Victoria, Vancouver’s Island.—Esquimalt.—Chinamen.—Remarkable Flora.—
Suburbs of the Town.—Native Tribes.—Cossacks of the Sea.—Manners and
Customs.—The Early Discoverer.—Sailing in the Inland Sea.—
Excursionists.—Mount St. Elias.—Mount Fairweather.—A Mount Olympus.—
Seymour Narrows.—Night on the Waters.—A Touch of the Pacific.
The city of Victoria contains twelve thousand inhabitants, more or less,
and is situated just seventy miles from the mainland; but beyond the
fact that it is a naval station, commanding the entrance to the British
possessions from the Pacific, we see nothing to conduce to the future
growth of Victoria beyond that of any other place on the sound. The
aspect is that of an old, steady-going, conservative town, undisturbed
by the bustle, activity, and business life of such places as Tacoma and
Seattle. Vancouver, on the opposite shore, being the terminus of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, bids fair to soon exceed it in business
importance, though it has to-day less than ten thousand inhabitants. The
population of Victoria is highly cosmopolitan in its character, being of
American, French, German, English, Spanish, and Chinese origin. Of the
latter there are fully three thousand. They are the successful
market-gardeners of Victoria, a position they fill in many of the
English colonies of the Pacific, also performing the public laundry work
here, as we find them doing in so many other places. In the hotels they
are employed as house-servants, cooks, and waiters. Yet every Chinaman
who lands here, the same as in Australia and New Zealand, is compelled
to pay a tax of fifty dollars entrance fee. The surprise is that such an
arbitrary rule does not act as a bar to Asiatic immigration; but it
certainly does not have that effect, while it yields quite a revenue to
the local treasury. At most ports the importation or landing of Chinese
women is forbidden, but some of the gayest representatives of the sex
are to be seen in the streets of Victoria, with bare heads, having their
intensely black hair, shining with grease, dressed in large puffs. The
heavy Canton silks in which they are clothed indicate that they have
plenty of money. They affect gaudy colors, and wear heavy jade
ear-rings, with breastpins of the same stone set in gold. The lewd
character of the Chinese women who leave their native land in search of
foreign homes is so well known as to fully warrant the prohibition
relative to their landing in American or British ports. The effort to
exclude them is, however, not infrequently a failure, as with a trifling
disguise male and female look so much alike as to deceive an ordinary
observer. The Asiatics are up to all sorts of tricks to evade what they
consider arbitrary laws.
Officially Victoria is English, but in population it is anything else
rather than English. Until 1858 it was only a small trading station
belonging to the Hudson Bay Company; but in that year the discovery of
gold on the bar of the Fraser River and elsewhere in the vicinity caused
a great influx of miners and prospectors, mostly from California, and it
was this circumstance which gave the place a business start and large
degree of importance. The houses are many of them built of stone and
bricks, the gardens being also neatly inclosed. The streets are
macadamized and kept in excellent order. The city is lighted by electric
lamps placed on poles over a hundred feet high, and has many modern
improvements designed to benefit the people at large, including large
public buildings and a fine opera house.
The harbor of Victoria is small, and has only sufficient depth to
accommodate vessels drawing eighteen feet of water; but near at hand is
a second harbor, known as Esquimalt, with sufficient depth for all
practical purposes. If quiet is an element of charm, then Victoria is
charming; but we must add that it is also rather sleepy and tame. It
might be centuries old, everything moving, as it does, in grooves.
Business people get to their offices at about ten o’clock in the
morning, and leave them by three in the afternoon. There is no evidence
here of the fever of living, no symptom of the go-ahead spirit which
actuates their Yankee neighbors across the sound.
