Alaska : The Great Country by Ella Higginson, Chapters I (2024)

CHAPTER I

Every year, from June to September, thousands of people "go to Alaska." This means that they take passage at Seattle on the most luxurious steamers that run up the famed " inside passage " to Juneau, Sitka, Wrangell, and Skaguay. Formerly this voyage included a visit to Muir Glacier; but because of the ruin wrought by a recent earthquake, this once beautiful and marvelous thing is no longer included in the tourist trip.

This ten-day voyage is unquestionably a delightful one ; every imaginable comfort is provided, and the excursion rate is reasonable. However, the person who contents himself with this will know as little about Alaska as a foreigner who landed in New York, went straight to Niagara Falls and returned at once to his own country, would know about America.

Enchanting though this brief cruise may be when the weather is favorable, the real splendor, the marvelous beauty, the poetic and haunting charm of Alaska, lie west of Sitka. " To Westward " is called this dream-voyage past a thousand miles of snow-mountains rising straight from the purple sea and wrapped in coloring that makes it seem as though all the roses, lilies, and violets of heaven had been pounded to a fine dust and sifted over them ; past green islands and safe harbors; past the Malaspina and the Columbia glaciers; past Yakutat, Kyak, Cordova, Valdez, Seward, and Cook Inlet; and then, still on "to Westward " - past Kodiak Island, where the Russians

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made their first permanent settlement in America in 1784 and whose sylvan and idyllic charm won the heart of the great naturalist, John Burroughs ; past the Aliaska Peninsula, with its smoking Mount Pavloff ; past Unimak Island, one of whose active volcanoes, Shishaldin, is the most perfect and symmetrical cone on the Pacific Coast, not even excepting Hood - and on and in among the divinely pale green Aleutian Islands to Unalaska, where enchantment broods in a mist of rose and lavender and where one may scarcely step without crushing violets and bluebells.

The spell of Alaska falls upon every lover of beauty who has voyaged along those far northern snow-pearled shores with the violet waves of the North Pacific Ocean breaking splendidly upon them; or who has drifted down the mighty rivers of the interior which flow, bell-toned and lonely, to the sea.

I know not how the spell is wrought; nor have I ever met one who could put the miracle of its working into words. No writer has ever described Alaska; no one writer ever will; but each must do his share, according to the spell that the country casts upon him.

Some parts of Alaska lull the senses drowsily by their languorous charm; under their influence one sinks to a passive delight and drifts unresistingly on through a maze of tender loveliness. Nothing irritates. All is soft, velvety, soothing. Wordless lullabies are played by different shades of blue, rose, amber, and green; by the curl of the satin waves and the musical kiss of their cool and faltering lips; by the mists, light as thistle-down and delicately tinted as wild-rose petals, into which the steamer pushes leisurely; by the dreamy poise of seabirds on white or lavender wings high in the golden atmosphere; by the undulating flight of purple Shadow, tiptoe, through the dim fiords; by the lap of waves on shingle, the song of birds along the wooded shore, the pressure of soft winds

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on the temples and hair, the sparkle of the sea weighing the eyelids down. The magic of it all gets into the blood.

The steamer slides through green and echoing reaches; past groups of totems standing like ghosts of the past among the dark spruce or cedar trees; through stone- walled canyons where the waters move dark and still; into open, sunlit seas.

But it is not until one sails on " to Westward " that the spell of Alaska falls upon one; sails out into the wild and splendid North Pacific Ocean. Here are the majesty, the sublimity, that enthrall; here are the noble spaces, the Titanic forces, the untrodden heights, that thrill and inspire.

The marvels here are not the marvels of men. They are wrought of fire and stone and snow by the tireless hand that has worked through centuries unnumbered and unknown.

He that would fall under the spell of Alaska, will sail on "to Westward," on to Unalaska; or he will go North- ward and drift down the Yukon - that splendid, lonely river that has its birth within a few miles of the sea, yet flows twenty-three hundred miles to find it.

Alaskan steamers usually sail between eight o'clock in the evening and midnight, and throngs of people congregate upon the piers of Seattle to watch their departure. The rosy purples and violets of sunset mix with the mists and settle upon the city, climbing white over its hills; as hours go by, its lights sparkle brilliantly through them, yet still the crowds sway upon the piers and wait for the first still motion of the ship as it slides into the night and heads for the far, enchanted land - the land whose sweet, insistent calling never ceases for the one who has once heard it.

Passengers who stay on deck late will be rewarded by the witchery of night on Puget Sound - the soft fragrance

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of the air, the scarlet, blue, and green lights wavering across the water, the glistening wake of the ship, the city glimmering faintly as it is left behind, the dim shores of islands, and the dark shadows of bays.

One by one the lighthouses at West Point on the star- board side, and at Point-No- Point, Marrowstone, and Point Wilson, on the port, flash their golden messages through the dusk. One by one rise, linger, and fade the dark out- lines of Magnolia Bluff, Skagit Head, Double Bluff, and Liplip Point. If the sailing be early in the evening, mid- night is saluted by the lights of Port Townsend, than which no city on the Pacific Coast has a bolder or more beautiful situation.

The splendid water avenue - the burning "Opal-Way" - that leads the ocean into these inland seas was named in 1788 by John Meares, a retired lieutenant of the British navy, for Juan de Fuca (whose real name was Apostolos Valerianos), a Greek pilot who, in 1592, was sent out in a small " caravela " by the Viceroy of Mexico in search of the fabled "Strait of Anian," or "Northwest Passage" - supposed to lead from the Pacific to the Atlantic north of forty degrees of latitude.

As early as the year 1500 this strait was supposed to have been discovered by a Portuguese navigator named Cortereal, and to have been named by him for one of his brothers who accompanied him.

The names of certain other early navigators are mentioned in connection with the " Strait of Anian." Cabot is reported vaguely as having located it " neere the 318 meridian, between 61 and 64 degrees in the elevation, continuing the same breath about 10 degrees West, where it openeth Southerly more and more, until it come under the tropicke of Cancer, and so runneth into Mar del Zur, at least 18 degrees more in breath there than where it began;" Frobisher ; Urdaneta, " a Fryer of Mexico, who came out of

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Mar del Zur this way into Germanie ;" and several others whose stories of having sailed the dream-strait that was then supposed to lead from ocean to ocean are not now considered seriously until we come to Juan de Fuca, who claimed that in his " caravela " he followed the coast "untill hee came to the latitude of fortie seuen degrees, and that there finding that the land trended North and Northeast, with a broad Inlet of Sea between 47 and 48 degrees of Latitude, hee entered thereinto, sayling therein more than twenty days, and found that land trending still sometime Northwest and Northeast and North, and also East and Southeastward, and very much broader sea then was at said entrance, and that hee passed by diners Hands in that sayling. And that at the entrance of this said Strait, there is on the Northwest coast thereof, a great Hedland or Hand, with an exceeding high pinacle or spired Rocke, like a pillar, thereupon."

