Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle Distant View of Davidson GlacierCopyright by E. A. Hegg, JuneauCourtesy of Webster & Stevens, SeattleDistant View of Davidson Glacier
"If you love the sea, you've got to follow it," said a sea-rover, "and that's all there is to it. A man can get along without the woman he loves best on earth if he has to, but he can't get along without the sea if he once gets to loving it. It gets so it seems like a thing alive to him, and it makes up for everything else that he don't have. And it's just like that with Alaska. When a man has made two-three trips to Alaska, you can't get him off on a southern run again, as long as he can help himself."
It is an unimaginative person who can wind through these intricate and difficult sounds, channels, and passes without a strange, quickened feeling, as of the presence of those dauntless navigators who discovered and charted these waters centuries ago. From Juan de Fuca northward they seem to be sailing with us, those grim, brave spectres of the past—Perez, Meares, Cuadra, Valdes, Malaspina, Duncan, Vancouver, Whidbey—and all the others who came and went through these beautiful ways, leaving their names, or the names of their monarchs, friends, or sweethearts, to endure in blue stretches of water or glistening domes of snow.
We sail in safety, ease, luxury, over courses along which they felt their perilous way, never knowing whether Life or Death waited at the turn of the prow. Nearly a century and a quarter ago Vancouver, working his way cautiously into Queen Charlotte Sound, soon came to disaster, both theDiscoveryand her consort, theChatham, striking upon the rocks that border the entrance. Fortunately the return of the tide in a few hours released them from their perilous positions, before they had sustained any serious damage.
But what days of mingled indecision, hope, and despair—what nights of anxious watching and waiting—must have been spent in these places through which we glide so easily now; and the silent spirits of the grim-peopled past take hold of our heedless hands and lead us on. Does a pilot sail these seas who has never on wild nights felt beside him on the bridge the presence of those early ones who, staring ever ahead under stern brows, drovetheir vessels on, not knowing what perils lay beyond? Who, asked, "What shall we do when hope be gone?" made answer, "Why, sail on, and on, and on."
From Queen Charlotte Sound the steamer passes into Fitzhugh Sound around Cape Calvert, on Calvert Island. Off the southern point of this island are two dangerous clusters of rocks, to which, in 1776, by Mr. James Hanna, were given the interesting names of "Virgin" and "Pearl." In this poetic vicinage, and nearer the island than either, is another cluster of rocks, upon which some bold and sacrilegious navigator has bestowed the name of "Devil."
"It don't sound so pretty and ladylike," said the pilot who pointed them out, "but it's a whole lot more appropriate. Rocksaredevils—and that's no joke; and what anybody should go and name them 'virgins' and 'pearls' for, is more than a man can see, when he's standing at a wheel, hell-bent on putting as many leagues between him and them as he can. It does seem as if some men didn't have any sense at all about naming things. Now, if I were going to name anything 'virgin'"—his blue eyes narrowed as they stared into the distance ahead—"it would be a mountain that's always white; or a bay that gets the first sunshine in the morning; or one of those little islands down in Puget Sound that's justcoveredwith flowers."
Just inside Fitzhugh Sound, on the island, is Safety Cove, or Oatsoalis, which was named by Mr. Duncan in 1788, and which has ever since been known as a safe anchorage and refuge for ships in storm. Vancouver, anchoring there in 1792, found the shores to be bold and steep, the water from twenty-three to thirty fathoms, with a soft, muddy bottom. Their ships were steadied with hawsers to the trees. They found a small beach, near which was a stream of excellent water and an abundanceof wood. Vessels lie here at anchor when storms or fogs render the passage across Queen Charlotte Sound too perilous to be undertaken.
Fitzhugh Sound is but a slender, serene water-way running directly northward thirty miles. On its west, lying parallel with the mainland, are the islands of Calvert, Hecate, Nalau, and Hunter, separated by the passages of Kwakshua, Hakai, and Nalau, which connect Fitzhugh with the wide sweep of Hecate Strait.
Burke Channel, the second link in the exquisite water chain that winds and loops in a northwesterly course between the islands of the Columbian and the Alexander archipelagoes and the mainland of British Columbia and Alaska, is scarcely entered by the Alaskan steamer ere it turns again into Fisher Channel, and from this, westward, into the short, very narrow, but most beautiful Lama Pass.
From Burke Channel several ribbonlike passages form King Island.
Lama Pass is more luxuriantly wooded than many of the others, and is so still and narrow that the reflections of the trees, growing to the water's edge, are especially attractive. Very effective is the graveyard of the Bella Bella Indians, in its dark forest setting, many totems and curious architectures of the dead showing plainly from the steamer when an obliging captain passes under slow bell. Near by, on Campbell Island, is the village of the Bella Bellas, who, with the Tsimpsians and the Alert Bay Indians, were formerly regarded as the most treacherous and murderous Indians of the Northwest Coast. Now, however, they are gathered into a model village, whose houses, church, school, and stores shine white and peaceful against a dark background.