Esquimalt is situated but three or four miles from Victoria, and is the
headquarters of the English Pacific squadron, where two or three British
men-of-war are nearly always to be seen in the harbor, and where there
is also a very capacious dry-dock and a naval arsenal. At the time of
our visit a couple of swift little torpedo-boats were exercising about
the harbor and the sound. The well-wooded shore is dressed in “Lincoln
green,” far more tropical than boreal. The many pleasing residences are
surrounded with pretty garden-plots, and flowers abound. We have rarely
seen so handsome an array of cultivated roses as were found here. So
equable is the climate that these flowers bloom all the year round. A
macadamized road connects Esquimalt with Victoria, running between
fragrant hedges, past charming cottages, and through delightful pine
groves. We see here a flora of great variety and attractiveness, which
could not exist in this latitude without an unusually high degree of
temperature, accompanied with a great condensation of vapor and
precipitation of rain. Victoria is admirably situated, with the sea on
three sides and a background of high-rolling hills, and also enjoys an
exceptionally good climate, almost entirely devoid of extremes.
The suburbs are thickly wooded, where palm-like fern-trees a dozen feet
high, and in great abundance, recalled specimens of the same family,
hardly more thrivingly developed, which the writer has seen in the
islands of the South Pacific. The wild rose-bushes were overburdened
with their wealth of fragrant bloom; we saw them in June, the favorite
month of this queen of flowers. No wonder that Marchand, the old French
voyager, when he found himself here on a soft June day, nearly a century
ago, amid the annual carnival of flowers, compared these fields to the
rose-colored and perfumed slopes of Bulgaria. If the reader should ever
come to this charming spot in the far Northwest, it is the author’s hope
that he may see it beneath just such mellow summer sunshine as glows
about us while we record these pleasant impressions in the queen-month
of roses. Glutinously rich vines of various-colored honeysuckles were
draped about the porticoes of the dwellings, whence they hung with a
self-conscious grace, as though they realized how much beauty they
imparted to the surroundings. The drone of bees and swift-winged
humming-birds were not wanting, and the air was laden with their
delicious perfume. The wild syringas, which in a profusion of snow-white
blossoms lined the shaded roads here and there, were as fragrant as
orange-blossoms, which, indeed, they much resemble. The air was also
heavy with a dull, sweet smell of mingled blossoms, among which was the
tall, graceful spirea with its cream-colored flowers, so thickly set as
to hide the leaves and branches. The maple leaves are twice the usual
size, and fruit trees bend to the very ground with their wealth of
pears, apples, and peaches. The alders, like the ferns, assume the size
of trees, and cultivated flowers grow to astonishing proportions and
beauty. The bark-shedding arbutus was noticeable for its peculiar habit,
and its bare, salmon-colored trunk contrasting with its neighbors.
A portion of the site of Victoria is set aside as a reservation, and
named Beacon Hill Park, containing choice trees and pleasant paths
bordered with delicate shrubbery. But the whole place is park-like in
its attractive picturesqueness. In the interior of the island there is
said to be plenty of game, such as elk and red deer, foxes and beaver.
These forests are dense and scarcely explored; sportsmen do not have to
penetrate them far to find an abundance of game, so that in the open
season venison is abundant and cheap in the town.
British Columbia, of which this city is the capital, embraces all that
portion of North America lying north of the United States and west of
the Rocky Mountains to the Alaska line. Its area is three hundred and
forty thousand square miles, and it certainly possesses more intrinsic
wealth than any other portion of the Dominion, except the eastern cities
of Canada. It is but sparsely settled, and its natural resources are
quite undeveloped.
The well-constructed roads in and about Victoria give it an advantage
over most newly settled places, and the idea is worthy of all
commendation. The seaward, or western shore of Vancouver, overlooking
the North Pacific is very rocky, and is indented by frequent arms of the
sea, like the fjords of Scandinavia, while the surface of the island is
generally mountainous.
The Haidas and the Timplons are the two native tribes of Vancouver, who
are represented to have once been very numerous, brave, and warlike.