He landed and saw people clothed in the skins of beasts; and he reported the land fruitful, and rich in gold, silver, and pearl.

Bancroft and some other historians consider the story of Juan de Fuca's entrance to Puget Sound the purest fiction, claiming that his descriptions are inaccurate and that no pinnacled or spired rock is to be found in the vicinity mentioned.

Meares, however, and many people of intelligence gave it credence ; and when we consider the differences in the descriptions of other places by early navigators, it is not difficult to believe that Juan de Fuca really sailed into the strait that now bears his name. Schwatka speaks of him as, "An explorer - if such he maybe called - who never entered this beautiful sheet of water, and who owes his immortality to an audacious guess, which came so near the truth as to deceive the scientific world for many a century."

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The Strait of Juan de Fuca is more than eighty miles long and from ten to twelve wide, with a depth of about six hundred feet. At the eastern end it widens into an open sea or sound where beauty blooms like a rose, and from which forest-bordered water-ways wind slenderly in every direction.

From this vicinity, on clear days, may be seen the Olympic Mountains floating in the west; Mount Rainier, in the south ; the lower peaks of the Crown Mountains in the north ; and Mount Baker - or Kulshan, as the Indians named it - in the east.

The Island of San Juan, lying east of the southern end of Vancouver Island, is perhaps the most famous, and ce tainly the most historic, on the Pacific Coast. It is the island that barely escaped causing a declaration of war between Great Britain and the United States, over the international boundary, in the late fifties. For so small an island, - it is not more than fifteen miles long, by from six to eight wide, - it has figured importantly in large affairs.

The earliest trouble over the boundary between Vancouver Island and Washington arose in 1854. Both countries claimed ownership of San Juan and other islands near by, the Oregon Treaty of 1846 having failed to make it clear whether the boundary was through the Canal de Haro or the Strait of Rosario.

I. N. Ebey, American Collector of Customs, learning that several thousand head of sheep, cattle, and hogs had been shipped to San Juan without compliance with customs regulations, visited the island and was promptly insulted by a British justice of the peace. The Otter made her appearance in the harbor, bearing James Douglas, governor of Vancouver Island and vice-admiral of the British navy ; but nothing daunted, Mr. Ebey stationed Inspector Webber upon the island, declaring that he would

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continue to discharge his official duties. The final trouble arose, however, in 1859, when an American resident shot a British pig ; and serious trouble was precipitated as swiftly as when a United States warship was blown up in Havana Harbor. General Harney hastily established military quarters on one end of the island, known as the American Camp, Captain Pickett transferring his company from Fort Bellingham for this purpose. English Camp was established on the northern end. "Warships kept guard in the harbors. Joint occupation was agreed upon, and until 1871 the two camps were maintained, the friendliest social relations existing between them. In that year the Emperor of Germany was chosen as arbitrator, amid decided in favor of the United States, the British withdrawing the following year. Until 1895 the British captain's house still stood upon its beautiful bluff, a thousand feet above the winding blue bay, the shore descending in steep, splendid terraces to the water, stair-wayed in stone, and grown with old and noble trees. Macadam roads led several miles across the island ; the old block-house of pioneer days remained at the water's edge ; and clustered around the old parade ground - now, alas ! a meadow of hay - were the quarters of the officers, overgrown with English ivy. The captain's house, which has now been destroyed by fire, was a low, eight-roomed house with an immense fireplace in each room ; the old claret- and ivory-striped wall-paper - which had been brought "around the Horn" at immense cost - was still on the walls. Gay were the scenes and royal the hospitalities of this house in the good days of the sixties. Its site, commanding the straits, is one of the most effective on the Pacific Coast ; and at the present writing it is extremely probable that a captain's house may again rise among the old trees on the terraced bluff - but not for the occupancy of a British captain.

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Every land may occasionally have a beautiful sunset, and many lands have gorgeous and brilliant ones ; but nowhere have they such softly burning, milky-rose, opaline effects as on this inland sea.

Their enchanting beauty is doubtless due to the many wooded islands which lift dark green fore-stated hills around open sweeps of water, whereon settle delicate mists. When the fires of sunrise or of sunset sink through these mists, the splendor of coloring is marvelous and not equaled anywhere. It is as though the whole sound were one great opal, which had broken apart and flung its escaping fires of rose, amethyst, amber, and green up through the maze of trembling pearl above it. The un- usual beauty of its sunsets long ago gave Puget Sound the poetic name of Opal-Sea or Sea of Opal.

CHAPTER II

After passing the lighthouse on the eastern end of Vancouver Island, Alaskan steamers continue on a northerly course and enter the Gulf of Georgia through Active Pass, between Mayne and Galiana islands. This pass is guarded by a light on Mayne Island, to the steamer's starboard, going north.

The Gulf of Georgia is a bold and sweeping body of water. It is usually of a deep violet or a warm purplish gray in tone. At its widest, it is fully sixty miles - although its average width is from twenty to thirty miles - and it rolls between the mainland and Vancouver Island for more than one hundred miles.

The real sea lover will find an indescribable charm in this gulf, and will not miss an hour of it. It has the boldness and the sweep of the ocean, but the setting, the coloring, and the fragrance of the forest-bordered, snow-peaked sea. A few miles above the boundary, the Fraser River pours its turbulent waters into the gulf, upon whose dark surface they wind and float for many miles, at sun- rise and at sunset resembling broad ribbons of palest old rose crinkled over waves of silvery amber silk. At times these narrow streaks widen into still pools of color that seem to float suspended over the heavier waters of the gulf. Other times they draw lines of different color everywhere, or drift solid banks of smoky pink out to meet others of clear blue, with only the faintest thread of pearl to separate them. These islands of color constitute

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one of the charms of this part of the voyage to Alaska ; along with the velvety pressure of the winds ; the picturesque shores, high and wooded in places, and in others sloping down into the cool shadowy bays where the shingle is splashed by spent waves ; and the snow-peaks linked above the clouds on either side of the steamer.

Splendid phosphorescent displays are sometimes witnessed in the gulf, but are more likely to occur farther north, in Grenville, or one of the other narrow channels, where their brilliancy is remarkable.

Tourists to whom a whale is a novelty will be gratified, without fail, in this vicinity. They are always seen sporting about the ships, - sometimes in deadly conflict with one another, - and now and then uncomfortably near.

In December, 1907, an exciting battle between a whale and a large buck was witnessed by the passengers and crew of the steamer Cassiar, in one of the bays north of Vancouver, on the vessel's regular run from that city to northern ports.

