see captionMOUNT HOOD—FROM THE HEAD OF THE DALLES, COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.
MOUNT HOOD—FROM THE HEAD OF THE DALLES, COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.
From Wallula to within a few miles of Portland, a twelve hours' ride, the tourist enjoys an uninterrupted succession of views of that superb scenery which has given the Columbia river its world-wide reputation. Never for more than a few moments does he lose sight of its mighty flood,—now flowing onward with all the majesty of the lower Mississippi, and now surging through the rocky barriers that impede its course; here confined within lofty basaltic walls, there inclosing numerous beautifully wooded islands; and here again marked by long stretches of bare white sand driven continually by the unceasing winds. For some miles west of Wallula the banks of the river are low, and possess no special object of interest. It is not, indeed, until he reaches the Great Dalles that the tourist sees any indication of the magnificent scenery he is approaching. There, however, he has his firstglimpse of the queenly Mount Hood, whose snowy peak, soaring 11,225 feet above the sea, stands out sharply against the sky at a distance of thirty-five miles. The Dalles themselves, scarcely noticeable, except when the river is at flood, constitute one of the most curious and interesting sights in the world,—nothing less than that of the mighty Columbia turned on edge. Here, within a gorge so narrow that a child may fling a pebble from bank to bank, is confined the greatest river of the Northwest. The chasm through which it flows has never been fathomed, and can only be approximately determined by an inversion of the grand proportions of the river where it flows through its ordinary channel.
At Dalles City, the eastern terminus of navigation on the middle river, the tourist finds himself in an attractive town of nearly forty years' growth. Here he may with advantage make a brief stay, resuming his journey either by train or by steamer, the fine boats of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company plying daily between this city and Portland. From the heights commanding the town, magnificent views are to be obtained, Mount Hood looming up in the southwest, and Mount Adams, another of the great peaks of the Cascade Range, in the north.
We have now left behind the low-lying shores that extend for so many miles between the Dalles and Wallula. Henceforward the scenery increases in interest every mile, the mountains becoming loftier and more precipitous, the rocky shores more rugged, and the intervening foliage more luxuriant.
It should be stated that the scenery, especially on the south side of the river, appears to much greater advantage when viewed from the deck of a steamer than when seen from the train. In consideration of this fact, railway tickets are available by steamer without extra charge. The boat leaving the Dalles early in the morning, there is a loss of one day involved in taking the steamer on the westward journey; but, returning from Portland, the tourist is able to reach the Dalles in time for that day's east-bound train.
Forty-three miles from the Dalles are the Cascades, where the river changes from a placid lake to swift rapids and a foaming torrent. Before the completion of the railroad every pound of freight had to be transferred, at this point, from a steamer navigating the river above this insurmountable barrier to one navigating it below, orvice versa. The railway portage of six miles on the Washington side of the river is still operated, and the transfer of such passengers as choose to complete their journey by water is made so speedily and conveniently as to enhance, rather than otherwise, the pleasure and interest of the river trip.
In view of the importance of the river as a free commercial highway, Congress has made several appropriations for the construction, at the Cascades, of a system of locks. It is certainly a gigantic undertaking, and many years will probably elapse before its completion.
To a great convulsion of nature, of whose occurrence there is abundant evidence, may be traced a singular Indian tradition, that Mount Hood and Mount Adams formerly stood close to the river, connected by a natural bridge. The mountains, so goes the story, becoming angry with eachother, threw out fire, ashes and stones, and so demolished the bridge, choking the river, which had previously been navigable. The present remoteness of the mountains is attributed to the anger of the Great Spirit, who hurled them thus far asunder. Both, in common with other peaks of the Cascade Range, are extinct volcanoes; and the Indian tradition may have its origin either in some great eruption, or in some sudden movement of what is known as the sliding mountain, an immense mass of basaltic rock gradually wearing its way toward the river.
After gazing in admiration at the fine scenery surrounding the Cascades, the tourist will scarcely be prepared for the announcement that the grandest of all is yet to come. But, after leaving Bonneville, not only is the general effect grander and more imposing, but the objects of special interest are more numerous. Here it is that the advantage of making the trip by steamer is most apparent; for, let the train travel ever so slowly, it is impossible for even the most quick-sighted traveler to take in all the points of interest that crowd one upon another.
On the north side is Castle Rock, rising abruptly from the water's edge a thousand feet or more. Farther down the river, also on the north side, is Cape Horn, an imposing basaltic cliff projecting into the water. On the south side there descend from the lofty perpendicular walls that frown upon the river for many miles, numerous waterfalls, of indescribable beauty. Here is the lovely Oneonta, 600 feet of silver ribbon, floating from the dizzy height. A few moments more, and we are opposite the still more beautiful Multnomah Fall, which has a descent of no less than 820 feet. At this point the train stops fifteen minutes to enable passengers to ascend to the rustic bridge, there to enjoy the best possible view of this incomparable fall, and its wondrously beautiful setting, contrasting so strikingly with the wild scenery around it.
At the Pillars of Hercules, two gigantic columns of rock, one on either side the track, and forming, as it were, the western gateway to this marvelous region, the railroad leaves the river, and runs right on to Portland. The steamer continues its course, past the beautiful city of Vancouver, to the mouth of the Willamette river, by which great tributary of the Columbia, it soon reaches
Its phenomenal growth, its commanding position on one of the great waterways of the continent, its wealth, commerce and enterprise, and the singular natural beauty of its situation, render the capital of the Pacific Northwest one of the most attractive cities on the American continent.
Fifteen years ago Portland contained a population of 1,103. By 1880 the construction of the western section of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the approaching completion of the great transcontinental system, had so stimulated the growth of the city that its population had increased to 17,577. To-day it is estimated at 30,000, or, including the suburbs of East Portland and Albina, at 40,000, and a handsomer city of its size can not be found in the United States.
