Port Valdez--or the Puerto de Valdes, as it was named by Vancouver after
Whidbey's exploration--is a fiord twelve miles long and of a beauty that
is simply enchanting.
On a clear day it winds like a pale blue ribbon between colossal
mountains of snow, with glaciers streaming down to the water at every
turn. The peaks rise, one after another, sheer from the water,
pearl-white from summit to base.
It has been my happiness and my good fortune always to sail this fiord
on a clear day. The water has been as smooth as satin, with a faint
silvery tinge, as of frost, shimmering over its blue.
At the end, Port Valdez widens into a bay, and upon the bay, in the
shadow of her mountains, and shaded by her trees, is Valdez.
Valdez! The mere mention of the name is sufficient to send visions of
loveliness glimmering through the memory. Through a soft blur of
rose-lavender mist shine houses, glacier, log-cabins, and the tossing
green of trees; the wild, white glacial torrents pouring down around the
town; and the pearly peaks linked upon the sky.
Valdez was founded in 1898. During the early rush to the Klondike, one
of the routes taken was directly over the glacier. In 1898 about three
thousand people landed at the upper end of Port Valdez, followed the
glacier, crossed over the summit of the Chugach Mountains, and thence
down a fork of the Copper River. The route was dangerous, and attended
by many hardships and real suffering.
At first hundreds of tents whitened the level plain at the foot of the
glacier; then, one by one, cabins were built, stocks were brought in for
trading purposes, saloons and dance halls sprang up in a night,--and
Valdez was.
In this year Captain Abercrombie, of the United States Army, crossed the
glacier with his entire party of men and horses and reached the Tanana.
In the following year, surveys were made under his direction for a
military wagon trail over the Chugach Mountains from Valdez to the
Tanana, and during the following three years this trail was constructed.
It has proved to be of the greatest possible benefit, not only to the
vast country tributary to Valdez, but to the various Yukon districts,
and to Nome. After many experiments, it has been chosen by the
government as the winter route for the distribution of mail to the
interior of Alaska and to Nome. Steamers make connection with a regular
line of stages and sleighs. There are frequent and comfortable road
houses, and the danger of accident is not nearly so great as it is in
travelling by railway in the eastern states.
The Valdez military trail follows Lowe River and Keystone Canyon.
Through the canyon the trail is only wide enough for pack trains, and
travel is by the frozen river.
The Signal Corps of the Army has constructed many hundreds of miles of
telegraph lines since the beginning of the present decade. Nome, the
Yukon, Tanana, and Copper River valleys are all connected with Valdez
and with Dawson by telegraph. Nome has outside connection by wireless,
and all the coast towns are in communication with Seattle by cable.
The climate of Valdez is delightful in summer. In winter it is ten
degrees colder than at Sitka, with good sleighing. The annual
precipitation is fifty per cent less than along the southeastern coast.
Snow falls from November to April.
The long winter nights are not disagreeable. The moon and the stars are
larger and more brilliant in Alaska than can be imagined by one who has
not seen them, and, with the changeful colors of the Aurora playing upon
the snow, turn the northern world into Fairyland.
Valdez has a population of about twenty-five hundred people. It is four
hundred and fifty miles north of Sitka, and eighteen hundred miles from
Seattle. It is said to be the most northern port in the world that is
open to navigation the entire year.
There are two good piers to deep water, besides one at the new town
site, an electric light plant and telephone system, two newspapers, a
hospital, creditable churches of five or six denominations, a graded
school, private club-rooms, a library, a brewery, several hotels and
restaurants, public halls, a court-house, several merchandise stores
carrying stocks of from fifty to one hundred thousand dollars, a tin and
sheet metal factory, saw-mills,--and almost every business, industry,
and profession is well represented. There are saloons without end, and
dance halls; a saloon in Alaska that excludes women is not known, but
good order prevails and disturbances are rare.
The homes are, for the most part, small,--building being excessively
high,--but pretty, comfortable, and frequently artistic. There are
flower-gardens everywhere. There is no log-cabin so humble that its bit
of garden-spot is not a blaze of vivid color. Every window has its box
of bloom. La France roses were in bloom in July in the garden of
ex-Governor Leedy, of Kansas, whose home is now in Valdez.
The civilization of the town is of the highest. The whole world might go
to Alaska and learn a lesson in genuine, simple, refined
hospitality--for its key-note is kindness of heart.
