USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 4
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
In February, 1846, the House declared in favor of giv- ing 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 con- troversy.
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 ex- claimed : -
" 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 settle- ment on the line of the forty-ninth parallel be recom- mended, as permitting both countries to compromise with
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dignity 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 vietory.
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 con- cluded by Secretary Buchanan and Minister Pakenham, we lost the splendid country now known as British Columbia, which, after our purchase of Alaska from Rus- sia, 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
Copyright by E. A. Ilegg, Juneau
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
A PHANTOM SHIP
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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.
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 famous lisière matter which was settled in 1903.
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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 longi- tude (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 men- tioned 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 merid- ian); 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 pos- sessions 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 line
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parallel to the windings of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues there- from.
" 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 limita- tion, 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 coup- let 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 build- ings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices, which were not private individual property. It was, however, under- stood 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 Orien- tal Church resident in the territory as might choose to worship therein. All government archives, papers, and documents relative to the territory and dominion afore- said which were existing there at the time of transfer
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were 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 authenti- cated 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 Rus- sians availed themselves of this opportunity to free them- selves 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 cere- mony on the part of previous explorers; but these for- malities 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.
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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 the lisière, 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 Amalga- mated 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 north- ern end of the Portland Canal, the Russian Plenipoten- tiaries replied : --
" The motive which caused the adoption of the principle
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of mutual expediency to be proposed, and the most impor- tant advantage of this principle, is to prevent the respec- tive 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 west- ward along the fifty-third and fifty-fourth degrees of north latitude.
"The Russian establishments of the American Com- pany 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 privi- lege 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 unfor- tunate complications.
"It was also to their mutual advantage to fix their limits according to natural partitions, which always con- stitute 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.
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Russia, however, insisted upon having her lisière run 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 the lisière should 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 in- terpreted. 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 - the lisière - of coast, sep- arating 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 the lisière was 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 " Port- land'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 and
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the 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 con- tinued 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, un- blushingly proposed that the United States should cede to Canada Pyramid Harbor and a strip of land through the entire width of the lisière.
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 the lisière to 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
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Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
ROAD THROUGH CUT-OFF CANYON
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possession of valuable Chilkaht territory, and her new maps were made accordingly.
In 1903 a tribunal composed of three American mem- bers and three representing Great Britain, two of whom were Canadians, met in Great Britain, to settle certain questions relating to the lisière.
The seven large volumes covering the arguments and decisions of this tribunal, as published by the United States government, make intensely interesting and valua- ble reading to one who cares for Alaska.
The majority of the tribunal, that is to say, Lord Alverstone and the three members from the United States, decided that the Canadians have no rights to the waters of any of the inlets, and that it was the meaning of the Con- vention of 1825 that the lisière should for all time separate the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, and waters of the ocean north of British Columbia ; and that, furthermore, the width of the lisière was not to be meas- ured from the line of the general direction of the mainland coast, leaping the bays and inlets, but from a line running around the heads of such indentations.
The tribunal, however, awarded Pearse and Wales islands, which belonged to us, to Canada; it also nar- rowed the lisière in several important points, notably on the Stikine and Taku rivers.
The fifth question, however, was the vital one; and it was answered in our favor, the two Canadian members dis- senting. The boundary lines have now been changed on both United States and Canadian maps, in conformity with the decisions of the tribunal.
Blaine, Bancroft, and Davidson have made the clearest statements of the boundary troubles.
CHAPTER IV
THE first landing made by United States boats after leaving Seattle is at Ketchikan. This is a comparatively new town. It is seven hundred miles from Seattle, and is reached early on the third morning out. It is the first town in Alaska, and glistens white and new on its gentle hills soon after crossing the boundary line in Dixon Entrance - which is always saluted by the lifting of hats and the waving of handkerchiefs on the part of patriotic Americans.
Ketchikan has a population of fifteen hundred people. It is the distributing point for the mines and fisheries of this section of southeastern Alaska. It is the present port of entry, and the Customs Office adds to the dignity of the town. There is a good court-house, a saw-mill with a capacity of twenty-five thousand feet daily, a shingle mill, salmon canneries, machine shops, a good water system, a cold storage plant, two excellent hotels, good schools and churches, a progressive newspaper, several large wharves, modern and well-stocked stores and shops, and a sufficient number of saloons. The town is lighted by electricity and many of the buildings are heated by steam. A cred- itable chamber of commerce is maintained.
