Part 19

In the narrowest part of the channel a regular water-fall was produced by the headlong plunge of the tide waters down some rocks near the eastern shore, while the other side was rendered equally dangerous by numerous rocks, thus leaving only a very narrow channel in the middle for the steamer to pass through. The _Idaho_ and _Ancon_ never attempt this passage while the tide rushes through it like a mountain torrent, but the _Olympian_ plunged in boldly. In vain, however, did the engineer strain every muscle of his machinery; for more than an hour the noble steamer, though paddling away at a rate of almost twenty miles an hour, did not move a yard. Here was a lovely situation for timid souls, with plenty of time to speculate on the possibility of the shaft or rudder breaking, and to recall the fact that in this very place two vessels have already come to grief, one at a sacrifice of seventy Chinese lives! But the _Olympian_ suddenly made a spurt, and the salt water-fall and the maelstroms were left behind.

On the fourth day we met the _Pinta_ in a shallow, quiet bay, and exchanged greetings, mails, and provisions. The _Pinta_ is the diminutive man-of-war which cruises these waters and keeps the Indians in subjection through the fear of having their villages bombarded. While the brass buttons of the officers exerted their usual magnetic power over the eyes of the young ladies, the other passengers were less romantically employed in watching the jelly-fish which crowded about the steamers, literally by the million.

The next incident of importance was our stop at the gold mines opposite Juneau, and subsequently at Juneau itself. Everybody went ashore to see the mines and the quartz mills, where a hundred or more machines reduce the ore to sand with a most terrific noise. The mine was said to be worth twice the price paid for Alaska, and it was evidently prospering, to judge by the additional buildings in course of erection.

At Juneau, which is a larger place than Sitka, the first thing that strikes the eye is the large number of “drugstores,” almost every other building being labelled as such. Can it be that the Indian habit of leaving the heads and tails of salmon to decay in the street, in their part of the village, has such an injurious effect on the health of the Juneauites? or has the fact that the sale of whiskey is forbidden in Alaska a remote bearing on the subject? Certainly neither the whites nor the Indians look unhealthy.

Most of the Indian men were at work in the mines, but the squaws sat in rows on the pier or in front of their houses, offering for sale grass baskets, furs, blankets, small canoes and paddles, totem-poles, wooden spoons, masks, bracelets made of silver dollars, berries, etc. Each squaw seems to have the shrewdness and business instincts of a Jew and a Yankee rolled into one. In their own language they comment freely on the tourists,—tit for tat,—and appear to find their doings rather ludicrous, which, no doubt, they sometimes are. These squaws have obviously given their husbands elementary lessons in “woman’s rights”; for the latter never dare to sell anything for a lower price than first asked, and if the wife says No, the bargain comes to naught. The squaws are also allowed to share the labor of the men on the water, and they are experts in paddling their own canoes. Their domestic accomplishments are less admirable. The interior of the house is as uncleanly as the blankets they wear, and it would not be pleasant to think of entering their huts were it not for the disinfecting smoke which pervades them. With a few exceptions, they have no stoves, the food being cooked over an open fire in the centre of the floor. The smoke seeks to escape through a hole in the roof, but, before escaping, it is utilized for curing strips of salmon that are hung on strings below the hole. In front of the houses other rows of salmon are suspended on sticks to dry in the sun; and before each hut lies a canoe carefully covered with mats, to protect it against the sun.

At Sitka we had an opportunity to see the Indians as influenced by missionary efforts. The Mission School contains over a hundred boys and girls. The girls do the cooking, and the boys are experts in carpentry. Their chairs and bedsteads are very neatly made, and are to be seen in most of the Indian huts. The boys wear a blue uniform, to give them a sort of _esprit de corps_; and the girls appear to give considerable attention to their appearance, especially in the arrangement of the hair. Their gait is very ungraceful, owing, as some say, to the fact that their ancestors spent so much of their time in canoes. Among the half-breeds, and the Indians too, some have considerable beauty of figure and face; and were it not for the large mouth, many more would be pretty.

It is impossible to look at these Indians and not come to the conclusion that they are descended from the Japanese. The whole cast of the face is Japanese: the cheeks, the small, sparkling black eyes, with their scant lashes and brows, and the complexion, are unmistakably so; and the fact that, not so many years ago, some Japanese mariners were shipwrecked on the Alaskan coast, makes the Japanese origin of the American Indian all the more probable. Another Japanese trait of these Indians is their bright intelligence and their eagerness to adopt the customs of the white man. They learn very readily, and some of the pupils recited and prayed in English, while several squaws and Indian men prayed in their own guttural language. The singing of these children did not differ much in quality of tone or intonation from that in our primary schools.

