The Present Age of Expansion and World Commerce
Population and Productions of the Region on the River and its
Tributaries--Extent of its Navigability--Improvements Needed--Kinds of
Traffic--Local Traffic--Transcontinental Traffic--World
Traffic--Advantages of the River Route for these Kinds of Traffic--The
Bar--The Competition of Puget Sound--The Combination of River Route
and Sound Route.
We have traced the successive eras which have brought the land of the
Oregon from a wilderness to a group of powerful young American States,
abounding in resources and filled to the brim with hope and enthusiasm. We
have followed the River through its eras of canoe, bateau, flatboat,
sail-ship, and steamboat, and we have seen railroads built along its
banks. It remains only to cast a brief final glance at the River in its
present age, and to forecast something of what seems its sure future.
It may be said that the population of those parts of Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, which are embraced in the watershed of the
Columbia, is probably nearly a million and a quarter. The population of
the area in British Columbia is scanty, but rapidly increasing.
The productive capacity is very great. A rough estimate of production in
the valley of the Columbia for the year 1908 would probably give a grain
production of seventy million bushels, a lumber output of three billion
feet, a mineral output worth sixty million dollars, and a combined output
of pastoral, horticultural, fishing, and miscellaneous industries of fifty
millions of dollars.
Such figures indicate that the Columbia River is already a factor in world
commerce. Yet its development is but begun. What is to be its part in the
world commerce of the future?
Inspection of a map will show that the Columbia possesses the only
water-level route from the vast productive regions of the Inland Empire to
the seaboard. As has been shown in the course of this volume, the River is
navigable throughout the larger part of its course from Revelstoke in
British Columbia to the ocean. In that distance there is one canal, with
locks. That is at the Cascades, sixty-five miles from Portland. Before the
River can be continuously navigable it will be necessary that a canal be
constructed to overcome the obstructions at the Dalles, a few miles above
the city of that name, another at Priest Rapids, seventy miles above
Pasco, and still another at Kettle Falls. The Government is already
engaged in the first of these works. The second seems comparatively near
of accomplishment by reason of work done and projected by a powerful
irrigation company. Nothing has yet been done at Kettle Falls, but it
would be comparatively a light task to provide canal and locks at that
point. Besides these larger obstructions there are several rapids at
points between Kettle Falls and the Dalles which impede navigation at
certain stages of water. The Government has made surveys of these
sections of the River, and has announced that with comparatively small
outlay the rocks and reefs may be removed, the channels deepened and
straightened, and the River made navigable. One thing may be emphasised in
this connection, and this is that the Columbia River has mainly a rocky
bed, and hence work on the channels is permanent. It will not cut and
fill, nor pile up islands and bars as does the Missouri.
In view of the capability of the River to carry great water traffic, and
in view of the fact that railroad traffic is seeking and will still more
seek the down-hill grade to the sea, it becomes a question of great
interest what the future commerce of the River will be.
It is evident that there will be three kinds of traffic: local,
transcontinental, world-wide. Each is bound to be vast beyond the
calculations or even the imagination of the present. The local traffic is
sure to be immense, for it is estimated that there is a million acres of
land immediately contiguous to the River, irrigable and adapted to
intensive farming. Present experience shows that five or ten acres of such
land are sufficient to support a family. Many cities and towns are sure to
grow upon the banks of the River. Its banks will sometime become populated
like those of ancient Nile. Besides the immediate region of the River,
there are millions upon millions of acres of land more remote, the great
wheat fields and stock ranges and valley lands of tributary streams, and
these broad areas will seek the river route. Much of this immense local
traffic of the future will be conveyed by steamboats and barges.
The second class of traffic will be the transcontinental. All the
railroads across the continent, except those down the Columbia, are
obliged to climb the Cascade Mountains, four thousand feet or more in
height. With difficulty two powerful locomotives pull a freight train of
forty cars up the grades, and at some points even a third is needed. But a
single locomotive will pull eighty cars on the level grades of the River
roads. In the even keener competition bound to come, this advantage of
grades and curves will be a factor of immense importance.
The third class of future commerce is the world-wide. No western American
can contemplate the future of the world without being persuaded that the
Pacific Ocean and its shores will be the scene of the greatest problems of
the twentieth century. If this prove true, that world commerce of the
Pacific will seek that point of the American continent which most swiftly
and cheaply communicates with the eastern side of the continent and with
Europe. Granting that a large part of world commerce will pass through the
Panama Canal, there will still be, without question, an immense trade
between the Orient and such points in our own country as are so far from
the Atlantic seaboard that a transcontinental route is a necessity.
Moreover, even for our Atlantic seaboard and for Europe, there will be
large amounts of products, for the transit of which time will be a great
object. Hence we may be sure that there will be extensive world commerce
across the American continent. If so, where will it cross? Inspection of a
globe demonstrates that the Columbia River route is shortest, and, for
reasons already given, it is cheapest of all.
Puget Sound is its only present competitor. But the water-grade through
the Cascade Mountains, along the banks of the Columbia, constitutes an
advantage beyond the reach of permanent competition. Here, however, the
critic comes in and claims that the Bar at the mouth of the River forbids
entrance of the largest ships. This in a measure is true, though the
difficulties of the Columbia Bar have been grossly exaggerated. There are
over twenty-five feet of water on the Bar at the lowest tide. The
flood-tide adds from six to twelve feet. In any ordinary weather, forty
feet of water is safe enough for any vessel. But if marine architecture is
going to keep pace with growing commerce, we may soon have ships drawing
forty or fifty feet of water. If so, the Bar may indeed seriously block
the heaviest commerce. Some observers have, therefore, believed that the
big freights of the future will enter the Straits of Fuca, go to some one
of the Puget Sound ports, thence pass by rail across the low tract of
country between the Sound and the Columbia River, and proceed thence by
the River route to the interior and eastward. This would combine the
advantages of the two great routes of the Pacific North-west, abundant
depth of water, low altitudes, and easy grades. This would, in truth, come
nearest to realising the dream of the old navigators, the Strait of Anian.
In any event, the future world will look to our River as the goal of
markets as well as of vision, and as a highway of nations both for
freights and for tourists.