When the Cassiar appeared upon the scene, the whale was making furious and frequent attacks upon the buck. Racing through the water, which was lashed into foam on all sides by its efforts, it would approach close to its steadily swimming prey and then disappear, only to come to the surface almost under the deer. This was repeated a number of times, strangely enough without apparent injury to the deer. Again, the whale would make its appearance at the side of the deer and repeatedly endeavor to strike it with its enormous tail ; but the deer was sufficiently wise to keep so close to the whale that this could not be accomplished, notwithstanding the crushing blows dealt by the monster.

The humane passengers entreated the captain to go to the rescue of the exhausted buck and save it from inevitable death. The captain ordered full speed ahead, and

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at the approach of the steamer the whale curved up out of the water and dived gracefully into the sea, as though making a farewell, apologetic bow on its final disappearance.

Whereupon the humane passengers shot the helpless and worn-out buck at the side of the steamer, and he was hauled aboard.

It may not be out of place to devote a few pages to the average tourist. To the one who loves Alaska and the divinely blue, wooded, and snow-pearled ways that lead to its final and sublime beauty, it is an enduring mystery why certain persons - usually women - should make this voyage. Their minds and their desires never rise above a whale or an Indian basket ; and unless the one is to be seen and the other to be priced, they spend their time in the cabin, reading, playing cards, or telling one another what they have at home.

" Do you know," said one of these women, yawning into the full glory of a sunset, " we have sailed this whole day past Vancouver Island. Not a thing to be seen but it and this water you call the Gulf of Georgia ! I even missed the whales, because I went to sleep, and I'd rather have seen them than anything. If they don't hurry up some towns and totem-poles, I'll be wishing I'd stayed at home. Do you play five hundred ? "

The full length of the Jefferson was not enough to put between this woman and the woman who had enjoyed every one of those purple water-miles ; every pearly cloud that had drifted across the pale blue sky ; every bay and fiord indenting the shore of the largest island on the Pacific Coast ; every humming-bird that had throbbed about us, seeking a rose at sea ; every thrilling scent that had blown down the northern water-ways, bearing the far, sweet call of Alaska to senses awake and trembling to receive it ; who had felt her pulses beating full to the

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throb of the steamer that was bearing her on to the land of her dreams - to the land of Far Delight.

If only the players of bridge and the drinkers of pink tea would stay at home, and leave this enchanted voyage for those who understand ! There be enough of the elect in the world who possess the usual five senses, as well as that sixth sense which is of the soul, to fill every steamer that sails for Alaska.

Or, the steamship companies might divide their excursions into classes - some for those who love beauty, and some for those who love bridge.

For the sea lover, it is enough only to stand in the bow of a steamer headed for Alaska and hear the kiss and the rippling murmur of the waves as they break apart when the sharp cut-water pierces them, and then their long, musical rush along the steamer's sides, ere they reunite in one broad wake of bowing silver that leads across the purple toward home.

The mere vibration of a ship in these still inland seas is a physical pleasure by day and a sensuous lullaby at night; while, in summer, the winds are so soft that their touches seem like caresses.

The inlets and fiords extending for many miles into the mainland in this vicinity are of great beauty and grandeur, many winding for forty or fifty miles through walls of forestation and snow that rise sheer to a height of eight or ten thousand feet. These inlets are very narrow, sometimes mere clefts, through which the waters slip, clear, still, and of deepest green. They are of unknown depth; the mountains are covered with forests, over which rise peaks of snow. Cascades are numerous, and their musical fall is increased in these narrow fastnesses to a roar that may be heard for miles.

Passing Burrard Inlet, on which the city of Vancouver is situated, the more important inlets are Howe, Jervis,

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from which Sechelt Arm leads southward and is distinguished by the wild thunder of its rapids ; Homery Channel, Price Channel, which, with Lewis Channel on the west, forms Redonda Island ; Bute Inlet, which is the most beautiful and the most important ; Knight, Seymour, Kingcome, and Belize inlets.

The wild and picturesque beauty of these inlets has been praised by tourists for many years. The Marquis of Lome was charmed by the scenery along Bute Inlet, which he extolled. It is about fifty miles in length and narrows in places to a width of a half-mile. The shores rise in sheer mountain walls, heavily fore-stated, to a height of several and eight thousand feet, their snowy crests over- hanging the clear, green-black waters of the narrow fiord. Many glaciers stream down from these peaks.

The Gulf of Georgia continues for a distance of one hundred miles in a northwesterly direction between the mainland and Vancouver Island. Texada, Redonda, and Valdes are the more important islands in the gulf. Texada appears on the starboard, opposite Comox ; the narrow strait separating it from the mainland is named Malaspina, for the Italian explorer. The largest glacier in the world, streaming into the sea from Mount St. Elias, more than a thousand miles to the northwestward from this strait, bears the same name.

Texada Island is twenty-eight miles long, with an average width of three miles. It is wooded and mountainous, the leading peak - Mount Shepard - rising to a height of three thousand feet. The lighthouse on its shore is known as "Three Sisters Light."

Along the shores of Vancouver Island and the mainland are many ranches owned and occupied by "remittance men . " In these beautiful, lonely solitudes they dwell with all the comforts of " old England," forming new ties, but holding fast to old memories.

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It is said that the woman who should have one daybeen the Queen of England, lived near the city of Vancouver a few years ago. Before the death of his elderbrother, the present Prince of Wales passionately lovedthe young and beautiful daughter of Admiral Seymour.His infatuation was returned, and so desperately did theyoung couple plead with the present King and the Admiral,that at last the prince was permitted to contract a morganatic marriage.

The understanding and agreement were that, should theprince ever become the heir to the throne of England,neither he nor his wife would oppose the annulment of themarriage.

There was only one brief year of happiness, when theelder brother of the prince died, and the latter's marriageto the Princess May was demanded.

No murmur of complaint was ever heard from the unhappy morganatic wife, nor from the royal husband ; andwhen the latter's marriage was solemnized, it was boldlyannounced that no bar to the union existed.

Here, in the western solitude, lived for several years -the veriest remittance woman - the girl who should now,by the right of love and honor, be the Princess of Wales ;and whose infant daughter should have been the heir tothe throne.

To Vancouver, a few years ago, came, with his princess,the Prince of Wales. The city was gay with flags andflowers, throbbing with music, and filled with joyousand welcoming people. Somewhere, hidden among thoseswaying throngs, did a pale young woman holding a childby the hand, gaze for the last time upon the man she lovedand upon the woman who had taken her place? And didher long-tortured heart in that hour finally break? It issaid that she died within a twelvemonth.