Lama Pass is one of the most poetic of Alaskan water-ways.
Seaforth Channel is the dangerous reach leading intoMillbank Sound. It is broken by rocks and reefs, on one of which, Rejetta Reef, theWillapawas stranded ten years ago. Running off Seaforth and Millbank are some of the finest fiords of the inland passage—Spiller, Johnston, Dean, Ellerslie, and Portlock channels, Cousins and Cascades inlets, and many others. Dean and Cascades channels are noted for many waterfalls of wonderful beauty. The former is ten miles long and half a mile wide. Cascades Inlet extends for the same distance in a northeasterly direction, opening into Dean. Innumerable cataracts fall sheer and foaming down their great precipices; the narrow canyons are filled with their musical, liquid thunder, and the prevailing color seems to be palest green, reflected from the color of the water underneath the beaded foam. Vancouver visited these canals and named them in 1793, and although, seemingly, but seldom moved by beauty, was deeply impressed by it here. He considered the cascades "extremely grand, and by much the largest and most tremendous we had ever beheld, their impetuosity sending currents of air across the canal."
These fiords are walled to a great height, and are of magnificent beauty. Some are so narrow and so deep that the sunlight penetrates only for a few hours each day, and eternal mist and twilight fill the spaces. In others, not disturbed by cascades, the waters are as clear and smooth as glass, and the stillness is so profound that one can hear a cone fall upon the water at a distance of many yards. Covered with constant moisture, the vegetation is of almost tropic luxuriance. In the shade, the huge leaves of the devil's-club seem to float, suspended, upon the air, drooping slightly at the edges when touched by the sun. Raspberries and salmon-berries grow to enormous size, but are so fragile and evanescent that they are gone at a breath, and the most delicate care must beexercised in securing them. They tremble for an instant between the tongue and the palate, and are gone, leaving a sensation as of dewdrops flavored with wine; a memory as haunting and elusive as an exquisite desire known once and never known again.
In Dean Canal, Vancouver found the water almost fresh at low tide, on account of the streams and cascades pouring into it.
There he found, also, a remarkable Indian habitation; a square, large platform built in a clearing, thirty feet above the ground. It was supported by several uprights and had no covering, but a fire was burning upon one end of it.
In Cascade Canal he visited an Indian village, and found the construction of the houses there very curious. They apparently backed straight into a high, perpendicular rock cliff, which supported their rears; while the fronts and sides were sustained by slender poles about eighteen feet in height.
Vancouver leaves the method of reaching the entrances to these houses to the reader's imagination.
It was in this vicinity that Vancouver first encountered "split-lipped" ladies. Although he had grown accustomed to distortions and mutilations among the various tribes he had visited, he was quite unprepared for the repulsive style which now confronted him.
A horizontal incision was made about three-tenths of an inch below the upper part of the lower lip, extending from one corner of the mouth to the other, entirely through the flesh; this orifice was then by degrees stretched sufficiently to admit an ornament made of wood, which was confined close to the gums of the lower jaws, and whose external surface projected horizontally.
These wooden ornaments were oval, and resembled a small platter, or dish, made concave on both sides; theywere of various lengths, the smallest about two inches and a half; the largest more than three inches long, and an inch and a half broad.
They were about one-fifth of an inch thick, and had a groove along the middle of the outside edge to receive the lip.
These hideous things were made of fir, and were highly polished. Ladies of the greatest distinction wore the largest labrets. The size also increased with age. They have been described by Vancouver, Cook, Lisiansky, La Pérouse, Dall, Schwatka, Emmans, and too many others to name here; but no description can quite picture them to the liveliest imagination. When the "wooden trough" was removed, the incision gave the appearance of two mouths.
All chroniclers unite as to the hideousness and repulsiveness of the practice.
Of the Indians in the vicinity of Fisher Channel, Vancouver remarks, without a glimmer of humor himself, that the vivacity of their countenance indicated a lively genius; and that, from their frequent bursts of laughter, it would appear that they were great humorists, for their mirth was not confined to their own people, but was frequently at the expense of his party. They seemed a happy, cheerful people. This is an inimitable English touch; a thing that no American would have written, save with a laugh at himself.
Poison Cove in Mussel Canal, or Portlock Canal, was so named by Vancouver, whose men ate roasted mussels there. Several were soon seized with numbness of the faces and extremities. In spite of all that was done to relieve their sufferings, one—John Carter—died and was buried in a quiet bay which was named for him.
Millbank Sound, named by Mr. Duncan before Vancouver's arrival, is open to the ocean, but there is onlyan hour's run before the shelter of the islands is regained; so that, even when the weather is rough, but slight discomfort is experienced by the most susceptible passengers. The finest scenery on the regular steamer route, until the great snow fields and glaciers are reached, is considered by many well acquainted with the route, to lie from Millbank on to Dixon Entrance. The days are not long enough now for all the beauty that weighs upon the senses like caresses. At evening, the sunset, blooming like a rose upon these splendid reaches, seems to drop perfumed petals of color, until the still air is pink with them, and the steamer pushes them aside as it glides through with faint throbbings that one feels rather than hears.