In everything that distinguishes a great metropolitan city, the progress of Portland has been even more remarkable than the rapid growth of itspopulation. The handsome business blocks that line its principal streets bear witness to the magnitude of its trade and commerce, while its churches, schools and other public buildings testify to the high moral tone and refined taste of its citizens.
Although one hundred miles from the coast, Portland, like London, Rotterdam and Antwerp, is virtually a seaport, and its growth and progress are based upon the solid foundations of its natural advantages. Loading at its wharves, or riding at anchor on the broad bosom of the river, may be seen, not only river craft of all sorts and sizes, but ocean-going vessels of 3,000 tons. When the great wheat crop of Oregon is in course of shipment to Europe, there may be seen a fleet of as fine merchantmen as can be found in the world. The salmon exports alone, for the year ending August 1, 1885, required 120 large vessels, having a total capacity of about as many thousand tons. The total value of the exports to foreign countries for the year just mentioned, was $5,857,057, and that of domestic exports $6,699,776, making a grand total of $12,556,833. In addition to several hundred thousand tons of wheat, and the 120 ship loads of salmon already mentioned, the exports from the Columbia river included over eleven million pounds of wool, over two million pounds of hides, nearly five and one-half million pounds of hops, and twenty-nine million pounds of potatoes.
Portland is said to number among its merchant princes twenty-one millionaires, and certainly there are few cities whose private residences are more strikingly indicative of wealth and refinement. The picturesque surroundings of the city render it an exceedingly desirable place of residence. From the summit of Robinson's Hill a view that it is no extravagance to pronounce one of the finest in the world may be obtained. At one's feet lies the city, nestled in rich foliage. Stretching away, for many miles, from where their waters unite in one common flood, may be seen the Columbia and Willamette rivers. But above all, bounded only by the limits of the horizon, is the great Cascade Range, with all its glittering peaks. On the extreme right, seventy-eight miles distant, as the crow flies, is seen the snowy crown of Mount Jefferson; across the river, fifty-one miles distant, rises Mount Hood, one of the most beautiful mountains on the coast, and the pride and glory of Oregon; to the northeast stand out the crests of Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens, and in the same direction, but one hundred miles away, may be descried the great Tacoma, the grandest mountain on the Pacific slope. All these five peaks are radiant with eternal snow, and it may well be imagined that the effect of the uplifting of their giant forms against the clear blue sky is grand in the extreme.
Tourists coming northward from San Francisco have the choice of two routes and two modes of travel. They may either take one of the fine steamers of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, sailing every five days, and performing the voyage in from sixty to seventy-two hours, or they may travel overland by the Oregon & California Railroad, a line that traverses not only the most fruitful plains, but also the most beautiful valleys, of this rich State.
For the benefit of such travelers, and also in view of the possibilityof there being those who, both coming and returning by the Northern Pacific Railroad, would like to visit the garden of Oregon, and, if possible, obtain a glimpse of Mount Shasta, it may not be out of place to give a brief description of the line extending southward from Portland to the southern boundary of the State.
For upward of one hundred miles our route lies along the Willamette valley. This is the largest valley in the State, being 150 miles in length, with an average width of fifty miles. Inclosed on the east side by the Cascade Mountains, and on the west by the Coast Range, it contains an area of about four and one-half million acres of rich and beautiful land. Some of the pleasantest towns in the Northwest are to be found in this valley.
see captionFLOATING FISH WHEEL, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.
FLOATING FISH WHEEL, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.
First comes Oregon City, sixteen miles from Portland; this is the oldest town in Oregon. It is situated just below the beautiful falls of the Willamette, amid highly picturesque scenery. Its chief interest for the tourist centres in the falls, which represent a force of over a million horse power, or about eight times that of the Falls of St. Anthony. They may be seen a few hundred yards south of the station, on the west side of the track. Hitherto there has been seen no considerable extent of fertile country; but in Barlow's prairie there appears a fine tract of agricultural land inclosed by tributaries of the Willamette. Others succeed it, and soon good homesteads, surrounded by shade trees and orchards, are seen in every direction. The next town of importance is Salem, the State capital, beautifully situated on the sloping banks of the river. The capitol, and other State buildings, may be seen from the train; and the entire city, with its broad streets and fine oak groves, presents a pleasing appearance.
The twenty-eight miles intervening between Salem and Albany afford some fine views of the Cascade Range, Mount Hood being visible at a distance of seventy miles, and the nearer southern peaks in still bolderoutline. Eugene City, 123 miles from Portland, is also charmingly situated and finely laid out on the edge of a broad, rich prairie overlooked by a ridge of low hills. Its geographical position, at the head of navigation, commands for it the trade of a large section of country. It is also the seat of the State University, and is otherwise an educational centre of great importance.
In the course of the next seventy-four miles the railroad ascends about 2,000 feet to Roseburg, the judicial seat of Douglas county, traversed by another of the famous valleys of Oregon, that of the Umpqua. This was formerly a great stock country; but its pastures have gradually disappeared before the plow, and cattle have given way to grain. It is, moreover, a fine fruit growing region. The tourist is now approaching those intricate valleys which have made this line of railway from Roseburg to its terminus at Ashland at once so costly and so picturesque.
Cow Creek Cañon, so winding that thirty-five miles of track had to be laid to attain twelve miles of actual distance, abounds with wild and beautiful scenery. From the valley of the Umpqua, the railroad passes into that of the Rogue river, in Josephine county. This county is equally famed for its natural beauty, its healthful climate and the wonderful productiveness of its soil. Grains, fruits and vegetables of every description, yield prodigiously, and their quality is not to be surpassed.
