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Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin by Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
page 22 of 81 (27%)

"Not good to eat Boston missionary, he all skin and bone!"

"Where did they get the name Alaska?" asked Ted, as they tramped over the
snow toward the glacier.

"Al-ay-ck-sa--great country," said Kalitan.

"It certainly is," said Ted. "It's fine! I never saw anything like this
at home," pointing as he spoke to the scene in front of him.

A group of evergreen trees, firs and the Alaska spruce, so useful for
fires and torches, fringed the edge of the ice-field, green and verdant
in contrast to the gleaming snows of the mountain, which rose in a gentle
slope at first, then precipitously, in a dazzling and enchanting
combination of colour. It was as if some marble palace of old rose before
them against the heavens, for the ice was cut and serrated into spires
and gables, turrets and towers, all seeming to be ornamented with
fretwork where the sun's rays struck the peaks and turned them into
silver and gold. Lower down the ice looked like animals, so twisted was
it into fantastic shapes; fierce sea monsters with yawning mouths
seeming ready to devour; bears and wolves, whales, gigantic elephants,
and snowy tigers, tropic beasts looking strangely out of place in this
arctic clime.

Deep crevices cut the ice-fields, and in their green-blue depths lurked
death, for the least misstep would dash the traveller into an abyss which
had no bottom. Beyond the glacier itself, the snow-capped mountains rose
grand and serene, their glittering peaks clear against the blue sky,
which hue the glacier reflected and played with in a thousand glinting
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