PART II
A Journey Down the River
CHAPTER I
In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies
Extent of Navigation on the River--Attractions of a Canoe Journey--The
Canadian Pacific Railroad--Banff and Lake Louise--Summit of the
Rockies--The Continental Divide and its Western Descent--Field and the
Wapta River--Golden and the Upper Columbia--Peculiar Interlocking of
the Columbia and the Kootenai, and Professor Dawson's Explanation of
this--Views of the Selkirks and the Rockies--Some Steamboat Men and
their Tales--Captain Armstrong's Adventures on the Kootenai--The
Picture Rocks--Lake Windermere--The Location of the Old Thompson
Fort--Baptiste Morigeau and his Stories of Pioneer Days--The War
between the Shuswaps and the Okanogans--Down the River from
Golden--Rapids and Navigation--By the Canadian Pacific through the
Selkirks--Glacier and the Illecillewaet--Revelstoke and the River
again--Wise Management of the Canadian Government and the Railroad.
A journey upon the River may best begin with its source and end with the
ocean. It is about fourteen hundred miles by the windings of the stream
from its origin in the upper Columbia Lake to the Pacific. It descends
twenty-five hundred feet in that distance. It is therefore swift in many
places. Yet it would be possible to descend almost the entire length of
the River in a small boat. Nor can one imagine a more fascinating journey,
especially if he could conjure back the shades of the great _voyageurs_ of
seventy years ago, as Monique and Charlefoux, famous in Dr. McLoughlin's
time, and listen to their gay song, mingling with the plash of oars:
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant, ma boule roulant.
The way of approach for the Eastern tourist to a journey down the Columbia
is by the Canadian Pacific Railway, a magnificent road in a gallery of
masterpieces. Wonders begin before he reaches the western watershed. He
will see Banff, with its hot springs, its immense hotel, its Bow River and
Falls and Valley. He will see the gem of the Canadian Rockies, one of the
gems of the earth, Lake Louise. Imagine a glistening wall of purest white,
Mts. Lefroy and Victoria, with a vast glacier descending from them, great
bastions of variously tinted rock closing on either side as a frame of the
snowy picture, and in front a lake, small indeed, but of perfect form, a
mirror in which the snowy wall, the glacier, the rocky ramparts, find a
duplication as distinct as themselves.
A few miles farther west, and the traveller will find himself at one of
the most significant of all places, the Continental Divide. Eastward the
water flows into the Bow, thence into the Saskatchewan, and ultimately
into the Atlantic. Westward the springs find their way to the branches of
the Wapta, thence to the Columbia and the Pacific. The long westward
ascent which we have followed all the way from Winnipeg ends at last. The
track becomes level. We are at the summit. Looking southward we can see
descending the steep slope, a clear mountain stream, which is parted into
two branches by a little wall of stone. One branch goes east to the
Atlantic, the other west to the Pacific.
It must have been of some such place, though farther north, that Holmes
was imagining when he wrote:
Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun,
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.
The slender rill had strayed
But for the slanting stone,
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.
At the parting of the streams, a pretty rustic framework has been erected,
bearing the words, "The Continental Divide."
We are now on the Columbia's waters. We are also in the heart of the
Canadian Rockies, and in the midst of a perfect sea of mountains. It has
been said that British Columbia is "fifty or sixty Switzerlands rolled
into one." Here are five distinct ridges, up and down, and through and
around which, the Columbia and its affluents chase each other in a dizzy
dance.
The descent of the west side of the Divide is appallingly steep. From
Stephen to Field is a drop of one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven
feet in ten miles. In that distance are several places which reach two
hundred and thirty-six feet to the mile. Most explicit directions are
given to engineers in respect to handling trains on this grade. A speed of
only six miles an hour is allowed, and frequent stops and tests of
air-brakes and signals are required. By reason of the exceeding care, no
serious accident has ever occurred. In ascending three locomotives are
required for an ordinary train.
There are several splendid resorts on the line of the Canadian railroad.
Banff and Lake Louise are the resorts on the east side of the Divide. The
first one west of that point is Field. There, as at all the other resorts,
the hotels are managed by the Canadian Pacific Railroad Company. They are
conducted with great skill and elegance, and may well be regarded as a
tribute to the business ability and artistic taste of the managers.
As we descend the steep grade from Stephen to Field, we catch glimpses of
peak after peak, range after range, valley after valley, glacier after
glacier, purple, saffron, red, dazzling white, glistening greens and
blues. Mt. Stephen lifts its great wall over a mile of almost
perpendicular height, and nearly opposite is the spire of Mt. Burgess.
Mountain wonders and attractions of every sort lie in all directions from
Field. Perhaps the finest is Yoho Valley. There are the Takkakaw Falls,
twelve hundred feet high. There is the Wapta Glacier, itself a part of a
prodigious ice-field, known as Wahputekh, lying between the towering
heights of Mts. Gordon, Balfour, and Tralltinderne.
Leaving Field, the road runs between two chains of mountains, the
Ottertail on the north and the Van Horne on the south. The former is bold
and spire-like in outline, with the snow-fields and ice pinnacles of Mt.
Goodwin closing the vista. The latter is less bold in contour, but has a
colouring of yellow rock-slopes in beautiful contrast with the rich purple
of the lower forests.
Passing between those sublime mountain chains, we soon plunge into the
Wapta canyon, with its perpendicular walls of rock rising hundreds of
feet on either side. The Wapta is more commonly known as the Kicking
Horse. It received that name in this wise. The Palliser exploring
expedition of 1858 had been seeking unsuccessfully a feasible route
through the Rockies. In the progress of the search, Sir James Hector, then
in charge of the party, pitched camp on the Wapta. While there a vicious
horse kicked him with such effect that he was left on the ground
apparently dead. The three Indians with him had, in fact, dug his grave.
But while they were conveying him to it, he suddenly came to himself.
Having recovered, he became curious to follow the stream where he had met
with the disaster. As a result he discovered the canyon and a short route
through the main chain. Upon the pass he bestowed the name of "Kicking
Horse," and this has latterly been bestowed upon the river itself. The
river is one of the most remarkable of the tributaries of the upper
Columbia. It drains a cordon of glaciated peaks, from which it bears a
vast volume of water, foaming and frothing with frequent cataracts down
the steep descent, from fifty to a hundred feet to the mile.
[Illustration: Natural Bridge Kicking Horse or Wapta River, and Mt.
Stephen, B. C. Photo. by C. F. Yates.]
[Illustration: Sunrise on Columbia River, near Washougal. (Copyright,
1902, by Kiser Photograph Co.)]
Forty-five miles west of the Divide we reach Golden on the Columbia. It is
indeed a thrilling moment to the traveller when he first sets eyes upon
these head-waters of the River of the West. Golden is a pleasant little
town, a hundred and fifty miles below the upper Columbia Lake and twelve
hundred and fifty by the windings of the River from its destination in the
Pacific.
At Golden we must pause and make ready for our first journey on the River.
The greater part of the tourist travel passes by Golden, not realising
that between that pretty town and the lakes lie some of the most charming
scenes in all the vast play-ground of British Columbia.
