USA > Alaska > The new Eldorado: a summer journey to Alaska > Part 6
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We embark at Tacoma for Alaska in a large and well-appointed steamer belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, heading due north.
The first place of importance at which we stop is the city of Seattle, the oldest American settle- ment on the sound, and now having a busy com- mercial population of nearly thirty thousand. It has an admirable harbor, deep, ample in size, and circular in form; the commercial facilities could hardly be improved. Here again are large sub- stantial brick and stone blocks, schools, churches, and various public and private edifices of archi- tectural excellence. Enterprise and wealth are conspicuous, while the neighboring scenery is grand and attractive. To the east of the city, scarcely a mile away, is situated a very beautiful body of water, deep and pure, known as Lake Washington, twenty miles long by an average of three in width, and from which the citizens have a never-failing supply of the best of water. The lake has an area of over sixty square miles, and is
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SEATTLE.
surrounded by hills covered with a noble forest- growth of fir, spruce, and cedar. Seattle has four large public schools averaging six hundred pupils each, and a university to which there are seven professors attached, with a regular attendance of two hundred students.
Among the great natural resources of this re- gion there is included sixty thousand acres of coal fields within a radius of thirty miles of Seat- tle. These coal fields are connected with the city by railways. Tacoma and Seattle are also joined by rail, besides two daily lines of steamboats.
Great is the rivalry existing between the people here and those of Tacoma, but there is certainly room enough for both; and, notwithstanding the destructive fire which lately occurred at Seattle, it is prospering wonderfully. About four miles dis- tant from the centre of business is situated one of the largest steel manufactories in this country, the immediate locality being known as Moss Bay. Here timber, water, coal, and mineral are close at hand to further the object of this mammoth establishment, which, when in full operation, will give employment to five thousand men. Real estate speculation is the present rage at Seattle, based on the idea that it is to be the port of Puget Sound.
Between the city and hoary-headed Mount Tacoma is one of the finest hop-growing valleys extant. It has enriched its dwellers by this in- dustry, and more hops are being planted each succeeding year, increasing the quantity exported
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by some twenty-five per cent. annually. It may be doubted if the earth produces a more beauti- ful sight in the form of an annual crop of vege- tation than that afforded by a hop-field, say of forty acres, when in full bloom. We were told that the land of King County, of which Seattle is the capital, is marvelous in fertility, especially in the valleys, often producing four tons of hay to the acre; three thousand pounds of hops, or six hundred bushels of potatoes, or one hundred bushels of oats to the acre are common. It must be remembered also that while there is plenty of land to be had of government or the Northern Pa- cific Railroad Company at singularly low rates, transportation in all directions by land or water is ample and convenient, a desideratum by no means to be found everywhere.
From the deck of the steamer, as we sail north- ward, the irregular-formed, but well-wooded shore is seen to be dotted with hamlets, sawmills, farms, and hop-fields, all forming a pleasing foreground to the remarkable scenery of land and water pre- sided over by the snow-crowned peak of Mount Tacoma, which looms fourteen thousand feet and more skyward in its grandeur and loneliness. How awful must be the stillness which pervades those heights ! As we view it, the snow -line com- mences at about six thousand feet from the' base, above which there are eight thousand feet more, ice-topped and glacier-bound, where the snow and ice rest in endless sleep. There are embraced within the capacious bosom of Tacoma fifteen
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MOUNT TACOMA.
glaciers, three of which, by liberal road-making and engineering, have been rendered accessible to visitors, and a few persistent mountain climbers come hither every year to witness glacial scenery finer than can be found in Europe. Persons who have traveled in Japan will be struck by the strong resemblance of this Alpine Titan to the famous volcano of Fujiyama, whose snow-wreathed cone is seen by the stranger as he enters the har- bor of Yokohama, though it is eighty miles away.
As we steam northward other peaks come into view, one after another, until the whole Cascade Range is visible, half a hundred and more in number.
