere else on the sea although I have seen similar dust whorls in high winds on land.
Steaming close in, we found uncharted rocks awash off Aklik Cape extending at least a mile from shore, and a hummocky sea indicating more below the surface. The sea was too rough to lower and send launches in, so we continued on up the strait. Off Cape Kubugatli we ran into dense, amber-colored volcanic smoke and dust as thick as a pea-soup fog. The ship soon became ghostly with buff-colored dust, which also covered our clothing and got into our throats and nostrils, accompanied by a sulphurous odor. At times we could not see the whole length of the ship from the bridge and those of us on the bridge had to wear handkerchiefs over our noses and mouths. I noted that Officers and men were becoming decidedly nervous. In fact our executive remarked, “It looks as if we were going straight to hell!”
I knew we were in Katmai’s smoke and Pushed on expecting to run out of it in a short time, but we were in it for nearly 50 miles until off Cape Nukshak, much to my regret, for I wanted to see Mount Katmai in action. At 9:00 p.m. we anchored off Oil Bay at the western entrance to Cook Inlet.
It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the work of our coal and oil Parties, or “fuel hounds” as we dubbed them, except to say it was splendidly done under trying, arduous, and sometimes risky conditions, and developed useful information.
We next visited Seward for the purpose of sending our “fuel hounds” to the Matanuska coal fields. The best anchorage we could find close to the town was in 33 fathoms less than 700 yards from the beach on a slope deepening rapidly to 90 fathoms. We anchored, however, without difficulty by easing the chain over the windlass.
As the overland Matanuska trip was expected to take 10 days, I determined to use that time in exploring the western arms of Prince William Sound. The chart at that time showed no soundings more than 3 miles westward of Naked Island, and apparently only a few of the headlands of the western reaches had been fixed by triangulation, the shore lines and smaller islands being indicated by dotted lines. Entering the Sound through Elrington Passage, we cut in behind Knight Island and through Knight Passage, as some center-line soundings indicated that it was very deep. In Alaska navigation I usually felt more confidence in using channels where there were only a few soundings showing immense depths than in areas of less depth minutely sounded. Once when crossing Albatross Bank southeast of Kodiak Island I got 15 fathoms where the chart showed 30. No fault can be found with the survey work, for bowlders more than 50 feet in diameter thrown from Alaska volcanoes have been found on land several miles from their source, and no doubt many such are under Alaska waters.
When the entrance to the western arms bore west I sent the navigator in a launch to sound out a safe route to Port Wells, and another launch to find an anchorage free from bowlders near Naked Island, which was found in 20 fathoms, and there we anchored for the night.
Our navigator having failed to return by ten o’clock next morning, I decided that we must take a chance and look for him, so steamed westward at 6 knots with a launch sounding ahead, but when almost south of Perry Island we were shut in by fog. I sent the piloting launch to locate an anchorage on the south side of the island by dropping a buoy if and when 20 fathoms was found and sounding around it, then to signal by whistle if successful. A reply came back “o.k., 17 fathoms” but as the fog lifted just then we did not use it, and steamed on into the channel between Perry Island and Culross Island, then unnamed but now known as Perry Passage. We were now entirely without charted soundings or accurate land contours, and in that predicament were again shut in by fog. Once more an anchorage was sought in the same manner as before and found in 18 fathoms in a cove on the west side of Perry Island, 500 yards from the beach, where we anchored for the night. The whistle was blown at 5-minute intervals in the hope that our lost launch and navigator would hear it and much to my relief, and no doubt to his, he found us a few hours later, having missed us by returning north of Perry Island as we steamed south of it.