Some of their canoes were eighty feet long, and most substantially
constructed, being capable of carrying seventy-five fighting men, with
their bows, arrows, spears, and shields of thick walrus hide. These
war-boats were made from the trunk of a single tree, shaped and hollowed
in fine nautical lines, so as to make them swift and buoyant, as well as
quite safe in these inland waters. In these frail craft the natives were
perfectly at home, and excited the admiration of the early navigators by
the skill they displayed in managing them, so that Admiral Lütke named
them the “Cossacks of the Sea.”
But the Haidas, like the tribes of the Aleutian islands and the Alaska
groups generally, have rapidly dwindled into insignificance—slowly
fading away. People who subsist on fish and oil as staples can hardly be
expected to evince much enterprise or industry. It cannot be denied,
however, that as a race they appear much more intelligent and
self-reliant than the aborigines of our Western States. Vincent Colyer,
special Indian commissioner, says with regard to the natives of the
southern part of Alaska and the Alexander Archipelago: “I do not
hesitate to say that if three fourths of these Alaska Indians were
landed in New York as coming from Europe, they would be selected as
among the most intelligent of the many worthy emigrants who daily arrive
at that port.”
When these islands were first discovered by the whites, the native
tribes occupying them were almost constantly at war one with another.
The different tribes even to-day show no sympathy for each other, nor
will they admit that they are of the same origin. Each has some theory
of its exclusiveness and independence, all of which is a puzzle to
ethnologists.
There seems never to have been any union of interest entertained among
them. Before and after the advent of the Russians tribal wars raged
among them incessantly. Blood was the only recognized atonement for
offenses, and must be washed out by blood; thus vengeance was kept
alive, and civil war was endless. Bancroft in his “Native Races of the
Pacific” tells us that the Aleuts are still fond of pantomimic
performances; of representing in dances their myths and their legends;
of acting out a chase, one assuming the part of hunter, another of a
bird or beast trying to escape the snare, now succeeding, now failing,
until finally a captive bird is transformed into an attractive woman,
who falls exhausted into the hunter’s arms.
With well-screened foot-lights, verdant woodland surroundings,
characters assumed by a trained ballet troupe, framed in the usual
proscenium boxes, with orchestra in front, this would be a fitting
entertainment for a first-class Boston or New York audience.
The Indians, or portions of the native race, seen in and about the
streets of Victoria are of the most squalid character, dirty and
unintelligent, being altogether repulsive to look upon.
The Indians of the west coast of the island are brought less in contact
with the whites, and still keep up to a certain extent their native
manners and customs, wearing fewer garments of civilization, and being
satisfied with a single blanket as a covering during some portions of
the year. They are fond of wearing curiously carved wooden masks at all
their festivals,—some representing the head of a bear, some that of a
huge bird, and others forming exaggerated human faces. There seems to be
a spirit of caricature prevailing among them, as it does among the
Chinese and Japanese.
These Vancouver aborigines have an original and extraordinary method of
expressing their warm regard for each other, in isolated districts where
they are quite by themselves. When they meet, instead of grasping hands
or embracing, they bite each other’s shoulders, and the scars thus
produced are regarded with considerable satisfaction by the recipient.
Their sacred rites are sanguinary, and their notions of religion are of
a vague and incomprehensible kind. They believe in omens and sorcery,
suffering as much from fear of supernatural evil as the most benighted
African tribes. The west coast of Vancouver is nearly always bleak; the
great waves of the North Pacific breaking upon it, even in quiet
weather, with fierce grandeur, roaring sullenly among the rocks and
caves.
The distant view from the eastern side of Vancouver is of a most
charming character, embracing the blue Olympic range of mountains in the
State of Washington, whose heads are turbaned with snow, while the lofty
undulating peaks, taken _en masse_, resemble the fiercely agitated waves
of the sea; a view which vividly recalled the Bernese Alps as seen from
the city of Berne.
