Alaska, the Great Country

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 M...

Inspired by the important discoveries of this expedition and by the hope of a profitable fur trade with China, various Russian traders and adventurers, known as "promyshleniki,"...

Nome! Never in all the world has been, and never again will be, a town so wonderfully and so picturesquely built. Imagine a couple of miles of two and three story frame building...

Dixon Entrance belongs to British Columbia, but the boundary crosses its northern waters about three miles above Whitby Point on Dundas Island, and the steamer approaches Revill...

This is a new, clean, wooden town, the first of any importance in Yukon Territory. It has about fifteen hundred inhabitants, is the terminus of the railroad, and is growing rapi...

At seven o'clock of a July morning five horses stood at our hotel door. Two gentlemen of Valdez had volunteered to act as escort to the three ladies in our party for a trip over...

A famous engineering feat was the building of the White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skaguay to White Horse. Work was commenced on this road in May, 1898, and finished in January...

There is an open roadstead at Yaktag, or Yakataga. The ship anchors several miles from shore--when the fierce storms which prevail in this vicinity will permit it to anchor at a...

In the district which comprises the entire coast from the southern boundary of Oregon to the northernmost point of Alaska there are but forty-five lighthouses. Included in this...

The heavy forestation of the Northwest Coast ceases finally at the Kenai Peninsula. Kadiak Island is sparsely wooded in sylvan groves, with green slopes and valleys between; but...

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 ear...

Since Sitka first dawned upon my sight on a June day, in her setting of vivid green and glistening white, she has been one of my dearest memories. Four times in all have the gre...

The many people who innocently believe that there are no birds in Alaska may be surprised to learn that there are, at least, fifty different species in the southeastern part of...

Belkoffski! There was something in the name that attracted my attention the first time I heard it; and my interest increased with each mile that brought it nearer. It is situate...

All kinds and conditions of men and women were represented. Miners, prospectors, millionnaires, adventurers, wanderers, desperadoes; brave-hearted, earnest women, dissolute danc...

The famous ukase of 1821 was issued by the Russian Emperor on the expiration of the twenty-year charter of the Russian-American Company. It prohibited "to all foreign vessels no...

Our ship having been delayed by the storm, it was mid-afternoon when we reached Yakutat. A vast plateau borders the ocean from Cross Sound, north of Baranoff and Chicagoff islan...

At sunset on the day of our landing at Belkoffski we passed the active volcanoes of Pogromni and Shishaldin, on the island of Unimak. For years I had longed to see Shishaldin; a...

We spent the afternoon loitering about the deserted streets and the green and flowery hills. One could sit contentedly for a week upon the hills,--as the natives used to sit upo...

Douglas Island, lying across the narrow channel from Juneau, is twenty-five miles long and from four to nine miles wide. On this island are the four famous Treadwell mines, owne...

Leaving Wrangell, the steamer soon passes, on the port side and at the entrance to Sumner Strait, Zarembo Island, named for that Lieutenant Zarembo who so successfully prevented...

Indian basketry is poetry, music, art, and life itself woven exquisitely together out of dreams, and sent out into a thoughtless world in appealing messages which will one day b...

In 1792 Baranoff having risen to the command of the Shelikoff-Golikoff Company, decided to transfer the settlement of Three Saints to the northern end of the island, as a more c...

At Tanana our party was enlarged by a party of four gentlemen, headed by Governor Wilford B. Hoggatt, of Juneau, who was on a tour of inspection of the country he serves.

We were greatly interested in this place. The previous year we had made a brief voyage to Alaska. On our steamer was an unmarried lady who was going to Afognak as a missionary....

The two great commercial companies of the North to-day are the Northern Commercial Company and the North American Transportation and Trading Company. The Alaska Commercial Compa...

The Northwest Coast of America extended from Juan de Fuca's Strait to the sixtieth parallel of north latitude. Under the direction of the powerful mind of Peter the Great explor...

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...

Leaving Ketchikan, Clarence Strait is entered. This was named by Vancouver for the Duke of Clarence, and extends in a northwesterly direction for a hundred miles. The celebrated...

When seen under favorable conditions, the Columbia Glacier is the most beautiful thing in Alaska. I have visited it twice; once at sunset, and again on an all-day excursion from...

When the _D. R. Campbell_ drew away from the Dawson wharf at nine o'clock of an August morning, another of my dreams was "come true." I was on my way down the weird and mysterio...

Authorities differ as to the proper boundaries of Bristol Bay, but it may be said to be the vast indentation of Behring Sea lying east of a line drawn from Unimak Island to the...

Across Kachemak Bay from Seldovia is Homer--another town of the inlet blessed with a poetic name. When I landed at its wharf, in 1905, it was the saddest, sweetest place in Alas...

Coming out of the channel the steamer turns around the southern end of Douglas Island and heads north into Lynn Canal, with Admiralty Island on the port side and Douglas on the...

Coming out of Chilkaht Inlet and passing around Seduction Point into Chilkoot Inlet, Katschin River is seen flowing in from the northeast. The mouth of this river, like that of...

Gastineau Channel is more than a mile wide at the entrance, and eight miles long; it narrows gradually as it separates Douglas Island from the mainland, and, still narrowing, go...

We were released from the sand-bar near midnight, and at eight o'clock on the following morning we steamed around a green and lovely point and entered Norton Sound, in whose cur...

And I did see. I should, in fact, like to take this frank-spoken gentleman along with me wherever I go, solely to answer people who ask me what kind of place Uyak is--his opinio...

The little _Dora_ is not one of these, nor is religion her cargo; her hold is filled with other things. Yet blessings be on her for the good she does! Her mission is to carry ma...

In the heart of Behring Sea, about two hundred miles north of Unalaska, lie two tiny cloud and mist haunted and wind-racked islands which are the great slaughter-grounds of Alas...

On a clear day it winds like a pale blue ribbon between colossal mountains of snow, with glaciers streaming down to the water at every turn. The peaks rise, one after another, s...

Our progress up Karluk River in the barge was so leisurely that we seemed to be "drifting upward with the flood" between the low green shores that sloped, covered with flowers,...

About two o 'clock in the afternoon we boarded a barge and were towed by a very small, but exceedingly noisy, launch up the Karluk River to the hatcheries, which are maintained...

Icy Straits are filled, in the warmest months, with icebergs floating down from the many glaciers to the north. Of these Muir has been the finest, and is a world-famous glacier,...

The Yukon is a mighty and a beautiful river, and its memory becomes more haunting and more compelling with the passage of time. From the slender blue stream of its source, it gr...

The famous Bonanza Copper Mine is on the mountainside high above the Kennicott Valley, and near the Kennicott Glacier--the largest glacier of the Alaskan interior. This glacier...

Previous to that year many people had travelled through the valley, on their way to the Klondike, by the Valdez route; and a few miners from the Birch Creek and Forty-Mile diggi...

Ellamar is a small town on Virgin Bay, Prince William Sound, at the entrance to Puerto de Valdes, or Valdez Narrows. It is very prettily situated on a gently rising hill.

Sailing down Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait, and the narrow, winding Peril Strait, the sapphire-watered and exquisitely islanded Bay of Sitka is entered from the north. Six miles ab...

The Davidson Glacier was named for Professor George Davidson, who was one of its earliest explorers. A heavy forest growth covers its terminal moraine, and detracts from its low...