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Evans amiably describes life in Alaska, his work as a botanist, the late night sunlight, the food, the loneliness, his plans to head north to Juneau on the next available boat: "We are getting along very nicely so far. Everybody treats us with great consideration and when they find we are not in the least stuck up we get along swimmingly...There is not much style but we get plenty to eat and it is good too...We do not have fish 3 times a day as I expected. Have had salmon about four times, clams twice and smelts once. The broiled salmon is out of sight...I went with the Judge & Asst. District Attorney in a row boat about a mile from here to a salmon cannery...Saw a lot of fish & they are very pretty to look at...I am getting along pretty well with my botanizing. Have today completed the first hundred species. The plants here are so unlike those I am accustomed to that I cannot name very many of them at sight. Am getting on to the native names & uses of a good many. You would be surprised to see the ferns and mosses here. There are many ferns everywhere and some five specimens are nearly as high as my head...I am not having as much trouble drying my plants as I expected...None of the native berries are ripe yet but they will no doubt be just as plentiful elsewhere as they are here. The woods and bogs are full of salmon berries, huckleberries, cranberries, two or three kinds of wild currants, etc....I never saw such an abundance of currants. On one currant bush there was scarcely room to stick on another bunch they are so thick now. The gardens, for that is all they have here, there are no fields, are looking pretty well...The greatest trouble here is to get rid of the spruce stumps and then the draining of the land. It is strange to see regular bogs up on the side of the mountain back of town but they are there nearly to the top for I went up Saturday...Grass grows abundantly wherever the timber is cut away & this should make a good dairy & stock country some day...." A great letter, full of fascinating, descriptive content on Alaskan botany at the end of the 19th century.