This new route to Alaska, which is under the auspices of the Grand Trunk Pacific, has greatly increased the tourist travel, as the safety of the {208} "Inside Route," combined with the luxurious conditions and the ineffable panorama of beauty, render the journey as easy and feasible as it is delightful. There is a saving of three days by journeying over the Grand Trunk Pacific to Prince Rupert and there embarking for Alaska. In January of 1916, the well-known traveller and writer, Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, made this trip of which he wrote: "... I despair of giving you any idea of the beauties of this voyage, they are so many and so varied. Now you have the wonders of the Swiss Lakes, now those of the Inland Sea of Japan, and now beauties like those on the coasts of New Zealand. There are all sorts of combinations of sea and sky, of evergreen slopes and snow-capped mountains. The colour effects are beyond description and the sunsets indescribable in their changes and beauties. The islands are of all shapes and sizes and they float upon sapphire seas. Many of the islands have snow-capped mountains that rise in green walls almost straight up from the water, and their heads are often crested with silver." Juneau, the capital and principal metropolis of Alaska, is on Gastineau Channel, which is eight miles in length and more than a mile wide at the entrance, gradually growing less as it nears the mainland, till it becomes like a narrow avenue of blue water through which the sunset pours in the late afternoon with an almost unearthly beauty. Mount Juneau, in the centre of the town, rises to a height of 3000 feet, with sloping sides of a pale green down which rush numberless cascades of silvery, sparkling water. Juneau is already an important {209} business centre, with incalculably rich mining properties tributary to the city, and with almost every branch of business and the industries represented. It is the commercial supply centre of all the camps; it is on the direct line of travel from Seattle to the Upper Yukon, and has its banks, assay laboratories, transportation facilities, and good schools, while it is the residence of the Governor of Alaska and the seat of all the Federal offices. There is a Chamber of Commerce, and there are women's clubs and imported gowns. The hospitalities of Juneau are already famous, and social life rises to a gaiety and whirl that leaves the Parisian life, as it existed in its social tide before the war, quite in the shade. The Parisienne is seldom reckless in her extravagance; a certain well-adjusted economy is a part of French life, even among the most fashionable and wealthy. But economy can hardly be said to have achieved much for itself in Juneau. Is not Alaska stuffed with gold? Not a few of its residents live as if that conviction were their financial basis. The entertaining is on a lavish scale; the women are dressed so smartly as to put a modest traveller quite to