The great attractions of the county for the tourist are the two limestone caves situated thirty miles south of Grant's Pass, and fifteen miles east of Kerbyville. There is said to be a good wagon road from the latter place to within five miles of these caves, and arrangements are in progress for the early completion of the road. According to an official publication of the county, there is another route,viâWilliams Creek, by wagon road, to within eight miles of the caves, and thence, by a mountain trail, on horseback. The scenery along this route is stated to be grand beyond description, embracing many of the lovely valleys of this charming county, and, in the distance, the snow-capped mountains of the Cascade Range, terminating in the tremendous peak of Mount Shasta. The caves themselves consist each of a series of chambers, adorned with beautiful stalactites of prismatic colors, and other curious and delicate formations, presenting exquisite patterns, and sparkling with the lustre of diamonds.
At Ashland, 341 miles from Portland, the tourist arrives at the southern terminus of the road. Connection is made with the California and Oregon Railroad, at Delta, California, by stage. This is an exceedingly enjoyable stage ride, the first twenty miles of the journey being over the Siskiyou Mountains, from whose summits the long Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range can be traced for nearly 200 miles.
No tourist should return East without first taking a trip down the
to Astoria, that city of most interesting historical associations, and no little actual importance in these stirring days of trade andmanufactures. Admirably appointed steamers, making fast time, run daily between Portland and Astoria. The trip need not, therefore, occupy more than two days. The distance from Portland to the point at which the Willamette discharges itself into the Columbia, is twelve miles, in the course of which opportunity is afforded for observing the progress being made by the city in its manufacturing and other enterprises. The busy wharves are also passed, and the stately ships riding at anchor.
see captionMOUNT TACOMA.
MOUNT TACOMA.
After the first few miles of the Columbia the tourist may be surprised to find that the scenery of the lower river is far from being tame or monotonous. The river itself winds considerably for so great a body of water; the forest, too, is luxuriant, and the hillsides are covered with heavy fir; numerous islands occur at intervals, wooded and exceedingly pretty. Where the river has worked its way through the Coast Mountains, the scenery, though not so abrupt, stern or impressive as that of the middle Columbia, presents many fine effects, the lofty walls of the river being surmounted by hills of considerable altitude.
Not far from Columbia City, on the north or Washington bank of the stream, is an island rock known as Mount Coffin, and formerly an Indian place of sepulture. Here the tribes deposited the bodies of their noted chiefs and warriors. In his canoe, previously rendered useless, andwith his bow and arrows, the dead hero was here laid to rest.
After passing Kalama, the tourist comes upon some of the great canning establishments, which before long are passed at such short intervals that they seem to line the north bank, on which most of them are situated.
The fisheries of the Columbia river are almost as famous as its scenery. The canning industry, which was first established in 1866, has within the last few years attained great importance. Producing the first year some 4,000 cases, representing, at the high price they commanded, $16 per case, a total value of $64,000, it has steadily increased its product, until now it has reached upward of half a million cases. The catch of 1885, which was 524,530 cases, fell short of that of 1884 by 132,000 cases, in consequence of the markets of the world being temporarily overstocked. It is remarkable that the supply should at all exceed the demand, when the gigantic extent of the industry is taken into consideration. The great perfection to which the methods employed in capturing the salmon have been brought, is probably accountable for the recent glut in the market. Among the most effective contrivances for the purpose, is the floating fish-wheel, by means of which the fish are literally scooped up out of the water in shoals. The industry gives employment to 1,500 boats, 3,000 fishermen, and 1,000 factory hands, the latter principally Chinese. The canning season is from April 1st to July 31st, when the lower Columbia is alive with fishing boats, and the canneries are in full operation.
As we approach Astoria, the river widens out into a broad estuary, some seven miles across. Here is Tongue Point, a bold headland running out into the river from the Oregon shore.
In a beautiful bay between this point and Point Adams, is Astoria, built partly on piles, and partly on the shelving hills. For the story of its early history, of the arrival of John Jacob Astor's trading ship, “Tonquin,” and of its subsequent British occupancy, the reader is referred to Washington Irving's delightful volume. It is sufficient to say that it is to-day an exceedingly interesting city to visit, not more on account of its being the oldest British settlement in the Northwest, and the central figure in the salmon fishing of the Columbia river, than for the novelty of its construction.
Its busy wharves and abundant shipping proclaim it a seaport of considerable importance, requiring only a railroad or the removal of the barriers to the navigation of the middle Columbia, to make it a great city.
Opposite Point Adams is Cape Hancock, formerly known as Cape Disappointment. On the sea-coast, both on the Washington side, north of Cape Hancock, and on the Oregon side, south of Point Adams, are various summer resorts attracting crowds of visitors during the season. On the Washington shore is Ilwaco, beautifully situated on the north shore of Baker's Bay, with a long, crescent-shaped beach of fine, white sand sloping to the water, and heavily wooded hills in the rear. This growing place, with its hotels, stores, church and school house, is rapidly growing in popularity. Steamers meet the Portland boat at Astoria,where passengers are transferred without inconvenience or delay. They call, both going and returning, at Cape Hancock, affording tourists an opportunity of visiting Fort Canby, and the greatlighthouse, from which there is one of the most extensive and magnificent views on the entire Pacific coast. On the Oregon shore of the ocean are Clatsop Beach, where there are good hotel accommodations and excellent hunting and fishing, and a popular resort known as Seaside, boasting a multitude of attractions, including a fine ocean beach and a trout creek. Should the tourist be unable to make a long stay at any of these places, he ought at least to pay them a brief visit, if only to cross the great bar of the river, and to see where its mighty flood discharges itself into the ocean at the rate of 1,000,000 gallons per second.
The climate of this section is exceedingly humid; but its summers are delightful. Its rainfall is mostly in winter, when it is both heavy and continuous. It is said, that, if a barrel, with the two ends taken out, be placed upon its side with the bung-hole uppermost, the rain will enter by that small aperture faster than it can run out at the two ends. For this story, however, the writer can not vouch, any more than for that of the recent visitor to the National Park, who is said to have caught, in one of the lakes of that remarkable region, a fish so large that, upon his dragging it ashore, the water of the lake fell six inches.
