Washington Territory, recently admitted[22] into the Union as a State,
lies between latitude 46 degrees and 49 degrees and longitude 117
degrees and 125 degrees, forming the northwest shoulder of the United
States. The majestic range of the Cascade Mountains naturally divides
the State into two distinct parts, called Eastern and Western
Washington, differing greatly from each other in almost every way, the
western section being less than half as large as the eastern, and, with
its copious rains and deep fertile soil, being clothed with forests of
evergreens, while the eastern section is dry and mostly treeless,
though fertile in many parts, and producing immense quantities of wheat
and hay. Few States are more fertile and productive in one way or
another than Washington, or more strikingly varied in natural features
or resources.
Within her borders every kind of soil and climate may be found—the
densest woods and dryest plains, the smoothest levels and roughest
mountains. She is rich in square miles (some seventy thousand of them),
in coal, timber, and iron, and in sheltered inland waters that render
these resources advantageously accessible. She also is already rich in
busy workers, who work hard, though not always wisely, hacking,
burning, blasting their way deeper into the wilderness, beneath the
sky, and beneath the ground. The wedges of development are being driven
hard, and none of the obstacles or defenses of nature can long
withstand the onset of this immeasurable industry.
Puget Sound, so justly famous the world over for the surpassing size
and excellence and abundance of its timber, is a long, many-fingered
arm of the sea reaching southward from the head of the Strait of Juan
de Fuca into the heart of the grand forests of the western portion of
Washington, between the Cascade Range and the mountains of the coast.
It is less than a hundred miles in length, but so numerous are the
branches into which it divides, and so many its bays, harbors, and
islands, that its entire shoreline is said to measure more than
eighteen hundred miles. Throughout its whole vast extent ships move in
safety, and find shelter from every wind that blows, the entire
mountain-girt sea forming one grand unrivaled harbor and center for
commerce.
The forest trees press forward to the water around all the windings of
the shores in most imposing array, as if they were courting their fate,
coming down from the mountains far and near to offer themselves to the
axe, thus making the place a perfect paradise for the lumberman. To the
lover of nature the scene is enchanting. Water and sky, mountain and
forest, clad in sunshine and clouds, are composed in landscapes sublime
in magnitude, yet exquisitely fine and fresh, and full of glad,
rejoicing life. The shining waters stretch away into the leafy
wilderness, now like the reaches of some majestic river and again
expanding into broad roomy spaces like mountain lakes, their farther
edges fading gradually and blending with the pale blue of the sky. The
wooded shores with an outer fringe of flowering bushes sweep onward in
beautiful curves around bays, and capes, and jutting promontories
innumerable; while the islands, with soft, waving outlines, lavishly
adorned with spruces and cedars, thicken and enrich the beauty of the
waters; and the white spirit mountains looking down from the sky keep
watch and ward over all, faithful and changeless as the stars.
All the way from the Strait of Juan de Fuca up to Olympia, a hopeful
town situated at the head of one of the farthest-reaching of the
fingers of the Sound, we are so completely inland and surrounded by
mountains that it is hard to realize that we are sailing on a branch of
the salt sea. We are constantly reminded of Lake Tahoe. There is the
same clearness of the water in calm weather without any trace of the
ocean swell, the same picturesque winding and sculpture of the
shoreline and flowery, leafy luxuriance; only here the trees are taller
and stand much closer together, and the backgrounds are higher and far
more extensive. Here, too, we find greater variety amid the marvelous
wealth of islands and inlets, and also in the changing views dependent
on the weather. As we double cape after cape and round the uncounted
islands, new combinations come to view in endless variety, sufficient
to fill and satisfy the lover of wild beauty through a whole life.