Vancouver is the largest island on the Pacific coast, and is well
diversified with mountains, valleys, and long stretches of low pleasant
shore. Its name commemorates that of one of the world’s great explorers.
Vancouver had served, previous to these notable explorations, as an
officer under Captain Cook for two long and eventful voyages, and was
thus well fitted for a discoverer and pioneer. He made a careful survey
of Puget Sound with all of its channels, inlets, and bays, and wrote a
faithful description of the coast of the mainland as well as of the
islands. Though this was about a century ago, so faithfully did he
perform his work that his charts are still regarded as good authority,
though not absolutely perfect.
That practical seaman, in his sailing-ship, puts us to shame with all
our science and steam facilities as regards surveys of this complicated
region. The coast survey organization of the United States has done
little more than to corroborate a portion of Vancouver’s work. It is
surprising that the government should neglect to properly explore and
define by maps the islands, channels, and straits of the North Pacific
coast. Notwithstanding our boasted enterprise, we are behind every power
of Europe in these maritime matters.
The island of Vancouver has an area of eighteen thousand square miles,
and is therefore larger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
and Delaware combined. It is only by these familiar comparisons that we
can hope to convey clearly to the mind of the average reader such
statistical facts, and cause them to be remembered.
Reference has been made to the favorable climate of Victoria. We should
state that the maximum summer temperature is 84° Fah., and the minimum
of the year is 22°.
From here our course lies in a northwest direction, leading through the
broad Gulf of Georgia, which separates Vancouver from British Columbia.
The magnificent ermine-clad head of Mount Baker is seen, for many hours,
to the east of our course, looming far, far above the clouds, and
radiating the glowing beauty of the sunset, which happened to be
exceptionally fine at the close of our first day out from Victoria. The
atmosphere, sea, and horizon were all the color of gold. The surface of
the water was unbroken by a ripple, while it flashed in opaline variety
the brilliant hues of the evening hour. The grand scenery which we
encounter foreshadows the character of the voyage of a thousand miles,
more or less, northward, to the locality of the great glaciers, forming
a vast interior line of navigation unequaled elsewhere for bold shores,
depth of water, numberless bays, and inviting harbors. The course is
bordered for most of the distance with continuous forests, distinctly
reflected in the placid surface of these straits and sounds. At times
the passage, perhaps not more than a mile in width, is lined on either
side with mountains of granite, whose dizzy heights are capped with
snow, up whose precipitous sides spruce and pine trees struggle for a
foothold, and clinging there thrive strangely upon food afforded by
stones and atmospheric air. Occasionally we pass some deep, dark fjord,
which pierces the mountains far inland, presenting mysterious and
unexplored vistas. We come upon the island of San Juan, not long after
leaving Victoria, which was for a considerable period a source of
serious contention between England and America, the ownership being
finally settled by arbitration, and awarded to us by the Late Emperor of
Germany. San Juan is remarkable for producing limestone in sufficient
quantity to keep scores of lime-kilns occupied for a hundred years. The
island was only important to us by its position, and as establishing
certain boundary lines.
Now and again smoke is seen winding upwards from some rude but
comfortable cabin on the shore, where a white settler and his Indian
wife live in semi-civilized style. A rude garden patch adjoins the
cabin, carpeted with thriving root crops, bordered by currant and
gooseberry bushes, while numerous wooden frames are reared close by on
which to dry salmon, cod, and halibut for winter use. Three or four
half-breed children, with a marvelous wealth of hair, and clothed in a
single garment reaching to the knees, watch us with open eyes and mouths
as we glide along the smooth water-way. At last the father’s attention
is called to us by the exclamations of the papooses, and he waves us a
salute with his slouchy fur cap. It is only a little spot on the lonely
shore, but it is all the world to the squatter and his brood. One pauses
mentally for an instant to contrast this type of lonely existence with
the fierce and furious tide of life which exists in populous cities.
