Part 7
Says a writer in the _Overland Monthly_, the _Century Magazine_ of the Pacific coast: "Victoria, in a rock-bound and land-protected cove, is the most attractive and the largest city on Vancouver's Island. During the days of the Fraser river excitement, Victoria was a much more energetic city than it is to-day. There were exciting times there then, and, because of the great expectations which everybody indulged in, land was bid up to an enormously high figure, and the town's prospects were considered wonderfully brilliant. But the Fraser was a fraud, comparatively, and its mines were quickly exhausted, so that Victoria received a setback, from which it is only just recovering. It is a picturesque town, thoroughly English, staid and conservative, and its location is an enviable one. In the distance rise the blue-hued heights of the Vancouver ranges, and nearer at hand lie the waters of Fuca Straits; beyond which there can be seen the snowy peaks of the Washington Territory mountains. Rounding the long point of land which juts out into the sea to form Victoria harbor, the town lay all revealed to us at last. In one direction were red painted shops set upon a high bluff overlooking the bay, and eastward there were green fields and trimly built cottages.
"'Coming ashore?' we were asked at length.
"'Not to-day,' the artist said.
"'Then, don't judge Victoria until you see the place,' came the word from the dock.
"We promised, and said that when homeward bound we would make a call."
Returning, the narrator continues, "On the wharf at Victoria stood our friend of a month ago.
"'Coming ashore?' he said, when he saw us.
"'Yes.'
"'Good, we can show you a pretty town. Disappointed in Alaska?'
"'No; it's the grandest country for scenery I--' began the artist.
"'Yes, yes, I know,' said our friend, interrupting him. 'Big glaciers, fine sailing, curious sights, no sea-sickness. Same old story; hear it every trip.'
"Victoria is picturesque in every detail," continues the narrator. "The land faces a land-locked bay, and behind the place stretch dense forests, through which roadways extend to the various suburbs. During our stay the frosts of early fall began to color the leaves, and at night the air grew sharp and chill. But still the air was clear, and down in the harbor white-winged yachts still moved over the bluish waters."
Vancouver Island, which forms the outlying barrier to, or seaward side of, the inland passage from Juan de Fuca Strait to Queen Charlotte Sound, is one of the largest islands in that vast archipelago which forms the passage, and is the largest under British dominion. It was called Quadra Island by the Spaniards, who held it by descent from Mexico (then a Spanish colony) until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Vancouver, of the Royal navy, was sent from England to receive its surrender from the Spanish; it having been ordered by the home government at Madrid,--which he did from the Castilian governor, Quadra. Vancouver called it Quadra and Vancouver's Island; but the Spanish title has slowly disappeared under British rule. Vancouver pushed his discoveries from here to Cook's Inlet during his two or three years' cruise on this coast, and many of the names in the inland passage and adjacent lands and waters are due to his explorations made nearly a hundred years ago.
Leaving Victoria and its picturesque surroundings behind us, we swing in a huge circle around the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island, until we are pointed northward once more.
Strictly speaking, "the inland passage to Alaska, as defined by nautical men, now begins, Puget Sound only belonging to it in a geographical sense, but as similar thereto as 'peas in a pod.'" We shortly after pass through a congerie of pretty islands, like the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence on a greatly magnified scale, when we come to the Gulf of Georgia, one of the widest portions of the inland passage. The islands we have left to the right (although it may change by the pilot not taking the usual route, so many are they to choose from) are the San Juan Islands, of far more importance than one would believe, looking at the unpopulated shores; at least, they were so in 1856, when the United States and Great Britain came very near coming to national blows about their possession. The matter was finally left to arbitration in the hands of the Emperor of Brazil, and then transferred to the present Emperor of Germany, who awarded them to the United States. The British troops then withdrew, a post of them having been on one end of the large island, with an American post on the other.
As we steam through the Gulf of Georgia we leave the highest point (Point Roberts) of the United States off to our right, in the distance, on the forty-ninth parallel.