Oftentimes in the stillest weather, when all the winds sleep and no
sign of storms is felt or seen, silky clouds form and settle over all
the land, leaving in sight only a circle of water with indefinite
bounds like views in mid-ocean; then, the clouds lifting, some islet
will be presented standing alone, with the tops of its trees dipping
out of sight in pearly gray fringes; or, lifting higher, and perhaps
letting in a ray of sunshine through some rift overhead, the whole
island will be set free and brought forward in vivid relief amid the
gloom, a girdle of silver light of dazzling brightness on the water
about its shores, then darkening again and vanishing back into the
general gloom. Thus island after island may be seen, singly or in
groups, coming and going from darkness to light like a scene of
enchantment, until at length the entire cloud ceiling is rolled away,
and the colossal cone of Mount Rainier is seen in spotless white
looking down over the forests from a distance of sixty miles, but so
lofty and so massive and clearly outlined as to impress itself upon us
as being just back of a strip of woods only a mile or two in breadth.
For the tourist sailing to Puget Sound from San Francisco there is but
little that is at all striking in the scenery within reach by the way
until the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is reached. The voyage is
about four days in length and the steamers keep within sight of the
coast, but the hills fronting the sea up to Oregon are mostly bare and
uninviting, the magnificent redwood forests stretching along this
portion of the California coast seeming to keep well back, away from
the heavy winds, so that very little is seen of them; while there are
no deep inlets or lofty mountains visible to break the regular
monotony. Along the coast of Oregon the woods of spruce and fir come
down to the shore, kept fresh and vigorous by copious rains, and become
denser and taller to the northward until, rounding Cape Flattery, we
enter the Strait of Fuca, where, sheltered from the ocean gales, the
forests begin to hint the grandeur they attain in Puget Sound. Here the
scenery in general becomes exceedingly interesting; for now we have
arrived at the grand mountain-walled channel that forms the entrance to
that marvelous network of inland waters that extends along the margin
of the continent to the northward for a thousand miles.
This magnificent inlet was named for Juan de Fuca, who discovered it in
1592 while seeking a mythical strait, supposed to exist somewhere in
the north, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. It is about seventy
miles long, ten or twelve miles wide, and extends to the eastward in a
nearly straight line between the south end of Vancouver Island and the
Olympic Range of mountains on the mainland.
Cape Flattery, the western termination of the Olympic Range, is
terribly rugged and jagged, and in stormy weather is utterly
inaccessible from the sea. Then the ponderous rollers of the deep
Pacific thunder amid its caverns and cliffs with the foam and uproar of
a thousand Yosemite waterfalls. The bones of many a noble ship lie
there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living thing
should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless, frail and
delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and the sea;
heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find grateful
retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed caverns; while in
many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not visible from beneath,
a great variety of waterfowl make homes and rear their young.
But not always are the inhabitants safe, even in such wave-defended
castles as these, for the Indians of the neighboring shores venture
forth in the calmest summer weather in their frail canoes to spear the
seals in the narrow gorges amid the grinding, gurgling din of the
restless waters. At such times also the hunters make out to scale many
of the apparently inaccessible cliffs for the eggs and young of the
gulls and other water birds, occasionally losing their lives in these
perilous adventures, which give rise to many an exciting story told
around the campfires at night when the storms roar loudest.
Passing through the strait, we have the Olympic Mountains close at hand
on the right, Vancouver Island on the left, and the snowy peak of Mount
Baker straight ahead in the distance. During calm weather, or when the
clouds are lifting and rolling off the mountains after a storm, all
these views are truly magnificent. Mount Baker is one of that wonderful
series of old volcanoes that once flamed along the summits of the
Sierras and Cascades from Lassen to Mount St. Elias. Its fires are
sleeping now, and it is loaded with glaciers, streams of ice having
taken the place of streams of glowing lava. Vancouver Island presents a
charming variety of hill and dale, open sunny spaces and sweeps of dark
forest rising in swell beyond swell to the high land in the distance.
But the Olympic Mountains most of all command attention, seen tellingly
near and clear in all their glory, rising from the water’s edge into
the sky to a height of six or eight thousand feet. They bound the
strait on the south side throughout its whole extent, forming a massive
sustained wall, flowery and bushy at the base, a zigzag of snowy peaks
along the top, which have ragged-edged fields of ice and snow beneath
them, enclosed in wide amphitheaters opening to the waters of the
strait through spacious forest-filled valleys enlivened with fine,
dashing streams. These valleys mark the courses of the Olympic glaciers
at the period of their greatest extension, when they poured their
tribute into that portion of the great northern ice sheet that
overswept the south end of Vancouver Island and filled the strait with
flowing ice as it is now filled with ocean water.
The steamers of the Sound usually stop at Esquimalt on their way up,
thus affording tourists an opportunity to visit the interesting town of
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The Victoria harbor is too
narrow and difficult of access for the larger class of ships; therefore
a landing has to be made at Esquimalt. The distance, however, is only
about three miles, and the way is delightful, winding on through a
charming forest of Douglas spruce, with here and there groves of oak
and madrone, and a rich undergrowth of hazel, dogwood, willow, alder,
spiraea, rubus, huckleberry, and wild rose. Pretty cottages occur at
intervals along the road, covered with honeysuckle, and many an
upswelling rock, freshly glaciated and furred with yellow mosses and
lichen, telling interesting stories of the icy past.
Victoria is a quiet, handsome, breezy town, beautifully located on
finely modulated ground at the mouth of the Canal de Haro, with
charming views in front, of islands and mountains and far-reaching
waters, ever changing in the shifting lights and shades of the clouds
and sunshine. In the background there are a mile or two of field and
forest and sunny oak openings; then comes the forest primeval, dense
and shaggy and well-nigh impenetrable.
Notwithstanding the importance claimed for Victoria as a commercial
center and the capital of British Columbia, it has a rather young,
loose-jointed appearance. The government buildings and some of the
business blocks on the main streets are well built and imposing in bulk
and architecture. These are far less interesting and characteristic,
however, than the mansions set in the midst of spacious pleasure
grounds and the lovely home cottages embowered in honeysuckle and
climbing roses. One soon discovers that this is no Yankee town. The
English faces and the way that English is spoken alone would tell that;
while in business quarters there is a staid dignity and moderation that
is very noticeable, and a want of American push and hurrah. Love of
land and of privacy in homes is made manifest in the residences, many
of which are built in the middle of fields and orchards or large city
blocks, and in the loving care with which these home grounds are
planted. They are very beautiful. The fineness of the climate, with its
copious measure of warm moisture distilling in dew and fog, and gentle,
bathing, laving rain, give them a freshness and floweriness that is
worth going far to see.
Victoria is noted for its fine drives, and every one who can should
either walk or drive around the outskirts of the town, not only for the
fine views out over the water but to see the cascades of bloom pouring
over the gables of the cottages, and the fresh wild woods with their
flowery, fragrant underbrush. Wild roses abound almost everywhere. One
species, blooming freely along the woodland paths, is from two to three
inches in diameter, and more fragrant than any other wild rose I ever
saw excepting the sweetbriar. This rose and three species of spiraea
fairly fill the air with fragrance after a shower. And how brightly
then do the red berries of the dogwood shine out from the warm
yellow-green of leaves and mosses!
But still more interesting and significant are the glacial phenomena
displayed hereabouts. All this exuberant tree, bush, and herbaceous
vegetation, cultivated or wild, is growing upon moraine beds outspread
by waters that issued from the ancient glaciers at the time of their
recession, and scarcely at all moved or in any way modified by
post-glacial agencies. The town streets and the roads are graded in
moraine material, among scratched and grooved rock bosses that are as
unweathered and telling as any to be found in the glacier channels of
Alaska. The harbor also is clearly of glacial origin. The rock islets
that rise here and there, forming so marked a feature of the harbor,
are unchanged _roches moutonnées_, and the shores are grooved,
scratched, and rounded, and in every way as glacial in all their
characteristics as those of a newborn glacial lake.