Through Finlayson Channel, Heikish Narrows, Graham, Fraser, and McKay reaches, Grenville Channel,—through all these enchanting water avenues one drifts for two hundred miles, passing from one reach to another without suspecting the change, unless familiar with the route, and so close to the wooded shores that one is tormented with the desire to reach out one's hand and strip the cool green spruce and cedar needles from the drooping branches.
Each water-way has its own distinctive features. In Finlayson Channel the forestation is a solid mountain of green on each side, growing down to the water and extending over it in feathery, flat sprays. Here the reflections are so brilliant and so true on clear days, that the dividing line is not perceptible to the vision. The mountains rise sheer from the water to a great height, with snow upon their crests and occasional cataracts foaming musically down their fissures. Helmet Mountain stands on the port side of the channel, at the entrance.
There's something about "Sarah" Island! I don't know what it is, and none of the mariners with whom I discussed this famous island seems to know; but the fact remains that they are all attached to "Sarah."
Down in Lama Pass, or possibly in Fitzhugh Sound, one hears casual mention of "Sarah" in the pilot-house or chart-room. Questioned, they do not seem to be able to name any particular feature that sets her apart from the other islands of this run.
"Well, there she is!" exclaimed the captain, at last. "Now, you'll see for yourself what there is about Sarah."
It is a long, narrow island, lying in the northern end of Finlayson Channel. Tolmie Channel lies between it and Princess Royal Island; Heikish Narrows—a quarter of a mile wide—between it and Roderick Island. Through Heikish the steamer passes into the increasing beauty of Graham Reach.
"Now, there!" said the captain. "If you can tell me what there is about that island, you can do more than any skipperIknow can do; but just the same, there isn't one of us that doesn't look forward to passing Sarah, that doesn't give her particular attention while we are passing, and look back at her after we're in Graham Reach. She isn't so little ... nor so big.... The Lord knows she isn't so pretty!" He was silent for a moment. Then he burst out suddenly: "I'm blamed ifIknow what it is! But it's just so with some women. There's something about a woman, now and then, and a man can't tell, to save his soul, what it is; only, he doesn't forget her. You see, a captain meets hundreds of women; and he has to be nice to every one. If he is smart, he can make every woman think she is just running the ship—but Lord! he wouldn't know one of them if he met her next week on the street ... only now and then ... in years and years ...one!And that one he can't forget. He doesn't know what there is about her, any more than he knows what there is about 'Sarah.' Maybe he doesn't know the color of her eyes nor the color of her hair. Maybe she's married, and maybe she's single—for thatisn't it. He isn't in love with her—at least I guess he isn't. It's just that she has a way of coming back to him. Say he sees the Northern Lights along about midnight—and that woman comes like a flash and stands there with him. After a while it gets to be a habit with him when he gets into a port, to kind of look over the crowds for some one. For a minute or two he feels almost as if heexpectedsome one to meet him; then he knows he's disappointed about somebody not being there. He asks himself right out who it is. And all at once he remembers. Then he calls himself an ass. If she was the kind of woman that runs to docks to see boats come in, he'd laugh and gas with her—but he wouldn't be thinking of her till she pushed herself on him again."
The captain sighed unconsciously, and taking down a chart from the ceiling, spread it out upon a shelf and bent over it. I looked at Sarah, with her two lacy cascades falling like veils from her crown of snow. Already she was fading in the distance—yet how distinguished was she! How set apart from all others!
Then I fell to thinking of the women. What kind are they—the ones that stay!The one that comes at midnight and stands silent beside a man when he sees the Northern Lights, even though he is not in love with her—what kind of woman is she?
"Captain," I said, a little later, "I want to add something to Sarah's name."
"What is it?" said he, scowling over the chart.
"I want to name her 'Sarah, the Remembered.'"
He smiled.
"All right," said he, promptly. "I'll write that on the chart."
And what an epitaph that would be for a woman—"The Remembered!" If one only knew upon whose bit of marble to grave it.
Fraser and McKay reaches follow Graham, and then is entered Wright Sound, a body of water of great, and practically unknown, depth. This small sound feeds six channels leading in different directions, one of which—Verney Pass—leads through Boxer Reach into the famed magnificence and splendor of Gardner Canal, whose waters push for fifty miles through dark and towering walls. An immense, glaciered mountain extends across the end of the canal.