The summit of Tacoma is not absolutely inac- cessible. A dozen daring and hardy climbers have accomplished the ascent first and last; but it in- volves a degree of labor and the encountering of serious dangers which have thus far rendered it a task rarely achieved. Many have attempted to scale these lonely heights, and many have given up exhausted, glad to return alive from this peril- ous experience between earth and sky. Members of various Alpine clubs cross the Atlantic to climb inferior elevations. Let such Americans test their athletic capacity and indulge their ambition by overcoming the difficult ascent of Tacoma.
Port Townsend is finally reached, - the port of entry for Puget Sound district and the gateway of this great body of inland water. Tacoma, Seattle, and Port Townsend are all lively con- testants for supremacy on Puget Sound. The
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business part of Port Townsend is situated at the base of a bluff which rises sixty feet above the sea level, upon the top of which the dwelling- houses have been erected, and where a marine hospital flies the national flag. To live in com- fort here it would seem to be necessary for each family to possess a balloon, or that a big public lift should be established to take the inhabitants of the town from one part to the other. It is rapidly growing, - street grading and building of stores and dwelling-houses going on in its sev- eral sections. Vancouver named the place after his distinguished patron, the Marquis of Town- shend. We were told that over two thousand vessels enter and clear at the United States cus- tom-house here annually, besides which there are at least a thousand which pass in and out of the sound under coasting licenses, and are not in- cluded in this aggregate. The collections of the district average one thousand dollars for each working day of the year.
Port Townsend is nine hundred miles from San Francisco by sea, and thirty-five hundred miles, in round numbers, from Boston or New York. It is the first port from the Pacific Ocean, and the nearest one to British Columbia, besides be- ing the natural outfitting port for Alaska. We were surprised to learn the extent of maritime business done here, and that in the number of American steam vessels engaged in foreign trade it stands foremost in all the United States. Its climate is said to be more like that of Italy than
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PORT TOWNSEND.
any other part of America. The place is cer- tainly remarkable for salubrity and healthfulness, and is universally commended by persons who have had occasion to remain there for any consid- erable period. The view from the upper part of the town is very comprehensive, including Mount Baker on one side and the Olympic Range on the other, while the far-away silver cone of Mount Tacoma is also in full view. The busy waters of the sound are constantly changing in the view presented, various craft passing before the eye singly and in groups. Long lines of smoke trail after the steamers, whose turbulent wakes are crossed now and then by some dancing egg-shell canoe or a white-winged, graceful sailboat bend- ing to the breeze.
Certain custom-house formalities having been duly complied with, we continued on our course, bearing more to the westward, crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, bound for Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island and of British Columbia, at which interesting place we land for a brief so- journ. To the westward the port looks out through the Strait of Fuca to the Pacific, south- ward into Puget Sound, and eastward beyond the Gulf of Georgia to the mainland.
CHAPTER VII.
Victoria, Vancouver's Island. - Esquimalt. - Chinamen. - Re- markable Flora. - Suburbs of the Town. - Native Tribes. - Cossacks of the Sea. - Manners and Customs. - The Early Discoverer. - Sailing in the Inland Sea. - Excursionists. - Mount St. Elias. - Mount Fairweather. - A Mount Olympus. - Seymour Narrows. - Night on the Waters. - A Touch of the Pacific.
THE city of Victoria contains twelve thousand inhabitants, more or less, and is situated just sev- enty miles from the mainland; but beyond the fact that it is a naval station, commanding the en- trance to the British possessions from the Pacific, we see nothing to conduce to the future growth of Victoria beyond that of any other place on the sound. The aspect is that of an old, steady-going, conservative town, undisturbed by the bustle, ac- tivity, and business life of such places as Tacoma and Seattle. Vancouver, on the opposite shore, being the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Rail- way, bids fair to soon exceed it in business impor- tance, though it has to-day less than ten thousand inhabitants. The population of Victoria is highly cosmopolitan in its character, being of American, French, German, English, Spanish, and Chinese origin. Of the latter there are fully three thou- sand. They are the successful market-gardeners of Victoria, a position they fill in many of the
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VICTORIA.