Next morning we found ourselves in a storm of wind and rain with rapidly falling barometer, so here we rode out one of the heaviest storms I have encountered in Alaska, veering to 75 fathoms of chain, the most we could give the ship and keep off the beach, and keeping steam on the engines for a quick get-away. But for the perfect lee afforded by the mountainous sides of our cove we could never have held on to the steeply shelving bottom to which we were anchored. The wind tore overhead in thunderous williwaws which never reached us except occasionally downward, and except for the drenching downpour of rain and the jarring of the anchor chain as its bight rolled over rocks, we were in snug comfort; but when we got under way two days later we found the shackle pin nearly out of the anchor shackle.
The navigator had found no bottom at 30 fathoms as far as the entrance to Port Wells so I decided to slip across to Passage Canal before the other half of the storm developed and get the exploring parties going, hoping that Pigot Bay would afford a new sheltered anchorage. We hove to off the entrance and sent a land party to the head of Passage Canal to cross and examine the 15-mile divide to Turnagain Arm, and sounding parties to seek an anchorage in Pigot Bay and sound out a course into the canal itself. The recurring storm drove both sounding parties back to the ship and forced us to return to our precarious Perry Island anchorage to ride out the second half.
After 24 hours we again steamed across to Passage Canal, and were about half way into it when we met our land party returning and lay to while our launches searched for anchorage ground. An area was discovered about 2^ miles long and f of a mile broad on the south side of Passage Canal about 5 miles from its head, inside Trinity Point.
Our navigator had found the Coast Survey steamer Taku in a cove near Point Culross and brought back all information she had gained about the locality.
From all information obtained I was now satisfied that we had found in Passage Canal another future Alaska harbor, and we returned to Seward to pick up our Matanuska coal party.
There can be little doubt that future growing commercial pressure will lead to the building of a branch of the Alaska Railroad from Turnagain Arm across the narrow divide, which is even now being used as a portage, and along the south shore of Passage Canal for about 6 miles to the anchorage locality I have just described, and that a large freight shipping port will be developed there. This port would not detract from Seward as a passenger and tourist terminal, for passengers and tourists would not want to miss the scenic beauties of the Kenai Peninsula.
Two of my three harbor hunting objectives having been accomplished, I was turning my thoughts to Controller Bay when I got the following radiogram:
Return immediately at highest practicable speed to Navy Yard, Puget Sound. Fill with coal and provisions. Orders will meet you there.
So, instead of exploring Controller Bay we took our Secretary of State to the funeral of the Emperor of Japan.
But opportunity knocked again. Surgeon Downey had been unable to get the Bering River coal to tidewater, the boats sent him for that purpose drawing too much water to cross the Bering River shoals, so the Maryland was ordered again to Alaska the following summer to devise means to get the coal and to complete the researches of the previous summer. This time we shaped a course direct for Controller Bay, leaving Puget Sound June 10.
I was warned by Alaska mariners in Seattle that we might have to wait a week or more to get to the bay on account of fog. A Congressional party, much to its chagrin, had been obliged to give it up the previous year.
Extracts from my journal:
June 14
Approaching Cape St. Elias. Sea smooth. Dense fog. Sounding from 3:30 a.m. Soundings in complete disagreement with those charted in our supposed position. Stopped at 8:30 a.m. and got up and down casts with hand lead and sounding machine. Found latter registered about 30 fms. wrong. Determined to disregard soundings and shape a course for Controller Bay on sad reckoning as it placed us at least 10 miles past the cape. Resumed standard speed. At 10:00 a.m. fog cleared and soon afterward landmarks Were seen and course was found to be exactly right. Held it to an anchorage in 24 fms. water one mile from north end of Wingham Island at noon. Weather completely clear.
Again, as at the Shumagin Islands, after pushing resolutely through a fog barrage We found clear weather at the harbor entrance. With the radio bearings and sound depth indicators of today this can be done with much more safety than at that time.
We marked Okalee Channel into Controller Bay with spar buoys brought with us for the purpose but found out afterward that it was a steep-to gut between mud flats bare at low water, at which stage of the tide the channel could be entered in clear weather without artificial aids.