Besides these Indians, there is little of interest in Sitka itself besides the old Russian castle and the Greek church, in which it is odd to see pictures of saints in these out-of-the-way regions. The church itself does not deserve the amount of attention it has received, except from an antiquarian point of view; but the charms of Sitka harbor have hardly been exaggerated even by those who compare it to the Gulf of Naples. The arrival of a steamer is always a great event for the Sitkans, natives and whites, who assemble on the wharf to greet her arrival and cheer her departure; and the local weekly paper, the _Alaskan_, was enterprising enough to get out an extra in a couple of hours, with the passenger list; and this edition the young ladies bought by the dozen and mailed to their friends as conclusive evidence that they had been so near the north pole.

In speaking of Sitka before Glacier Bay I have followed the map rather than the steamer’s course; for Sitka is already some distance on the home stretch, and before arriving there the steamers visit Lynn Canal, which leads up to the Chilcat country, famous for its furs, blankets, salmon-canneries, and glaciers; and then Glacier Bay, which runs almost parallel to Lynn Canal, and, with the Muir Glacier, represents the climax of the present Alaskan tour. Lynn Canal contains a large number of glaciers, each of which would make the fortune of a village and a dozen hotels in Switzerland, and conspicuous among them are the magnificent Eagle and Davidson Glaciers, which would be the “lions” of Southern Alaska were they not slightly surpassed in grandeur by the Muir Glacier, which, Jumbo-like, therefore gets all the attention of the visitors.

As the steamer enters Lynn and Glacier bays, the scenery becomes truly Arctic, as well as the climate, and overcoats are in demand. Vast snow-fields are visible in every direction, and the frozen rivers or glaciers which represent their drainage all creep down to the water’s edge, in some cases presenting a front of several miles. As the steamer moves on, the panorama constantly changes, showing the mountains and glaciers from every point of view without involving the slightest fatigue on the part of the tourists; and as soon as one ice-river is out of sight, another shows its edge, and gradually stands revealed in all its grandeur. One never gets over the surprise that the snow-line should be so low—that the snow in the crater-like dug-outs on the mountain sides should be so near the level of the ocean in midsummer.

On entering Glacier Bay, another Arctic surprise awaits the tourist. Icebergs of all shapes and sizes begin to float about the steamer, some just large enough to fill the steward’s depleted ice-box, others, the size of a steamer, compelling the _Olympian_ to moderate her speed. As the great glacier is in sight two hours before the steamer reaches it, though headed directly for it, the passengers have ample time to admire the exquisite blue and white tints of these icebergs, and note their odd forms and resemblances to the hull of a steamer, various geometrical figures, a bundle of logs, a fairy grotto, or a sphinx, etc. Some of them are entirely covered with scores of gulls, which fly away with harsh cries as the steamer approaches.

It appears incredible that the surface of the glacier which lies a few miles ahead should be more than two hundred feet above the water; it seems no more than twenty; but the apparent height constantly increases until the steamer brings up suddenly within a few hundred feet of the icy wall. Then there is a chorus of ohs and ahs, and the Bishop of Rochester (England), who is one of the passengers, dogmatically pronounces it the grandest sight in the world.

Imagine a wall of solid ice, two hundred and twenty-five feet high, extending for about a mile to right and left, the upper portions white and broken up into the most fantastic crags and pinnacles, like the rocks of the Yellowstone Cañon; the lower portions of a deeper and deeper blue, according as the increased pressure from above and from the sides has squeezed out the air and changed the solid snow into pure ice, producing near the centre a grotto of more than celestial blue. Imagine, furthermore, that there are eight hundred feet more of this wall under the water, that even if it is true that the Muir Glacier moves thirty or forty feet a day, instead of only two or three, like those of Switzerland, the portion of ice now visible to the eye represents snow that fell perhaps hundreds of years ago, and has been slowly creeping down with the ice-river ever since—and the meaning of the word “sublime” will perhaps become clearer than any metaphysical definition could make it.

Every ten or fifteen minutes the spectator is startled from his reveries by an explosion, followed by an aggravated multitudinous echo, and caused by the fall of a portion of the ice-wall into the bay, where it floats away as an iceberg. As it splashes into the sea, the water flies up as in a geyser, and a wild wave dashes over the rocks, tosses about the steamer, and threatens to land it high and dry on the beach.

After this spectacle has grown familiar, the boats are lowered, and every one goes ashore to climb up the side of the glacier and get views of its rugged surface, resembling a stormy ocean suddenly frozen with all its white-caps. Here also can be seen the dozen or more tributary glaciers which combine to make the Muir, and the semicircle of snow-mountains whose sides they adorn. The amateur photographers have brought their apparatus along, and take groups of the passengers with this picturesque background; and then the steamer’s whistle summons all back to embark for Sitka.

