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
any time, provided they could return the consideration received. This is
their code among themselves. For example: I met, at the mouth of the
Chilkat, a native trader who had been to Fort Simpson, about six hundred
miles away, and, failing to get as much as he gave in the interior of
Alaska for the skins, was now returning to the interior to find the
first vender, and revoke the whole transaction.
"From the Asonque village I went, with a party of mountain goat hunters,
up into the Mount St. Elias Alps back of Mount Fairweather,--that is, to
the northeast of that mountain. For this trip our party made elaborate
preparations. We donned belted shirts made of squirrel skins, fur
head-dresses (generally conical), sealskin bootees, fitting very
closely, and laced half way to the knee. We carried spears for
alpenstocks, bows and arrows, raw-hide ropes, and one or two old Hudson
Bay rifles. Ptarmigan were seen on the lower levels where the ground was
bare. The goats kept well up toward the summit, amid the snow fields,
and fed on the grass which sprouted along the edges of melting drifts.
The animal is like a large, white goat, with long, coarse hair and a
heavy coat of silky underfleece. We found a bear that, so far as I know,
is peculiar to this country. It is of a beautiful bluish under-color,
with the tips of the long hairs silvery white. The traders call it 'St.
Elias silver bear.' The skins are not uncommon." This little mountain
trip of Lieutenant Wood's is especially spread before the attention of
those who find in this form of exercise their best recreation from their
regular duties.
But, however much the tourists may want to dwell amidst the curious and
marvelous scenes of Glacier Bay (and so great has been this demand that
it is contemplated building a summer resort near by, that passengers may
remain over one steamer), yet a time must come when we will have to bid
good-bye to this polar part of our wonderland, and pass on to the next
grand panorama in view. Southeastward out of Glacier Bay into Icy
Straits, and we turn southwestward into Cross Sound, headed for the
Pacific Ocean, and for the first time enter its limitless waters. Cross
Sound was named by Vancouver, in 1778, in honor of the day on which it
was discovered, and is about fifty-five miles long. It corresponds on
the north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south, these two
waterways being the limiting channels north and south of the inland
passage as it connects with the Pacific Ocean. As the Puget Sound
projects much farther to the south from Fuca Strait into the mainland,
hemmed in by snowy peaks, so Lynn Canal, "the Puget Sound of the North,"
continues the Sound of the Holy Cross far to the northward, embayed by
glaciers, icebergs, and fields of snow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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