An abandoned sawmill was found at the mouth of the river. After consultation With Surgeon Downey and the ship’s officers who accompanied me, it was decided to land all the mechanics and helpers we could spare, supplied with tools, a month’s provisions, and camping equipment, under the direction of our first lieutenant, at the river mouth. They were to build a fleet of flat boats, or “mud hens” as someone named them, renovating and utilizing the sawmill, and to use the “mud hens” to drag the coal over the river shoals, building temporary dykes to deepen the channels where necessary.
With the “mud hen” builders encamped, I turned my attention to harbor exploration. As it was evident that Okalee Channel was no harbor we turned to an intensive examination of the area between Kayak Island, Okalee Spit, and Wingham Island, finding our way into it through a 6-foot boat channel along the eastern shore of Wingham Island. From the keeper of a fox farm at the south end of this island we got much valuable information covering several years.
Briefly, what we discovered and learned during our week in this locality exceeded my hopes and fully warranted the search. Lying between Okalee Spit and the northeast end of Kayak Island is a perfectly sheltered, ice-free harbor nearly a mile wide and 3 miles long in which 20 large vessels could anchor in 30 feet of water. A wide, unobstructed channel leads to it from the eastward with 27 feet at high water in its unimproved condition. There is also a long, narrow, 20-foot channel leading out southwestward, known as Kayak Entrance which could be easily straightened and dredged to 30 feet. Okalee Spit itself has nearly 3 miles of sheltered, steep-to water front on its southerly side suitable for docks.
Near the northeast end of Kayak Island, Lemesurier Point, there is timber suitable for piling, cribbing, and general building purposes, and on the inner horn of the point is an outcropping of rock which could be quarried for jetty work. Okalee Spit is over 600 yards wide, 30 feet above high water, with a firm, solid surface suitable for warehouses and other substantial buildings and has a broad area of flat, sandy surface behind it. A waterfall near the northeastern end of Kayak Island probably could furnish local water power.
The temperature during our week’s stay ranged from 46° to 62° Fahrenheit on the water, and about 8° higher on land.
Oil prospectors at Katalla reported that the most promising oil field in Alaska is near Cape Yakataga, 50 miles eastward of Okalee Spit, and that the oil could be piped to the Spit along the coast. No attempt had been made to commercialize this oil as there is nothing but open coast with a heavy sea in the vicinity of the Cape.
The finger of commercial necessity points almost imperatively to the above described harbor area as the site for one of the greatest ports of Alaska. To distinguish it from Controller Bay I would suggest for it a different name. An extension of the Copper River Railroad from Katalla Junction at the head of the river delta eastward over moderate grades to Bering River, thence across the river and along the northeasterly shore of Controller Bay and across the flats to Okalee Spit would bring copper and coal to an excellent port of outlet nearly a day’s journey nearer to our Pacific coast, and a pipe line from the Spit to Cape Yakataga would give outlet to its oil. Such a railroad extension would not militate against Cordova for it is now a firmly established town, the center of an enormous fish canning industry with 14 or more canneries, and it is one of the main commercial airports of Alaska.
My three main objectives in Alaska harbor hunting were now accomplished but there was still the unfinished coal and oil search, so I selected Kodiak as the most likely source of general information on the subject. There I heard from a reliable source that there was an out-cropping of high-grade bituminous coal in Amalik Harbor, and also rumors of a new gold strike on the Kuskokwim River. Knowing that the Bering Sea outlet of the Kuskokwim was ice blocked about half the year and that a two days’ journey could be saved if an outlet for Kuskokwim and lower Yukon products could be found on the easterly side of the Alaska Peninsula, I determined to make an additional harbor search on the westerly side of Cook Inlet, visiting Chignik Bay and Amalik Harbor for coal deposits en route.
Little need be said here about Chignik Bay. It was then well surveyed and already known as a commodious, sheltered harbor with good anchorage, and on it was located one of the largest Alaska fish canneries. My interest centered in the lagoon which proved to be one of the finest airport sites in Alaska, but the bay itself is so far down in the neck of the Alaska Peninsula that it can have but little commercial value outside of its canneries and possible coal deposits.