We find at Golden several steamboats in command of captains who are very
princes of good fellows, as Captain Armstrong of the _Ptarmigan_ and
Captain Blakeney of the _Isabel_, with whom we may journey from Golden to
Lake Windermere. Over the hundred miles between these two points the
Columbia is a slack-water stream, having a descent of but fifty feet in
the distance from the extreme head waters to Golden. Over considerable
part of this distance the River runs in bayous. These bayous or channels
wind their serpentine courses through low flats, flooded at high water,
and exposing fair expanses of vivid green at the subsidence of the waters.
Professor Dawson, the eminent Canadian geologist, made a study of this
section of the River some years before his death, and as a result
expressed the opinion that the section of the Columbia above the mouth of
Blue River, some thirty miles below Golden, formerly united with the
Kootenai. But owing to some convulsion of nature, the surface was tilted
just sufficiently to turn the section of the stream from Columbia Lake
toward the north instead of the south, with the result that we have this
slack-water system of lagoons and lakes constituting this marvellously
picturesque division of the River. Now in confirmation of this theory of
Professor Dawson we have in the relations of the Columbia and Kootenai the
singular geographical phenomenon already referred to in an earlier
chapter. The Kootenai runs through "Canal Flats," in which the upper
Columbia Lake is situated, and comes within a mile of that lake. It is
nine feet higher than the lake, but there is no high land there, and at
one time a canal joined the Kootenai with the lake. This canal was wrecked
in the great flood of 1894, but steamboats had run through it from the
Kootenai to the Columbia, and it would be entirely feasible to reconstruct
it. After having thus passed within a mile of each other and evidently
having once been actually connected, the two rivers part company. The
Columbia flows north and the Kootenai south. Each makes a vast bend. Again
they reverse directions, the Columbia flowing south and the Kootenai
north, and then come together many miles from their point of separation.
Aside from the unique beauty of the lagoons and the grassy shores, the eye
of the traveller is delighted with the two mountain chains which confront
each other across those glassy channels throughout the entire stretch from
Golden to Windermere. On the east side is the main chain of the Rockies,
and on the west are the Selkirks.
As we proceed on the deep, still stream, gliding from channel to channel,
we may find ourselves mightily entertained by the conversation of such a
navigator as Captain Armstrong or Captain Blakeney. For each can command a
fund of historical and descriptive matter of rare interest.
Captain Armstrong was one of the earliest pilots on the Kootenai. In 1894
he built the _North Star_ at Jennings, Montana, ran her up the wild stream
to Canal Flats, thence through the canal to the Columbia lakes, and into
the River itself. A more exquisite stretch of river navigation than that
through Columbia Lake, Lake Adela, and Lake Windermere, and from them into
the lagoons of the River, can scarcely be found or even imagined, and it
was the lot of the _North Star_ to ply upon that route until her unhappy
destruction by fire in 1900.
There is little danger of accident on the placid water of the uppermost
Columbia, but it is far different on the Kootenai. We heard many a tale of
steamboating adventure from these pilots.
One of these so well illustrates those old-time conditions that we repeat
here its chief points. Captain Armstrong owned two steamers, the _Ruth_
and the _Gwendoline_. Both were engaged in transporting freight by way of
Jennings to Fort Steele and the various mining camps in that district. The
business was enormously profitable, for the boats received two and one
half cents a pound. At that particular time there were twenty-six cars on
the Great Northern Railway awaiting shipments.
From his two steamers Captain Armstrong sometimes made two thousand
dollars a day in gross receipts. But though profitable, the business was
also correspondingly risky. The Jennings Canyon, above Bonner's Ferry, is,
perhaps, the worst piece of water that has ever been navigated on the
Columbia or its tributaries. A strip of water, foaming-white, down-hill
almost as on a steep roof, hardly wider than the steamboat, savage-looking
rocks waiting to catch hold of any unwary craft that might venture
through,--so forbidding in fact was that route that Captain Armstrong
found no insurance agent that felt disposed to insure his boats and cargo.
At last he induced a San Francisco agent to make the trip with him and
to offer a rate. After sitting in silence on the deck while the steamer
whirled down the Jennings Canyon, the agent stated that his rate would be
twenty-five per cent. of the cargo. The daring captain decided to take the
risk himself. He had made a number of trips with entire success and
immense profit. But just at the height of the season, when the twenty-six
cars were on the track and a sack full of gold was waiting for him, the
captain got into too much of a hurry. He was running the _Gwendoline_; one
of his best pilots, the _Ruth_. The _Ruth_ was ahead. Both were making
their best possible time down the canyon to get a cargo. Captain Armstrong,
at the wheel of the _Gwendoline_, was whizzing down the canyon at a rate
which made stopping impossible, when to his dismay he saw the _Ruth_ right
ahead of him in a narrow turn, lying across the channel, wedged in the
rocks. To stop was impossible. To select any comfortable landing-place was
equally so. The _Gwendoline_ piled right on top of the _Ruth_. Both were
total wrecks, without a dollar of insurance. A two-thousand-dollar cargo
gone in five minutes, to say nothing of boats and business that could not
be replaced and a fortune within grasp that would never be so near again.
[Illustration: Lake Windermere, Upper Columbia, where David Thompson's
Fort was Built in 1810. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]
But such were the risks of steamboating on the Kootenai.
There are two historical notes of special interest to be made in
connection with the journey to Windermere. One of these is a prehistoric
drawing in some kind of red pigment on the smooth surface of a rock on the
upper Columbia Lake. It seems to represent a battle scene, and, though
rude, denotes some conception of picture art. The Indians think that it
was made prior to Indian times. Apparently it belongs to the same order of
pictures as the drawings on the rocks of Lake Chelan and other places in
the north-west, furnishing a worthy theme for the antiquarian.
The other object of historical interest is the remains of the temporary
fort built by David Thompson of the North-west Fur Company in 1810.
Thompson crossed the Rockies in that year in order to descend the Columbia
and gain possession of its territory for his fur company. He was a brave,
intelligent, and enterprising man with considerable knowledge of
astronomy. But he waited one season too long. For, finding it late in the
year 1810 when he had reached the sources of the Columbia, he decided to
winter there and descend the River in the spring. He selected a beautiful
spot capable of defence on all sides on Lake Windermere and there built a
rude fort, the trench and mound of which still remain. In the spring of
1811 he went down the river (and this was the first party to traverse the
entire course of the Columbia) full of hope that he might take possession
for Great Britain and the North-westers, only to find that the Astor party
of Americans had preceded them by three months in effecting what might be
called permanent occupation.
