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1 54 St Michaels, Alaska, June 21, 1881. 2.15.P.M. Sunshine dear Louie, sunshine all the day, ripe mellow sunshine, like
that which feeds the fruits vines. it came to us just illegible days ago when we were approaching this little old fashioned
trading post at the mouth of the Yukon River. How sweet kindly reviving it is after so long deep a burial beneath dark sleety
storm clouds. For a whole month it snowed everyday some days only for an hour or two, some days all day but never one in all
the month in which more or less snow did not fall either in wet sleety blasts in thick gloom or in dry crystals blowing off
the deck as fast as it fell or sticking on the rigging making sloppy sludge on the deck then freezing fast. I never before
have seen so dark a month, so steadily cloudy a sky. And when we came here we seemed to have come out of a cave into the living
exhilarating light. And yet strange to say in all this gloomy month there has been no night. All the thirty one days has been
one cloudy day in margin: in circle 18 01014 3 2 manners like village parsons, They held us in long interesting talks
gave us some valuable information concerning the broad wilds of the Yukon. Yesterday I took a long walk of 12 or 14 miles
over the tundra to a volcanic cone back leaving the ship about 10 in the forenoon getting back at half past 8. I found a great
number of flowers in full bloom birds of many species building their nests a capital view of the surrounding country from
the rim of an old crater altogether making a delightful day though a very wearisome one on account of the difficult walking.
The grand back of St Michael stretches away in broad brown levels of baggy tundra promising fine walking but proving about
as tedious exhausting as possible the spongy covering roughened with tussocks of grass sedges creeping heath illegible willows
among which the foot staggers about sinks squints seeking rest finding none in margin: The steamer is again in perfect condition
now goodbye again, love to all, wife, darling baby Anna, Grandmother Grandfather