Most visitors to Victoria go to the stores of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
presumably on account of the romantic associations, or to purchase a
bit of fur or some other wild-Indianish trinket as a memento. At
certain seasons of the year, when the hairy harvests are gathered in,
immense bales of skins may be seen in these unsavory warehouses, the
spoils of many thousand hunts over mountain and plain, by lonely river
and shore. The skins of bears, wolves, beavers, otters, fishers,
martens, lynxes, panthers, wolverine, reindeer, moose, elk, wild goats,
sheep, foxes, squirrels, and many others of our “poor earth-born
companions and fellow mortals” may here be found.
Vancouver is the southmost and the largest of the countless islands
forming the great archipelago that stretches a thousand miles to the
northward. Its shores have been known a long time, but little is known
of the lofty mountainous interior on account of the difficulties in the
way of explorations—lake, bogs, and shaggy tangled forests. It is
mostly a pure, savage wilderness, without roads or clearings, and
silent so far as man is concerned. Even the Indians keep close to the
shore, getting a living by fishing, dwelling together in villages, and
traveling almost wholly by canoes. White settlements are few and far
between. Good agricultural lands occur here and there on the edge of
the wilderness, but they are hard to clear, and have received but
little attention thus far. Gold, the grand attraction that lights the
way into all kinds of wildernesses and makes rough places smooth, has
been found, but only in small quantities, too small to make much
motion. Almost all the industry of the island is employed upon lumber
and coal, in which, so far as known, its chief wealth lies.
Leaving Victoria for Port Townsend, after we are fairly out on the free
open water, Mount Baker is seen rising solitary over a dark breadth of
forest, making a glorious show in its pure white raiment. It is said to
be about eleven thousand feet high, is loaded with glaciers, some of
which come well down into the woods, and never, so far as I have heard,
has been climbed, though in all probability it is not inaccessible. The
task of reaching its base through the dense woods will be likely to
prove of greater difficulty than the climb to the summit.
In a direction a little to the left of Mount Baker and much nearer, may
be seen the island of San Juan, famous in the young history of the
country for the quarrels concerning its rightful ownership between the
Hudson’s Bay Company and Washington Territory, quarrels which nearly
brought on war with Great Britain. Neither party showed any lack of
either pluck or gunpowder. General Scott was sent out by President
Buchanan to negotiate, which resulted in a joint occupancy of the
island. Small quarrels, however, continued to arise until the year
1874, when the peppery question was submitted to the Emperor of Germany
for arbitration. Then the whole island was given to the United States.
San Juan is one of a thickset cluster of islands that fills the waters
between Vancouver and the mainland, a little to the north of Victoria.
In some of the intricate channels between these islands the tides run
at times like impetuous rushing rivers, rendering navigation rather
uncertain and dangerous for the small sailing vessels that ply between
Victoria and the settlements on the coast of British Columbia and the
larger islands. The water is generally deep enough everywhere, too deep
in most places for anchorage, and, the winds shifting hither and
thither or dying away altogether, the ships, getting no direction from
their helms, are carried back and forth or are caught in some eddy
where two currents meet and whirled round and round to the dismay of
the sailors, like a chip in a river whirlpool.
All the way over to Port Townsend the Olympic Mountains well maintain
their massive, imposing grandeur, and present their elaborately carved
summits in clear relief, many of which are out of sight in coming up
the strait on account of our being too near the base of the range. Turn
to them as often as we may, our admiration only grows the warmer the
longer we dwell upon them. The highest peaks are Mount Constance and
Mount Olympus, said to be about eight thousand feet high.