Discovery Passage,

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sometimes called Valdes Narrows, is entered. It is a narrow pass, twenty-four miles long, between Vancouver andValdes islands. Halfway through it is Seymour Narrows,one of the most famous features of the " inside route," orpassage, to Alaska. Passengers are awakened, if theydesire, that they may be on deck while passing throughthese difficult narrows.

The Indian name of this pass is Yaculta.

" Yaculta is a wicked spirit," said the pilot, pacing thebridge at four o'clock of a primrose dawn, " She livesdown in the clear depths of these waters and is supposedto entice guileless sailors to their doom. Yaculta sleepsonly at slack-tide, and then boats, or ships, may slipthrough in safety, provided they do not make sufficientnoise to awaken her. If they try to go through at anyother stage of the tide, Yaculta stirs the whole pass intoaction, trying to get hold of them. Many's the time I'vehad to back out and wait for Yaculta to quiet down."

If the steamer attempts the pass at an unfavorable hour,fearful seas are found racing through at a fourteen-knotspeed ; the steamer is flung from side to side of the rockypass or sucked down into the boiling whirlpools by Yaculta.The brown, shining strands of kelp floating upon RippleReef, which carries a sharp edge down the centre of thepass, are the wild locks of Yaculta's luxuriant hair.

Pilots figure, upon leaving Seattle, to reach the narrowsduring the quarter-hour before or after slack-tide, whenthe water is found as still and smooth as satin stretchedfrom shore to shore, and not even Yaculta's breathing disturbs her liquid coverlet.

Many vessels were wrecked here before the dangers ofthe narrows had become fully known: the steamer Saranac,in 1875, without loss of life; the Wachusett, in 1875; theGrappler, in 1888, which burned in the narrows with avery large loss of life, including that of the captain ; and

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several less appalling disasters have occurred in thesedeceptive waters.

Three miles below Cape Mudge the tides from Juan deFuca meet those from Queen Charlotte Sound, and force afourteen-knot current through the narrows. The mostpowerful steamers are frequently overcome and carriedback by this current.

Discovery Passage merges at Chatham Point into Johnstone Strait. Here the first Indian village, Alert Bay,is seen to starboard on the southern side of CormorantIsland. These are the Kwakiutl Indians, who did not atfirst respond to the advances of civilization so readily asmost northern tribes. They came from their original village at the mouth of the Nimpkish River, to work in thecanneries on the bay, but did not take kindly to the waysof the white man. A white child, said to have been stolenfrom Vancouver, was taken from these Indians a few yearsago.

Some fine totem-poles have been erected here, and thegraveyard has houses built over the graves. From thesteamer the little village presents an attractive appearance,situated on a curving beach, with wooded slopes risingbehind it.

Gorgeous potlatches are held here ; and until the springof 1908 these orgies were rendered more repulsive by thesale of young girls.

Dr. Franz Boas, in his " Kwakiutl Texts," describes agame formerly played with stone disks by the Kwakiutls.They also had a myth that a game was played with thesedisks between the birds of the upper world and the mythi-people, that is, "all the animals and all the birds." Thefour disks were called the " mist-covered gambling stone,"the " rainbow gambling stone," the " cloud-covered gambling stone," and the "carrier of the word." The wood-pecker and the other myth-birds played on one side ; the

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Thunder-bird, and the birds of the upper air on the other.The contestants were ranged in two rows; the gamblingstones were thrown along the middle between them, andthey speared them with their beaks. The Thunder-birdand the birds of the upper air were beaten. This myth isgiven as an explanation of the reason for playing the gamewith the gambling stones, which are called laelae.

The Kwakiutls still play many of their ancient andpicturesque gambling games at their potlatches.

Johnstone Strait is fifty-five miles long, and is continuedby Broughton Strait, fifteen miles long, which entersQueen Charlotte Sound.

Here is a second, and smaller, Galiana Island, and onits western end is a spired rock which, some historians assert, may be " the great headland or island with an exceeding high pinnacle or spired rock thereon," which Juande Fuca claimed to discover, and which won for him thecharge of being an " audacious guesser " and an " unscrupulous liar." His believers, however, affirm that, havingsailed for twenty days in the inland sea, he discoveredthis pinnacle at the entrance to what he supposed to bethe Atlantic Ocean; and so sailed back the course he hadcome, believing himself to have been successful in discovering the famed strait of Anian. Why Vancouver's mistakes, failures, and faults should all be condoned, andJuan de Fuca's most uncompromisingly condemned, isdifficult to understand.

Fort Rupert, on the northern end of Vancouver Island,beyond Broughton Strait, is an old Hudson's Bay post,situated on Beaver Harbor. The fort was built in 1849,and was strongly defended, troubles frequently arisingfrom the attacks of Kwakiutl and Haidah Indians. Greatpotlatches were held there, and the chief's lodge was asnotable as was the "Old-Man House" of Chief Seattle.It was one hundred feet long and eighty feet wide, and

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rested on carved corner posts. There was an immensewooden potlatch dish that held food for one hundredpeople.

Queen Charlotte Sound is a splendid sweep of purple water; but tourists do not, usually, spend much time enjoying its beauty. Their berths possess charms thatendure until shelter of the islands is once more assured,after the forty miles of open exposure to the swell of theocean which is not always mild, notwithstanding its name.Those who miss it, miss one of the most beautiful featuresof the inland voyage. The warm breath of the KuroSiwo, penetrating all these inland seas and passages, isconverted by the great white peaks of the horizon intopearl-like mist that drifts in clouds and fragments uponthe blue waters. Nowhere are these mists more frequent,nor more elusive, than in Queen Charlotte Sound. Theyroll upon the sparkling surface like thistle-down along acountry lane - here one instant, vanished the next. Atsunrise they take on the delicate tones of the primrose orthe pinkish star-flower ; at sunset, all the royal roseand purple blendings; all the warm flushes of amber,orange, and gold. Through a maze of pale yellow, whosefine cool needles sting one's face and set one's hair withseed-pearls, one passes into a little open water-worldwhere a blue sky sparkles above a bluer sea, and the airis like clear, washed gold. But a mile ahead a solid wallof amethyst closes in this brilliant sea; and presently thesteamer glides into it, shattering it into particles that setthe hair with amethysts, instead of pearls. Sometimesthese clear spaces resemble rooms walled in differentcolors, but ceiled and floored in blue. Other times, thewhole sound is clear, blue, shining; while exquisite gossamers of changeful tints wrap and cling about the islands,wind scarfs around the green hills, or set upon the browsof majestic snow-monarchs crowns as jewelled and as

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evanescent as those worn by the real kings of the earth.Now and then a lofty fir or cedar may be seen draped withslender mist-veils as a maiden might wind a scarf of cob-webby lace about her form and head and arms - so lightlyand so gracefully, and with such art, do the delicate foldstrail in and out among the emerald-green branches of thetree.