English colonies of the Pacific, also performing the public laundry work here, as we find them doing in so many other places. In the hotels they are employed as house-servants, cooks, and waiters. Yet every Chinaman who lands here, the same as in Australia and New Zealand, is compelled to pay a tax of fifty dollars entrance fee. The surprise is that such an arbitrary rule does not act as a bar to Asiatic immigration ; but it certainly does not have that effect, while it yields quite a revenue to the local treasury. At most ports the importa- tion or landing of Chinese women is forbidden, but some of the gayest representatives of the sex are to be seen in the streets of Victoria, with bare heads, having their intensely black hair, shining with grease, dressed in large puffs. The heavy Canton silks in which they are clothed indicate that they have plenty of money. They affect gaudy colors, and wear heavy jade ear-rings, with breastpins of the same stone set in gold. The lewd character of the Chinese women who leave their native land in search of foreign homes is so well known as to fully warrant the prohibition rel- ative to their landing in American or British ports. The effort to exclude them is, however, not infre- quently a failure, as with a trifling disguise male and female look so much alike as to deceive an ordinary observer. The Asiatics are up to all sorts of tricks to evade what they consider arbi- trary laws.
Officially Victoria is English, but in population it is anything else rather than English. Until
..
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
1858 it was only a small trading station belonging to the Hudson Bay Company ; but in that year the discovery of gold on the bar of the Fraser River and elsewhere in the vicinity caused a great influx of miners and prospectors, mostly from Cal- ifornia, and it was this circumstance which gave the place a business start and large degree of im- portance. The houses are many of them built of stone and bricks, the gardens being also neatly inclosed. The streets are macadamized and kept in excellent order. The city is lighted by electric lamps placed on poles over a hundred feet high, and has many modern improvements designed to benefit the people at large, including large public buildings and a fine opera house.
The harbor of Victoria is small, and has only sufficient depth to accommodate vessels drawing eighteen feet of water; but near at hand is a sec- ond harbor, known as Esquimalt, with sufficient depth for all practical purposes. If quiet is an element of charm, then Victoria is charming ; but we must add that it is also rather sleepy and tame. It might be centuries old, everything moving, as it does, in grooves. Business people get to their offices at about ten o'clock in the morning, and leave them by three in the afternoon. There is no evidence here of the fever of living, no symptom of the go-ahead spirit which actuates their Yankee neighbors across the sound.
Esquimalt is situated but three or four miles from Victoria, and is the headquarters of the Eng- lish Pacific squadron, where two or three British
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ESQUIMALT.
men-of-war are nearly always to be seen in the harbor, and where there is also a very capacious dry-dock and a naval arsenal. At the time of our visit a couple of swift little torpedo-boats were exercising about the harbor and the sound. The well-wooded shore is dressed in " Lincoln green," far more tropical than boreal. The many pleas- ing residences are surrounded with pretty garden- plots, and flowers abound. We have rarely seen so handsome an array of cultivated roses as were found here. So equable is the climate that these flowers bloom all the year round. A macadamized road connects Esquimalt with Victoria, running be- tween fragrant hedges, past charming cottages, and through delightful pine groves. We see here a flora of great variety and attractiveness, which could not exist in this latitude without an unusu- ally high degree of temperature, accompanied with a great condensation of vapor and precipitation of rain. Victoria is admirably situated, with the sea on three sides and a background of high-rolling hills, and also enjoys an exceptionally good cli- mate, almost entirely devoid of extremes.
The suburbs are thickly wooded, where palm- like fern-trees a dozen feet high, and in great abundance, recalled specimens of the same family, hardly more thrivingly developed, which the writer has seen in the islands of the South Pacific. The wild rose-bushes were overburdened with their wealth of fragrant bloom ; we saw them in June, the favorite month of this queen of flowers. No wonder that Marchand, the old French voyager,
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
when he found himself here on a soft June day, nearly a century ago, amid the annual carnival of flowers, compared these fields to the rose-colored and perfumed slopes of Bulgaria. If the reader should ever come to this charming spot in the far Northwest, it is the author's hope that he may see it beneath just such mellow summer sunshine as glows about us while we record these pleasant im- pressions in the queen-month of roses. Gluti- nously rich vines of various-colored honeysuckles were draped about the porticoes of the dwellings, whence they hung with a self-conscious grace, as though they realized how much beauty they im- parted to the surroundings. The drone of bees and swift-winged liumming-birds were not want- ing, and the air was laden with their delicious per- fume. The wild syringas, which in a profusion of snow-white blossoms lined the shaded roads here and there, were as fragrant as orange-blossoms, which, indeed, they much resemble. The air was also heavy with a dull, sweet smell of mingled blossoms, among which was the tall, graceful spi- rea with its cream-colored flowers, so thickly set as to hide the leaves and branches. The maple leaves are twice the usual size, and fruit-trees bend to the very ground with their wealth of pears, apples, and peaches. The alders, like the ferns, assume the size of trees, and cultivated flowers grow to astonishing proportions and beauty. The bark-shedding arbutus was noticeable for its pe- culiar habit, and its bare, salmon-colored trunk contrasting with its neighbors.