Steamers, sailing craft, or native canoes have no storms to encounter
here; the course is almost wholly sheltered, while coal or wood can be
procured at nearly any place where the steamer chooses to stop. The
fierce swell of the Pacific, so very near at hand, is completely warded
off by the broad and beautiful islands of Vancouver, Queen Charlotte,
Prince of Wales, Baranoff, and Chichagoff, which form a matchless
panorama as they slowly pass, day after day, clad in thrifty verdure,
before the eyes of the delighted voyager. Throughout so many hours of
close observation one never wearies of the charming scene.
The trip between Victoria and Pyramid Harbor, in many of its features,
recalls the voyage from Tromsöe, on the coast of Norway, to the North
Cape, where the traveler beholds the grand phenomenon of the midnight
sun,—passing over deep, still waters, winding through groups of lovely
islands, covered with primeval forests and veined with minerals, amidst
the grandest of Alpine scenery, where the nearer mountain peaks are clad
in misty purple and those far away are wrapped in snow shrouds, where
signs of human life are seldom seen, and the deep silence of the passage
is broken only by the shrill cry of some wandering sea-bird. In both of
these northern regions, situated in opposite hemispheres, grand
mountains, volcanic peaks, and mammoth glaciers form the guiding
landmarks. The glaciers of Alaska are not only many times as large as
anything of the sort in Switzerland, but they have the added charm of
the ever-changing beauties of the sea, thus altogether forming scenery
of peculiar and incomparable grandeur. One often finds examples of the
Scotch and Italian lakes repeated again and again on this inland voyage,
where the delightful tranquillity of the waters so adds to the
appearance of profound depth. It requires but little stretch of the
imagination to believe one’s self upon the Lake of Como or Lake
Maggiore.
The enjoyment afforded to the intelligent tourist on this delightful
route of travel is being more and more appreciated annually, as clearly
evinced by the fact that over two thousand excursionists participated in
the trips of steamers from Puget Sound to Sitka last year, by way of
Glacier Bay and Pyramid Harbor, representing nearly every State in the
Union, and also embracing many European travelers. “I thought it would
be as cold as Greenland,” said one of these tourists to us; “but after
leaving Port Townsend I hardly once had occasion to wear my overcoat,
night or day, during the whole of the fourteen days’ summer voyage
through Alaska’s Inland Sea. The thermometer ranged between 68° and 78°
during the whole trip, while the pleasant daylight never quite faded out
of the sky.”
Mount St. Elias, inexpressibly grand in its proportions, is probably the
highest mountain in Alaska, and, indeed, is one of the half dozen
loftiest peaks on the globe, reaching the remarkable height of nearly
twenty thousand feet, according to the United States Coast Survey. It
may fall short of, or it may exceed, this measurement by a few hundred
feet. Owing to the low point to which the line of perpetual snow
descends in this latitude, St. Elias is believed to present the greatest
snow climb of all known mountains. Another notable peculiarity of this
grand elevation is, like that of Tacoma, in its springing at once from
the level of the Pacific Ocean, whereas most mountains, like those of
Colorado, Norway, and Switzerland, say of twelve or fourteen thousand
feet in height, rise from a plain already two or three thousand feet
above sea level, detracting just so much from their effectiveness upon
the eye, and from their apparent elevation. Vitus Behring, a Dane by
birth and the discoverer of the strait which bears his name, first
sighted this mountain on St. Elias’ day, and so gave it the name which
it bears. When the American whalemen on the coast saw the summit of
Mount Fairweather from the sea, they felt sure that some days of fair
weather would follow, hence we have the expressive name which is
bestowed upon it. Mount St. Elias, with its snow and ice mantle reaching
nearly down to sea level, is higher than any elevation in Norway or
Switzerland, rising from its base in pyramid form, straight, regular,
and massive, to three times the height of our New England giant in the
White Mountain range of New Hampshire, namely, Mount Washington. Only
the Himalayas and the Andes exceed it in altitude. Eleven glaciers are
known to come down from the south side of St. Elias, one of which, named
Agassiz Glacier, is estimated to be twenty miles in width and fifty in
length, covering an area of a thousand square miles!