Gardner Canal—named by Vancouver for Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, to whose friendship and recommendation he was indebted for the command of the expedition to Nootka and the Northwest Coast—is doubtless the grandest of British Columbian inlets or fiords. At last, the favorite two adjectives of the Vancouver expedition—"tremendous" and "stupendous"—seem to have been most appropriately applied. Lieutenant Whidbey, exploring it in the summer of 1793, found that it "presented to the eye one rude mass of almost naked rocks, rising into rugged mountains, more lofty than he had before seen, whose towering summits, seeming to overhang their bases, gave them atremendousappearance. The whole was covered with perpetual ice and snow that reached, in the gullies formed between the mountains, close down to the high-water mark; and many waterfalls of various dimensions were seen to descend in every direction."
This description is quoted in full because it is an excellent example of the descriptions given out by Vancouver and his associates, who, if they ever felt a quickening of the pulses in contemplation of these majestic scenes, were certainly successful in concealing such human emotions from the world. True, they did occasionally chronicle a "pleasant" breeze, a "pleasing" landscape which "reminded them of England;" and even, in the vicinity of Port Townsend, they were moved to enthusiasm over a"landscape almost as enchantingly beautiful as the most elegantly finished pleasure-grounds in Europe," which called to their remembrance "certain delightful and beloved situations in Old England."
But apparently, having been familiar only with pleasing pastoral scenes, they were not able to rise to an appreciation of the sublime in nature. "Elegant" is the mincing and amusing adjective applied frequently to snow mountains by Vancouver; he mentions, also, "spacious meadows, elegantly adorned with trees;" but when they arrive at the noble beauty which arouses in most beholders a feeling of exaltation and an appreciation of the marvellous handiwork of God, Vancouver and his associates, having never seen anything of the kind in England, find it only "tremendous," or "stupendous," or a "rude mass." They would have probably described the chaste, exquisite cone of Shishaldin on Unimak Island—as peerless and apart in its delicate beauty among mountains as Venice is among cities—as "a mountain covered with snow to the very sea and having a most elegant point."
There are many mountains more than twice the height of Shishaldin, but there is nowhere one so beautiful.
Great though our veneration must be for those brave mariners of early years, their apparent lack of appreciation of the scenery of Alaska is to be deplored. It has fastened upon the land an undeserved reputation for being "rugged" and "gloomy"—two more of their adjectives; of being "ice-locked, ice-bound, and ice-bounded." We may pardon them much, but scarcely the adjective "grotesque," as applied to snow mountains.
Grenville Channel is a narrow, lovely reach, extending in a northwestward direction from Wright Sound for forty-five miles, when it merges into Arthur Passage. In its slender course it curves neither to the right nor to the left.
In this reach, at one o'clock one June day, the thrilling cry of "man overboard" ran over the decks of theSanta Ana. There were more than two hundred passengers aboard, and instantly an excited and dangerous stampede to starboard and stern occurred; but the captain, cool and stern on the bridge, was equal to the perilous situation. A life-boat was ordered lowered, and the steerage passengers were quietly forced to their quarters forward. Life-buoys, life-preservers, chairs, ropes, and other articles were flung overboard, until the water resembled a junk-shop. Through them all, the man's dark, closely shaven head could be seen, his face turned from the steamer, as he swam fiercely toward the shore against a strong current. The channel was too narrow for the steamer to turn, but a boat was soon in hot pursuit of the man who was struggling fearfully for the shore, and who was supposed to be too bewildered to realize that he was headed in the wrong direction. What was our amazement, when the boat finally reached him, to discover, by the aid of glasses, that he was resisting his rescuers. There was a long struggle in the water before he was overcome and dragged into the boat.
He was a pitiable sight when the boat came level with the hurricane deck; wild-eyed, gray-faced, shuddering like a dog; his shirt torn open at the throat and exposing its tragic emaciation; his glance flashing wildly from one face to another, as though in search of one to be trusted—he was an object to command the pity of the coldest heart. In his hand was still gripped his soft hat which he had taken from his head before jumping overboard.
"What is it, my man?" asked the captain, kindly, approaching him.
The man's wild gaze steadied upon the captain and seemed to recognize him as one in authority.
"They've been trying to kill me, sir, all the way up."
"Who?"
The poor fellow shuddered hard.
"They," he said. "They're on the boat. I had to watch them night and day. I didn't dast go to sleep. It got too much; I couldn't stand it. I had to get ashore. I'd been waiting for this channel because it was so narrow. I thought the current 'u'd help me get away. I'm a good swimmer."
"A better one never breasted a wave! Take him below. Give him dry clothes and some whiskey, and set a watch over him."
The poor wretch was led away; the crowd drifted after him. Pale and quiet, the captain went back to the chart-room and resumed his slow pacing forth and back.
"I wish tragedies of body and soul would not occur in such beautiful lengths of water," he said at last. "I can never sail through Grenville Channel again without seeing that poor fellow's haggard face and wild, appealing eyes. And after Gardner Canal, there is not another on the route more beautiful than this!"
