The winter storms, up to the end of December when I left Wrangell,
were mostly rain at a temperature of thirty-five or forty degrees,
with strong winds which sometimes roughly lash the shores and carry
scud far into the woods. The long nights are then gloomy enough and
the value of snug homes with crackling yellow cedar fires may be
finely appreciated. Snow falls frequently, but never to any great
depth or to lie long. It is said that only once since the settlement
of Fort Wrangell has the ground been covered to a depth of four feet.
The mercury seldom falls more than five or six degrees below the
freezing-point, unless the wind blows steadily from the mainland.
Back from the coast, however, beyond the mountains, the winter months
are very cold. On the Stickeen River at Glenora, less than a thousand
feet above the level of the sea, a temperature of from thirty to
forty degrees below zero is not uncommon.



Chapter IV

The Stickeen River


The most interesting of the short excursions we made from Fort
Wrangell was the one up the Stickeen River to the head of steam
navigation. From Mt. St. Elias the coast range extends in a broad,
lofty chain beyond the southern boundary of the territory, gashed by
stupendous canyons, each of which carries a lively river, though most
of them are comparatively short, as their highest sources lie in the
icy solitudes of the range within forty or fifty miles of the coast.