It is this warm and excessive moisture - this dailymist-shower - that bequeaths to British Columbia andAlaska their marvelous and luxuriant growth of vegetation, their spiced sweetness of atmosphere, their fairnessand freshness of complexion blending and constitutingthat indescribable charm which inspires one, standing onthe deck of a steamer at early dawn, to give thanks to Godthat he is alive and sailing the blue water-ways of thissublime country.

" I don't know what it is that keeps pulling me back to this country," said a man in the garb of a laborer, one day. He stood down in the bow of the steamer, his hands were in his pockets, his throat was bared to the wind ; his blue eyes - sunken, but burning with that fire whichnever dies in the eyes of one who loves nature - weregazing up the pale-green narrow avenue named GrenvilleChannel. " It's something that you can't exactly put intowords. You don't know that it's got hold of you whileyou're up here, but before you've been ' outside' a month,all at once you find it pulling at you - and after it begins,it never lets up. You try to think what it is up here thatyou want so ; what it is keeps begging at you to comeback. Maybe there ain't a darn soul up here you careparticular about I Maybe you ain't got an interest in aclaim worth hens' teeth ! Maybe you're broke and knowyou'll have to work like a go-devil when you get here !It don't make any difference. It's just Alaska. It callsyou and calls you and calls you. Maybe you can't come,

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SO you keep pretending you don't hear - but Lord, youdo hear ! Maybe somebody shakes hands as if he likedyou - and there's Alaska up and calling right throughyou, till you feel your heart shake ! Maybe a phonographsets up a tune they used to deal out at Magnuson's roadhouse on the trail - and you hear that blame lonesomewaterfall up in Keystone Canyon calling you as plain asyou hear the phonograph ! Maybe you smell somethinglike the sun shining on snow, all mixed up with tundra andsalt air - and there's double quick action on your eyesand a lump in your throat that won't be swallowed down !Maybe you see a white mountain, or a green valley, or abig river, or a blue strait, or a waterfall - and like a flashyour heart opens, and shuts in an ache for Alaska thatstays ! . . . No, I don't know what it is, but I do knowhow it is ; and so does every other poor devil that everheard that something calling him that's just Alaska. Itwakes you up in the middle of the night, just as plain asif somebody had said your name out loud, and you just laythere the rest of the night aching to go. I tell you what,if ever a country had a spirit, it's Alaska ; and when itonce gets hold of you and gets to calling you to come,you might just as well get up and start, for it calls youand follows you, and haunts you till you do."

It is the pleading of the mountains and the pleading ofthe sea woven into one call and sent floating down ladenwith the sweetness of the splendid spaces. No mountaineer can say why he goes back to the mountains ; nosailor why he cannot leave the sea. No one has yet seenthe spirit that dwells in the waterfall, but all have heardit calling and have known its spell.

"If you love the sea, you've got to follow it," said asea-rover, " and that's all there is to it. A man can getalong without the woman he loves best on earth if he hasto, but he can't get along without the sea if he once gets

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to loving it. It gets so it seems like a thing alive to him,and it makes up for everything else that he don't have.And it's just like that with Alaska. When a man hasmade two-three trips to Alaska, you can't get him off ona southern run again, as long as he can help himself."

It is an unimaginative person who can wind throughthese intricate and difficult sounds, channels, and passeswithout a strange, quickened feeling, as of the presence ofthose dauntless navigators who discovered and chartedthese waters centuries ago. From Juan de Fuca northward they seem to be sailing with us, those grim, brave spectres of the past - Perez, Meares, Cuadra, Valdes,Malaspina, Duncan, Vancouver, Whidbey - and all theothers who came and went through these beautiful ways,leaving their names, or the names of their monarchs,friends, or sweethearts, to endure in blue stretches ofwater or glistening domes of snow.

We sail in safety, ease, luxury, over courses along whichthey felt their perilous way, never knowing whether Lifeor Death waited at the turn of the prow. Nearly a century and a quarter ago Vancouver, working his way cautiously into Queen Charlotte Sound, soon came to disaster,both the Discovery and her consort, the Chatham, strikingupon the rocks that border the entrance. Fortunatelythe return of the tide in a few hours released them fromtheir perilous positions, before they had sustained anyserious damage.

But what days of mingled indecision, hope, and despair

22 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY

their vessels on, not knowing what perils lay beyond ?Who, asked, " What shall we do when hope be gone ? "made answer, " Why, sail on, and on, and on."

From Queen Charlotte Sound the steamer passes intoFitzhugh Sound around Cape Calvert, on Calvert Island.Off the southern point of this island are two dangerousclusters of rocks, to which, in 1776, by Mr. James Hanna,were given the interesting names of "Virgin " and " Pearl."In this poetic vicinage, and nearer the island than either, isanother cluster of rocks, upon which some bold and sacrilegious navigator has bestowed the name of " Devil."

" It don't sound so pretty and ladylike," said the pilotwho pointed them out, " but it's a whole lot more appropriate. Rocks are devils - and that's no joke; and whatanybody should go and name them ' virgins ' and ' pearls 'for, is more than a man can see, when he's standing at awheel, hell-bent on putting as many leagues between himand them as he can. It does seem as if some men didn'thave any sense at all about naming things. Now, if Iwere going to name anything ' virgin ' " - his blue eyesnarrowed as they stared into the distance ahead - "itwould be a mountain that's always white ; or a bay thatgets the first sunshine in the morning ; or one of thoselittle islands down in Puget Sound that's just covered withflowers."

Just inside Fitzhugh Sound, on the island, is SafetyCove, or Oatsoalis, which was named by Mr. Duncan in1788, and which has ever since been known as a safeanchorage and refuge for ships in storm. Vancouver,anchoring there in 1792, found the shores to be bold andsteep, the water from twenty-three to thirty fathoms,with a soft, muddy bottom. Their ships were steadiedwith hawsers to the trees. They found a small beach,near which was a stream of excellent water and an abundance

ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 23

of wood. Vessels lie here at anchor when stormsor fogs render the passage across Queen Charlotte Soundtoo perilous to be undertaken.

Fitzhugh Sound is but a slender, serene water-way running directly northward thirty miles. On its west, lyingparallel with the mainland, are the islands of Calvert,Hecate, Nalau, and Hunter, separated by the passages ofKwakshua, Hakai, and Nalau, which connect Fitzhughwith the wide sweep of Hecate Strait.

Burke Channel, the second link in the exquisite waterchain that winds and loops in a northwesterly course between the islands of the Columbian and the Alexanderarchipelagoes and the mainland of British Columbia andAlaska, is scarcely entered by the Alaskan steamer ere itturns again into Fisher Channel, and from this, westward,into the short, very narrow, but most beautiful Lama Pass.