This was one of the important links in the history of the control of the
North-west. Doubt has been raised as to the authenticity of this
Windermere location, but there are certainly the remains of mound and
trench, and the tradition has it that here was the place of the Thompson
party of 1810, the first place located by white men on the upper Columbia.
[Illustration: Mt. Burgess and Emerald Lake, One of the Sources of the
Wapta River. B. C. Photo. by C. F. Yates.]
An interesting character lives on the shore of Lake Windermere in the
person of Baptiste Morigeau. He is a man of sixty-six, the son of a French
father and Indian mother. The father, Francis Morigeau, was born at Quebec
in 1797, and came to the upper Columbia region as a free trapper in 1820.
He trapped up and down the Columbia for many years, selling his catches to
the Hudson's Bay Company, usually at Fort Colville. Baptiste was born at
Windermere in 1842. Three years after that the father with his numerous
family went to Colville. He had a number of horses and cattle, a large
supply of valuable furs, ammunition, and traps. He located at Colville at
just the right time. For, having taken up a large body of the rich land in
that valley, he began raising hay and grain. His stock increased. He was
surrounded with every species of rude plenty, and just at the most
profitable time for him the gold discoveries began in 1854, followed the
next year by the great Indian war. The fat cattle, the horses, the grain,
hay, and vegetables of the Morigeaus were in great and immediate demand.
Money came in to them by the handful. Baptiste states that they took in
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during the five years of Indian
wars and settlement. Their lives were often in peril, but with good
fortune, aided by their own connection with the natives, they escaped any
serious harm.
On one occasion Indians were about to plunder them of their valuables and
take possession of the barn where several of the family were thrashing
grain with flails, when the oldest son, Aleck, suddenly turned his flail
upon the marauders. So vigorously did he lay about him and so astonished
were the Indians at the novel assault that they gave way and retreated.
Morigeau told us the interesting fact that there were practically no
Indians living in the Windermere district until about a century ago. At
that time some branches of the Shuswaps and of the Kootenais came in.
Their relations were usually very amicable, but between the Shuswaps and
the Okanogans was deadly and long-continued enmity. This was ended in a
curious and interesting manner by the following event. The Shuswaps had
captured the only daughter of the Okanogan chief. She was led with other
captives into the Shuswap camp. The boasting warriors were gloating over
the poor victim, and the squaws were discussing the greatest possible
indignities and tortures for her, when an aged, white-haired chief got the
attention of the crowd. He declared that his heart had been opened, and
that he now saw that torture and death ought to end. He proposed that
instead of shame and torture they should confer honour on the chieftain's
child. He said: "I can hear the old chief and his squaw weeping all the
night for their lost daughter." He then proposed that they adorn the
captive with flowers, put her in a procession, with all the chiefs loaded
with presents, and restore her to her father.
The girl meanwhile, who did not understand a word of the language, was
awaiting torture or death. What was her astonishment to find herself
decorated with honour, and sent with the gift-laden chiefs toward her
father's camp. On the next day the mourning chief of the Okanogans and his
wife, looking from their desolate lodge, saw a large procession
approaching, and they said: "They are coming to demand a ransom."
[Illustration: Bonnington Falls in Kootenai River, near Nelson. Photo by
Allan Lean.]
As the procession drew nearer, one of their men said that it looked like a
woman adorned with flowers in the midst of the men with presents of robes
and necklaces. Then they cried out: "It is our child, and she is restored
to us." So they met the procession with rejoicing and heard the speech of
the old Shuswap chief. And after that there was peace between the Shuswaps
and the Okanogans.
Having returned from Lake Windermere to Golden by small boat,--one of the
most charming of all water trips,--we are prepared to make a new start
down the River.
The River from Golden holds a general north-westerly course to its highest
northern point in latitude 52 degrees. There having received its northmost
tributary, Canoe River, a furious mountain stream, it makes a grand wheel
southward, forming what is known as the Big Bend. This section of the
River was navigated by the bateaux of the trappers and the canoes of the
Indians. There are, however, several bad rapids, of which Surprise Rapids,
Kimbasket Rapids, and Death Rapids, are the worst. These cannot be passed
by steamboats. The _voyageurs_ seem to have run them sometimes, though
they ordinarily made portages. A Golden steamboat captain assures us that
none but fools ever ran Death Rapids,--and they were mostly drowned.
The Canadian Pacific Railroad follows the Columbia from Golden to
Beavermouth, then turns up the Beaver to cross the Selkirk Mountains. The
Beaver is a magnificent mountain stream, and from the railroad, high on
the mountain side, the traveller can at many points look down hundreds of
feet upon the river. Though the Selkirks are not quite so high as the main
chain of the Rockies, they are even grander. The snowfall is materially
greater in the Selkirks, and the glaciers are vast in extent. It is said
that the snowfall at Glacier averages thirty-five feet during the winter,
and that it lies from four to eight feet deep from October to April. There
are thirty immense snowsheds on this section of the railroad.
Glacier is the great resort in the Selkirks. This splendid resort has
attractions in some respects superior to those of Banff, Lake Louise, or
Field. It is in the very heart of the Selkirks. The Great Glacier is only
a mile and a half distant, a glacier which is said to cover an area of two
hundred square miles; more than all the glaciers of Switzerland combined.
From the watch tower at Glacier, this mass of ice, twisted and contorted,
with all the colours of the rainbow playing upon it, is one of those
visions of elemental force which only great mountains reveal. Like all the
glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere, this is receding at a rapid rate. A
record on the rock indicates the point to which the ice attained in July,
1887, and the ice is now over seven hundred feet distant from that point.
The Asulkan Glacier is a more beautiful sight, as viewed from Abbott
rampart, than the Great Glacier. Every traveller should climb the trail to
Abbott in order to get that sight. And with it he will view the twin peaks
of Castor and Pollux yet farther south, while to the north the splendid
peaks of Cheops, Hermit, and Cougar dominate the majestic wilderness.
[Illustration: Bridge Creek, a Tributary of Lake Chelan, Wash. Photo. by
F. N. Kneeland, Northampton, Mass.]
But the most striking single sight is the granite monolith of Sir Donald.
This is almost a counterpart of the Matterhorn of Switzerland, though not
so high. It rises in one huge block to a height of 10,808 feet. It has
been climbed, though this is one of the most daring and difficult of
climbs. From the dizzy spire there is visible a perfect map of peaks,
rivers, valleys, and lakes. It is said that a hundred and twenty glaciers
can be seen.