Two inlets open into Grenville Channel on the starboard going north, Lowe and Klewnuggit,—both affording safe anchorage to vessels in trouble. Pitt Island forms almost the entire western shore—a beautifully wooded one—of the channel. There is a salmon cannery in Lowe Inlet, beside a clear stream which leaps down from a lake in the mountains. The waters and shores of Grenville have a clear, washed green, which is springlike. In many of the other narrow ways the waters are blue, or purple, or a pale blue-gray; but here they suddenly lead you along the palest of green, shimmering avenues, while mountains of many-shaded green rise steeply on both sides, glimmering away into drifts of snow, which drop threads of silver down the sheer heights.
This shaded green of the mountains is a feature of Alaskan landscapes. Great landslides and windfalls cleave their way from summit to sea, mowing down the forests in their path. In time the new growth springs up and streaks the mountain side with lighter green.
Probably one-half of the trees in southeastern Alaska are the Menzies spruce, or Sitka pine. Their needles are sharp and of a bluish green.
The Menzies spruce was named for the Scotch botanist who accompanied Vancouver.
The Alaska cedar is yellowish and lacy in appearance, with a graceful droop to the branches. It grows to an average height of one hundred and fifty feet. Its wood is very valuable.
Arbor-vitæ grows about the glaciers and in cool, dim fiords. Birch, alder, maple, cottonwood, broom, and hemlock-spruce are plentiful, but are of small value, save in the cause of beauty.
The Menzies spruce attains its largest growth in the Alexander Archipelago, but ranges as far south as California. The Douglas fir is not so abundant as it is farther south, nor does it grow to such great size.
The Alaska cedar is the most prized of all the cedars. It is in great demand for ship-building, interior finishing, cabinet-making, and other fine work, because of its close texture, durable quality, and aromatic odor, which somewhat resembles that of sandalwood. In early years it was shipped to Japan, where it was made into fancy boxes and fans, which were sold under guise of that scented Oriental wood. Its lasting qualities are remarkable—sills having been found in perfect preservation after sixty years' use in a wet climate. Its pleasant odor is as enduring as the wood. The long, slender, pendulous fruits which hang from the branches in season, give the tree a peculiarly graceful and appealing appearance.
The western white pine is used for interior work. Itis a magnificent tree, as seen in the forest, having bluish green fronds and cones a foot long.
The giant arbor-vitæ attains its greatest size close to the coast. The wood splits easily and makes durable shingles. It takes a brilliant polish and is popular for interior finishing. Its beauty of growth is well known.
Wherever there is sufficient rainfall, the fine-fronded hemlock may be found tracing its lacelike outlines upon the atmosphere. There is no evergreen so delicately lovely as the hemlock. It stands apart, with a little air of its own, as a fastidious small maid might draw her skirts about her when common ones pass by.
The spruces, firs, and cedars grow so closely together that at a distance they appear as a solid wall of shaded green, varying from the lightest beryl tints, on through bluish grays to the most vivid and dazzling emerald tones. At a distance canyons and vast gulches are filled so softly and so solidly that they can scarcely be detected, the trees on the crests of the nearer hills blending into those above, and concealing the deep spaces that sink between.
These forests have no tap-roots. Their roots spread widely upon a thin layer of soil covering solid stone in many cases, and more likely than not this soil is created in the first place by the accumulation of parent needles. Trees spring up in crevices of stone where a bit of sand has sifted, grow, fruit, and shed their needles, and thrive upon them. The undergrowth is so solid that one must cut one's way through it, and the progress of surveyors or prospectors is necessarily slow and difficult.
These forests are constantly drenched in the warm mists precipitated by the Kuro Siwo striking upon the snow, and in this quickening moisture they reach a brilliancy of coloring that is remarkable. At sunset, threading these narrow channels, one may see mountain upon mountain climbing up to crests of snow, their lowerwooded slopes covered with mists in palest blue and old rose tones, through which the tips of the trees, crowded close together, shine out in brilliant, many-shaded greens.
After Arthur Passage is that of Malacca, which is dotted by several islands. "Lawyer's," to starboard, bears a red light; "Lucy," to port, farther north, a fixed white light. Directly opposite "Lucy"—who does not rival "Sarah," or who in the pilot's words "has nothing about her"—is old Metlakahtla.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle Davidson GlacierCopyright by E. A. Hegg, JuneauCourtesy of Webster & Stevens, SeattleDavidson Glacier
The famous ukase of 1821 was issued by the Russian Emperor on the expiration of the twenty-year charter of the Russian-American Company. It prohibited "to all foreign vessels not only to land on the coasts and islands belonging to Russia, as stated above" (including the whole of the northwest coast of America, beginning from Behring Strait to the fifty-first degree of northern latitude, also from the Aleutian Islands to the eastern coast of Siberia, as well as along the Kurile Islands from Behring Strait to the south cape of the Island of Urup) "but also to approach them within less than one hundred miles."