From Burke Channel several ribbon-like passages formKing Island.

Lama Pass is more luxuriantly wooded than many of theothers, and is so still and narrow that the reflections of thetrees, growing to the water's edge, are especially attractive.Very effective is the graveyard of the Bella Bella Indians,in its dark forest setting, many totems and curious architectures of the dead showing plainly from the steamerwhen an obliging captain passes under slow bell. Nearby, on Campbell Island, is the village of the Bella Bellas,who, with the Tsimpsians and the Alert Bay Indians, wereformerly regarded as the most treacherous and murderousIndians of the Northwest Coast. Now, however, they aregathered into a model village, whose houses, church,school, and stores shine white and peaceful against a darkbackground.

Lama Pass is one of the most poetic of Alaskan waterways.

Seaforth Channel is the dangerous reach leading into

24 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY

Millbank Sound. It is broken by rocks and reefs, on oneof which, Rejetta Reef, the Willapa was stranded tenyears ago. Running off Seaforth and Millbank are some of the finest fiords of the inland passage - Spiller, Johnston, Dean, Ellershe, and Portlock channels. Cousins andCascades inlets, and many others. Dean and Cascadeschannels are noted for many waterfalls of wonderfulbeauty. The former is ten miles long and half a milewide. Cascades Inlet extends for the same distance in anortheasterly direction, opening into Dean. Innumerable cataracts fall sheer and foaming down their greatprecipices ; the narrow canyons are filled with theirmusical, liquid thunder, and the prevailing color seemsto be palest green, reflected from the color of the waterunderneath the beaded foam. Vancouver visited thesecanals and named them in 1793, and although, seemingly,but seldom moved by beauty, was deeply impressed by ithere. He considered the cascades " extremely grand, andby much the largest and most tremendous we had everbeheld, their impetuosity sending currents of air acrossthe canal."

These fiords are walled to a great height, and are ofmagnificent beauty. Some are so narrow and so deepthat the sunlight penetrates only for a few hours eachday, and eternal mist and twilight fill the spaces. Inothers, not disturbed by cascades, the waters are as clearand smooth as glass, and the stillness is so profound thatone can hear a cone fall upon the water at a distance ofmany yards. Covered with constant moisture, the vegetation is of almost tropic luxuriance. In the shade, thehuge leaves of the devil's-club seem to float, suspended,upon the air, drooping slightly at the edges when touchedby the sun. Raspberries and salmon-berries grow toenormous size, but are so fragile and evanescent that theyare gone at a breath, and the most delicate care must be

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exercised in securing them. They tremble for an instantbetween the tongue and the palate, and are gone, leavinga sensation as of dewdrops flavored with wine ; a memoryas haunting and elusive as an exquisite desire known onceand never known again.

In Dean Canal, Vancouver found the water almostfresh at low tide, on account of the streams and cascadespouring into it.

There he found, also, a remarkable Indian habitation ;a square, large platform built in a clearing, thirty feetabove the ground. It was supported by several uprightsand had no covering, but a fire was burning upon one endof it.

In Cascade Canal he visited an Indian village, andfound the construction of the houses there very curious.They apparently backed straight into a high, perpendicular rock cliff, which supported their rears ; while thefronts and sides were sustained by slender poles abouteighteen feet in height.

Vancouver leaves the method of reaching the entrancesto these houses to the reader's imagination.

It was in this vicinity that Vancouver first encountered" split-lipped " ladies. Although he had grown accustomedto distortions and mutilations among the various tribeshe had visited, he was quite unprepared for the repulsivestyle which now confronted him.

A horizontal incision was made about three-tenths ofan inch below the upper part of the lower lip, extendingfrom one corner of the mouth to the other, entirelythrough the flesh ; this orifice was then by degreesstretched sufficiently to admit an ornament made of wood,which was confined close to the gums of the lower jaws,and whose external surface projected horizontally.

These wooden ornaments were oval, and resembled asmall platter, or dish, made concave on both sides ; they

26 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY

were of various lengths, the smallest about two inches anda half ; the largest more than three inches long, and aninch and a half broad.

They were about one-fifth of an inch thick, and had agroove along the middle of the outside edge to receivethe lip.

These hideous things were made of fir, and were highly-polished. Ladies of the greatest distinction wore thelargest labrets. The size also increased with age. theyhave been described by Vancouver, Cook, Lisianski, LaPerouse, Dall, Schwatka, Emmans, and too many othersto name here ; but no description can quite picture themto the liveliest imagination. When the " wooden trough "was removed, the incision gave the appearance of twomouths.

All chroniclers unite as to the hideousness and repulsive-ness of the practice.

Of the Indians in the vicinity of Fisher Channel, Vancouver remarks, without a glimmer of humor himself,that the vivacity of their countenance indicated a livelygenius ; and that, from their frequent bursts of laughter,it would appear that they were great humorists, for theirmirth was not confined to their own people, but was frequently at the expense of his party. They seemed ahappy, cheerful people. This is an inimitable Englishtouch ; a thing that no American would have written,save with a laugh at himself.

Poison Cove in Mussel Canal, or Portlock Canal, wasso named by Vancouver, whose men ate roasted musselsthere. Several were soon seized with numbness of thefaces and extremities. In spite of all that was done torelieve their sufferings, one - John Carter - died andwas buried in a quiet bay which was named for him.

Millbank Sound, named by Mr. Duncan before Vancouver's arrival, is open to the ocean, but there is only

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an hour's run before the shelter of the islands is regained ;so that, even when the weather is rough, but slight discomfort is experienced by the most susceptible passengers.The finest scenery on the regular steamer route, until thegreat snow fields and glaciers are reached, is consideredby many well acquainted with the route, to lie from Mill-bank on to Dixon Entrance. The days are not longenough now for all the beauty that weighs upon the senseslike caresses. At evening, the sunset, blooming like arose upon these splendid reaches, seems to drop perfumedpetals of color, until the still air is pink with them, andthe steamer pushes them aside as it glides through withfaint throbbings that one feels rather than hears.

Through Finlayson Channel, Heikish Narrows, Graham,Fraser, and McKay reaches, Grenville Channel, - throughall these enchanting water avenues one drifts for twohundred miles, passing from one reach to another withoutsuspecting the change, unless familiar with the route, andso close to the wooded shores that one is tormented withthe desire to reach out one's hand and strip the cool greenspruce and cedar needles from the drooping branches.