From Sir Donald and the Great Glacier issues the Illecillewaet River,
well-named, for this means the "swift flowing." From its source in the
Great Glacier to its entrance of the Columbia it descends thirty-five
hundred feet in forty-five miles. It is swift. One of the most interesting
places on this section of the road is the "Loops," a place where the track
has to descend five hundred and twenty-two feet in seven miles. To
accomplish this, it has been carried in a "double S" around the bases of
Mts. Ross and Bonney. So close are the tracks that the two parts of the
loop a mile in length are not more than eighty feet apart, one being
almost perpendicularly above the other. Some miles farther down is the
Albert Canyon on the Illecillewaet. On this point the distinction has been
conferred of a complete pause of the train, while from it the passengers
hasten to a platform to gaze down the perpendicular walls three hundred
feet to the white torrent tearing its way through the rock.
Soon Revelstoke is reached, and we are again on the navigable waters of
the Columbia. Every traveller, as he leaves the line of the Canadian
Pacific Railroad, must pay his tribute of respect to the skill, energy,
and intelligence with which this superb road is conducted. It has been
said that English money supplied this road, Scotch energy built it, and
Irish keenness and adaptability run it. Sir Thomas Shaughnessey, the
manager, is certainly entitled to the respect and gratitude of thousands
of tourists.
With the railroad, all tourists will associate the Canadian Park managers.
The Canadian Government is a singularly intelligent one. It has grasped
the possibilities in these vast and varied scenic charms, and has used
exceedingly good judgment in rendering them accessible to the travelling
public. This entire mountain area bordering the railroad, to an extent of
five thousand seven hundred and thirty-two square miles, has been set
apart as a park, in charge of the Department of the Interior. Superb roads
are constructed in available places, and improvements are continually in
progress about the springs and falls and lakes and other points of
interest. The Government, in fact, exercises entire control, but grants
concessions to the railroad company in the matter of hotels and other
conveniences.
As we bid good-bye to the Canadian Rockies, we may say that perhaps the
world offers nowhere else such a sea of mountains, such knots and clusters
and cordons of elevations, as in this strange and sublime region where the
Columbia and its tributaries, the Kootenai, the Illecillewaet, the Wapta,
the Beaver, the Canoe, seem to be playing hide-and-seek with the Thompson
and the Fraser. There are not less than five distinct snowy ridges between
the head waters of the Saskatchewan and the Pacific Ocean. The existence
of this immense watershed of snowy mountains accounts for the vast volume
of the Columbia. Although not half as long as the Mississippi, the
Columbia equals it in volume.
[Illustration: Kootenai Lake, from Proctor, B. C. Photo. by Allan Lean.]
Well joined, in truth, are the sublime River and the sublime mountains.
One cannot fully understand the River unless he has seen its cradle and
the cradle of its affluents beneath the shadows of the great peaks of
British Columbia.
CHAPTER II
The Lakes from the Arrow Lakes to Chelan
The Lake Plateau--The Glacial Origin of the Lakes--Down the Arrow
Lakes from Revelstoke--The Fine Steamers--Characteristics of the
Scenery--By Rail from Robson to Nelson--Agricultural, Mineral, and
Lumbering Resources around Nelson--Kootenai Lake and its Charms--On
the River from Robson to Kettle Falls--Historic Features around Kettle
Falls--On Lakes Coeur d'Alene, Pend Oreille, and Kaniksu in Northern
Idaho--From Kettle Falls to Chelan--Appearance of Chelan River--First
View of the Lake--Delights of a Boat Ride up the Lake--Comparison of
Chelan with other Great Scenes--Storm on the Lake--Goat
Mountain--Views from Railroad Creek--The Red Drawings--Rainbow Falls
and Stehekin Canyon--The Wrecked Cabin and its Story--Railroad Creek
and North Star Park--Cloudy Pass and Glacier Peak.
In the progress of our journey down the River on the route of the old-time
fur brigades, we have passed over what may be considered the first two
stages of the stream. The first is the lagoon-like expanse of the section
from Canal Flats to Golden, one hundred and fifty miles. The second is the
more swift and turbulent part from Golden to Revelstoke, two hundred and
fifty miles. At the latter place we enter upon a third stage of the River,
the lake stage.
The region of the lakes constitutes one of the most unique and delightful
of all parts of the River. Let the reader consult the map and he will find
an area of probably one hundred thousand square miles in British Columbia,
Washington, Idaho, and Montana filled with lakes. This lake region
constitutes a plateau, crossed indeed by mountains and somewhat rough in
surface, but of a uniform general elevation. It constitutes a sort of
debatable region between the two great slopes, one from the Rocky summits
to the lakes and the other from the lakes to tide-water. On those slopes
the white waters of cataract and rapid are found; on the plateau, the
deep, still lakes. A glance at the map reveals the fact that the larger of
these lakes are long and narrow, and lie on north and south lines. A
journey on them reveals the fact that they are deep and clear and cold.
Join these facts with the additional one that they are surrounded by snowy
mountains, and you have no difficulty in deciding their origin. They are
glacial. At some time in the glacial ages, stupendous ploughshares of ice
descending from Rockies, Selkirks, Gold Range, Cascades, and Bitter Roots,
gouged out profound canyons in the rents already wrought by earthquakes,
and these became the lake beds.
[Illustration: Lower Arrow Lake, B. C. Photo. by Allan Lean, Nelson.]
Each one of the branches of the River in this plateau region has one or
more of these expansions. On the Columbia itself are the Arrow Lakes.
Kootenai Lake is an enlargement of the River of the same name. Okanogan
Lake is likewise an expansion of its river. Christina Lake is the source
of Kettle River. The Slocan River derives its icy torrents from Slocan
Lake. Flathead, Kaniksu, and Pend Oreille lakes feed Clark's Fork, now
more commonly known in its lower section as Pend Oreille River. Coeur
d'Alene Lake supplies the Spokane River. Chelan pours its cold flood into
the Columbia through a river of the same sweet sounding name. Wenatchee
Lake gives life to the Wenatchee River.
We find at Revelstoke that the chief current of tourist travel follows the
main line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Nevertheless, there is a
rapidly increasing movement of travellers on the branch by steamboat over
the Arrow Lakes and the Kootenai to what is known as the Crow's Nest line
from Spokane to Calgary, Winnipeg, and other points east.