As the steamer slowly gets ready to depart, one notices what in the excitement had previously escaped notice,—the grooved and polished rocks, at least a thousand feet up the mountain side, indicating how high the glacier must have been formerly. A century ago Glacier Bay was not navigable, and according to Indian tradition the Muir Glacier has receded five miles in three generations; but this need not alarm tourists, as it still has a reserve to last a few thousand years longer. On leaving Glacier Bay we were so fortunate as to see the giants Crillon and Fairweather outlined against a perfectly clear sky, illuminated by one of the most gorgeous sunsets I have ever seen, and the glories of which did not fade till ten o’clock. It is a superb mountain group, bearing a distant resemblance to the Mönch-Eiger-Jungfrau group, as seen near Mürren, which Mr. Tyndall does not stand alone in regarding as the finest in Switzerland.

XVI.

ACROSS THE CANADIAN PACIFIC.

ADVANTAGES OF AN AUTUMNAL TRIP—ENGLISH ASPECT OF VICTORIA—VANCOUVER A “BOOM TOWN”—THE FRAZER RIVER AND CAÑON—EAGLE PASS—REAPPEARANCE OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER—MOUNTAIN-SIDE FORESTS—COMPARISON WITH SWITZERLAND—CONSTRUCTION OF SNOW-SHEDS—BANFF AND THE NATIONAL PARK—THE BOW RIVER—DEVIL’S HEAD LAKE—SULPHUR MOUNTAIN—WINNIPEG AND LAKE SUPERIOR.

The dense smoke from forest fires, which, by obscuring the grand mountain scenery of Oregon and Washington during July and August, so often makes summer travel in those States an illusion and a disappointment, also extends into British Columbia, as far east as Banff, the Canadian National Park, sometimes called the Yellowstone Park of Canada. Tourists who, on their return from Alaska, wish to proceed to the East via the Canadian Pacific Railway, will therefore do well to postpone this trip till after the middle of September, unless there have been some heavy rains earlier to put out the fires and lay the smoke. Rain on the coast means snow in the mountains, and no one need be told that half the beauty, grandeur, and apparent height of the three great mountain chains which this railroad traverses, depends on a new cloak of magnifying snow. And an autumnal trip has this further advantage, that the foliage along the banks of the upper Columbia River will wear its most brilliant tints of red and gold, which constitute one of the greatest charms of this tour, contrasting delightfully with the snow-capped peaks on every side.

Although Vancouver is really the Pacific terminus of this Canadian railroad, the project of making Victoria the terminus by building bridges over the chain of islands which in some places almost connect the mainland with Vancouver’s Island, having been abandoned, Victoria practically remains the starting-point; for a boat leaves this city early in the morning to connect with the daily east-bound train; and most tourists make it a point to spend a day in the capital of British Columbia before starting, not only because Victoria is interesting on account of its fine location, but because here many Americans for the first time get a glimpse of English life. For Victoria is English to the backbone,—as English as Montreal, or more so, because the similarity of the climate of Vancouver’s Island to that of Southern England (due to the effects, respectively, of the Japan Current and the Gulf Stream) enables the English in this Pacific city to surround their houses as at home, with fine lawns and trees, and gardens in which flowers are in bloom all the year round, snow being almost as unknown as in Southern California. Built on gently undulating ground,—such as is characteristic of old England,—the very location of Victoria differs from that of the “American” cities on the Sound, with their sloping hills and precipices. Nor are the streets laid out with the geometrical regularity so universal in the United States. The ladies on horseback, the numerous churches, the animated streets on Saturday evening, the abundant beef markets, the pirated American novels in the book-stalls, the substantial appearance of the houses and many other things remind one of the fact that here we are in America indeed, but not in the United States. But the most utterly utter anglicism in Victoria is the fact that if you want to leave a valise or parcel at the steamship office or elsewhere, you get no check or receipt for it, but have to rely on the receiver’s memory to see that no one else carries it off. At the present rate of progress it will take another century or two to get the idea of a numbered brass check, so simple, rapid, and convenient, through the British skull.

After inspecting the sights of Victoria, including Chinatown and the naval station at Esquimalt, we seek our cabin on the elegant steamer which leaves very early in the morning for Vancouver. The parting whistles wake us up, and for a while we gaze at the scenery from our bed, through the window. The shores are here more mountainous and higher than in Puget Sound, and gradually, indeed, the scenery becomes so Alaskan in character that we jump out of bed and dress hastily at this unseemly hour, lest we miss some fine effects; and well it is that we did so, for straight ahead are some superb mountain forms which look coal-black in the dim, semi-foggy atmosphere. The island of Vancouver (three hundred miles in length, with mountains nine thousand feet in height, and still largely unexplored) gradually disappears in the distance, and the city of Vancouver, on the mainland, comes into view. Its location reminds one again of Tacoma or Seattle, and in other respects, too, this brand-new city seems much more American than Victoria. While Victoria, as a town, was incorporated almost thirty years ago (1862), and has grown steadily to its population of twelve thousand, Vancouver is a “boom town” of the most ultra-American fashion. In 1886, its site was a dense forest, and to-day it has a population of ten thousand—a growth almost equal to that of Tacoma, and for similar reasons,—Oriental trade, lumber, fisheries, etc. Subsidized steamers run hence every few weeks to Japan, China, and Australia; and this circumstance alone would suffice to make of Vancouver a city which will run a close race with Seattle and Tacoma.