There are seven salmon canneries in operation which are tributary to Ketchikan. The most important one "mild-cures " fish for the German market.
Among the " shipping " mines, which are within a radius of fifty miles, and which receive mails and supplies from
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Ketchikan, are the Mount Andrews, the Stevenston, the Mamies, the Russian Brown, the Hydah, the Niblaek, and the Sulzer. From fifteen to twenty prospeets are under development.
There are smelters in operation at Hadley and Copper Mountain, on Prince of Wales Island. From Ketchikan to all points in the mining and fishing distriets safe and commodious steamers are regularly operated. The chief mining industries are silver, copper, and gold.
The residences are for the most part small, but, elimb- ing by green terraces over the hill and surrounded by flowers and neat lawns, they impart an air of picturesque- ness to the town. There are several totem-poles ; the handsomest was erected to the memory of Chief "Captain John," by his nephew, at the entrance to the house now occupied by the latter. The nephew asserts that he paid $2060 for the carving and making of the totem. Owing to its freshly painted and gaudy appearance, it is as lacking in interest as the one which stands in Pioneer Square, Seattle, and which was raped from a northern Indian village.
Four times had I landed at Ketchikan on my way to far beautiful places ; with many people had I talked concern- ing the place ; folders of steamship companies and pam- phlets of boards of trade had I read; yet never from any person nor from any printed page had I received the faint- est glimmer that this busy, commercially described north- western town held, almost in its heart, one of the enduring and prieeless jewels of Alaska. To the beauty-loving, Norwegian captain of the steamship Jefferson was I at last indebted for one of the real delights of my life.
It was near the middle of a July night, and raining heavily, when the captain said to us : -
" Be ready on the stroke of seven in the morning, and I'll show you one of the beautiful things of Alaska."
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" But - at Ketchikan, captain ! "
" Yes, at Ketchikan."
I thought of all the vaunted attractions of Ketchikan which had ever been brought to my observation ; and I felt that at seven o'clock in the morning, in a pouring rain, I could live without every one of them. Then - the charm of a warm berth in a gray hour, the cup of hot coffee, the last dream to the drowsy throb of the steamer -
" It will be raining, captain," one said, feebly.
The look of disgust that went across his expressive face !
" What if it is ! You won't know it's raining as soon as you get your eyes filled with what I want to show you. But if you're one of that kind -"
He made a gesture of dismissal with his hands, palms outward, and turned away.
"Captain, I shall be ready at seven. I'm not one of that kind," we all cried together.
" All right ; but I won't wait five minutes. There'll be two hundred passengers waiting to go."
" You know that letter that Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote to Professor Morse," spoke up a lady from Boston, who had overheard. " You know Professor Morse wrote a hand that couldn't be deciphered, and among other things, Mr. Aldrich wrote : 'There's a singular and perpetual charm in a letter of yours ; it never grows old; it never loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every day : " There's that letter of Morse's. I have not read it yet. I think I shall take another shy at it." Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten; but yours are kept for- ever - unread!' Now, that letter, somehow, in the vaguest kind of way, suggests itself when one considers this getting up anywhere from three to six in the morning to see things in Alaska. There's always something to be seen during these unearthly hours. Every night we are convinced that we will be on deck early, to see something, and we
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Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
SCENE ON THE WHITE PASS
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leave an order to be wakened; but when the dreaded knocking comes upon the door, and a hoarse voice an- nounces ' Wrangell Narrows,' or 'Lama Pass,' our berths suddenly take on curves and attractions they possess at no other time. The side-rails into which we have been bumping seem to be cushioned with down, the space between berths to grow wider, the air in the room sweeter and more drowsily delicious. We say, ' Oh, we'll get up to-morrow morning and see something,' and we pull the berth-curtain down past our faces and go to sleep. After a while, it grows to be one of the perpetual charms of a trip to Alaska - this always going to get up in the morn- ing and this never getting up. It never grows old; it
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