Fairweather is situated about two hundred miles southeast of Mount St.
Elias, its hoary head being often visible a hundred miles and more at
sea; rising above the fogs and clouds, its summit is recognizable while
all other land is far below the horizon. We were told that when the
earthquake occurred at Sitka in 1847, this mountain emitted huge volumes
of smoke and vapor. The force of volcanic action in Alaska is, however,
evidently diminishing, though occasional slight shocks of earthquakes
are experienced, especially on the outlying islands of the Aleutian
group and near the mouth of Cook’s Inlet.
Besides these loftiest mountains named,—“Rough quarries, rocks, and
hills whose heads touch heaven,”—Mount Cook, Mount Crillon, and Mount
Wrangel should not be forgotten. Lieutenant H. T. Allen, U. S. A., makes
the height of the latter exceed that of Mount St. Elias, but we think it
very questionable. This officer’s statement that Mount Wrangel is the
birthplace of some of the largest glaciers known to exist seems much
more likely to be correct. In this region, therefore, this far northwest
territory of the United States, we find the highest elevations on the
North American continent. The mountain ranges of California and Montana
unite with the Rocky Mountains, and turning to the south and west form
the Alaska Peninsula, finally disappearing in the North Pacific, except
where a high peak appears now and then, raising its rocky crest above
the sea, like a giant standing breast-high in the ocean, and thus they
form the Aleutian chain of treeless islands, which stretch away westward
towards the opposite continent. That these islands are all connected
beneath the sea, from Attoo, the most distant, to where they join the
Alaska Peninsula, is made manifest by the exhibition of volcanic
sympathy. When one of the lofty summits emits smoke or fiery débris the
others are similarly affected, or at least experience slight shocks of
earthquake. So the several islands which form the Hawaiian group are
believed to be joined below the ocean depths, and several, if not all,
of the islands of the West Indies are considered to be similarly
connected.
This has been in some period, long ago, a very active volcanic region,
as the lofty peaks, both among the Aleutian Islands and on the mainland,
which emit more or less smoke and ashes, clearly testify; not only
suggestive of the past, but significant of possible contingencies in the
future. There are, in fact, according to the best authorities, sixty-one
volcanic peaks in Alaska. One of the extinct volcanoes near Sitka, Mount
Edgecombe, according to the Coast Pilot, has a dimension at the ancient
crater of two thousand feet across, and an elevation of over three
thousand feet above the sea. The depth of the crater is said to be three
hundred feet. From the top, radiating downwards in singular regularity,
are the deep red gorges scored by the burning lava in its fiery course,
as thrown out of the crater less than a hundred years ago.
This is a Mount Olympus for the natives, about which many ancient myths
are told by these imaginative aborigines.
For more than twenty-four hours after sailing from Victoria the
irregular, kelp-fringed shore of Vancouver, which is three hundred miles
long, is seen on our left, until presently the large, iron-bearing
island of Texada, with its tall summit, appears on the right of our
course. The magnetic ore found here in abundance is of such purity as to
render it suitable for the manufacture of the highest grade of steel,
and it is shipped to the furnaces at Seattle and elsewhere for this
purpose.
It is found in pursuing the voyage northward that the fierce tide-way
prevailing in some of the deep, narrow channels produces such turbulent
rapids that steamers are obliged to wait for a favorable condition of
the waters before attempting their passage, as the adverse current runs
at the rate of nine miles an hour. This was especially the case in the
Seymour Narrows, which is about nine hundred yards wide, and situated at
no great distance from Nanaimo, in the Gulf of Georgia. It is a far more
tumultuous water-way, at certain stages of the tide—which has a rise and
fall of thirteen feet—than the famous Maelstrom on the coast of Norway.
The latter is also caused by the power of the wind and tide, though it
was long held as the mystery and terror of the ocean.
The author remembers in his school geography a crude woodcut, which
depicted a ship being drawn by some mysterious power into a gaping
vortex of the ocean, and already half submerged. It was intended to
represent the terrible perils of passing too near the Maelstrom, off the
Lofoden Islands. In after years he sailed quietly across this once
dreaded spot in the North Sea, without experiencing even an extra lurch
of the ship. Thus do the marvels and terrors of youth melt away. Travel
and experience make great havoc in the wonderland of our credulity, and
yet modern discovery outdoes in reality the miracles of the past.
A powerful steamer which attempted to pass through the Seymour Narrows
at an unfavorable state of the water, last season, was unable to make
way against the current, and came near being wrecked. By crowding on all
steam she succeeded in holding her position until the waters subsided,
though she made no headway for two hours. It was here that the United
States steamer Saranac was lost a few years since, being caught at
disadvantage in the seething waters, and forced upon the mid-channel
rocks. Her hull now lies seventy fathoms below the surface of the sea.
Since this event took place the United States ship Suwanee struck on an
unknown rock farther north, and was also totally wrecked. Perhaps after
a few more national vessels are lost in these channels our government
will awaken from its lethargy, and have a proper survey made and
reliable charts issued of this important coast and its intricate
water-ways. A single vessel is now engaged in this survey, but half a
dozen should be employed in Alaskan waters. Nanaimo is situated on the
east side of Vancouver Island, seventy miles from Victoria, with which
it is connected by railroad. It is a thrifty little town, mainly
supported by the coal interest, though there are two or three
manufacturing establishments. The extensive coal mines in its
neighborhood are of great value, and are constantly worked. These coal
deposits are of the bituminous sort, particularly well adapted for
steamboat use, and are so situated as to facilitate the growing commerce
of these islands. Many thousands of tons are shipped during the summer
months to San Francisco. We are told that it cost the proprietors of
these coal mines one dollar and a half a ton to place the product on
board steamers, which on arriving at San Francisco fetches from twelve
to fifteen dollars per ton. There are five mines worked here, giving
employment to some two thousand men, who receive two dollars and a half
per day as laborers.
There is not a lighthouse upon any headland amid all of these meandering
channels, though it must be admitted that navigation is rarely impeded
for want of light in summer, as one can see to read common print at
midnight upon the ship’s deck without artificial aid any time during the
traveling or excursion season of the year.
Now and again we look ahead inquiringly as we thread the labyrinth of
islands and wonder how egress is possible from the many mountainous
cliffs rising, sullen and frowning, directly in the steamer’s course.
The exit from this maze is quite invisible; but presently there is a
swift turn of the wheel, the rudder promptly responds, and we gracefully
round a projecting point into another lonely, far-reaching channel
framed by granite peaks a thousand feet in height.
At night, when all but the watch were sleeping, how gaunt and weird
stood forth those tall, black sentinel rocks, past which we were gliding
so silently, while overhead was spread the broad firmanent of space,
dimly lighted by heaven’s distant lamps! How suggestive the dark,
mysterious shadows! how active the imagination! Was the atmosphere
indeed peopled with the invisible spirits of bygone ages? Did the
air-waves vibrate with the history of the long, long past, the unknown
story of these silent fjords and deep water gorges? Is it only
thousands, or tens of thousands, of years since the first human beings
appeared and disappeared among these now wild, untrodden shores?