A European could hardly be made to believe that this city of ten thousand had grown up in four years in the midst of a gloomy forest of firs. What strikes the observer is not so much the number of the buildings as their appearance,—solid, substantial granite and brick buildings four to five stories high, and many of them of real architectural merit and individuality,—buildings such as are usually only seen in cities of one hundred thousand inhabitants. But this anomaly will disappear in a few years with the growth of the city, together with the still more striking anomaly presented by the numerous blackened stumps which still stand everywhere between the superb stone buildings, as no one has had time yet to remove them. Usually clearings are made for wheatfields by farmers, but here the forest was cleared away for a metropolis—and in the eager hurry the stumps were left standing.

A striking peculiarity of Vancouver is the very large size and number of windows, both in public buildings and private residences,—evidently suggested by the necessity of getting as much light as possible during the many cloudy days which this mountainous region is responsible for; but that sunshine also is abundant is attested by the fact that pumpkins and even tomatoes ripen in the gardens. English influence is shown in the astounding number of churches already built, and others in process of erection. Everybody carries a prayer-book on Sundays, and all the stores are closed. Finally, mention must be made of the fact that the Canadian Pacific Railway has built here a magnificent hotel, equal in every respect to the fine Tacoma Hotel built some years ago by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and to the new Hotel Portland in Oregon’s chief city. The scenery embraces the Cascade range, with Mt. Baker, the Olympic mountains, and the peaks of Vancouver Island; and the city has good wharfage, water, and electric light. With such advantages it will continue to eat its way rapidly into the dense surrounding forest.

The Frazer River, almost as widely famed as the Columbia for its abundant salmon and its superb scenery, enters the Sound about ten miles from Vancouver, at New Westminster, which had hoped to be the terminus of the railway, but now has to content itself with being the headquarters of the salmon-canning and lumber export trade. It is connected by a branch road with New Westminster Junction, a station on the transcontinental road, and is reached at 13.30 o’clock by our train which had left Vancouver at 12.45. The Canadian Pacific Railway has very sensibly adopted the custom of naming the hours from noon to midnight, 13 to 24 o’clock. Passengers unused to this method need only subtract 12 from those figures to feel at home; and after a day or two, 20 o’clock will seem as natural to them as 8 P.M. Nor is this the only thing in which this Canadian road could teach our American roads a useful lesson, as we shall see later on.

After leaving Vancouver, and before reaching Westminster, the train for some time runs along Burrard Inlet, on which is situated Fort Moody, another town which had hoped to be chosen as terminus, and actually did enjoy that privilege for a short time. The shores of the Inlet are beautifully wooded, and some of the trees are of enormous size. At the crossing of Stave River a fine view is obtained of Mt. Baker, looking forward to the right, and the bridge over the Harrison River, where it meets the Frazer, also affords a picturesque view. For the next fifteen or sixteen hours the train follows the banks of the Frazer River and its tributaries, and this is one of the grandest sections of the route. At the first the Frazer is a muddy, yellow river, about the size of the Willamette above Oregon City, but more rapid and winding, and an occasional steamer may be seen floating along with the current, or slowly making headway against it. In some places the railway runs so close to the precipitous bank of the river that a handkerchief might be dropped from a car window into the swirling eddies fifty feet below. At other places it leaves room—and just room enough—for the old wagon road between the track and the river; but it would take a cool driver, with much confidence in his horses, to remain on his wagon here when a train passes. At last the road itself becomes frightened and crosses the river on a bridge, whereupon it winds along the hill-side above the opposite bank, at a safe distance. This road was made during the Frazer River gold excitement in 1858, when twenty-five thousand miners flocked into this region, and wages for any kind of work were ten to eighteen dollars a day. To-day the metal no longer exists in what white men consider paying quantity; but Chinamen may still be seen along the river washing for remnants, their earnings being about fifty cents a day. There is also a “Ruby Creek” in this neighborhood, and some Indian habitations, and salmon-fishing places. Shortly before reaching Yale, which for a long time was the western end of the road, there is a slight intermission in the scenic drama, represented by some rich, level, agricultural lands—as if to give the passengers a moment’s rest before the wonders of the Frazer Cañon begin to monopolize their bewildered attention till darkness sets in and drops the curtain on the superb panorama.