The tourist has now become more or less familiar with the natural features and resources of that great country lying between the Snake river and the Pacific Ocean, and between the Columbia river and the Siskiyou Mountains.
There remains only Western Washington, with its extensive forests, its rich coal mines, its hop gardens, and its far-famed inland sea, on which he is to embark on his voyage to the great land of the far North. The Pacific division of the Northern Pacific Railroad follows the Willamette river from Portland to its confluence with the Columbia, and the latter river from that point to Kalama, where trains are conveyed across the river by the finest transfer boat in the world, built expressly for the railroad company, and constructed to carry thirty cars at one time. From Kalama the track strikes almost directly northward for Puget Sound, passing through long stretches of dense forest, but also intersecting a tract of country containing a larger area of fertile agricultural land than is contained in any other county in Western Washington.
The chief towns of this region are Chehalis and Centralia, and they give evidence of thrift and prosperity. But the attention of the tourist as he travels onward is largely occupied with the magnificent peaks of the Cascade Range, whose forms of dazzling whiteness constitute, with their background of deepest blue and the dark forests which clothe their base, a picture of marvelous beauty. For more than one hundred miles after we leave Portland, there looms up behind us the graceful contour of Mount Hood, while to the east are seen at intervals the majestic forms of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.
But the grandest scene of all is yet to come. After leaving Tenino, there is a revelation of almost unequaled grandeur in the view of MountTacoma, the loftiest peak of the entire range. If Mount Hood can claim to be considered, as is generally admitted, the most graceful and beautiful mountain on the Pacific coast, Mount Tacoma can certainly claim to be the most majestic and sublime. Towering 14,444 feet above sea-level, and thus exceeding by more than 3,000 feet the height of any other mountain in Washington or Oregon, it seems to rear its massive head close to the very battlements of heaven. No other mountain, even in the Yellowstone National Park or in the main range of the Rockies, will have produced so great an impression upon the traveler as will the mighty Tacoma. As he gazes at its majestic form, he is inclined to doubt whether there is in the whole world one that could establish a better claim to universal sovereignty. In lines that will live as long as the English language itself, Byron declared Mont Blanc the monarch of mountains. But Byron never saw the matchless Tacoma. It, too, has its throne of rocks, its diadem of snow, and, though less frequently than Mont Blanc, its robe of clouds, an adjunct of doubtful advantage except in the exigencies of versification.
see caption“THE TACOMA” TACOMA. W. T.
“THE TACOMA” TACOMA. W. T.
Mount Tacoma has, embedded in its mighty bosom, no fewer than fifteen glaciers, three of which have been rendered accessible to visitors. Comparing them with the glaciers of the Alps, Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, declares that the finest effects he witnessed during the course of a long tour in Switzerland, fell far short of what he saw on his visit to Mount Tacoma. At the great hotel, at Tacoma City, guides and camping outfits are always obtainable. Excursion parties are frequentlymade up during the summer season, the trip being entirely free from difficulty or danger, even to ladies.
It is at the city of Tacoma that the tourist first looks over the blue waters of Puget Sound. This is the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Occupying a commanding position upon a high plateau overlooking Admiralty Inlet, Tacoma has an excellent harbor, capable of receiving the largest ocean-going vessels. It has also some fine public buildings, among them being the Anna Wright Seminary for girls, a monument of the beneficence of Mr. C. B. Wright, of Philadelphia. Its luxuriously furnished hotel, the Tacoma, erected at a cost of $200,000, occupies one of the finest sites in the world, overlooking, as it does, the picturesque shores of the bay, and commanding a magnificent view of the imperial mountain.
A few miles northward is Seattle, also with an excellent harbor, and the promise of becoming a city of great importance, an extensive section of rich country being naturally tributary to it.
There is no more delightful climate than that of Puget Sound. The summers are cool, the maximum temperature at Tacoma in the summer of 1884 being eighty-nine degrees, and in that of 1885, eighty-five degrees only.
The Cascade division of the railroad, extending eastward from Tacoma, is developing a very rich bituminous coal country, and great quantities of the mineral are being shipped from Tacoma, where immense bunkers have been erected to facilitate its exportation. This line also reaches the fine hop growing country of the Puyallup valley, whose product has steadily risen in Eastern markets, until now it commands as high a price as that of the State of New York.
But never was the tourist less disposed than now to concern himself with agricultural or commercial statistics. With eager expectation, impatient of delay, he is hastening toward that veritable Wonderland of the World that constitutes the Mecca of his pilgrimage. He is about to enter upon the final stage of his long journey, in that far-famed Inland Passage, whose incomparable scenery, extending in one unbroken chain for more than a thousand miles, alone surpasses those stupendous works of Nature upon which he has so recently gazed.
John Hyde.
Tailpiece
Headpiece
M
an travels for business and pleasure. The former can be easily described, by a slight interpolation in a well-known mathematical definition, as “the shortest distance and quickest time between two points.” The latter bears to this mathematical rectilinear exactness the relation of the curves,—Hogarth's “line of beauty,” the rotund circle and graceful sweep of the Archimedean spiral, and bends of beauty beyond computation; and, as any of these are more pleasing to the eye than the stiff straight line, so any tourist's jaunt is more pleasing to all the senses than the business man's travels. But, as all straight lines are alike, and all curves are different, so are their equivalents in travel, to which we have alluded. One tourist, as a Nimrod, dons his hunting shirt and high-topped boots, and, seeking the solemn recesses of the Rockies, slays the grizzly and mountain lion, and thus has his “good time;” another drives through the grand old gorges of the Yellowstone Park, and the deep impressions left by a lofty nature are his ample rewards; and yet again, where physical exertion is to be avoided by delicate ones or those averse to its peculiarities, one may float down the distant Columbia, with its colossal contours, and, without even lifting a finger to aid one's progress, view as vast and stupendous scenery as the world can produce. Thus each place suits each varying disposition, from the most roystering “roughing it,” developing the muscles in mighty knots, to where the most ponderous panorama of nature may be enjoyed from a moving mansion, as it were. Could we conceive a place where all these advantages would be united into one, or where one after the other might be indulged at pleasure, we would certainly have a tourists' paradise, an ever-to-be-sought and never-to-be-forgotten nook of creation. Such a tour is to be encountered on “the inland passage to Alaska,” as it is called by those knowing it best.