Some forty or fifty miles farther on, and we enter the first typical waters of the inland passage,--Discovery Passage,--a narrow waterway between high, mountainous banks; a great salt-water, river-like channel, about a mile in breadth, and twenty-three and a half miles long by the British Admiralty charts. A huge yellow bluff, projecting into the sea, greets the eye as the passage is approached, and the great, wide channel to the east is the one the tourist has selected as a matter of course for the steamer to pursue; but she agreeably disappoints him, and enters the narrow, picturesque way. This Discovery Passage is a Yankee "find," having first been entered by a Boston sloop, the "Washington," in 1789. The broad right-hand passage could have been taken, as the land to our right is an island (of which the yellow clay bluff is the southern cape), called Valdez Island after an ancient mariner who visited this part of the world in 1792, in the Spanish galleon "Mexicana." At first one is slightly nonplused at the frequency of Spanish names in these quarters; but, as the early history of the country is closely searched, the conclusion is forced on one more and more that these old Castilian navigators have not even got their dues, and, where their names once formed an honorable majority, they have slowly disappeared before the constant revisions of the geographers and hydrographers of another people, who have since acquired possession. We will come to many such changes of nomenclature on our interesting trip.
About two miles from the entrance to Discovery Passage we come to the Indian Village of Yaculta, on Valdez Island. It is the first of many we will see before we return to Victoria again, and, like most of them, it is on one of the narrow, level places between the high hills and the deep sea that happens here and there in this Alpine country; or its inhabitants would have to live in the trees on the steep hillsides, or in their canoes on the water. The large river coming in from the Vancouver Island side, some five or six miles from the entrance to the passage, is Campbell river, and is navigable for some distance inland by boats and canoes.
About half way through Discovery Passage we come to the Seymour Narrows, a contracted channel of the passage, about two miles long, and not much over one-fourth the previous width, where the tides rush through with the velocity of the swiftest rivers (said to be nine knots at spring-tides), a current which is so strong that it is generally calculated upon in departing from Victoria so as to reach this point about slack water. In the narrows is a submerged rock, with the pretty-sounding alliterative title of Ripple Rock, on which the United States man-of-war "Saranac" was lost in the summer of 1875. Ripple Rock is now so well marked that it is no longer dangerous to navigation. Northward from the narrows the hills rise in bold gradients, making the change quite noticeable, and more picturesque.
Chatham Point marks the northern entrance to Discovery Passage, and here the tourist apparently sees the inland passage bearing off slightly to the east from this cape, when, with a sudden swerve to the westward, the ship swings around at full right angles to her original course, and enters a channel which a minute before seemed to be but a bay on the west side of the original water-way. The new channel is Johnstone Strait, and is over twice as long as Discovery Passage, that we have just left; or, to be more exact, about fifty-five miles in length. The shores are now getting truly mountainous in character, ridges and peaks on the south side bearing snow throughout the summer on their summits, 4,000 to 5,000 feet high, and the pilot will tell you that the waters on which you are sailing correspond in their dimensions, in many places 100 to 150 fathoms of line failing to reach bottom. The rough and rugged islands which we pass to our right, about three or four miles beyond Chatham Point, are the Pender Islands. The high mountains to the left and front are the Prince of Wales range. About fifteen to twenty miles after entering Johnstone Strait, a conspicuous valley is seen on Vancouver Island, the only break in the high mountain range on that side. It is the valley of a stream called Salmon river, named from that delicious fish, which here abound, and in the pursuit of which the Indians have shown this stream to be navigable for canoes for a number of miles inland. A conspicuous conical hill, probably a thousand feet high, rises in the valley and marks it to the traveler. Just beyond Salmon river's mouth, some three miles, the strait widens, another joining it from the north. The mountains to our left are now the New Castle range, Mount Palmerston attaining the height of 5,000 feet. At the northern end of Johnstone Strait we have a number of channels to choose from,--Blackfish Sound, Weynton Passage, Race Passage and Broughton Strait, the longest of all, and only fifteen miles in length, which we take. All these channels simply indicate that there is a cluster of islands where Johnstone Strait swells out into Queen Charlotte Sound, which we enter as Broughton Strait is left behind, and that as we select between different islands we take a different-named channel. These particular islands are the Malcolm Islands, sometimes confined in its application to the largest island. About half way through the Broughton Strait comes in the Nimpkish river from the Vancouver side. Mount Holdsworth is the high, conical peak we see to the south from here. At the mouth of the river is the Indian village of Cheslakee. It is said that an ascent of this river reveals the most picturesque scenery in lakes and falls, a saying to which all the surroundings in the inland passage itself, at this point, would give the most ample corroboration. Directly north from the river's mouth is Cormorant Island, which we leave to our right; and the bay in its side is Alert Bay, where exist a salmon cannery, an Indian mission, a wharf at which ships can land, and other signs of civilization.
