Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific RailroadHyde, John
History
Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage: With a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad
Hyde, John
Alaska -- Description and travel; Northern Pacific Railroad Company; Northwest, Pacific -- Description and travel
mathematical measurements,--its two and three hundred feet in height and
its breadth of several miles; for they but feebly represent its
grandeur, the deep impressions that figures can not measure when viewing
this frozen Niagara of the North. Not until the blue Adriatic has
pierced its way into the heart of the high Alps, or some ocean inlet has
invaded the valleys of the vast Yellowstone Park, will we ever have an
equivalent to this display of Nature's noblest efforts in scenic
effects. Were the other scenery as monotonous as the ceaseless plains, a
visit to the Alaskan glaciers and icebergs would well repay any one's
time and effort; but, when the tourist travels through the greatest
Wonderland of the wide West to reach these curious sights, he or she
will be paid over and over tenfold.
So far everything may be seen from the decks of an elegant steamer; but,
should the tourist want a little "roughing it," let him stop over in
Glacier Bay, from one steamer's visit to another, two weeks to a month
apart, and clamber over the glaciers and row around among the icebergs
to his heart's content, and until he almost imagines he is an arctic
explorer. He will descend from the tumbled surface of the frozen seas of
ice on the glacier's surface, only to wade through grass up to his
waist, that waves in the light winds like the pretty pampas fields of
South America. In these fields of grasses he may pitch his tent, which,
with a cook stove and a month's rations for each person, is all that is
needed, beyond the baggage of the other tourists. Hunting is found in
the mountains back of the bay, fish in the waters, and small game in the
woods near by.
Or, if longer and rougher jaunts are wanted, ascend the Lynn Channel,
and then the Chilkat, or Chilkoot, Inlet, hiring two or three Indians to
carry one's camping effects on their backs to the lakes at the source of
the great Yukon river of the British Northwest Territory and
Alaska,--the third river of America. Going by the Chilkoot trail, over
the Alaskan coast range of mountains, which will furnish Alpine climbing
enough to suit the most eager, on snow and glacier ice, one comes to a
series of lakes aggregating 150 miles in extent; and along these he may
paddle and return, shooting an occasional brown or black bear, moose,
caribou or mountain goat, while aquatic life is everywhere on these
pretty Alpine lakes.
Throughout the whole inland passage, one is passing now and then some
Indian village, of more or less imposing appearance and numbers. In
Alaska they all belong to a single great tribe, the T'linkit, bound
together by a common language, but by no stronger ties, for each
village, or cluster of villages, makes a sub-tribe, having no sympathies
with the other, and they often war against one another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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