Through the long ages the American Indian has worshiped--not the sun, but the great, _creative spirit_ behind the sun! And he has expressed that worship in the celebrated Sun Dance, a truly _religious_ ceremony in which he is now forbidden to indulge by the United States government! In like manner the natives of the Far North expressed themselves in totems. To a certain extent they are ancestor worshipers, as are the Chinese. The totem poles are their expression of their primitive heraldry. They erected them in front of their rude dwellings, with a pageantry uncouth, it is true, but in a spirit of sincerity. I am not one of those who would decry the influence and the splendid service of the missionary. But it is an influence which often works both ways. Many of the latter can see in these expressions of pride of ancestry nothing but the most arrant heathenism, so the totem poles of Alaska are rotting away. And no more are being built. The young natives are being "educated" out of any respect which hitherto they may justly have entertained for their forefathers. There is no scorn known to the human race which is quite so withering as that which the man who does not know who his grandfather was entertains for the man who does! It can not be long until the totem pole will be a thing of the past. Therefore he who would see them in all their glory must not linger. All will soon be gone. Here at Wrangell are still some splendid specimens, perhaps the best the north country now has to offer. Skagway may be called the city of romance. Time was when it held the key which unlocked the gateway of the Promised Land,--that golden kingdom of the North. It is now a thriving commercial center. The White Pass railroad begins here, forming a sort of portage by means of which the two extremes of the country may shake hands with each other. The railroad itself is short. But it touches the headwaters of the Yukon with its twenty-five hundred miles of navigation, bearing on its broad bosom the commerce and the traffic of Klondike, Dawson, and Fairbanks, to the outlet in Bering Sea. But this is not the reason the history of Skagway is romantic. When the gold rush began in 1896 the landing had to be made at Dyea at the other end of the Lynn Canal. From here it was necessary to cross the dangerous Chilkoot Pass, a most hazardous undertaking. One day the word was passed along that another pass (now known as White Pass) had been discovered. With a rush like a flock of frightened sheep the gold seekers turned and went the other way. _In one day_ fifteen thousand people left Dyea for Dawson and Skagway and in that same length of time what had formerly been a swamp became a city!