Queen Charlotte Sound is one of the few openings to the Pacific Ocean. It is about fifty miles long, and, in some places, nearly half as wide, and looks like getting out to sea after having passed through the narrow channels just left behind. It was entered and named by Wedgeborough in the summer of 1786; so those visitors of 1886 to its grand waters may celebrate its centennial, and drink a toast to Queen Charlotte, the queen of King George III., and queen for fifty-seven years. About nine or ten miles on its waters, and to our left, is Fort Rupert, a Hudson Bay Company's trading post, with a large Indian village clustered around it. Here fruits and vegetables are grown for the local demand. About half way through Queen Charlotte Sound, and we pass through a narrow channel, twenty-two miles long, named Goletas Channel. Emerging from it, we leave Cape Commerell on our left side, and bid good-bye to Vancouver Island, for this is its northernmost cape. Near the exit from Goletas Channel, but by another passage, now seldom used, is where the United States man-of-war "Suwanee" was wrecked, on a submerged rock, in July, 1869, when the inland passage was not so well known by pilots as it is now. We can now look out to sea toward the Pacific Ocean; but a short journey plunges us into one of the many passages ahead of us, the smallest, or one nearest the mainland, being taken, called Fitzhugh Sound. It was named in 1786 by Captain Hanna, is about forty miles long, and with a width of about three miles. The first island to our left on entering is Calvert Island. About ten miles from its southern cape is an indentation in the island, called Safety Cove or Port Safety, probably a mile deep. It was while delayed in this picturesque little harbor, in 1885, that Mr. Charles Hallock, the well-known author on piscatorial pursuits, penned the following lines, descriptive of the inland passage, which we find in the _American Angler_ of September, 1885:
"The mainland is flanked throughout nearly its entire extent by a belt of islands, of which the majority are sea-girt mountains. Of course, throughout this extended coast-line there are many islands of many different phases,--some of them mere rocks, to which the kelps cling for dear life, like stranded sailors in a storm; while others are gently rounded mounds, wooded with fir; and others, still, precipitous cliffs standing breast deep in the waves. Most aptly has this wave-washed region been termed an archipelago of mountains and land-locked seas. Steaming through the labyrinths of straits and channels which seem to have no outlets; straining the neck to scan the tops of snow-capped peaks which rise abruptly from the basin where you ride at anchor; watching the gambols of great whales, thresher-sharks and herds of sea-lions, which seem as if penned up in an aquarium, so completely are they enclosed by the shadowy hills,--one seems, indeed, in a new creation, and watches the strange forms around him with an intensity of interest which almost amounts to awe.
"In this weird region of bottomless depths, there are no sand beaches or gravelly shores. All the margins of mainland and islands drop down plump into inky fathoms of water, and the fall of the tide only exposes the rank yellow weeds which cling to the damp crags and slippery rocks, and the mussels and barnacles which crackle and hiss when the lapping waves recede. * * * * * When the tide sets in, great rafts of algae, with stems fifty feet long, career along the surface; millions of jelly-fish and anemones crowded as closely as the stars in the firmament; great air-bulbs, with streamers floating like the long hair of female corpses; schools of porpoises and fin-back whale rolling and plunging headlong through the boiling foam; all sorts of marine and Mediterranean fauna pour in a ceaseless surge, like an irresistible army. Hosts of gulls scream overhead, or whiten the ledges, where they squat content or run about feeding.