The Canadian Pacific line has excellent steamers, the _Rossland_, the
_Kootenai_, the _Kaslo_, the _Kuskanook_, and others of similar grade. The
journey on the _Rossland_ or _Kootenai_ down the Arrow Lakes from
Arrowhead to Robson is one to dream of, one to recall in waking hours, and
even, we almost suspect, in another life. The two lakes together
constitute one hundred and thirty miles of steamboating, and every mile
has its special charm. It was the peculiar joy of the _voyageurs_, after
having toiled over the snowy and wind-swept Athabasca Pass and buffeted
the foamy descent of Death Rapids, to reach the Arrow Lakes and lazily
paddle down their tranquil deeps. In fact, pleasant as is our journey on
the _Rossland_, we would rather reconstruct the bateaux of 1840 and in
them make the whole long journey to the sea, a thousand miles away.
The traveller learns from the captain, if he can persuade that busy
personage to indulge in conversation, that the Arrow Lakes derived their
name from the fact that in early times great bundles of arrows could be
seen stuck in the clay banks or in the crevices of the rocks at the head
of the upper lake. The upper Arrow Lake has mountain banks rising
thousands of feet to the zone of eternal snow. The shores are usually
precipitous, though it is not uncommon to see smooth slopes furnishing
timbered margins to enchanting little bays. At various places along the
shores we see the beginnings of fruit and dairy ranches. It is only within
four or five years that anything has been done here in the way of
cultivation. The results thus far attained prove the wonderful
adaptability of soil and climate to choice fruits. And the
flowers,--Heaven bless them!--the sweetest and biggest and brightest of
roses, pinks, sweet peas, larkspurs,--every kind that grows, are seen in
profusion at almost every point where there has been any cultivation. By a
little conversation with people at the landings we learn that the
new-fledged ranches are very profitable. One tells us that he has made a
net profit of two dollars and twenty-five cents per crate on his
strawberries, or five hundred dollars an acre.
[Illustration: Bridal Veil Falls on Columbia River. Photo. by E. H.
Moorehouse.]
Perhaps the most attractive place on the Arrow Lakes is the point where
the upper lake narrows into the stretch of fifteen miles of river joining
the two lakes. The mountains on either hand, in great billows of forest
green and blue, rise ever upward till they break against the eternal
frost. The shores are clothed in dense forests, and on either hand bold
promontories enclose sheltered bays, the very beau ideals of camping
places.
We find the lower Arrow Lake of a gentler type of scenery than the upper.
The mountains no longer bear snow-peaks and glaciers on their crests, and
there are no longer to be seen the stupendous rocky walls which in places
enclose the upper lake. But as a compensation for the loss of this
pre-eminent grandeur, the lower lake possesses a charm of colouring, both
of water and shore, a richness of mountain outline and tints, and a
certain serenity which may well make it an equal of its grander companion.
At the lower end of the Arrow Lakes the steamer stops and transfers her
freight and passengers to the trains running from Robson to Nelson. This
is necessitated by the fact that the Kootenai River, which enters the
Columbia just below Robson, has a descent from Nelson of over two hundred
feet. The railroad follows the Kootenai, which almost rivals the Columbia
in magnitude. We pass the Bonnington Falls, the noblest waterfall on the
entire system of Columbia's tributaries, with the exception of the Great
Shoshone of the Snake.
Reaching Nelson, the metropolis of this entire lake country, we find a
bustling, active, well-built little city of seven thousand people. The
leading industries centring at Nelson are mining and lumbering. It has
been discovered very recently, however, that the soil and air and climate
are peculiarly adapted to choice berries and fruits. The shores of the
river and lake at this point are rugged and rocky, at first thought ill
adapted to horticulture. But it is well known that rough locations produce
choicer fruit. Between the boulders or nestling against the hillsides, the
peach and apple take on an added blush, absorb a more delicate nectar,
exhale a more exquisite perfume. We are told that during the season of
1908 there were twenty thousand crates of berries, mainly strawberries,
shipped from Nelson, at a price of two to three dollars per crate.
In every direction from Nelson is mineral wealth of untold quantity.
Almost every mineral known, gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, to say
nothing of every kind of fine building stone, including marble, besides
coal and iron, is found east, west, north, and south of Nelson. The town
itself was founded by reason of the Silver King mine, which can be seen
high up on the mountain side south of the place. The output of these mines
has been immense. In spite of the comparatively hard times, the output of
the three districts of the Kootenai, Rossland, and Boundary, was estimated
at $21,025,500 in 1907. One interesting fact connected with the mining
industry in the lake country is that at Nelson is located an electric zinc
smelter, the only one of the kind in the world. Zinc is found in
association with gold, silver, and copper, and, though valuable, is quite
an impediment to the mining of the gold and silver. This unique smelter
works by what is called the Snyder process, an electrical system, which,
if it accomplishes all that is hoped for, will open every mine on the
Kootenai.
[Illustration: Shoshone Falls, in Snake River, 212 Feet High. Photo. by W.
D. Lyman.]
From Nelson we find the way open by fine steamers to all parts of the
Kootenai. This largest of all the lakes of the Columbia system, containing
141,120 acres of surface, bears a general resemblance to the Arrow Lakes,
clear, deep, cold, with lofty mountains on either side and vast stretches
of purple forests crowding to the very margin of the water. This lake
consists of three arms, northern, southern, and western. The Kootenai
River enters by the southern and leaves by the western.
The northern part of the Kootenai region, especially around Kaslo,
possesses vast mineral wealth. A railroad proceeds from Kaslo to Sandon in
the heart of the mountains, and to Slocan Lake and thence to Nakusp on
the upper Arrow Lake. The scenery of Slocan Lake is even more wild and
rugged than that of the Kootenai. Both abound in fine trout. We saw a lake
trout at Nelson of a weight of twenty-two pounds. Ducks and geese and swan
are common on the water, limitless grouse and pheasants are found in the
woods, while deer, elk, and bear are common in the wild maze of mountains
and canyons;--a sportsman's paradise.
Tourists taking the route eastward go from Nelson on the elegant steamer
_Kuskanook_ to Kootenai Landing and there take up again the railway route
by the Crow's Nest. Such as desire to go to Spokane can leave the line at
Curzon and go southward to a connection with the Spokane International.
There is also a rail connection more directly between Nelson and Spokane
by the Spokane and Northern. This pursues more nearly the course of the
Columbia River, of which the traveller obtains delightful glimpses at
intervals. But for ourselves, we would rather go by rowboat from Robson
down the River over the historical route of the old _voyageurs_. No rail
route compares with the water.
The River is a superb water-way from Robson, British Columbia, to Kettle
Falls, Washington, about ninety miles. In fact, the section of the River
from Death Rapids above Revelstoke to Kettle Falls, including the Arrow
Lakes, is the longest unbroken stretch of deep, still water on the entire
River, being about three hundred miles.