After the Nootka Convention in 1790, the Northwest Coast was open to free settlement and trade by the people of any country. It was claimed by the Russians to the Columbia, afterward to the northern end of Vancouver Island; by the British, from the Columbia to the fifty-fifth degree; and by the United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, between Forty-two and Fifty-four, Forty. By the treaty of 1819, by which Florida was ceded to us by Spain, the United States acquired all of Spanish rights and claims on the coast north of the forty-second degree. By its trading posts and regular trading vessels, the United States was actually in possession.
By treaty with the United States in 1824, and with Great Britain in 1825, Russia, realizing her mistake in issuing the ukase of 1821, agreed to Fifty-four, Forty as the limit of her possessions to southward. Of the interiorregions, Russia claimed the Yukon region; England, that of the Mackenzie and the country between Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains; the United States, all west of the Rockies, north of Forty-two.
The year previous to the one in which the United States acquired Florida and all Spanish rights on the Pacific Coast north of Forty-two, the United States and England had agreed to a joint occupation of the region. In 1828 this was indefinitely extended, but with the emigration to Oregon in the early forties, this country demanded a settlement of the boundary question.
President Tyler, in his message to Congress in 1843, declared that "the United States rights appertain to all between forty-two degrees and fifty-four degrees and forty minutes."
The leading Democrats of the South were at that time advocating the annexation of Texas. Mr. Calhoun was an ardent champion of the cause, and was endeavoring to effect a settlement with the British minister, offering the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise on the boundary dispute, in his eagerness to acquire Texas without danger of interference.
The compromise was declined by the British minister.
In 1844 slave interests defeated Mr. Van Buren in his aspirations to the presidency. Mr. Clay was nominated instead. The latter opposed the annexation of Texas and advised caution and compromise in the Oregon question; but the Democrats nominated Polk and under the war-cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight," bore him on to victory. The convention which nominated him advocated the reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon; the two significant words being used to make it clear that Texas had belonged to us before, through the Louisiana purchase; and Oregon, before the treaty of joint occupation with Great Britain.
President Polk, in his message, declared that, "beyond all question, the protection of our laws and our jurisdiction, civil and criminal, ought to be immediately extended over our citizens in Oregon."
He quoted from the convention which had nominated him that "our title to the country of Oregon as far as Fifty-four, Forty, is clear and unquestionable;" and he boldly declared "for all of Oregon or none."
John Quincy Adams eloquently supported our title to the country to the line of Fifty-four, Forty in a powerful speech in the House of Representatives.
Yet it soon became apparent that both the Texas policy and the Oregon question could not be successfully carried out during the administration. "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight" as a watchword in a presidential campaign was one thing, but as a challenge to fight flung in the face of Great Britain, it was quite another.
In February, 1846, the House declared in favor of giving notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of the Oregon country must cease. The Senate, realizing that this resolution was practically a declaration of war, declined to adopt it, after a very bitter and fiery controversy.
Those who retreated from their first position on the question were hotly denounced by Senator Hannegan, the Democratic senator from Indiana. He boldly attacked the motives which led to their retreat, and angrily exclaimed:—
"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition."
The resolution was almost unanimously opposed by the Whig senators. Mr. Webster, while avoiding the point of our actual rights in the matter, urged that a settlement on the line of the forty-ninth parallel be recommended, as permitting both countries to compromise withdignity and honor. The resolution that was finally passed by the Senate and afterward by the House, authorized the president to give notice at his discretion to Great Britain that the treaty should be terminated, "in order that the attention of the governments of both countries may be the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes in regard to said territory."
Forever to their honor be it remembered that a few of the Southern Democrats refused to retreat from their first position—among them, Stephen A. Douglas. Senator Hannegan reproached his party for breaking the pledges on which it had marched to victory.
The passage of the milk-and-water resolution restored to the timid of the country a feeling of relief and security; but to the others, and to the generations to come after them, helpless anger and undying shame.
The country yielded was ours. We gave it up solely because to retain it we must fight, and we were not in a position at that time to fight Great Britain.
When the Oregon Treaty, as it was called, was concluded by Secretary Buchanan and Minister Pakenham, we lost the splendid country now known as British Columbia, which, after our purchase of Alaska from Russia, would have given us an unbroken frontage on the Pacific Ocean from Southern California to Behring Strait, and almost to the mouth of the Mackenzie River on the Frozen Ocean.
Many reasons have been assigned by historians for the retreat of the Southern Democrats from their former bold and flaunting position; but in the end the simple truth will be admitted—that they might brag, but were not in a position to fight. They were like Lieutenant Whidbey, whom Vancouver sent out to explore Lynn Canal in a small boat. Mr. Whidbey was ever ready and eager, when he deemed it necessary, to fire upon a small party of Indians; but when they met him, full front, in formidable numbers and with couched spears, he instantly fell into a panic and deemed it more "humane" to avoid a conflict with those poor, ignorant people.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle A Phantom ShipCopyright by E. A. Hegg, JuneauCourtesy of Webster & Stevens, SeattleA Phantom Ship
The Southern Democrats who betrayed their country in 1846 were the Whidbeys of the United States. For no better reason than that of "humanity," they gave nearly four hundred thousand square miles of magnificent country to Great Britain.