Each water-way has its own distinctive features. InFinlayson Channel the forestation is a solid mountain ofgreen on each side, growing down to the water and extending over it in feathery, flat sprays. Here the reflections are so brilliant and so true on clear days, that thedividing line is not perceptible to the vision. The mountains rise sheer from the water to a great height, withsnow upon their crests and occasional cataracts foamingmusically down their fissures. Helmet Mountain standson the port side of the channel, at the entrance.

There's something about "Sarah" Island! I don'tknow what it is, and none of the mariners with whom Idiscussed this famous island seems to know; but the factremains that they are all attached to " Sarah."

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Down in Lama Pass, or possibly in Fitzhugh Sound, onehears casual mention of " Sarah " in the pilot-house orchart-room. Questioned, they do not seem to be able toname any particular feature that sets her apart from theother islands of this run.

"Well, there she is!" exclaimed the captain, at last."Now, you'll see for yourself what there is about Sarah."

It is a long, narrow island, lying in the northern end ofFinlayson Channel. Tolmie Channel lies between it andPrincess Royal Island; Heikish Narrows - a quarter of amile wide - between it and Roderick Island. ThroughHeikish. the steamer passes into the increasing beauty ofGraham Reach.

"Now, there I " said the captain. "If you can tell mewhat there is about that island, you can do more than anyskipper I know can do; but just the same, there isn't oneof us that doesn't look forward to passing Sarah, thatdoesn't give her particular attention while we are passing,and look back at her after we're in Graham Reach. Sheisn't so little . . . nor so big. . . . The Lord knows sheisn't so pretty ! " He was silent for a moment. Then heburst out suddenly: "I'm blamed if Z know what it is!But it's just so with some women. There's somethingabout a woman, now and then, and a man can't tell, to savehis soul, what it is; only, he doesn't forget her. You see,a captain meets hundreds of women; and he has to benice to every one. If he is smart, he can make everywoman think she is just running the ship - but Lord! hewouldn't know one of them if he met her next week onthe street . . . only now and then ... in years andyears . . . one! And that one he can't forget. Hedoesn't know what there is about her, any more than heknows what there is about 'Sarah.' Maybe he doesn'tknow the color of her eyes nor the color of her hair.Maybe she's married, and maybe she's single - for that

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isn't it. He isn't in love with her - at least I guess heisn't. It's just that she has a way of coming back to him.Say he sees the Northern Lights along about midnight -and that woman comes like a flash and stands there withhim. After a while it gets to be a habit with him whenhe gets into a port, to kind of look over the crowds forsome one. For a minute or two he feels almost as if heexpected some one to meet him ; then he knows he's disappointed about somebody not being there. He askshimself right out who it is. And all at once he remembers. Then he calls himself an ass. If she was the kindof woman that runs to docks to see boats come in, he'dlaugh and gas with her - but he wouldn't be thinking ofher till she pushed herself on him again."

The captain sighed unconsciously, and taking down achart from the ceiling, spread it out upon a shelf and bentover it. I looked at Sarah, with her two lacy cascadesfalling like veils from her crown of snow. Already shewas fading in the distance - yet how distinguished wasshe! How set apart from all others!

Then I fell to thinking of the women. What kind arethey - the ones that stay! The one that comes at midnight and stands silent beside a man when he sees theNorthern Lights, even though he is not in love with her

" Captain," I said, a little later, " I want to add some-thing to Sarah's name."

" What is it? " said he, scowling over the chart.

"I want to name her ' Sarah, the Remembered.'"

He smiled.

" All right," said he, promptly. "I'll write that on thechart."

And what an epitaph that would be for a woman -" The Remembered! " If one only knew upon whose bitof marble to grave it.

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Fraser and McKay reaches follow Graham, and then is entered Wright Sound, a body of water of great, and practically unknown, depth. This small sound feeds sixchannels leading in different directions, one of which -Verney Pass - leads through Boxer Reach into the famedmagnificence and splendor of Gardner Canal, whose waterspush for fifty miles through dark and towering walls.An immense, glaciered mountain extends across the endof the canal.

Gardner Canal named by Vancouver for Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, to whose friendship and recommendation he was indebted for the command of the expedition to Nootka and the Northwest Coast - is doubtless the grandest of British Columbian inlets or fiords. At last, the favorite two adjectives of the Vancouver expedition - " tremendous " and " stupendous " - seem to have been most appropriately applied. Lieutenant Whidbey, exploring it in the summer of 1793, found that it " presented to the eye one rude mass of almost naked rocks, rising into rugged mountains, more lofty than he had before seen, whose towering summits, seeming to overhang their bases, gave them a tremendous appearance. The whole was covered with perpetual ice and snow that reached, in the gullies formed between the mountains, close down to the high-water mark ; and many waterfalls of various dimensions were seen to descend in every direction."

This description is quoted in full because it is an excellent example of the descriptions given out by Vancouverand his associates, who, if they ever felt a quickening ofthe pulses in contemplation of these majestic scenes, werecertainly successful in concealing such human emotionsfrom the world. True, they did occasionally chronicle a" pleasant " breeze, a " pleasing " landscape which " reminded them of England ; " and even, in the vicinity ofPort Townsend, they were moved to enthusiasm over a

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"landscape almost as enchantingly beautiful as the mostelegantly finished pleasure-grounds in Europe," whichcalled to their remembrance "certain delightful and be-loved situations in Old England."

But apparently, having been familiar only with pleasingpastoral scenes, they were not able to rise to an appreciation of the sublime in nature. " Elegant " is the mincino- and amusing adjective applied frequently to snow mountains by Vancouver; he mentions, also, "spacious meadows, elegantly adorned with trees ; " but when they arriveat the noble beauty which arouses in most beholders afeeling of exaltation and an appreciation of the marveloushandiwork of God, Vancouver and his associates, havingnever seen anything of the kind in England, find it only"tremendous," or " stupendous," or a " rude mass." Theywould have probably described the chaste, exquisite coneof Shishaldin on Unimak Island - as peerless and apart inits delicate beauty among mountains as Venice is amongcities - as "a mountain covered with snow to the very seaand having a most elegant point."

There are many mountains more than twice the heightof Shishaldin, but there is nowhere one so beautiful.

Great though our veneration must be for those bravemariners of early years, their apparent lack of appreciationof the scenery of Alaska is to be deplored. It has fastenedupon the land an undeserved reputation for being "rugged"and " gloomy " - two more of their adjectives ; of being"ice-locked, ice-bound, and ice-bounded." We may pardon them much, but scarcely the adjective " grotesque,"as applied to snow mountains.

Grenville Channel is a narrow, lovely reach, extendingin a northwestward direction from Wright Sound forforty-five miles, when it merges into Arthur Passage. Inits slender course it curves neither to the right nor to theleft.