In two or three hours after leaving Victoria, we arrive at the handsome
little town of Port Townsend, situated at the mouth of Puget Sound, on
the west side. The residential portion of the town is set on the level
top of the bluff that bounds Port Townsend Bay, while another nearly
level space of moderate extent, reaching from the base of the bluff to
the shoreline, is occupied by the business portion, thus making a town
of two separate and distinct stories, which are connected by long,
ladder-like flights of stairs. In the streets of the lower story, while
there is no lack of animation, there is but little business noise as
compared with the amount of business transacted. This in great part is
due to the scarcity of horses and wagons. Farms and roads back in the
woods are few and far between. Nearly all the tributary settlements are
on the coast, and communication is almost wholly by boats, canoes, and
schooners. Hence country stages and farmers’ wagons and buggies, with
the whir and din that belong to them, are wanting.
This being the port of entry, all vessels have to stop here, and they
make a lively show about the wharves and in the bay. The winds stir the
flags of every civilized nation, while the Indians in their long-beaked
canoes glide about from ship to ship, satisfying their curiosity or
trading with the crews. Keen traders these Indians are, and few indeed
of the sailors or merchants from any country ever get the better of
them in bargains. Curious groups of people may often be seen in the
streets and stores, made up of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese,
Scandinavians, Germans, Greeks, Moors, Japanese, and Chinese, of every
rank and station and style of dress and behavior; settlers from many a
nook and bay and island up and down the coast; hunters from the
wilderness; tourists on their way home by the Sound and the Columbia
River or to Alaska or California.
The upper story of Port Townsend is charmingly located, wide bright
waters on one side, flowing evergreen woods on the other. The streets
are well laid out and well tended, and the houses, with their luxuriant
gardens about them, have an air of taste and refinement seldom found in
towns set on the edge of a wild forest. The people seem to have come
here to make true homes, attracted by the beauty and fresh breezy
healthfulness of the place as well as by business advantages, trusting
to natural growth and advancement instead of restless “booming”
methods. They perhaps have caught some of the spirit of calm moderation
and enjoyment from their English neighbors across the water. Of late,
however, this sober tranquillity has begun to give way, some whiffs
from the whirlwind of real estate speculation up the Sound having at
length touched the town and ruffled the surface of its calmness.
A few miles up the bay is Fort Townsend, which makes a pretty picture
with the green woods rising back of it and the calm water in front.
Across the mouth of the Sound lies the long, narrow Whidbey Island,
named by Vancouver for one of his lieutenants. It is about thirty miles
in length, and is remarkable in this region of crowded forests and
mountains as being comparatively open and low. The soil is good and
easily worked, and a considerable portion of the island has been under
cultivation for many years. Fertile fields, open, parklike groves of
oak, and thick masses of evergreens succeed one another in charming
combinations to make this “the garden spot of the Territory.”
Leaving Port Townsend for Seattle and Tacoma, we enter the Sound and
sail down into the heart of the green, aspiring forests, and find, look
where we may, beauty ever changing, in lavish profusion. Puget Sound,
“the Mediterranean of America” as it is sometimes called, is in many
respects one of the most remarkable bodies of water in the world.
Vancouver, who came here nearly a hundred years ago and made a careful
survey of it, named the larger northern portion of it “Admiralty Inlet”
and one of the long, narrow branches “Hood’s Canal,” applying the name
“Puget Sound” only to the comparatively small southern portion. The
latter name, however, is now applied generally to the entire inlet, and
is commonly shortened by the people hereabouts to “The Sound.” The
natural wealth and commercial advantages of the Sound region were
quickly recognized, and the cause of the activity prevailing here is
not far to seek. Vancouver, long before civilization touched these
shores, spoke of it in terms of unstinted praise. He was sent out by
the British government with the principal object in view of “acquiring
accurate knowledge as to the nature and extent of any water
communication which may tend in any considerable degree to facilitate
an intercourse for the purposes of commerce between the northwest coast
and the country on the opposite side of the continent,” vague
traditions having long been current concerning a strait supposed to
unite the two oceans. Vancouver reported that he found the coast from
San Francisco to Oregon and beyond to present a nearly straight solid
barrier to the sea, without openings, and we may well guess the joy of
the old navigator on the discovery of these waters after so long and
barren a search to the southward.
