Miss Scidmore's initial trip to Alaska, interpreted in a book offering a series of singularly vivid impressions, combined, too, with a study of facts and prevailing conditions, and fascinating pictorial descriptions of this "water-colour land" as she { 212} termed it, from the faint evanescent hues of sunshine on the glaciers, perhaps contributed more than any other single cause to stimulate the demand for passenger excursions to this country.
Miss Scidmore's description of Muir Glacier, an exquisite piece of word-painting, has often been reproduced; and of her last, lingering view of this spectacle she wrote:
"The whole brow was transfigured with the fires of sunset; the blue and silvery pinnacles, the white and shining front dreamlike on a roseate and amber sea, and the range and circle of dull violet mountains lifting their glowing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and gold."
Somewhere about 1889 another gifted American woman, Kate Field, author, lecturer, and a charming figure in society, visited Alaska; and to Miss Field belongs the honour of having delivered the first lecture ever given in that country. It was in Juneau, in a primitive and unfinished room, that Miss Field gave this lecture, utilising a rough table as a platform. Her audience included miners in their working garb, prospectors, many of the usual camp-followers, a few Indians, and several of her fellow-passengers from the steamer. Her theme was that of good citizenship, and one of her hearers afterwards reported that she gave them wholesome truths with characteristic vehemence and earnestness. Miss Field was rewarded by being presented with the "freedom" of the town (then hardly more than a mining-camp), with a pair of silver bracelets made by the Indians, { 213} a bottle of virgin gold, and a totem pole. These picturesque tributes were highly valued by their witty and graceful recipient, and she often displayed them with pride and pleasure to her friends in Washington, New York, Paris, or London. Visiting the Muir Glacier at this early period when its unequalled grandeur was at its perfection (for of late years earthquakes and devastations have changed its contour) Miss Field thus described it: