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PEERLESS ALASKA
COUR CACHE NEAR THE POLE
nia L
CHARLES HALLOCK, M.A.
1 3th Echn o.p
Frontispiece "PEERLESS ALASKA"
PEERLESS ALASKA
OUR CACHE NEAR THE POLE
By CHARLES HALLOCK, M.A.
Founder of Forest and Stream, and Dean of American Sportsmen
ILLUSTRATED FROM SKETCHES BY GEORGE G. CANTWELL
NEW YORK BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY 1908
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1908, by BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
A FOREWORD.
TO THE PUBLIC :
As the founder of American churches, schools and civil government in Alaska, and for thirty-one years an active worker in its development, I take pleasure in calling public attention to the excellence, reliability and completeness of this book of Mr. Hallock, so aptly indi- cated by its sub-title as "Our Cache Near the Pole."
Alaska is a country of which the half has not been told or even surmised. To write so that the reader can see and in some measure comprehend what it is like re- quires an author of special gift, and this Mr. Hallock has. As a naturalist and sportsman, he has been trained to close observation. As a scientist, he defines, adapts and applies. As an editor for fifty-five years in and out, he has had long practice in the art of putting things. He appeals irresistibly to one's sense of appreciation. Fur- thermore, as the author of half a dozen popular books on natural history and sport, and a purveyor for many years to lovers of outdoor life through the "Forest and Stream," which he founded, he knows how to diagnose the public mind and prescribe just what it wants and needs to know. And the results of all this professional training and experience and investigation are admirably and opportunely presented in this last work of his, which same guarantees to the reader pleasure, accuracy and instruction.
SHELDON JACKSON,
U. S. General Agent of Education for Alaska. Washington, D. C., March 13, 1908.
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Twenty-three years ago, when Alaska, disregarded and undervalued, seemed to be lying in the shadow and chill of its sub-Arctic seclusion, the author of "Our New Alaska," in an attempt to vindicate the "Seward Pur- chase," wrote what follows. It was an appeal to Cæsar. Subsequent development has borne out all that was then forecast, and transcendently more, as has been confirmed by official surveys, governors' reports, U. S. experiment stations, and correspondents :
"The special object of this book is to point out the visible resources of that far off territory, and to assist their lag- gard development; to indicate to those insufficiently informed the economic value of important industries hitherto almost neglected, which are at once available for immediate profit; to elucidate the vexed problem of labor supply; to impress upon Congress the advantage, as well as the duty, of providing proper protection for the people, and granting them representation through a chosen delegate, who shall be competent and conscientious to instruct and advise, and efficient to push their claims and their necessities, so that they may voice the needs of this great integer of the republic, and contribute without let or hindrance to its wealth and prosperity ; and finally to prove conclusively that the " Seward Purchase " was not so bad a bargain after all. At the same time attention is directed to those extraordinary physical phenomena whose marvelous combination makes Alaska the most attractive region in the world for sojourners and summer tourists. I would fain divert a portion of the travel which habitually goes to Europe to this new field of commerce and adventure. I would popularize home excursions among our votaries of fashion-Yosemite, Alaska, and the Yellowstone-as the primary and proper thing to "do" before attempting the Old World tour ; and so make it incumbent upon every American citizen, who would claim consideration abroad, to be duly accredited at the home office as competent to travel.
"Hitherto our new possession has seemed almost a myth too vague and intangible to tempt even the Argonauts. Like an unexpected legacy, its magnificence and value have not yet been comprehended; but the time is close at hand
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when her mighty forests will yield their treasures, her mines will open out their richness, her seas will give of their abundance, and all her quiet coves will be converted into busy harbors. Her grassy islands, her rounded foot-hills and her bounteous table-lands will pasture goodly herds, and her exuberant soil teem with vegetables and fruit. The gelid out-put from her glacier fronts-the crystal ice-floes which fill her most sequestered channels-will be harvested where they float, for transportation to the semi-torrid lati- tudes below; pleasure yachts will thread the intricacies of her studded islands, and no retreat for invalids and summer saunterers will be half so popular. Already the vibrations of the pending boom begin to agitate the air. The favorable reports of government explorers sent out to investigate the interior as well as the coast, are re-assuring. Letters of inquiry from intending settlers come from every section. Official departments are getting down to systematic work. New industries have been established within the present year. Capital will no longer be withheld grudgingly from enterprises waiting to be developed ; and by the time this book is ready to leave the press, a tide of emigration will set strongly in the direction of the Aleutian Isles.
"Talk of the sterility of Alaska, and its inhospitable soil ! Why there are eleven kinds of edible berries which mature in August, and strawberries grow in lavish profusion right under the breadth of the glacier fields in latitude sixty degrees. The mightiest giant of our eastern pineries is but a pigmy in diameter beside the average conifer of Alaska, where the undergrowth is so dense, and the " slash " so intricate, below the snow-line, that progress through it is almost impossible, and three miles a day is a difficult feat to accomplish.
"Alaska has been egregiously misconceived, maligned and misrepresented. The very encomiums which enraptured tourists have bestowed upon her Alpine scenery, have served to discourage settlement or adventure; men forgetting that the forbidding Alps do not constitute the whole of Switzer- land. Frigid impressions of her climate and agricultural capabilities have been reflected from her glacier fields and snow-clad peaks. Beneath her pallid drapery fancy apprehended a stark dead body instead of a living force. What poets admire to paint as " The land of the midnight sun," matter-of-fact folks accept as the polar world. And so Alaska is misjudged.
"Alaska has been belied. Not only are her marvelous resources generally ignored, but they have been systemati.
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cally and semi-officially denied. Authentic statements of disinterested investigators have been sedulously contra- dicted in the interest of parties whom it paid to keep the possibilities of the country close. It was so during the Russian occupation, and has been so ever since, and from kindred motives. No conscientious person ever dared affirm that the country was absolutely worthless; that a region with 2,000 miles of breadth and 25,000 miles of coast line (!) had absolutely nothing in it worth having; but the Russian government, which yielded its prerogatives to the fur companies, could itself get nothing out of it, and so, perhaps, it came to be for sale. Only within a few years past has the light of truth begun to gleam steadfastly through the fog, inasmuch as the country had been pre- viously inaccessible to us; but now, with a regular bi- weekly steamer to principal ports, and the omnipotent fact published broadcast by the Sitka paper, that milk is sold at ten cents a quart, and lettuce is given away in the local market, some caution must be observed in pronouncing the territory valueless, incapable and agriculturally worthless. The scope and fitness of Alaska for agriculture and stock raising are not yet recognized, simply because they have not been extensively tested.
"The illimitable wheat region of the British North-west, once supposed to be a desert, it has been proved can feed the world. The intense cold of winter, instead of being a drawback, acts in the farmer's interest. The deeper the frost goes the better. As it thaws out gradually in the summer, it loosens the sub-soil and sends up the needed moisture to the roots of the grain. The Canadian explorers in Rupert's Sound, in the interest of a railway to Hudson's Bay, claim that the country is not only densely forested but contains valleys and plains which promise rich wheat harvests when once they shall have come under cultivation. The interior of Alaska seems to be equally assuring, since all the witnesses in nature, there indigenous, rise up and testify to it. The geese which fly north in April and return in November, the grouse which brood in May, the flowers which bloom in June, the uncounted herds of caribou, the abundance of moose, bears, mountain goats, birds and other animal life, the exuberance of wild fruits and forest growth, the expansive prairies and moss-covered plains, and the almost tropical heat of mid-summer, all attest the presence of conditions, climatic and otherwise, upon which to predicate deductions altogether favorable.
"And Alaska 'is waiting for deliverance,' She holds her
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arms outstretched, and her lap filled with offerings, bidding us come and take them as our recompense, if we will but set her free from isolation and introduce her to the com- mercial world.
"My unpretentious sketch may not add any great amount of information to what has already been written of this strange country, but what I have contributed is mainly from my own personal observation, unaided by reports and reference books, which I have purposely refrained from con- sulting. Its south-eastern coast line for a distance of one thousand miles has become already pretty well known, and is now being thoroughly surveyed by the government. My illustrations show some of its characteristics. We need not care at present to speculate much upon what lies inland, back of the coast range. It is better to utilize the oppor- tunities at hand than to search for others which may not exist. The territory is vast, and centuries of systematic investigation will hardly suffice to reveal its fullest capa- bilities. Population will penetrate into the interior as soon as economic industries are fairly introduced along the sea- board, and if there be any land fit for cultivation it will be promptly brought into requisition to supply local demands. Those who know, and have raised fine potatoes one hundred and fifty miles up the Stickeen River, which matured in August, affirm that Alaska can supply her home people from the outset, and pari passu with their numerical increase, with fresh meat, and vegetables, game and berries, fish and dairy products, leaving the lower latitudes to supply the cereals and groceries. If minerals are found as widely distributed as indications suggest, the process of develop- ment and occupation will be rapid. Upon the whole, our people have shown considerable energy in taking hold to make something of what appeared to be "no good." They have done fairly well with their cumbersome acquisition, and events are likely to prove that the " Seward Purchase " was more than dirt cheap. Since the cession she has yielded in revenues to the general Government $10,000,- 000. The nation has been enriched by the fur industry to the extent of $52,000,000; the value of the salmon taken has been $50,000,000; the output of gold has amounted to more than $37,000,000; the wealth of the nation from her mining and fishing industries alone is double in amount the price paid by the United States Government for the territory. And yet hardly a begin- ning seems to have been made in the development of her mineral resources.
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ITINERARY.
In this year of grace, 1908, five large passenger steani- ers a month ply between Seattle and Valdez, Alaska. Valdez is an important entrepot for the interior, and will soon be connected with the Yukon Valley by rail. The old route to Alaska used to be from Port Townsend to Victoria, B. C., and thence to ports of Southeastern Alaska. But both ways via Seattle and Victoria are patronized now most liberally by visitors in the excursion season.
The mid-summer journey of 900 miles between San Francisco and Portland, Ore., is a trip full of delight all the way, taking the tourist through the most attractive scenery of the west coast, that he may be the better pre- pared to compare it with what is superlative beyond. All the scenic attractions of the coast range, of the San Joa- quin and Sacramento valleys, the Sierra Nevadas just within view, Mt. Shasta in its isolated grandeur, the Siskiyou Mountains, just across the Oregon line, and the Rogue River and Willamette Valleys, are vouchsafed to us within the limit of three days. How we bridge the mighty intervals of space, and handicap old time in this modern race of life !
For elegant comfort, without sight-seeing, the magnificent Steamers of the Pacific Mail Company, running from San Francisco to Portland, and Port Townsend on Puget Sound, afford an incomparable service. The boats of the trans- Atlantic routes to Europe are hardly more luxurious ; and those dwellers of the Pacific to whom the beauties of the in- land journey are familiar, generally choose the water route. Excursion tickets which are good for 40 days from date of issue, enable the tourist to accomplish both the inside and the outside routes. Eastern people choose the Union Pacific or Northern Pacific railroads, and Canadians the
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Canadian Pacific, according as geographical location meets their convenience. Those of the Southwest find their objective point most accessible by the Southern Pacific. Happy is he whose course leads across the northern tiers, where the phenomenal solar heat of midsummer is always tempered by a vitalizing atmosphere which cools when the sun goes down. It would do your honest hearts good to see the complaisance with which our Canadian neighbors regard their completed transit-a stupendous accomplish- ment whose engineering difficulties take precedence in com- parison with the mightiest of our own, and whose passage through the rugged gaps of three successive mountain ranges makes our single cut across the Rockies, seem almost common-place. Yet the Northern Pacific is a more inter- esting route, and the most desirable for all whose conven- ience permits a choice. It traverses a more diversified and populous country, and is besides the great continental artery whose pulsations are destined to keep the life-blood warm in all our Alaskan extremities. It will presently become the great feeder and factor of our Alaskan commerce, and the popular thoroughfare of two-thirds of those who, by and by, will regard the tour as imperative, as they have done the stereotyped tour of Europe, now becoming a familiar and effete experience.
I recall with pleasure my journey over this great thorough- fare, and the vague anticipations of my first Alaska trip. My thoughts were full of the unknown land. The outlook seemed without a horizon. I felt more than ever " foot- loose,"-like a candidate blind-folded for a first degree, or a novice after the preliminary toss of a blanket-not guess- ing what was coming next, but feeling that all would turn out right in the end. I fared sumptuously in the dining car ; and my time was agreeably divided between reverie and repletion.
" Going to Alaska ! Going to Alaska !"
For three consecutive nights I had lain in my Pullman berth, traveling westward, and between the hours of som- nolence and semi-wakefulness, I would listen to the cadence of the car wheels as the train rumbled on, and each mono- tonous iteration, seemed always to repeat, with a repetition which made me tired : "Going to Alaska-going to Alaska -going to Alaska-going to Alaska-going to Alaska !" Sometimes it would drop into a subdued refrain, and anon increase to a rattling emphasis when the train ran through a cut, and this continuous admonition was broken only when- ever we came to a full stop and all the waste air in the
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brakes blew off with a prolonged sigh and a fizz. Of course I had started from St. Paul with that intention (to go to Alaska) and it was perhaps well to know that I had made no mistake in the passage ; nevertheless, it was a rest to all the senses when daylight came to relieve the night-watch, and unfold the wondrous revelations of the trans-continen- tal trip. How impotent have been the attempts of pen and brush to impress the comprehension with the reality of things seen. In vain I hold up my hands and cry "'mira- bile." No two days' experiences were alike. Each suc- ceeding view and extended panorama was altogether dif- ferent from its predecessor, and one had hardly time to be amazed at this, before he was lost in new admiration of the other. " There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another glory of the stars." Across the illimita- ble grain fields and the prairie, through the mysterious " Bad lands," over the pine-clad and snow-capped moun- tains, past the far-reaching sage plains, and down the tran- scendent Columbia to the portals of the broad Pacific- every division of the grand thoroughfare we traversed was crammed full of novelty and absorbing interest. The delicious warmth of a summer atmosphere lay over all, and delightful anticipations continually gave place to blissful realization.
The tourist no sooner strikes the Columbia River than he seems to have gotten into a new kingdom of creation. The sudden transition from an interminable sage plain of more than one hundred miles in breadth to vertical cliffs and pal- isades which rise to fifteen hundred feet sheer out of the river-this unexpected step from the unlimited horizontal to the unattainable perpendicular-is of itself phenomenal. Then the architecture of the rocks and hills is different from any thing east. The rivers flow in mighty volume, green as emerald, and plunge into black rifts and chasms, churning their sides with foam. Shifting sands in their exposed beds blow into fantastic dunes and bury the underbrush along the shores until only their leafy tops protrude. Waterfalls leap from dizzy heights, emulating the Yosemite. The vegetation is luxuriant, and all the field of flora is new. Every thing is gigantic. The common alder bush grows to merchantable wood, and the principal forest trees into giant columns six feet thick. The orchards break down with redundant fruitage, and whenever there is a neglected gar- den patch the sweet briars and wild vines overrun the in- closing fences and bury them out of sight. Mosses cling to the limbs of trees in solid masses and festoons, and cover
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prostrate trunks ten inches deep. All along the route from the Dalles to Portland are gangs of Chinese, section-hands, at work along the railroad with costumes quaint and scanty, and features bland and child-like. It was against those ver- tical walls which overhang the Columbia, that they swung the indomitable heathen from the heights aloft, to drill and blast a passage for the railroad out of the solid rock. I know not how many dozens lost their lives in the dangerous exploit, but inasmuch as they stood substitute and proxy for supposed better men, this little trifle can hardly enter into the " Chinese Question."
Of course all tourists rhapsodize the notable points of view along the river-the Dalles, Cape Horn, the Cascades, Pillars of Hercules, Rooster Rock and Multnomah Falls, each of which, if isolated and apart, instead of contiguous to each other, would constitute an attraction which tourists would travel far to visit. Not the least interesting novel- ties are the fish-wheels along the shores, both portable and stationary, which scoop up the running salmon from March to August by the tens of thousands, looking for all the world like the obsolete mill-wheels of New England. Occasionally little groups of Oregon Indians come in view, seeming one-third civilized and two-thirds blanket. In vain, however, we look for the spectral outlines of Mount Hood and other notable peaks, for all the atmosphere is thick with smoke of forest fires which have spread all over the country ; and for six weeks past no one has drawn a breath of pure air, so that the inhabitants of this notoriously moist and fog-ridden region pray for rain. In course of time we come to a comfortable halt at the romantic little station of Bonneville, where a breakfast is served with more than Oriental profusion of melons, fruits and vegetables in every grown variety, and with milk and eggs, poultry, fish and meats, and every thing else toothsome and edible, piled on platters three tiers deep until the table holds no more- and still the waiters come with reinforcements, hands full, and loaded to the "gunnel." It seemed to the parched and dusty travelers from the arid sage plain, just now left behind, as if they had suddenly struck an oasis and every thing had been knocked into pie by the collision. The markets of Oregon and California were emptied out upon the board ; Ceres and Pomona sat helpless with their laps full. With this wide-open welcome the brief additional run to Portland was made without apprehension, although the approaching city could not be distinguished through the murk.
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There is a reputable tradition that when the atmosphere is clear, a view can be had from points of vantage whose unfolding is like a revelation of the celestial realm. Afar off in the horizon, just where the intense blue firmament seems to flank the spirit land, a trio of snowy peaks loom up from the somber plain in clear cut whiteness against the sky, like pyramids of crystal, Mt. Hood conspicuous and majestic above the rest. Rising in their purity to the very dome of heaven, and gleaming with a translucence super- natural, positive yet most intangible, they stand, as it were, the embodiment of the Eternal Trinity-not mere reflections of this material world. It is seldom that this beatific vision comes, even to patient watchers ; for fogs and mists obscure them in the spring, and clouds of smoke hang over them all the summer long ; but if, perchance, September rains should purify the air and lift the lowering veil, they appear momentarily to the world as the reflex of the divine transfiguration. As such, I beheld as one privileged. The time-favored denizens of Portland could not appreciate it more.
I don't know why tourists prefer to take the Alaska steamer from Portland via Columbia River, and its dis- tressful bar, with the supplementary and outside passage to Victoria, instead of choosing the Puget Sound route, except that they can thereby secure their berths for the voyage and survey serenely the subsequent scramble for places when the overland passengers arrive on board. The consideration is certainly important, but the experienced voyager can secure equal comforts by correspondence with the officials of the steamship company. One who took the river route writes :
" The Lower Columbia has none of the grand and sub- lime scenery of the Upper Columbia, where it breaks its way through the Cascade Mountains, but it has a picturesque beauty all its own, wooded isles and bold headlands, the river banks being high, wooded bluffs, with mountains in the background. We had an occasional picture of lovely level farms lying along the river and stretching back for miles, but such glimpses of cultivation were rare. Settle- ments were few. At about four in the afternoon we reached Astoria, which is fifteen miles from the sea ; and to-day we climbed to the top of a high hill, from which we could see the breakers on the bar. Astoria is quite a pretty town, has a population of five or six thousand, and its chief industries, fish and lumber, remain the same in kind as when John Jacob Astor established his trading post here.
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The best part of the town, in regard to residence, is back on the hills, which rise steep and near to the shore, while the business part is built on piles over tide water."
An eight hours' ride by rail is a moderate journey, and while the steamer is buffeting the waves of the outside pas- sage, the overland tourist from Portland to Tacoma is per- mitted to enjoy the comforts of the superb hostelry at the head of the sound, and perchance to view the snow-crested peak of Mt. Tacoma, standing out in its virgin purity, like a spirit of retrospection against the deep blue background of sky. On it there are glaciers equal in size to those found among the Alps. He may also observe the humble houses under the hill by the cove, where the presence of a half dozen Chinese small merchants was permitted for years to vex the equanimity of 7,000 people, but now hav- ing been charitably wiped out, is obnoxious no more. From Tacoma to Victoria there is a six hours' sail across a long reach of the sound by the splendid steamer " Olym- pian," palatial as any in the east, and electric-lighted in every apartment. On the route is Seattle, a goodly brick- built city of many thousand souls, long ago made histori- cal by its four days' war with a " barbarian horde " of Chinese 140 strong ; then Port Townsend, the lands' end of our western possessions before Alaska, perched high upon a perpendicular bluff whose top is reached by a hun- dred steps, with the mercantile traffic properly bestowed upon the flat below. At every intermediate hamlet and landing there is a saw-mill, with the primitive forest for a background and reminder of its purpose. On every side there are intimations of the country's recent settlement and the presence of the wilderness. Indian dug-out canoes of fantastic shapes with carved prows, steal quietly along the shadowy shores, or cross the open water between the embowered islands. Up and down, with every sweep of the eye, this notable Mediterranean stretches its majestic length of two hundred miles ; at times a broad expanse, anon no wider than a river, with many a point and promontory and curve of shore, roadsteads tortuous, channels narrow, and water bluer than the reflected skies, dotted with islands, indented with umbrageous recesses where the unsuspicious fish breaks the quiet surface, and offering in every littoral dell and sweep of forest such delights as sportsmen covet and endure long journeys to enjoy. And yet, on every side are budding hamlets and thrifty settle- ments with airs of comfort, farms and hop-fields, and busy saw-mills, and great ships sailing filled with surplus wheat,
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