In this rough, rocky region, Nature has been prodigal of both land and water,—making the former high and picturesque, and the latter deep and navigable, and running in all directions through the other, apparently for the purpose that it might be easily viewed. From the northwestcorner of Washington Territory, through all of the coast line of British Columbia, and along Alaska's shores to the long-cast shadows of Mount St. Elias, stretches for nearly two thousand miles a picturesque panorama that seems as if the Yellowstone, the Yosemite, Colorado, and Switzerland and the Alps, were passing in review before the spectator; and, when the greatest northing is gained, Greenland and Norway have added their glacier-crowned and iceberg-bearing vistas to the view. It looks as if the Yellowstone National Park had sunk into the sea until the valleys were waterways, and the feet of the high mountains had been converted into shores. A grand salt-water river it is that stretches from Puget Sound, itself a beautiful sheet of water, to our distant colony of Alaska, a good round thousand miles, and whose waters are as quiet as an Alpine lake, even though a fierce gale rage on the broad Pacific outside.
Beyond the parallel of Sitka, though the grand scenery may be no more imposing than that through which the tourist will have passed in coming from Washington Territory, he will find some of the curiosities of nature which are to be found only in the dreaded frigid zones,—icebergs and glaciers. Before the waters of Northwestern Washington Territory are out of sight, great patches of snow are to be seen on the highest of the grand mountains bordering the inland passage. These little white blotches in the northern gullies become larger and larger as the excursion steamer wends her way northward, until the loftiest peaks are crowned with snow. Then, across connecting ridges, they join their white mantles; and, in a few more miles, the blue ice of glaciers peeps from out the lower edges of the deep snow. Lower and lower they descend as the steamer crawls northward, until the upper parts of the passage are essayed, when they have come to the ocean's level, and, plunging into the sea, snap off at intervals, and float away as icebergs, some of them higher than the masts of the large, commodious steamers that bear tourists to this fairy-land of the frigid zones, if one can be allowed such an expression. Glacier Bay, which the excursion steamers visit on their summer trips, has a great number of these frozen rivers of ice debouching into it; and its clear, quiet waters, reflecting the Alpine scenery of its shores, are ruffled only by the breaking of the icebergs from the terminal fronts of the glacier, that send waves across its whole breadth, and with a noise like the firing of a sea-coast cannon. Muir Glacier is the greatest of this grand group, and surpasses anything nearer than the polar zones themselves. There is no use in going into mathematical measurements,—its two and three hundred feet in height and its breadth of several miles; for they but feebly represent its grandeur, the deep impressions that figures can not measure when viewing this frozen Niagara of the North. Not until the blue Adriatic has pierced its way into the heart of the high Alps, or some ocean inlet has invaded the valleys of the vast Yellowstone Park, will we ever have an equivalent to this display of Nature's noblest efforts in scenic effects. Were the other scenery as monotonous as the ceaseless plains, a visit to the Alaskan glaciers and icebergs would well repay any one's time and effort; but, when the tourist travels through the greatestWonderland of the wide West to reach these curious sights, he or she will be paid over and over tenfold.
So far everything may be seen from the decks of an elegant steamer; but, should the tourist want a little “roughing it,” let him stop over in Glacier Bay, from one steamer's visit to another, two weeks to a month apart, and clamber over the glaciers and row around among the icebergs to his heart's content, and until he almost imagines he is an arctic explorer. He will descend from the tumbled surface of the frozen seas of ice on the glacier's surface, only to wade through grass up to his waist, that waves in the light winds like the pretty pampas fields of South America. In these fields of grasses he may pitch his tent, which, with a cook stove and a month's rations for each person, is all that is needed, beyond the baggage of the other tourists. Hunting is found in the mountains back of the bay, fish in the waters, and small game in the woods near by.
Or, if longer and rougher jaunts are wanted, ascend the Lynn Channel, and then the Chilkat, or Chilkoot, Inlet, hiring two or three Indians to carry one's camping effects on their backs to the lakes at the source of the great Yukon river of the British Northwest Territory and Alaska,—the third river of America. Going by the Chilkoot trail, over the Alaskan coast range of mountains, which will furnish Alpine climbing enough to suit the most eager, on snow and glacier ice, one comes to a series of lakes aggregating 150 miles in extent; and along these he may paddle and return, shooting an occasional brown or black bear, moose, caribou or mountain goat, while aquatic life is everywhere on these pretty Alpine lakes.
Throughout the whole inland passage, one is passing now and then some Indian village, of more or less imposing appearance and numbers. In Alaska they all belong to a single great tribe, the T'linkit, bound together by a common language, but by no stronger ties, for each village, or cluster of villages, makes a sub-tribe, having no sympathies with the other, and they often war against one another.
It is not often that one would want to call a tourist's attention to an Indian village, for the average encampment or habitation of the “noble red man” is not the most attractive sight or study; but, in the T'linkit towns, we have no such hesitation, for, in the curiosities to be seen in their houses and surroundings, they are certainly one of the strangest people on earth. They are the artistic savages of the world. In front of each log house, and often rearing its head much higher than it by two or three fold, are one or two posts, called “totem poles,” which are merely logs on end; but, on the seaward face, the savage sculptor has exhausted all the resources of his barbaric imagination in cutting in hideous faces and figures, that, with a hundred or so such terrible “totems” in front of a village, makes one think of some nightmare of his childish days. The houses, too, are carved inside and out. Every utensil they have is sculptured deep with diabolical but well executed designs, and their spoons of mountain sheep and goat horn are marvels of savage work. All these are for sale to tourists, and every excursion steamer bringsnumbers of these romantic remembrances of a yet more romantic journey back to civilization.