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In this reach, at one o'clock one June day, the thrillingcry of " man overboard" ran over the decks of the Santa Alia. There were more than two hundred passengersaboard, and instantly an excited and dangerous stampedeto starboard and stern occurred ; but the captain, cooland stern on the bridge, was equal to the perilous situation. A life-boat was ordered lowered, and the steeragepassengers were quietly forced to their quarters forward.Life-buoys, life-preservers, chairs, ropes, and other articleswere flung overboard, until the water resembled a junk-shop. Through them all, the man's dark, closely shavenhead could be seen, his face turned from the steamer, ashe swam fiercely toward the shore against a strong current. The channel was too narrow for the steamer toturn, but a boat was soon in hot pursuit of the man whowas struggling fearfully for the shore, and who was supposed to be too bewildered to realize that he was headedin the wrong direction. What was our amazement, whenthe boat finally reached him, to discover, by the aid ofglasses, that he was resisting his rescuers. There was along struggle in the water before he was overcome anddragged into the boat.

He was a pitiable sight when the boat came level withthe hurricane deck ; wild-eyed, gray-faced, shudderinglike a dog; his shirt torn open at the throat and exposingits tragic emaciation; his glance flashing wildly from oneface to another, as though in search of one to be trusted -he was an object to command the pity of the coldest heart.In his hand was still gripped his soft hat which he hadtaken from his head before jumping overboard.

"What is it, my man?" asked the captain, kindly, approaching him.

The man's wild gaze steadied upon the captain andseemed to recognize him as one in authority.

"They've been trying to kill me, sir, all the way up."

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"Who?"

The poor fellow shuddered hard.

"They," he said. "They're on the boat. I had towatch them night and day. I didn't dast go to sleep. Itgot too much ; I couldn't stand it. I had to get ashore.I'd been waiting for this channel because it was so narrow. I thought the current 'u'd help me get away. I'ma good swimmer."

"A better one never breasted a wave! Take him below.Give him dry clothes and some whiskey, and set a watchover him."

The poor wretch was led away; the crowd drifted afterhim. Pale and quiet, the captain went back to the chart-room and resumed his slow pacing forth and back.

" I wish tragedies of body and soul would not occur insuch beautiful lengths of water," he said at last. " I cannever sail through Grenville Channel again without seeing that poor fellow's haggard face and wild, appealingeyes. And after Gardner Canal, there is not another onthe route more beautiful than this! "

Two inlets open into Grenville Channel on the starboardgoing north, Lowe and Klewnuggit, - both affording safeanchorage to vessels in trouble. Pitt Island forms almostthe entire western shore - a beautifully wooded one -of the channel. There is a salmon cannery in Lowe Inlet,beside a clear stream which leaps down from a lake in themountains. The waters and shores of Grenville have aclear, washed green, which is spring-like. In many ofthe other narrow ways the waters are blue, or purple, or apale blue-gray; but here they suddenly lead pou alongthe palest of green, shimmering avenues, while mountainsof many-shaded green rise steeply on both sides, glimmering away into drifts of snow, which drop threads of silverdown the sheer heights.

This shaded green of the mountains is a feature of Alaskan

34 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY

landscapes. Great landslides and windfalls cleavetheir way from summit to sea, mowing down the forestsin their path. In time the new growth springs up andstreaks the mountain side with lighter green.

Probably one-half of the trees in southeastern Alaskaare the Menzies spruce, or Sitka pine. Their needles aresharp and of a bluish green.

The Menzies spruce was named for the Scotch botanistwho accompanied Vancouver.

The Alaska cedar is yellowish and lacy in appearance,with a graceful droop to the branches. It grows to an average height of one hundred and fifty feet. Its woodis very valuable.

Arbor-vitte grows about the glaciers and in cool, dimfiords. Birch, alder, maple, Cottonwood, broom, andhemlock-spruce are plentiful, but are of small value, savein the cause of beauty.

The Menzies spruce attains its largest growth in theAlexander Archipelago, but ranges as far south as California. The Douglas fir is not so abundant as it is farthersouth, nor does it grow to such great size.

The Alaska cedar is the most prized of all the cedars.It is in great demand for ship-building, interior finishing,cabinet-making, and other fine work, because of its closetexture, durable quality, and aromatic odor, which some-what resembles that of sandalwood. In early years itwas shipped to Japan, where it was made into fancy boxesand fans, which were sold under guise of that scentedOriental wood. Its lasting qualities are remarkable -sills having been found in perfect preservation after sixtyyears' use in a wet climate. Its pleasant odor is as enduring as the wood. The long, slender, pendulous fruitswhich hang from the branches in season, give the tree apeculiarly graceful and appealing appearance.

The western white pine is used for interior work. It

ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 35

is a magnificent tree, as seen in the forest, having bluishgreen fronds and cones a foot long.

The giant arborvitse attains its greatest size close tothe coast. The wood splits easily and makes durableshingles. It takes a brilliant polish and is popular forinterior finishing. Its beauty of growth is well known.

Wherever there is sufficient rainfall, the fine-frondedhemlock may be found tracing its lacelike outlines uponthe atmosphere. There is no evergreen so delicatelylovely as the hemlock. It stands apart, with a little airof its own, as a fastidious small maid might draw herskirts about her when common ones pass by.

The spruces, firs, and cedars grow so closely togetherthat at a distance they appear as a solid wall of shadedgreen, varying from the lightest beryl tints, on throughbluish grays to the most vivid and dazzling emerald tones.At a distance canyons and vast gulches are filled so softlyand so solidly that they can scarcely be detected, the treeson the crests of the nearer hills blending into those above,and concealing the deep spaces that sink between.

These forests have no tap-roots. Their roots spreadwidely upon a thin layer of soil covering solid stone inmany cases, and more likely than not this soil is createdin the first place by the accumulation of parent needles.Trees spring up in crevices of stone where a bit of sandhas sifted, grow, fruit, and shed their needles, and thriveupon them. The undergrowth is so solid that one mustcut one's way through it, and the progress of surveyors orprospectors is necessarily slow and difficult.

These forests are constantly drenched in the warmmists precipitated by the Kuro Si wo striking upon thesnow, and in this quickening moisture they reach a brilliancy of coloring that is remarkable. At sunset, threading these narrow channels, one may see mountain uponmountain climbing up to crests of snow, their lower

36 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY

wooded slopes covered with mists in palest blue and oldrose tones, through which the tips of the trees, crowdedclose together, shine out in brilliant, many-shaded greens.After Arthur Passage is that of Malacca, which is dottedby several islands. " Lawyer's," to starboard, bears a redlight ; " Lucy," to port, farther north, a fixed white light.Directly opposite " Lucy " - who does not rival " Sarah,"or who in the pilot's words " has nothing about her" - isold Metlakahtla.