Another problem in this famous boundary settlement question has interested American historians for sixty years: Why England yielded so much valuable territory to the United States, after protecting what she claimed as her rights so boldly and so unflinchingly for so many years.
Professor Schafer, the head of the Department of American History at the University of Oregon, claims to have recently found indisputable proof in the records of the British Foreign Office and those of the old Hudson's Bay Company, in London, that the abandonment of the British claim was influenced by the presence of American pioneers who had pushed across the continent and settled in the disputed territory, bringing their families and founding homes in the wilderness.
England knew, in her heart, that the whole disputed territory was ours; and as our claims were strengthened by settlement, she was sufficiently far-sighted to be glad to compromise at that time. If the Oregon Treaty had been delayed for a few years, British Columbia would now be ours. Proofs which strengthen our claim were found in the winter of 1907-1908 in the archives of Sitka.
There would be more justice in our laying claim to British Columbia now, than there was in the claims of Great Britain in the famouslisièrematter which was settled in 1903.
By the treaties of 1824, between Russia and the United States, and of 1825, between Russia and Great Britain, the limits of Russian possessions are thus defined, and upon our purchase of Alaska from Russia, were repeated in the Treaty of Washington in 1867:—
"Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longitude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the North along the channel called Portland Channel, as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude; from this last mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian); and finally, from the said point of intersection, the said meridian line of the one hundred and forty-first degree, in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the Continent of America to the northwest.
"With reference to the line of demarcation laid down in the preceding article, it is understood:—
"First, That the island called Prince of Wales Island shall belong wholly to Russia.
"Second, That whenever the summit of the mountains which extend parallel to the coast from the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia as above mentioned shall be formed by a lineparallel to the windings of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom.
"The western limit within which the territories and dominion conveyed are contained, passes through a point in Behring Strait on the parallel of sixty-five degrees, thirty minutes, north latitude, at its intersection by the meridian which passes midway between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limitation, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, beginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in a course nearly southwest, through Behring Strait and Behring Sea, so as to pass midway between the northwest point of the island of St. Lawrence and the southeast point of Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of one hundred and seventy-two west longitude; thence, from the intersection of that meridian in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and the Copper Island of the Kormandorski couplet or group in the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of one hundred and ninety-three degrees west longitude, so as to include in the territory conveyed the whole of the Aleutian Islands east of that meridian."
In the cession was included the right of property in all public lots and squares, vacant lands, and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices, which were not private individual property. It was, however, understood and agreed that the churches which had been built in the ceded territory by the Russian government should remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church resident in the territory as might choose to worship therein. All government archives, papers, and documents relative to the territory and dominion aforesaid which were existing there at the time of transferwere left in possession of the agent of the United States; with the understanding that the Russian government or any Russian subject may at any time secure an authenticated copy thereof.
The inhabitants of the territory were given their choice of returning to Russia within three years, or remaining in the territory and being admitted to the enjoyment of all rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion.
It must be confessed with chagrin that very few Russians availed themselves of this opportunity to free themselves from the supposed oppression of their government, to unite with the vaunted glories of ours.
Before 1825, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the United States had no rights of occupation and assertion on the Northwest Coast. Different nations had "planted bottles" and "taken possession" wherever their explorers had chanced to land, frequently ignoring the same ceremony on the part of previous explorers; but these formalities did not weigh against the rights of discovery and actual occupation by Russia—else Spain's rights would have been prior to Great Britain's.
Between the years of 1542 and 1774 Spanish explorers had examined and traced the western coast of America as far north as fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, Perez having reached that latitude in 1774, discovering Queen Charlotte Islands on the 16th of June, and Nootka Sound on the 9th of August.
Although he did not land, he had friendly relations with the natives, who surrounded his ship, singing and scattering white feathers as a beautiful token of peace. They traded dried fish, furs, and ornaments of their own making for knives and old iron; and two, at least, boarded the ship.
Perez named the northernmost point of Queen Charlotte Islands Point Santa Margarita.
Proceeding south, he made a landfall and anchored in a roadstead in forty-nine degrees and thirty minutes, which he called San Lorenzo—afterward the famous Nootka of Vancouver Island. He also discovered the beautiful white mountain which dignifies the entrance to Puget Sound, and named it Santa Rosalia. It was renamed Mount Olympus fourteen years later by John Meares.
This was the first discovery of the Northwest Coast, and when Cook and Vancouver came, it was to find that the Spanish had preceded them.