But the inland passage to Alaska is not the only grand and picturesque part of that great territory visited by the excursion steamers; for beyond and as far as Mount St. Elias, they often sail to this the greatest cluster of high mountains on the Western Continent,—Lituya Peak, 10,000 feet high; and Fairweather and Crillon, a third taller; then beyond, Cook and Vancouver cluster near sublime St. Elias, nearly 20,000 feet above the ocean that thunders at its base, and whose jagged top may be seen a hundred and fifty miles to sea. How disappointing are the Colorado peaks of 12,000 and 14,000 feet to one, for the simple reason that they spring from a plain already 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea-level, and seem, as they are, but high hills on a high plateau. How like pygmies they appear to Hood, Tacoma, Shasta, and others not so high above the ocean base line, but whose nearly every foot above sea-level is in mountain slope. How grand, then, must be hoary-headed St. Elias, whose waist is the waters of the wide sea, and whose 20,000 feet above sea-level springs from the Pacific Ocean, from whose calm waters we view its majestic height.
But let us commence at the starting point of our journey, and take our readers step by step over the whole route.
For many years the people of our great Northwest country, Oregon, Washington and Idaho Territories, have spoken familiarly of “the Sound” as one of their great geographical features,—in much the same way as the people of Southern Connecticut or Long Island speak of “the Sound,”—referring thereby to Puget Sound, that cuts deep into the northwestern corner of Washington Territory. Many have visited it, and sailed on its beautiful waters; beautiful enough in themselves or their own immediate surroundings, but thrice grand and gorgeous in their silver framing of snow-clad peaks and mountain ranges, surrounding them on all sides. The long, narrow, picturesque sound, that looked not unlike a Greenland fjord, or close-walled bay at the mouth of some grand river,—one of those bays so slowly converging that a person can hardly define where it ceases and the river commences,—was considered one of the most beautiful and scenic places of the Northwest; and its people delighted to show it to strangers, with its enhancing surroundings, reaching from the prettily situated capital of the Territory, Olympia, at the head of “the sound,” to where the broad Juan de Fuca Strait leads to the great Pacific Sea. Then Alaska was known only as Russian America, when it was spoken of at all, so seldom was it heard, and seemed to be as far away from the United States on that side of the continent, and as little thought of, as Greenland or Iceland is to-day with our people of the Atlantic coast. An occasional Hudson's Bay Company trading boat steamed out of Victoria harbor, and disappeared northward, crawling through a maze of intricate inland channels and Alpine-like waterways to some distant and seemingly half-mythical trading post of that lonesome land; but, as to anything definite as to where she was going, as little was known by the people as if an arctic expedition was leaving theharbor of New York or Boston, and not one hundredth of thefurorwas made about the departure, if, in fact, any notice was taken of it at all. With the accession of Alaska, through the efforts of Secretary Seward and Senator Sumner, the discovery of the Cassiar mines, in British Columbia, but which must be reached through Alaska, and a few other minor incentives, set many people to looking northward; they then found that they could continue their trips on a long inland salt-water river, of which the well-known Puget Sound was but a small part,—hardly the equivalent of Narragansett Bay taken from Long Island Sound, or Green Bay from Lake Michigan. Not that these were the first explorations and discoveries of importance in the inland passage and its surrounding woods and waters, by any manner of means. Cook and Clerke, as early as 1776; Dixon, from 1785 to 1788; Langsdorff, in 1803–8; La Perouse, in 1785–88; Lisianski, from 1803 to 1806; Meares, of the Royal navy, from 1788 to 1789; and especially Vancouver, from 1790 to 1795,—had all peeped into this part of the country, and many of the explorations and surveys were of the most extended nature; but, at about the time of which I speak, the knowledge of the inland passage to the bulk of the people, even in these parts so near to it, was nearly as musty as the old volumes on the library shelves that gave the most information. In fact, but little knowledge or interest was to be found regarding these parts. Their history of development from that embryonic state where everything told is regarded as bordering on the mythical, to where a line of ocean steamers visits them with crowded passenger lists, is the usual history of such developments.
The inland passage to Alaska may be said to practically extend from Tacoma, in Washington Territory, at the head of Puget Sound, to Chilkat, Alaska, at the head of Lynn Channel, a distance of nearly 1,100 miles, where the tourist taking a sea voyage has high shores in close proximity on either side of him, except a few places here and there, where a short communication with the ocean outside is to be had. But this “inland passage,” so called, is not the only one leading between the points named. It is, rather, a Broadway in New York City, a Pennsylvania avenue in Washington, State street in Chicago,—i. e., the main way; but every few miles a vessel could turn off down another passage as readily as a pedestrian or vehicle could down a side street, and, continuing a short way, return to the main thoroughfare again. Probably all the channels and straits and sounds and inlets in this part of Alaska, British Columbia and Washington Territory, susceptible of navigation by fair-sized ocean and river steamers, and all of them connecting with each other in a perfect network of waterways, would, if placed end to end, reach from a quarter to a third of the way around the world. Many of them are so illy charted—or not charted at all—that no craft of value would trust herself to follow their courses, while some of the smaller ways, but probably none the less picturesque, have yet to bear the first white man on their bosom. The most picturesque of all the ways through this intricacy of picturesque channels has been selected,carefully surveyed, and experienced pilots conduct the vessels to and from Alaska on its waters. The whole length of the passage is heavily timbered with various kinds of pine, fir, hemlock, cedar and spruce. Here and there avalanches from the mountain tops have swept through the dense timber, like a sickle through so much grain; and, although in a few years the growth is restored, yet the varying shades of green in the old and new growth of trees, running in perpendicular stripes up the steep hillsides, plainly show the ancient and recent devastations. Prettily situated Indian villages dot the narrow, shelving shores at rare intervals along the passage; and, when these nomads of the Northwest are seen, which is not infrequent, the chances are more than likely that it will be in a canoe, where they spend two-thirds of their out-of-door life.