As Amalik Harbor was the nearest port to Mount Katmai, which I had missed seeing in the volcanic fog of the preceding summer, I was glad of the coal excuse for visiting it. Finding the rocks and islets at the entrance at variance with their positions indicated on the chart, and the harbor itself being uncharted, and realizing that Katmai might have sprinkled the area with bowlders, we anchored at the entrance between Cape Ilktugitak and Takli Island, and while the coal sleuths were searching I took a launch to explore the headwaters and get a look at Katmai. I found 25-30 fathoms all the way in, shoaling to 15 fathoms on a recurve around Takli Island, but the most interesting find was a cleft about 200 yards wide between steep cliffs apparently 100 feet high. We steamed through this gorge for more than a mile, getting never less than 7 .fathoms, and entered an almost circular amphitheater of placid water about a mile in diameter and 15 fathoms deep. The surrounding shores, sloping up to 2,000-foot heights, were completely blanketed in ghostly buff-colored pumice several feet deep. On the northern side was a cascading mountain stream of clear water and considerable volume.
Selecting what appeared to be the roost practicable slope, I climbed a ridge, often knee-deep in pumice which puffed up in clouds about my face, until I got a clear view of Mount Katmai about 15 miles distant, intermittently puffing huge steam clouds from its crater. The whole intervening country was a scene of amazing desolation, resembling one’s conception of the landscape of the moon. In many distant places were wisps and whorls from the valley floor of what I thought at first was pumice caught up by the wind, but some were too white for that—more like steam. The National Geographic Society afterward explored this region and published such a graphic account of its wonders as the “‘Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes” that it has been reserved as the Katmai National Park. The explorers found the steam wisps to be from hot mud wells whose outpourings formed rims of brilliantly colored deposits.
The park reservation extends across the Alaska Peninsula to Naknek Lake, about 30 miles long and 5 miles wide, includes a reindeer reservation at Naknek and 4 other volcanoes besides Katmai, and has the long, serpentine Katmai Creek as its southwestern boundary. Before the eruption there was a small village of trappers and fishermen where the creek empties into Katmai Bay, but it was submerged in volcanic ash and abandoned.
Katmai Bay is a few miles nearer the volcano than Amalik and had a trail from the village around the mountain and out to Naknek Lake, but the bay is a mere shallow, rock-strewn bend in the shore line, unprotected and unfit for anchorage.
I do not know that anything has yet been done to develop the park reservation, but Amalik Bay is the natural and most picturesque gateway to it, with a perfect harbor, fresh water, and water power, suitable for a permanent tourist camp and hotel from which graded auto highways could be made to Lake Naknek, thence back around Katmai and through the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Meantime an airplane tour from such a base might be even more interesting. The landscape is no longer desolate. The pumice fertilized it and flowers and shrubs have broken through.
The search for good harbor outlets from the Kuskokwim Valley led to the discovery of two, Iniskin Bay at the western entrance to Cook Inlet, and Tuxedni Bay about 40 miles farther up, both ice free and landlocked with good anchorage depths. Tuxedni is more commodious, with its most sheltered anchorage inside of Chisik Island. The pass from Iniskin to the interior is, however, over a lower divide, under 2,000 feet. Our reconnaissance party was enthusiastic about it, and its picturesqueness. I crossed it on foot and it appeared to be capable of easy grading. I believe that both these bays have since been charted and one or the other will be a year-round port of outlet for the Kuskokwim and lower Yukon valleys. Tuxedni, however, is infested with mosquitoes.
When we acquired California in 1846 no one could foresee that the little village of Yerba Buena would become the magnificent San Francisco of today. The harbors I have explored and described have all the resources around them that Yerba Buena had 90 years ago, and many more. Their high potential of commercial importance is so great that I feel sure they will become thriving commercial ports in less than another 90 years.