"Here and there along the almost perpendicular cliffs the outflow of the melting snow in the pockets of the mountains leaps down in dizzy waterfalls from heights that are higher than the Yosemite. From the canons which divide the foot-hills, cascades pour out into the brine, and all their channels are choked with salmon crowding toward the upper waters. I could catch them with my hands as long as my strength endured, so helpless and infatuated are these creatures of predestination. At the heads of many of these rivulets there are lakes in which dwell salmon trout, spotted with crimson spots as large as a pea; and the rainbow trout, with his iridescent lateral stripe; and his cousin germain, the 'cut-throat trout,' slashed with carmine under the gills. And there is another trout, most familiar to the eye in Eastern waters, and doubly welcome to the sight in this far-off region--the _Salvelinus Canadensis_, or 'sea-trout,' which I have recognized these many years as a separate species. * * * Here he is in his garniture of crimson, blue and gold, just like his up-stream neighbors of New England and the Provinces. * *
"The seas are full of strange species. Here the family _Percidae_ is regnant and supreme among the food fishes. The number of species and varieties is remarkable. Here are the _Embiotocidae_, or _viviparous_ perch, which bring forth their young in litters, like cats or dogs, to the number of eight to forty at a time. There are no less than seventeen known varieties of them. Here, also, are at least fifteen varieties of _Scorpaenidae_, all fine table fish, which are locally known as rock-cod, groupers and snappers, but having no close relations at all to the family of _Gadidae_. I send herewith the differential characteristics of four of them taken near our present berth, in latitude 51 degrees 30 minutes. The scarlet snapper seems very closely allied to the _Lutjanus Blackfordi_ of Eastern Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, from which he could scarcely be distinguished in appearance. The others are all fish of brilliant colors. No. 2 can scarcely be distinguished from the fresh-water bass of the lakes lying west of the Mississippi,--the _Micropterus_,--either in form, fin system or color. At Sitka I found a fish of exactly the same shape, but black as a sea-bass of the Atlantic (_Centropristis atrarius_). No. 4 belongs, I believe, to the family of _Chiridae_, and is locally known as a sea-trout. * * * These fish take salmon roe, clams, sand-worms, crabs, meat and cut-fish bait. The black bass of Sitka is taken alongshore with a trolling spoon. * * * The other fish were taken chiefly in thirty fathoms of water on the young flood tide.
"Besides these fish, we have taken halibut, two kinds of flounder, skates, dogfish of several kinds and strange shapes, sharks, sculpins, etc.; some of the sculpins were beautifully marked in blue, red and brown. * * I have had several of the species painted in oil, and will forward them to the Smithsonian, with descriptions."
But let us leave this piscatorial paradise, as painted by one who is an artist in his line, and wend our way through the forty miles of Fitzhugh Sound. Then comes Lama Passage, contracted, winding and picturesque, about fourteen or fifteen miles long. About half way through we pass very near the Indian village of Bella-Bella, and which is also a Hudson Bay Company trading post. The Bella-Bellas were once a large tribe living in these parts; but the little village, of about twenty Indian houses, that the tourist passes on his left, represents the greater portion of the tribe at present, and gives one a practical and forcible illustration of the disappearance of "the noble red man." A mission residence and a church, with the cattle on the cleared hills, give the place quite a civilized aspect. After Lama Passage comes Seaforth Channel, just as winding and pretty; the swingings to the right and left, in places where the passage is apparently right ahead, increase your respect for the pilot, and you wonder, in all these intricacies, like Goldsmith's village schoolmaster, "how one small head could carry all he knew." At Milbank Sound we look out to sea for a brief half-hour, and then plunge into Finlayson Channel, a typical waterway of the inland passage, like a great river. The sides are very high mountains, densely timbered nearly to the top, where snow exists the year round, forming a base of supplies for the beautiful waterfalls that dash down the precipitous heights, like silvery columns, on a deep green background. It is said that all the little streams of this region swarm with salmon, giving the Indians a most bountiful supply. Then comes Graham Reach, about twenty miles long; then Fraser Reach, of ten miles; and McKay Reach, of seven,--that could all have been given a single name, and much trouble have been saved. A little, irregular sheet of water, called Wright Sound, and Grenville Channel, "as straight as an arrow," gives us nearly fifty miles of rectilinear sailing.
We are now getting far enough north to make the sight of snow a familiar one, and the dense timber is striped with perpendicular windrows, where large avalanches have cut their way through them in the winter, when the snow falls heavily in these parts. Chatham Sound is the last channel we essay in British domain, and a royal old sheet of water it is, with a width of nearly ten miles, and about three or four times as long. After about three hours on its bosom a great channel is opened east and west before us, on which the swells from the broad Pacific enter. This is Dixon Entrance, and the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska beyond, whose blue mountains we see in the distance. The islands still continue; and the number, in this part of Alaska alone, has been estimated at eleven hundred, and this, too, excludes the rocks and islets. Clarence Strait is the main channel as soon as Alaskan waters are entered; but there are others on both sides of it which may be taken. It is a little over a hundred miles long, and somewhat variable in its width. It was named by Vancouver, nearly a hundred years ago, after the Duke of Clarence. From Clarence Strait we enter Stickeen Strait; for most of the steamers call at Wrangell, and this bends us off of our course.