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BRITISH COLUMBIA.
A portion of the site of Victoria is set aside as a reservation, and named Beacon Hill Park, con- taining choice trees and pleasant paths bordered with delicate shrubbery. But the whole place is park-like in its attractive picturesqueness. In the interior of the island there is said to be plenty of game, such as elk and red deer, foxes and beaver. These forests are dense and scarcely explored ; sportsmen do not have to penetrate them far to find an abundance of game, so that in the open season venison is abundant and cheap in the town.
British Columbia, of which this city is the capital, embraces all that portion of North Amer- ica lying north of the United States and west of the Rocky Mountains to the Alaska line. Its area is three hundred and forty thousand square miles, and it certainly possesses more intrinsic wealth than any other portion of the Dominion, except the eastern cities of Canada. It is but sparsely settled, and its natural resources are quite undeveloped.
The well-constructed roads in and about Vic- toria give it an advantage over most newly set- tled places, and the idea is worthy of all com- mendation. The seaward, or western shore of Vancouver, overlooking the North Pacific is very rocky, and is indented by frequent arms of the sea, like the fjords of Scandinavia, while the sur- face of the island is generally mountainous.
The Haidas and the Timplons are the two na- tive tribes of Vancouver, who are represented to have once been very numerous, brave, and warlike.
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
Some of their canoes were eighty feet long, and most substantially constructed, being capable of carrying seventy-five fighting men, with their bows, arrows, spears, and shields of thick wal- rus hide. These war-boats were made from the trunk of a single tree, shaped and hollowed in fine nautical lines, so as to make them swift and buoy- ant, as well as quite safe in these inland waters. In these frail craft the natives were perfectly at home, and excited the admiration of the early navigators by the skill they displayed in managing them, so that Admiral Lütke named them the " Cossacks of the Sea."
But the Haidas, like the tribes of the Aleutian islands and the Alaska groups generally, have rapidly dwindled into insignificance - slowly fad- ing away. People who subsist on fish and oil as staples can hardly be expected to evince much enterprise or industry. It cannot be denied, how- ever, that as a race they appear much more in- telligent and self-reliant than the aborigines of our Western States. Vincent Colyer, special Indian commissioner, says with regard to the natives of the southern part of Alaska and the Alexander Archipelago : " I do not hesitate to say that if three fourths of these Alaska Indians were landed in New York as coming from Europe, they would be selected as among the most intelligent of the many worthy emigrants who daily arrive at that port."
When these islands were first discovered by the whites, the native tribes occupying them were
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NATIVE TRIBES.
almost constantly at war one with another. The different tribes even to-day show no sympathy for each other, nor will they admit that they are of the same origin. Each has some theory of its ex- clusiveness and independence, all of which is a puzzle to ethnologists.
There seems never to have been any union of interest entertained among them. Before and after the advent of the Russians tribal wars raged among them incessantly. Blood was the only recognized atonement for offenses, and must be washed out by blood; thus vengeance was kept alive, and civil war was endless. Bancroft in his " Native Races of the Pacific" tells us that the Aleuts are still fond of pantomimic perform- ances ; of representing in dances their myths and their legends ; of acting out a chase, one assum- ing the part of hunter, another of a bird or beast trying to escape the snare, now succeeding, now failing, until finally a captive bird is transformed into an attractive woman, who falls exhausted into the hunter's arms.