Not content with occupying the splendid possessions of the United States through the not famous, but infamous, Oregon Treaty, Canada, upon the discovery of gold in the Cassiar district of British Columbia, brought up the question of thelisière, or thirty-mile strip. This was the strip of land, "not exceeding ten marine leagues in width," which bordered the coast from the southern limit of Russian territory at Portland Canal (now the southern boundary of Alaska) to the vicinity of Mount St. Elias. The purpose of this strip was stated by the Russian negotiations to be "the establishment of a barrier at which would be stopped, once for all, to the North as to the West of the coast allotted to our American Company, the encroachments of the English agents of the Amalgamated Hudson Bay and Northwest English Company."
In 1824, upon the proposal of Sir Charles Bagot to assign to Russia a strip with the uniform width of ten marine leagues from the shore, limited on the south by a line between thirty and forty miles north from the northern end of the Portland Canal, the Russian Plenipotentiaries replied:—
"The motive which caused the adoption of the principleof mutual expediency to be proposed, and the most important advantage of this principle, is to prevent the respective establishments on the Northwest Coast from injuring each other and entering into collision.
"The English establishments of the Hudson Bay and Northwest companies have a tendency to advance westward along the fifty-third and fifty-fourth degrees of north latitude.
"The Russian establishments of the American Company have a tendency to descend southward toward the fifty-fifth parallel and beyond; for it should be noted that, if the American Company has not yet made permanent establishments on the mathematical line of the fifty-fifth degree, it is nevertheless true that by virtue of its privilege of 1799, against which privilege no power has ever protested, it is exploiting the hunting and the fishing in these regions, and that it regularly occupies the islands and the neighboring coasts during the season, which allows it to send its hunters and fishermen there.
"It was, then, to the mutual advantage of the two Empires to assign just limits to this advance on both sides, which, in time, could not fail to cause most unfortunate complications.
"It was also to their mutual advantage to fix their limits according to natural partitions, which always constitute the most distinct and certain frontiers.
"For these reasons the Plenipotentiaries of Russia have proposed as limits upon the coast of the continent, to the South, Portland Channel, the head of which lies about (par) the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, and to the East, the chain of mountains which follows at a very short distance the sinuosities of the coast."
Sir Charles Bagot urged the line proposed by himself and offered, on the part of Great Britain, to include the Prince of Wales Island within the Russian line.
Russia, however, insisted upon having herlisièrerun to the Portland Canal, declaring that the possession of Wales Island, without a slice (portion) of territory upon the coast situated in front of that island, could be of no utility whatever to Russia; that any establishment formed upon said island, or upon the surrounding islands, would find itself, as it were, flanked by the English establishments on the mainland, and completely at the mercy of these latter.
England finally yielded to the Russian demand that thelisièreshould extend to the Portland Canal.
The claim that the Canadian government put forth, after the discovery of gold had made it important that Canada should secure a short line of traffic between the northern interior and the ocean, was that the wording of certain parts of the treaty of 1825 had been wrongly interpreted. The Canadians insisted that it was not the meaning nor the intention of the Convention of 1825 that there should remain in the exclusive possession of Russia a continuous fringe, or strip—thelisière—of coast, separating the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, havens, and waters of the ocean.
Or, if it should be decided that this was the meaning of the treaty, they maintained that the width of thelisièrewas to be measured from the line of the general direction of the mainland coast, and not from the heads of the many inlets.
They claimed, also, that the broad and beautiful "Portland's Canal" of Vancouver and the "Portland Channel" of the Convention of 1825, were the Pearse Channel or Inlet of more recent times. This contention, if sustained, would give them our Wales and Pearse islands.
It was early suspected, however, that this claim was only made that they might have something to yield when, as they hoped, their later claim to Pyramid Harbor andthe valley of the Chilkaht River should be made and upheld. This would give them a clear route into the Klondike territory.
In 1898 a Joint High Commission was appointed for the consideration of Pelagic Fur Sealing, Commercial Reciprocity, and the Alaska Boundary. The Commission met in Quebec. The discussion upon the boundary continued for several months, the members being unable to agree upon the meaning of the wording of the treaty of 1825.
The British and Canadian members, thereupon, unblushingly proposed that the United States should cede to Canada Pyramid Harbor and a strip of land through the entire width of thelisière.
To Americans who know that part of our country, this proposal came as a shock. Pyramid Harbor is the best harbor in that vicinity; and its cession, accompanied by a highway through thelisièreto British possessions, would have given Canada the most desirable route at that time to the Yukon and the Klondike—the rivers upon which the eyes of all nations were at that time set. Many routes into that rich and picturesque region had been tested, but no other had proved so satisfactory.
It has since developed that the Skaguay route is the real prize. Had Canada foreseen this, she would not have hesitated to demand it.
From the disagreement of the Joint High Commission of 1898 arose the modus vivendi of the following year. There has been a very general opinion that the temporary boundary points around the heads of the inlets at the northern end of Lynn Canal, laid down in that year, were fixed for all time—although it seems impossible that this opinion could be held by any one knowing the definition of the term "modus vivendi."
By the modus vivendi Canada was given temporary possession of valuable Chilkaht territory, and her new maps were made accordingly.