The visitor soon learns that he must be chary of his admiration of one
of the curios on his host's wall, lest he be begged to accept it.
The Tillicum Club is known in all parts of Alaska. It has a very
comfortable club-house, where all visitors of note to the town are
entertained. The club occasionally has what its own self calls a "dry
night," when ladies are entertained with cards and music. (The adjective
does not apply to the entertainment.)
The dogs of Valdez are interesting. They are large, and of every color
known to dogdom, the malamutes predominating. They are all "heroes of
the trail," and are respected and treated as "good fellows." They lie by
twos and threes clear across the narrow board sidewalks; and unless one
understands the language of the trail, it is easier to walk around them
or to jump over them than it is to persuade them to move. A string of
oaths, followed by "_Mush!_" all delivered like the crack of a whip,
brings quick results. The dogs hasten to the pier, on a long, wolflike
lope, when the whistle of a steamer is heard, and offer the hospitality
of the town to the stranger, with waving tails and saluting tongues.
It is a heavy expense to feed these dogs in Alaska, yet few men are
known to be so mean as to grudge this expense to dogs who have
faithfully served them, frequently saving their lives, on the trail.
The situation of Valdez is absolutely unique. The dauntlessness of a
city that would boldly found itself upon a glacier has proved too much
for even the glacier, and it is rapidly withdrawing, as if to make room
for its intrepid rival in interest. Yet it still is so close that, from
the water, it appears as though one might reach out and touch it. The
wide blue bay sparkles in front, and snow peaks surround it.
Beautiful, oh, most beautiful, are those peaks at dawn, at sunset, at
midnight, at noon. The summer nights in Valdez are never dark; and I
have often stood at midnight and watched the amethyst lights on the
mountains darken to violet, purple, black,--while the peaks themselves
stood white and still, softly outlined against the sky.
But in winter, when mountains, glacier, city, trees, lie white and
sparkling beneath the large and brilliant stars, and the sea alone is
dark--to stand then and see the great golden moon rising slowly,
vibrating, pushing, oh, so silently, so beautifully, above the clear
line of snow into the dark blue sky--that is worth ten years of living.
"Why do you not go out to 'the states,' as so many other ladies do in
winter?" I asked a grave-eyed young wife on my first visit, not knowing
that she belonged to the great Alaskan order of "Stout Hearts and Strong
Hearts"--the only order in Alaska that is for women and men.
She looked at me and smiled. Her eyes went to the mountains, and they
grew almost as wistful and sweet as the eyes of a young mother watching
her sleeping child. Then they came back to me, grave and kind.
"Oh," said she, "how can I tell you why? You have never seen the moon
come over those mountains in winter, nor the winter stars shining above
the sea."
That was all. She could not put it into words more clearly than that;
but he that runs may read.
The site of Valdez is as level as a parade ground to the bases of the
near mountains, which rise in sheer, bold sweeps. A line of alders,
willows, cotton woods, and balms follows the glacial stream that flows
down to the sea on each side of the town.
The glacier behind the town--now called a "dead" glacier--once
discharged bergs directly into the sea. The soil upon which the town is
built is all glacial deposit. Flowers spring up and bloom in a day.
Vegetables thrive and are crisp and delicious--particularly lettuce.
Society is gay in Valdez, as in most Alaskan towns. Fort Liscum is
situated across the bay, so near that the distance between is travelled
in fifteen minutes by launch. Dances, receptions, card-parties, and
dinners, at Valdez and at the fort, occur several times each week, and
the social line is drawn as rigidly here as in larger communities.
There is always a dance in Valdez on "steamer night." The officers and
their wives come over from the fort; the officers of the ship are
invited, as are any passengers who may bear letters of introduction or
who may be introduced by the captain of the ship. A large and brightly
lighted ballroom, beautiful women, handsomely and fashionably gowned,
good music, and a genuine spirit of hospitality make these functions
brilliant.
The women of Alaska dress more expensively than in "the states." Paris
gowns, the most costly furs, and dazzling jewels are everywhere seen in
the larger towns.
All travellers in Alaska unite in enthusiastic praise of its unique and
generous hospitality. From the time of Baranoff's lavish, and frequently
embarrassing, banquets to the refined entertainments of to-day, northern
hospitality has been a proverb.
"Petnatchit copla" is still the open sesame.