Says the “American Cyclopædia,” speaking of this interesting part of Washington Territory, the southern part of the inland passage: “Washington Territory possesses a great multitude of harbors, perhaps more than any other country of equal extent on the globe. Puget Sound, which has an average width of two miles, never less than one nor more than four, and a depth never less than eight fathoms, runs 100 miles inland in a southward direction from the Straits of Fuca; and Hood's Canal, twelve miles further west, with half the width, runs in the same general direction about 60 miles. These two great estuaries, or arms of tidewater, have depth sufficient for the largest vessels, and numerous bends and corners where the most perfect protection may be found against the winds.” Captain Wilkes, in the report of his famous exploring expedition, writes of Puget Sound: “I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses waters equal to these.” The Coast Range and Cascade Range of mountains are plainly visible from the sound. Near the Columbia river the Coast Range is not very high; but west of Hood's Canal it rises, in abrupt, beetling ridges, 7,000 to 9,000 feet high, called the Olympian Mountains, many of the peaks being snow-crowned throughout the year. The Cascade Range fairly bristles with snow-clad peaks from 8,000 to over 14,000 feet in height, and in every direction, almost, may be seen the grandest Alpine scenery in the distance.
Steaming northward through Puget Sound from Tacoma, with Seattle and other towns upon our right, and Port Townsend, the port of entry to the sound, upon our left, we come to Juan de Fuca Strait, which would lead us to the Pacific Ocean were we to follow it out. It is the most southern of all the waterways that connect the great sea with the network of channels inside, and formerly was much used as a part of the route to Alaska or Puget Sound from Portland, Oregon, or San Francisco, California; the steamer putting out to sea for a day if from the former port, and for four or five if from the latter, the passengers having all the discomforts of a sea voyage for that time. Where Magellan sailed over the Pacific Ocean it well deserved the name; but along the rough northern coast the amount of stormy weather increases, and a voyage on this part of the Pacific is not always calculated to impress one with the appropriateness of the great ocean's name. The construction of theNorthern Pacific Railroad from the Columbia river to Puget Sound has made these sea voyages unnecessary to reach a port on the inland passage; and, unless a person's stomach is built on “nautical lines,” so that he really enjoys an ocean trip, he can save this discomfort by a cut across lots on a railroad train. In fact, it must be kept in mind, that, while the trip on the inland passage is an ocean voyage, equal to one from New York City to Havana and return, it is, as far as sea-sickness is concerned, as if the Hudson river was turned around in the opposite direction, and we sailed on its waters from New York to Havana and return; while the inland passage, in its southern part, is as accessible by railroad travel, to the people of the United States and Canada, as any point on the Hudson river. Therefore, broad Juan de Fuca Strait, where the pulsations of the ocean's life outside are even felt to its eastern end, in much diminished waves, however, carries fewer persons than formerly, and especially of that reluctant class who look uncomplainingly at the terrors of the sea, from the basis of dire necessity.
Crossing this strait, which has led to so many controversies as to whether the old Greek from whom it is named actually discovered this beautiful body of water, or only made a lucky guess in publishing to the world a mythical journey of his, we sight and bear down on the beautiful British island of Vancouver, whose metropolis is Victoria, and alongside of whose docks we shall soon be made fast.
Victoria, the city, was built on the site of old Fort Victoria, a Hudson Bay Company trading post of that great British monopoly that held nearly all British America under its control for two hundred years, and, although broken as a monopoly, has yet an influence to assist or retard the development of the country which is incalculable. The Fraser river gold mine excitement in the '50's did much to build up Victoria, and send it forward into the front rank of Pacific coast cities, a position which she has held with varying fortunes, though now, in common with the whole Northwest, once more on the ascending wave.
Cities, like individuals, have their “hobbies,” although seldom so prominently marked; and the municipal “hobby” of Victoria is her splendidly constructed roads, leading through the town and far beyond the suburbs, and in which she has no superior on the Pacific coast of North America, and but few in the world. If the steamer remains long enough in the harbor,—and during excursion times in the summer months they always do,—a drive should be taken on the Victoria roads, and especially the one leading to Esquimalt harbor and return, some two or three miles in all. It is but one, however, of the many beautiful drives; but it is only necessary to mention them in a general way for any one who would desire to test them, so readily can all needed information be found on the spot.
In quaint little smoke-stained and dingy-looking stores in out-of-the-way nooks and corners of the streets are to be found the Victorian curiosity shops, crowded with relics of the fast-disappearingIndian tribes that once formed a much denser population in this part of the country than at present. Pretty little mats and baskets are made from the sea-grass, dyed with the juices from berries and other natural dyes, and sold for the merest trifles. Curiously carved steatite houses, in miniature imitation of the Indian dwellings, and “totem poles” made by the Hydah or Haïda Indians, are to be seen for sale. Sometimes they carve plaques with spread-eagles and other fanciful designs upon them; rude but serviceable mats from the inner bark of the cedar tree, and all the known—and unknown—knick-knacks that can come from the barbaric ingenuity of Indian art, and which would require a pamphlet larger than the one in the reader's hands to chronicle half. This is the beginning of such curious wares that will be temptingly displayed before the tourist at every town and stopping place on the route, and from which may be selected such mementoes of the journey as will please the individual fancy.
