Westward from the Gulf of Georgia is Vancouver Island, stretching
parallel to the coast and nearly three hundred miles long, the larger
part of it being composed of mountains, some reaching an elevation of
over seven thousand feet. It has fine forests and valuable coal mines
at Nanaimo and Wellington, which furnish fuel supplies along the
Pacific coast. The redoubtable Spanish adventurer, Juan de Fuca,
discovered it in 1592, and his name was given the strait at its
southern extremity, separating the island from the United States. The
Spaniards held it until near the close of the eighteenth century, when
Captain George Vancouver came with a squadron and it was surrendered
to the English by the Spanish Governor Quadra, its name afterwards
being called for many years Quadra and Vancouver, after the two
officers. Upon a little harbor at the southeastern extremity in 1842,
the Hudson Bay Company established Fort Victoria, which has since
become the capital of the Province of British Columbia. This is a
pleasant city of twenty-five thousand population, having an extensive
Chinese quarter. To the westward is the important British naval
station and dockyard of Esquimalt, upon an admirable land-locked
harbor of large capacity.
For over a thousand miles, a series of internal waters behind large
islands, with bays, straits and archipelagoes, lead northward from the
Gulf of Georgia to Alaska, making one of the most admirable scenic
routes in America. Their shores are high mountains covered with superb
forests, and the voyage over these waters is most attractive. From the
Gulf of Georgia the route passes through Discovery Passage, the
Seymour Narrows (where the tide rushes sometimes at twelve knots an
hour), Johnstone Strait, Broughton Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound.
North of Vancouver Island there is a short passage on the open sea and
then Fitzhugh Sound is entered, opening into the Lama Passage and
Seaforth Channel to Millbank Sound, where there is another brief open
sea journey. Then various interior waters lead to Greenville Channel
and Chatham Sound. High mountains are everywhere, and deep, narrow
fiords run far up into the land, the journey displaying so much
magnificent scenery that the mind soon becomes satiated with the
excessive supply of unadulterated grandeur. In this region is the
Nasse River, where in the spring the Indians catch the Oulichan or
"candle-fish," which gives them light, this fish being so full of oil
that when dry and provided with a wick it burns like a candle. Just
beyond is the boundary of Alaska at fifty-four degrees forty minutes
north latitude, the famous "fifty-four forty or fight" boundary of
1843, when the United States claimed that Oregon extended up to the
Russian territory at that latitude, but afterwards abandoned the
claim. Alaska is a very large country, exceeding one-sixth the area of
the United States, and was bought from Russia by Secretary Seward in
1867 for $7,200,000, a price then deemed extravagant, but the purchase
has been enormously profitable. The name is derived from the Indian
_Al-ay-ek-sha_, meaning the "Great land." Besides its large extent of
main land, it includes some fifteen thousand islands, and its enormous
river, the Yukon, flowing into the Behring Sea, has a delta sixty
miles wide at its mouth, is three thousand miles long, and is
navigable for almost two thousand miles. Although Alaska's
productiveness seems just beginning to be realized, yet it has yielded
in gold and furs, fish and other products, since the purchase, over
$150,000,000.
[Illustration: _Sitka, Alaska, from the Sea_]
Within Alaska, the route of exploration continues through Clarence
Strait to the Alexander Archipelago, comprising several thousand
islands, many of which are mountainous, and about eleven hundred of
the larger ones have been charted. Here is Fort Wrangell, seven
hundred miles from Victoria, on one of the islands, a little
settlement named after Baron Wrangell, the Russian Governor of Alaska
in 1834. Upon landing, the visitors see the Indians and their
chief curiosity, the "totem poles," erected in front of their houses,
and carved with rude figures emblematic of the owner and his
ancestors. These poles are twenty to sixty feet in height, and two to
five feet in diameter. The natives are divided into clans, of which
the Whale, the Eagle, the Wolf and the Raven are the chief
representatives and are said to have been the progenitors. These are
also carved on the poles and show the intermarriages of ancestors, the
leading families having the most elaborate poles. Beyond Fort Wrangell
are Soukhoi Channel and Frederick Sound, leading into Chatham Strait,
having on its western side Baranoff Island, on the outer edge of which
is Sitka Sound. Here is Sitka, the capital of Alaska, in a
well-protected bay dotted with pleasant islands in front and having
snow-covered mountains for a high background. Alexander Baranoff
founded the town in 1804, the first Russian Governor of Alaska, and
there are now about twelve hundred inhabitants, mostly Indians. The
old wooden Baranoff Castle, which was the residence of the Russian
Governors, is on a hill near the landing-place. The main street leads
past the Greek Church, surmounted with its bulbous spire, having six
sweet-toned bells brought from Moscow, and adjoining it are various
old-time log houses built by the early Russians. The church is still
maintained by the Russian Government. The visitors buy curiosities and
invest their small change in the Indians who get up monotonous dances
or exciting canoe races for their amusement. It is a curious fact
that, owing to the _Kuro Siwo_, or Japanese warm current coming across
the Pacific, Sitka has a mild and most equable climate, the summer
temperature averaging 54° and the winter 32°, the thermometer seldom
falling to zero.
The Stephens Passage leads north from Frederick Sound, and into it
opens Taku Inlet, a large fiord displaying fine glaciers. Here at
Holkham Bay in 1876 began the first placer gold-mining in Alaska. Just
beyond is Gastineaux Channel, between the mainland and Douglas Island.
Upon its eastern bank, nine hundred miles from Victoria, is Juneau,
the largest town in Alaska, having fifteen hundred population, about
half of them whites; an American settlement, begun in 1880 under
Yankee auspices, and named after the nephew of the founder of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The people are mostly gold-miners. The little
white houses are on a narrow strip of comparatively level land along
the shore, having a high and precipitous mountain behind. Juneau deals
in furs and Chilkat blankets, the latter, when genuine, being made of
the hair of mountain-goats and colored with native dyes. It is also a
starting-point for the Klondyke and Yukon regions. Across the narrow
strait, upon Douglas Island, is the famous Treadwell gold-mine, having
three enormous ore-crushing mills, the largest in the world,
aggregating nearly eight hundred stamps. This is a huge mountain of
gold-ore which John Treadwell bought in 1882 from its owner for $430.
It has paid since then $9,000,000 in dividends, and now with increased
output crushes three thousand tons of ore daily, netting $4 gold per
ton, and pours into the laps of the Rothschilds, its present owners,
probably $2,000,000 annually from the enlarged product. The ore
actually in sight in the mountain is estimated to be worth five times
as much as was originally paid for the whole of Alaska. There is a
native Indian cemetery adjoining Juneau, having curious little huts
containing the cremated remains of the dead, with each one's personal
effects.