The inlets which are found at the head of the Gulf of Georgia, northeast
of Vancouver Island, are miniature Norwegian fjords, deeper and darker
than the sombre Saguenay; a hundred and eighty fathoms of line will not
reach the bottom. They are from forty to sixty miles in length, with an
average width of nearly two miles, being walled by abrupt mountains from
four to seven thousand feet in height. A grand elevation, whose name has
escaped us, stands eight thousand feet above the sea at the head of
Butte Inlet, while Mount Alfred, at the head of Jarvis Inlet, is still
higher. A remarkable feature of these elongated arms of the sea is their
great depth, some of them measuring over three hundred fathoms. It is a
popular idea that the phosphorescence of the sea is exhibited in its
strongest effect in the tropics; but we have seen in the Gulf of
Georgia, after sunset, so brilliant an illumination from this cause that
it was only comparable to liquid fire, quite equal in intensity to
anything the author has witnessed in the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean
Sea. It is impossible to convey by the pen an idea of the novel splendor
of the scene. A drop of this flame-like water, dipped from the sea in
equatorial or Arctic waters and placed under the microscope is found to
be teeming with the most curious living and active organisms. These
myriads of tiny creatures are so minute that, were it not for the
revelations of the microscope, we should not even know of their
existence. Nor are these infinitesimal objects the smallest
representatives of animal life; glasses of greater power will show still
more diminutive creatures.
Persons who are accustomed to make sea-voyages do not forget to supply
themselves with a good but inexpensive microscope, for use on shipboard.
The abundant specimens of minute animal and vegetable life which the sea
affords, form a source of instructive amusement by which many otherwise
monotonous hours are pleasantly beguiled. A little familiarity with the
instrument enables one to profitably entertain a whole ship’s company
with its powers.
In the region between Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Island we cross an
open reach of the sea, and while the Pacific swell tosses us about after
the usual erratic fashion of its unpacific waters, we observe a few
ocean sights which serve pleasantly to vary the experience of the trip.
A school of humpback whales put in an appearance, full of sport and
frolic, in such extraordinary numbers that three or four are seen in the
act of spouting all the while. In spots the sea is yellow, where its
surface is covered for acres together with that animated food for other
piscatory creatures, the jelly-fish. The shining, furry head of a
sea-lion comes up to the surface now and again, gazing curiously at us
with big, glassy eyes, and turning its face nimbly from side to side. A
school of porpoises play about the hull of the steamer, leaping high out
of the water and falling back again in graceful curves. The only shark
we chanced to meet with on the entire voyage was observed in our wake
just before entering Smith’s Sound, south of Calvert Island. In this
region the huge gona-bird was seen sailing slowly on the wing, recalling
the albatross of the low latitudes in its long, lazy sweeps, as well as
by its size and gracefulness. These bird-monarchs of the north measure
eight feet from tip to tip, and glide with or against the wind on their
broad, outspread pinions without the least visible muscular exertion, a
mystery of motive power which is sure to challenge the observer’s
curiosity.
In the narrow passages the tall peaks, arched by the soft gray of the
clouds and the clear blue of the sky, cast deep shadows where the water
looked like pools of ink, whose blackness intensified the fact of their
great but unknown depth.
The American whalers have never been accustomed to seek their big game
in these immediate waters, preferring to attack the leviathans in lesser
depths, such as the waters of Behring Sea, or farther north in the
vicinity of the strait, between the frozen ocean and the North Pacific.
There, if a whale dove after being struck by the harpoon, he was sure
very soon to fetch up in the muddy bottom; but here, among the channels
of the islands, he might dive, and dive again, to almost any depth, and
unless great care was taken he was liable in his lightning-like velocity
to carry down with him a whole boat’s crew and all their belongings.
Were it not that the whaling industry has gradually declined here, as it
has done in all other sections of the globe, the possession of Alaska,
with its great number of safe harbors, would be an invaluable boon to
those of our countrymen engaged in that branch of commercial enterprise.
Inland sea travel is the perfection of steamboating, but the
rapidly-changing landscape of these wild Alaskan shores, rimmed with
sharp volcanic peaks, at last wearies the senses, and one is forced to
seek a brief intermission by finding rest in sleep, only, however, to
again renew the charm with greater zest on the morrow.
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