In going to Alaska to-day, the traveller is invariably taken into the Sitkan district, and no farther; naturally he goes there and nowhere beyond, for the best of all reasons: he can find no means of transportation at all proper as regards his safety and comfort which will convey him outside of the Alexander archipelago. To this southeastern region of Alaska, however, one may journey every month in the year from the waters of the Columbia River and Puget Sound, in positive pleasure, on a seaworthy steamer fitted with every marine adjunct conducive to the passenger’s comfortable existence in transit; it is a land-locked sea-trip of over eighteen hundred miles, made often to and from Sitka without tremor enough on the part of the vessel even to spill a brimming glass of water upon the cabin table. If fortunate enough to make this trip of eight or nine hundred miles up, and then down again, when the fog is not omnipotent and rain not incessant, the tourist will record a vision of earthly scenery grander than the most vivid imagination can devise, and the recollection of its glories will never fade from his delighted mind. If, however, you desire to visit that great country to the westward and the northwest, no approach can be made via Sitka—no communication between that region and this portion of Alaska ever takes place, except accidentally; the traveller starts from San Francisco either in a codfishing schooner, a fur-trader’s sloop, or steamer, and sails out into the vast Pacific on a bee-line for Kadiak or Oonalashka; and, from these two chief ports of arrival and departure, he laboriously works his way, if bent upon seeing the country, constantly interrupted and continually beset with all manner of hindrances to the progress of his journey by land and sea. These physical obstructions in the path of travel to all points of interest in Alaska, save those embraced in the Sitkan district, will bar out and deprive thousands from ever beholding the striking natural characteristics of a wonderful volcanic region in Cook’s Inlet and the Aleutian chain of islands. When that time shall arrive in the dim future which will order and sustain the sailing of steamers in regular rotation of transit throughout the waters of this most interesting section, then, indeed, will a source of infinite satisfaction be afforded to those who love to contemplate the weird and the sublime in nature; meanwhile, visits to that region in small sailing-craft are highly risky and unpleasant—boisterous winds are chronic and howling gales are frequent.