Kettle Falls, too, is a historic spot. For here was Fort Colville of the
Americans and also the old Hudson's Bay post. Here was the greatest
centring of the fur-trade on the upper River. Here were the strongest of
all the Catholic missions, and here were the most fertile fields and the
earliest cultivated of any on the upper River. Here is the Colville Indian
Reservation, and here for many years the wily and untamable old savage
Moses herded his bands of "cuitans," watched the incoming whites with
jealous eye, and, as opportunity offered, made way with such wandering
prospectors or stockmen as he could find off their guard in rocky glen or
forest depth. (And none ever knew what became of them.) Here
Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing) the great Nez Perce chief, commonly known as
Joseph, who waged the Wallowa War of 1877 to its bitter conclusion,
carried on the sad remnant of his days, and not far distant on the wild
Nespilem, he held his summer camp. In all directions around Colville and
Kettle Falls, up the Sans Poil and Kettle rivers, are opening mines and
farms, one of the most promising sections of all the promising State of
Washington.
[Illustration: Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho. Photo by T. W. Tolman.]
[Illustration: Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Photo. by T. W. Tolman.]
Time forbids us to visit all the lakes in this wonderful lake section. But
we must see the most important. While at Spokane, we should not fail to
go, by trolley or train or auto or horseback, to the greatest of all
Spokane resorts, Coeur d'Alene Lake. Of its beauties and delights, and
of the "shadowy St. Joe River," and of the canoeing and fishing and
hunting which may be found there galore, some of our pictures speak. And
of them any one who has ever been there will also speak in no uncertain
tone. It seems no whit short of the unpardonable sin to give no longer
space to that wonderland of lakes, Coeur d'Alene, Pend Oreille, and
Kaniksu, in Northern Idaho, each the centre of every conceivable scenic
attraction. In their near vicinity, too, lie the great mines of the
Coeur d'Alene district, the greatest silver lead mines in the world,
whose fabulous wealth (forty million dollars a year) has built many a
stone mansion at Spokane, or sent the prospectors of yesterday to the ends
of the earth for the pleasure or display of to-day. But the limits of this
chapter forbid description of these masterpieces. Though each lake has its
individual character, there is a general similarity. All have the
characteristics of their common glacial origin and mountainous
surroundings.
We may therefore make one visit and give descriptions of the one great
inclusive scene or group of scenes which may be said to express the
beauty, the sublimity, the wonder of the lakes of the Columbia River. And
this one typical lake, the all-inclusive, is Chelan, "Beautiful Water."
True to our purpose of following the River from source to sea, we turn
back now from Spokane in order to go from Kettle Falls to Chelan by boat.
There are no regular steamboats running from Kettle Falls to Brewster at
the mouth of the Okanogan, but from the last named point to Wenatchee the
steamboat is the regular and indeed only means of public travel.
Throughout the entire course of two hundred miles from Kettle Falls to
Wenatchee the river is wild and swift. Yet steamers have traversed the
entire distance, and Government engineers are now engaged in surveys
looking to improvements such as will make steamboat traffic easy and
profitable. We pass numberless points of interest, but "Chelan, Chelan,"
"Beautiful Water, Beautiful Water," is our goal.
[Illustration: The "Shadowy St. Joe," Idaho. Photo. by T. W. Tolman.]
We had thought that the Columbia was clear, but we did not then know what
clear water really was. When we reach the mouth of Chelan River we know.
We see a streak of blue cutting right across the impetuous downflow of the
River. As we push our way into it we discover that it is so clear as to
make little more obstruction to the view of rocks and fish below than does
the air itself. This transparent torrent is the outlet of the lake. It is
only four miles long and descends three hundred and eighty feet in that
distance. It furnishes one hundred and twenty-five thousand horse-power at
low water. The canyon, riven and tortured, through which it descends, is a
fitting approach to the lake, unique Chelan. For having traversed the four
miles, we find the lake outstretched before us.
At this first view the lake has that look of a serene obliviousness to the
flight of passing centuries, that impressure of eternity, that belongs to
all great works of God or man. But majestic as is the view at the lower
end of the lake, we are not content to remain there. "_Neskika Klatawa
sahale_," cry we with a single voice, which being interpreted is, "Let us
go up higher," the motto, by the way, of our Mazama (Mountain-Climbers')
Club of the Pacific North-west. In skiffs, well-laden with provisions and
ammunition, we set forth on our sixty-mile pull toward "where the spectral
glaciers shone."
Delightful, delightful, almost ecstatic in truth, this rocking on the
glassy swell; this bed of romantic spruce and pine boughs on the beach;
this star-lit sky which is our only roof; this murmur of cascades falling
from the bluffs; this trolling for five-pound trout; this disembarking on
some rocky point and climbing a granite pinnacle from which a perfect maze
of mountains, streams, and forests, lies extended below; this experience
of the deadly attack of "buck-ague" which paralyses our arms as some goat
or deer dashes by; and then the inexpressible delight with which we,
"stepping down by zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock, came on the
shining levels of the lake." We do not wish to hurry our oars. We must
take time to look into the heavenly blue of the waters through the
foam-streaks left by our advancing prows. We must suspend the oar-dip
entirely at times while we gaze dizzied, with strained necks, up, up,
thousands of feet, toward "Death and Morning on the Silverhorns." We must
study shore and water as we pass slowly by, finding therein ample
confirmation of the theory of glacial origin.
This is one of the deepest canyons on earth. Not such another furrow has
Time wrought on the face of the Western Hemisphere, at least. At some
points the granite walls rise almost vertically six thousand feet from the
water's edge. Here, too, soundings of seventeen hundred feet have been
necessary to touch bottom. Over a mile and a half of verticality! This
surpasses in depth Yosemite, Yellowstone, Columbia, or even Colorado
Canyon. As compared with those more familiar wonders, Chelan lacks the
incomparable symmetry and completeness of Yosemite; it has not such a
multitude of waterfalls and groups of "castled crags" as are seen within
the basaltic gates of the Columbia; it does not display that variety of
colouring, especially of the lighter and warmer hues, which astonishes the
beholder of the Colorado or the Yellowstone, and it has no especially
curious feature like the geysers of the last; but for immensity, for a
certain chaotic sublimity, for the rich and sombre grandeur of the purple
and garnet, dusky, and indigo-tinted shore views, Chelan surpasses any of
the others, while in its water views,--such colourings and such blendings,
light-green, ultramarine, lapis lazuli, violet, indigo, almost
black,--such light and shade, "sea of glass mingled with fire," where
every cloud in the changing sky and all the untold majesty of the hills
find their perfect mirror, all hues and forms, a kaleidoscope of earth and
heaven, beyond imagination to conceive or pen to describe or brush to
portray,--in all this, Chelan is without a rival.
