“The charm of the glaciers is never-ending.... The peace and silence of the rock-bound fiords, clad in green, with the snowy peaks of far-off mountains gleaming through the tree tops on the skyline, suggest the delights of Lotus land; picture after picture more beautiful than anything that the Hudson can show, or either Norway or the Rhine can boast.... There are sunsets such as no painter could ever put on canvas, veritable vortices of flame, as though the world was on fire.... Even the sun is loath to leave the scene which his warmth has endowed with life, and forsakes it for only a few minutes at midnight. “Along the Alaskan Peninsula the tourist may witness in safety the tremendous pent-up energy of the internal fires; islands raised from the bottom of the ocean one year, only to be engulfed the next, as at Bogoslop....” Here may be seen: “The crowning peaks of a mountain range which, dividing to the east, culminate in Mount McKinley, 20,464[1] feet high, north of Cook Inlet; and Mounts St. Elias and Fairweather and their cold virginal sisters, grim guardians of the northern shores of the Pacific. These stupendous mountain masses (a mile taller than Switzerland’s champion), their feet buried under a glacier which lines the coast for more than a hundred miles, are even more impressive than the loftiest of the world’s famous peaks, either in the Himalayas or the Andes; for while these rise from lofty interior plateaus, the sweep of St. Elias is from ocean to sky, with nothing to break the foreground.... The scenic beauties of Alaska, whether they be of earth or water or of sky, are varied enough to bring enthusiasm to the lips of the most blasé traveller.”[2] SITKA NATIONAL MONUMENT This reservation lies about one mile from the steamboat landing at Sitka, Alaska. Here was located the village of a warlike tribe, the Kik-Siti Indians. A celebrated witch-tree of the natives and sixteen totem poles, several of which are examples of the best work of the tribes, stand along the beach. MOUNT MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK In 1917 Congress set aside as a national park 2,200 square miles in this region; as in so many other cases, the reason was to protect the big game, as well as the magnificent territory. “Mount McKinley rises 20,300 feet above tidewater and 17,000 feet above the eyes of the beholder standing on the plateau at its base. Its enormous bulk is shrouded in perpetual snow two thirds down from its summit, and the foothills and broad plains upon its north and west are populated with mountain sheep and caribou in unprecedented numbers. “In 1915 the Government began the railroad from Seward to Fairbanks. Its course lies from Cook Inlet up the Susitna River to the headwaters of the Nenana River, where it crosses the range. This will make access to the region easy and comfortable. “Here lies a rugged highland area far greater in extent than all of Switzerland, a virgin field for explorers and mountaineers.