With well-screened foot-lights, verdant woodland surroundings, characters assumed by a trained bal- let troupe, framed in the usual proscenium boxes, with orchestra in front, this would be a fitting en- tertainment for a first-class Boston or New York audience.
The Indians, or portions of the native race, seen in and about the streets of Victoria are of the most squalid character, dirty and unintelligent, being altogether repulsive to look upon.
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
The Indians of the west coast of the island are brought less in contact with the whites, and still keep up to a certain extent their native manners and customs, wearing fewer garments of civili- zation, and being satisfied with a single blanket as a covering during some portions of the year. They are fond of wearing curiously carved wooden masks at all their festivals, - some representing the head of a bear, some that of a huge bird, and others forming exaggerated human faces. There seems to be a spirit of caricature prevailing among them, as it does among the Chinese and Japanese.
These Vancouver aborigines have an original and extraordinary method of expressing their warm regard for each other, in isolated districts where they are quite by themselves. When they meet, instead of grasping hands or embracing, they bite each other's shoulders, and the scars thus produced are regarded with considerable sat- isfaction by the recipient. Their sacred rites are sanguinary, and their notions of religion are of a vague and incomprehensible kind. They believe in omens and sorcery, suffering as much from fear of supernatural evil as the most benighted Afri- can tribes. The west coast of Vancouver is nearly always bleak ; the great waves of the North Pa- cific breaking upon it, even in quiet weather, with fierce grandeur, roaring sullenly among the rocks and caves.
The distant view from the eastern side of Van- couver is of a most charming character, embracing the blue Olympic range of mountains in the State
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VANCOUVER.
of Washington, whose heads are turbaned with snow, while the lofty undulating peaks, taken en masse, resemble the fiercely agitated waves of the sea ; a view which vividly recalled the Bernese Alps as seen from the city of Berne.
Vancouver is the largest island on the Pacific coast, and is well diversified with mountains, val- leys, and long stretches of low pleasant shore. Its name commemorates that of one of the world's great explorers. Vancouver had served, previous to these notable explorations, as an officer under Captain Cook for two long and eventful voyages, and was thus well fitted for a discoverer and pio- neer. He made a careful survey of Puget Sound with all of its channels, inlets, and bays, and wrote a faithful description of the coast of the mainland as well as of the islands. Though this was about a century ago, so faithfully did he perform his work that his charts are still regarded as good au- thority, though not absolutely perfect.
That practical seaman, in his sailing-ship, puts us to shame with all our science and steam facili- ties as regards surveys of this complicated region. The coast survey organization of the United States has done little more than to corroborate a portion of Vancouver's work. It is surprising that the government should neglect to properly explore and define by maps the islands, channels, and straits of the North Pacific coast. Notwithstand- ing our boasted enterprise, we are behind every power of Europe in these maritime matters.
The island of Vancouver has an area of eighteen
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
thousand square miles, and is therefore larger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware combined. It is only by these familiar comparisons that we can hope to convey clearly to the mind of the average reader such statistical facts, and cause them to be remembered.
Reference has been made to the favorable cli- mate of Victoria. We should state that the maxi- mum summer temperature is 84° Fah., and the minimum of the year is 22°.
From here our course lies in a northwest di- rection, leading through the broad Gulf of Geor- gia, which separates Vancouver from British Co- lumbia. The magnificent ermine-clad head of Mount Baker is seen, for many hours, to the east of our course, looming far, far above the clouds, and radiating the glowing beauty of the sunset, which happened to be exceptionally fine at the close of our first day out from Victoria. The atmosphere, sea, and horizon were all the color of gold. The surface of the water was unbroken by a ripple, while it flashed in opaline variety the brilliant hues of the evening hour. The grand scenery which we encounter foreshadows the char- acter of the voyage of a thousand miles, more or less, northward, to the locality of the great gla- ciers, forming a vast interior line of navigation unequaled elsewhere for bold shores, depth of water, numberless bays, and inviting harbors. The course is bordered for most of the distance with continuous forests, distinctly reflected in the placid surface of these straits and sounds. At
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