Says a writer in theOverland Monthly, theCentury Magazineof the Pacific coast: “Victoria, in a rock-bound and land-protected cove, is the most attractive and the largest city on Vancouver's Island. During the days of the Fraser river excitement, Victoria was a much more energetic city than it is to-day. There were exciting times there then, and, because of the great expectations which everybody indulged in, land was bid up to an enormously high figure, and the town's prospects were considered wonderfully brilliant. But the Fraser was a fraud, comparatively, and its mines were quickly exhausted, so that Victoria received a setback, from which it is only just recovering. It is a picturesque town, thoroughly English, staid and conservative, and its location is an enviable one. In the distance rise the blue-hued heights of the Vancouver ranges, and nearer at hand lie the waters of Fuca Straits; beyond which there can be seen the snowy peaks of the Washington Territory mountains. Rounding the long point of land which juts out into the sea to form Victoria harbor, the town lay all revealed to us at last. In one direction were red painted shops set upon a high bluff overlooking the bay, and eastward there were green fields and trimly built cottages.
“‘Coming ashore?’ we were asked at length.
“‘Not to-day,’ the artist said.
“‘Then, don't judge Victoria until you see the place,’ came the word from the dock.
“We promised, and said that when homeward bound we would make a call.”
Returning, the narrator continues, “On the wharf at Victoria stood our friend of a month ago.
“‘Coming ashore?’ he said, when he saw us.
“‘Yes.’
“‘Good, we can show you a pretty town. Disappointed in Alaska?’
“‘No; it's the grandest country for scenery I—’ began the artist.
“‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said our friend, interrupting him. ‘Big glaciers, fine sailing, curious sights, no sea-sickness. Same old story; hear it every trip.
“Victoria is picturesque in every detail,” continues the narrator. “The’ land faces a land-locked bay, and behind the place stretch dense forests, through which roadways extend to the various suburbs. During our stay the frosts of early fall began to color the leaves, and at night the air grew sharp and chill. But still the air was clear, and down in the harbor white-winged yachts still moved over the bluish waters.”
Vancouver Island, which forms the outlying barrier to, or seaward side of, the inland passage from Juan de Fuca Strait to Queen Charlotte Sound, is one of the largest islands in that vast archipelago which forms the passage, and is the largest under British dominion. It was called Quadra Island by the Spaniards, who held it by descent from Mexico (then a Spanish colony) until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Vancouver, of the Royal navy, was sent from England to receive its surrender from the Spanish; it having been ordered by the home government at Madrid,—which he did from the Castilian governor, Quadra. Vancouver called it Quadra and Vancouver's Island; but the Spanish title has slowly disappeared under British rule. Vancouver pushed his discoveries from here to Cook's Inlet during his two or three years' cruise on this coast, and many of the names in the inland passage and adjacent lands and waters are due to his explorations made nearly a hundred years ago.
Leaving Victoria and its picturesque surroundings behind us, we swing in a huge circle around the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island, until we are pointed northward once more.
Strictly speaking, “the inland passage to Alaska, as defined by nautical men, now begins, Puget Sound only belonging to it in a geographical sense, but as similar thereto as ‘peas in a pod.’” We shortly after pass through a congerie of pretty islands, like the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence on a greatly magnified scale, when we come to the Gulf of Georgia, one of the widest portions of the inland passage. The islands we have left to the right (although it may change by the pilot not taking the usual route, so many are they to choose from) are the San Juan Islands, of far more importance than one would believe, looking at the unpopulated shores; at least, they were so in 1856, when the United States and Great Britain came very near coming to national blows about their possession. The matter was finally left to arbitration in the hands of the Emperor of Brazil, and then transferred to the present Emperor of Germany, who awarded them to the United States. The British troops then withdrew, a post of them having been on one end of the large island, with an American post on the other.
As we steam through the Gulf of Georgia we leave the highest point (Point Roberts) of the United States off to our right, in the distance, on the forty-ninth parallel.
Some forty or fifty miles farther on, and we enter the first typical waters of the inland passage,—Discovery Passage,—a narrow waterway between high, mountainous banks; a great salt-water, river-like channel, about a mile in breadth, and twenty-three and a half miles long by the British Admiralty charts. A huge yellow bluff, projecting into the sea,greets the eye as the passage is approached, and the great, wide channel to the east is the one the tourist has selected as a matter of course for the steamer to pursue; but she agreeably disappoints him, and enters the narrow, picturesque way. This Discovery Passage is a Yankee “find,” having first been entered by a Boston sloop, the “Washington,” in 1789. The broad right-hand passage could have been taken, as the land to our right is an island (of which the yellow clay bluff is the southern cape), called Valdez Island after an ancient mariner who visited this part of the world in 1792, in the Spanish galleon “Mexicana.” At first one is slightly nonplused at the frequency of Spanish names in these quarters; but, as the early history of the country is closely searched, the conclusion is forced on one more and more that these old Castilian navigators have not even got their dues, and, where their names once formed an honorable majority, they have slowly disappeared before the constant revisions of the geographers and hydrographers of another people, who have since acquired possession. We will come to many such changes of nomenclature on our interesting trip.
About two miles from the entrance to Discovery Passage we come to the Indian Village of Yaculta, on Valdez Island. It is the first of many we will see before we return to Victoria again, and, like most of them, it is on one of the narrow, level places between the high hills and the deep sea that happens here and there in this Alpine country; or its inhabitants would have to live in the trees on the steep hillsides, or in their canoes on the water. The large river coming in from the Vancouver Island side, some five or six miles from the entrance to the passage, is Campbell river, and is navigable for some distance inland by boats and canoes.
About half way through Discovery Passage we come to the Seymour Narrows, a contracted channel of the passage, about two miles long, and not much over one-fourth the previous width, where the tides rush through with the velocity of the swiftest rivers (said to be nine knots at spring-tides), a current which is so strong that it is generally calculated upon in departing from Victoria so as to reach this point about slack water. In the narrows is a submerged rock, with the pretty-sounding alliterative title of Ripple Rock, on which the United States man-of-war “Saranac” was lost in the summer of 1875. Ripple Rock is now so well marked that it is no longer dangerous to navigation. Northward from the narrows the hills rise in bold gradients, making the change quite noticeable, and more picturesque.