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
is Alert Bay, where exist a salmon cannery, an Indian mission, a wharf
at which ships can land, and other signs of civilization.
[Illustration: SCENES IN THE INLAND PASSAGE.
From Schwatka's "Along Alaska's Great River," Cassell & Co. New York.
Publisher]
Queen Charlotte Sound is one of the few openings to the Pacific Ocean.
It is about fifty miles long, and, in some places, nearly half as wide,
and looks like getting out to sea after having passed through the narrow
channels just left behind. It was entered and named by Wedgeborough in
the summer of 1786; so those visitors of 1886 to its grand waters may
celebrate its centennial, and drink a toast to Queen Charlotte, the
queen of King George III., and queen for fifty-seven years. About nine
or ten miles on its waters, and to our left, is Fort Rupert, a Hudson
Bay Company's trading post, with a large Indian village clustered around
it. Here fruits and vegetables are grown for the local demand. About
half way through Queen Charlotte Sound, and we pass through a narrow
channel, twenty-two miles long, named Goletas Channel. Emerging from it,
we leave Cape Commerell on our left side, and bid good-bye to Vancouver
Island, for this is its northernmost cape. Near the exit from Goletas
Channel, but by another passage, now seldom used, is where the United
States man-of-war "Suwanee" was wrecked, on a submerged rock, in July,
1869, when the inland passage was not so well known by pilots as it is
now. We can now look out to sea toward the Pacific Ocean; but a short
journey plunges us into one of the many passages ahead of us, the
smallest, or one nearest the mainland, being taken, called Fitzhugh
Sound. It was named in 1786 by Captain Hanna, is about forty miles long,
and with a width of about three miles. The first island to our left on
entering is Calvert Island. About ten miles from its southern cape is an
indentation in the island, called Safety Cove or Port Safety, probably a
mile deep. It was while delayed in this picturesque little harbor, in
1885, that Mr. Charles Hallock, the well-known author on piscatorial
pursuits, penned the following lines, descriptive of the inland passage,
which we find in the _American Angler_ of September, 1885:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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