His descriptions of the scenery—Mounts Baker, Rainier, St. Helen’s,
etc.—were as enthusiastic as those of the most eager landscape lover of
the present day, when scenery is in fashion. He says in one place: “To
describe the beauties of this region will, on some future occasion, be
a very grateful task for the pen of a skillful panegyrist. The serenity
of the climate, the immeasurable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant
fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be
enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, cottages, and
other buildings, to render it the most lovely country that can be
imagined. The labor of the inhabitants would be amply rewarded in the
bounties which nature seems ready to bestow on cultivation.” “A picture
so pleasing could not fail to call to our remembrance certain
delightful and beloved situations in old England.” So warm, indeed,
were the praises he sung that his statements were received in England
with a good deal of hesitation. But they were amply corroborated by
Wilkes and others who followed many years later. “Nothing,” says
Wilkes, “can exceed the beauty of these waters and their safety. Not a
shoal exists in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget
Sound or Hood’s Canal, that can in any way interrupt their navigation
by a 74-gun ship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country in
the world that possesses waters like these.” And again, quoting from
the United States Coast Survey, “For depth of water, boldness of
approaches, freedom from hidden dangers, and the immeasurable sea of
gigantic timber coming down to the very shores, these waters are
unsurpassed, unapproachable.”
The Sound region has a fine, fresh, clean climate, well washed both
winter and summer with copious rains and swept with winds and clouds
that come from the mountains and the sea. Every hidden nook in the
depths of the woods is searched and refreshed, leaving no stagnant air;
beaver meadows and lake basin and low and willowy bogs, all are kept
wholesome and sweet the year round. Cloud and sunshine alternate in
bracing, cheering succession, and health and abundance follow the
storms. The outer sea margin is sublimely dashed and drenched with
ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping at times far inland over the
bending woods, the giant trees waving and chanting in hearty accord as
if surely enjoying it all.
Heavy, long-continued rains occur in the winter months. Then every
leaf, bathed and brightened, rejoices. Filtering drops and currents
through all the shaggy undergrowth of the woods go with tribute to the
small streams, and these again to the larger. The rivers swell, but
there are no devastating floods; for the thick felt of roots and mosses
holds the abounding waters in check, stored in a thousand thousand
fountains. Neither are there any violent hurricanes here, At least, I
never have heard of any, nor have I come upon their tracks. Most of the
streams are clear and cool always, for their waters are filtered
through deep beds of mosses, and flow beneath shadows all the way to
the sea. Only the streams from the glaciers are turbid and muddy. On
the slopes of the mountains where they rush from their crystal caves,
they carry not only small particles of rock-mud, worn off the sides and
bottoms of the channels of the glaciers, but grains of sand and pebbles
and large boulders tons in weight, rolling them forward on their way
rumbling and bumping to their appointed places at the foot of steep
slopes, to be built into rough bars and beds, while the smaller
material is carried farther and outspread in flats, perhaps for coming
wheat fields and gardens, the finest of it going out to sea, floating
on the tides for weeks and months ere it finds rest on the bottom.
Snow seldom falls to any great depth on the lowlands, though it comes
in glorious abundance on the mountains. And only on the mountains does
the temperature fall much below the freezing point. In the warmest
summer weather a temperature of eighty-five degrees or even more
occasionally is reached, but not for long at a time, as such heat is
speedily followed by a breeze from the sea. The most charming days here
are days of perfect calm, when all the winds are holding their breath
and not a leaf stirs. The surface of the Sound shines like a silver
mirror over all its vast extent, reflecting its lovely islands and
shores; and long sheets of spangles flash and dance in the wake of
every swimming seabird and boat. The sun, looking down on the tranquil
landscape, seems conscious of the presence of every living thing on
which he is pouring his blessings, while they in turn, with perhaps the
exception of man, seem conscious of the sun as a benevolent father and
stand hushed and waiting.