Title:
Letter from [John Muir] to Wanda, Helen [Louie], 1899 Jul 8.
Creator:
[John Muir]
Publisher:
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies
of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Contributor:
Wanda, Helen [Louie]
Date:
1899 Jul 8
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir10_0878-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Unalaska [Alaska]
Rights:
Copyrighted
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission
to publish or exhibit them, see
http://library.pacific.edu/ha/forms
Muir-Hanna Trust
1984
Transcription:
To Wanda Muir Unalaska, July 8, 1899 My dear Wanda and Helen and Mama: We arrived here this cloudy, rainy, foggy morning
after a glorious sail from Sand Harbor on Unga Island, one of the Shumagin group, all the way along the volcano-dotted coast
of the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island. The volcanoes are about as thick as haycocks on our alfalfa field in a wet year,
and the highest of them are smoking and steaming in grand style, Shishaldin is the handsomest volcanic cone I ever saw and
it looked like this last evening. Drawing , I'll show you a better sketch in my notebook when I get home. About 9,000 ft.
high, snow and ice on its slopes, hot and bare at the top. A few miles from Shishaldin that blew or burst its own head off
a few years ago, and covered the sea with ashes and cinders and killed fish and raised a tidal wave that lashed the shores
of San Francisco and even Martinez. There is a ship, the Loredo, that is to sail in an hour, so I'm in a hurry, as usual.
We are going to the Seal Islands and St. Lawrence Island from here, and a point or two on the Siberian Coast-then home. We
are taking on coal, and will leave in three or four hours. I hope fondly that you are all well... Give my love to Maggie.
I hope May's baby is well. I'll soon be back, my darlings. God bless you. Goodbye. John Muir 738 02601