[Illustration: On the Coeur d' Alene River, Idaho. Photo. by T. W.
Tolman.]
As we round a shaggy promontory, there the snow-peaks stand in battle
array, azure, purple, amethystine, with lines and masses of glistening
white, flushed on their topmost pinnacles with rosy light from the
westering sun, solemn, solitary, very oracles of mountain revelation, so
grand, so beautiful, so true, looking as though they had been there
forever waiting for an interpreter,--before that scene we bow the head and
make involuntary obeisance, the homage of the true in man to the true in
nature, that is, the recognition of a common brotherhood in one divine
origin.
Not of every scene on this lake of wonders can we speak. Yet every mile
brought its special revelation. Sometimes we found the lake in storms. As
we rowed in what seemed a summer calm, Winter from his throne eight
thousand feet above sent forth his cloud-legions, which, like the "thunder
birds" of Indian story, spread their wings and came down. The thunder
clash went echoing in long reverberations "from peak to peak, the
rattling crags among." "If a squall ever strikes you, put for the first
crack in the bank that you see," had been the parting injunction of the
lake sailors when we started on our cruise. We observed the warning and
made the best possible time to a cranny in the ill-omened "Windy Cape."
And there we lay till morning, when the tumult fell as suddenly as it
rose, and lake and sky smiled as serenely at each other as ever.
The chief point on the lake, for photographing, hunting, fishing, and
climbing, is Railroad Creek, fifty miles up the lake. Railroad Creek comes
from the "Roof of the World," having its source in the very heart of a
great group of glaciers. It descends probably six thousand feet in
twenty-five miles. It is swift! The fury with which it hurls logs and even
boulders down its cataract bed is fairly appalling. The very earth quivers
beneath its flail-like strokes.
Nowhere, perhaps, can one see more work done by rivers than here. The
entire course of one of these rivers can be traced from the lake. Rising
in a snow bank six thousand feet above, its route marked by a streak of
foam, sometimes falling in spray hundreds of feet, then hiding behind a
cliff, to burst forth in snow-white "chute," augmented by similar streams
from lateral canyons, it plunges into the lake with a perfect delirium of
motion. So great is the erosion that were not the lake of enormous depth,
it would soon be filled with the jetsam and flotsam of the hills.
The sunset effects looking up the lake from Railroad Creek are marvellous,
though, alas, the cool black and white of the photograph cannot preserve
the wealth of colouring, "the illumination of all gems," which for a few
transcendent moments fills the mighty canyon "bank-full" with such radiance
that one might think it the grand gathering place of all the rainbows of
earth. The light greens and blues of the shallower water shade into
deepest indigo toward the centre, reflecting the ever-changing hues of the
canyon walls, a deep, rich, and sombre purple on the shaded side, while on
the sun-lit side are poured forth upon the shaggy mountain slopes perfect
inundations of orange, carmine, and saffron. From these floods of glory
there falls into the lake a seeming rain of pearls and rubies, barred with
stripes of gold and crimson. But the sun drops lower and the splendour
fades, the conflagration of the sky is quenched, and it seems as though
ten thousand ships, "all decked with funeral scarfs from stem to stern,"
were putting out from the glooming western shores, strewing darkness as
they move,--and night is at hand.
[Illustration: Gorge of Chelan River, the Outlet of Lake Chelan. Photo. by
T. W. Tolman, Spokane.]
Like all travellers to Lake Chelan, we must make a journey to the head of
the lake, to the Stehekin River, and to Rainbow Falls. The view up the
canyon of the Stehekin is the crowning glory of this panorama of
sublimities. A forest of almost tropical luxuriance covers the morass
through which the impetuous river makes its way. On either side tower the
canyon walls, capped with snow. The background consists of glittering
pinnacles of some of the Glacier Range. Majesty, might, elemental force,
eternity,--such are the only words to express the emotions excited by this
scene.
One curious thing to be seen at the mouth of the Stehekin, and at several
other places on the lake is a series of rude drawings on the smooth,
white surface of the granite bluff, the work of some prehistoric artist,
unknown to the Indians, and of so ancient date that the lake is now twenty
feet below their level. The drawings are of men, goats, tents, and trees,
and are in strong red colours, of some very enduring nature. One is
ashamed to record that alleged human beings in the form of white tourists
have used these curious relics of bygone days as targets to shoot at from
their boats, and have ruined some of the finest. Also that some vandal has
desecrated the place by painting a glaring advertisement of his ferry
underneath.
Although it may well seem to the tourist who has attained the head of Lake
Chelan that nature has reached her acme of grandeur, and that it would tax
his powers of belief to be informed that there is grander yet, we shall
run the risk of saying just that, and bid him join us on side journeys up
the mighty canyons of the Stehekin River and Railroad Creek. Lake Chelan
being, as already indicated, in the very heart of the Cascade Mountains,
and these mountains here attaining an average elevation of seven or eight
thousand feet, with dozens of peaks of ten thousand or more, and the
countless impetuous streams from those snowy heights having cut their way
deep down toward the lake level, it follows as a matter of course that the
entire Chelan region, for an area of probably ten thousand square miles,
is perfectly gridironed with canyons. Many of them have never been explored
or even entered. In them are myriads of lakes, waterfalls, parks,
glaciers, and, in fact, every species of mountain attraction. There is no
question that within this vast cordon of mountains there are more
glaciers than in all the rest of the United States combined, and, with the
exception of the Sierras and the Canadian Rockies, there is certainly no
other region on this continent that can for a moment enter into
competition with it. Travellers have assured the author that the Alps in
no respect except historical association, surpass, and some say, do not
equal this crowning glory of our great North-west State.
[Illustration: Head of Lake Chelan--Looking up Stehekin Canyon. Photo. by
W. D. Lyman.]
Amid the bewildering profusion of great canyons radiating from the lake,
the two most accessible are those of the Stehekin River and Railroad
Creek. The former enters the head of the lake, after a course of probably
fifty miles from Skagit Pass. To ascend this canyon we must commit our
lives and fortunes to cayuse ponies and a mountain trail, which, though
good enough to the initiated, is a terror to the "tenderfoot."
Four miles up the Stehekin we reach Rainbow Falls, heralded by distant
gusts and eddies of mist, which at first seem to be from woods on fire.
But a dull roar, a harsh rumble, then a lighter splash,--and we see that
what at first had seemed smoke eddying out of the canyon wall is the mist
driven before the gusts created by the falling torrents. With a few more
hurried steps we find ourselves before a fall three hundred and fifty feet
high. Its clouds of spray swirl like a thunder-shower, drenching the rocks
and trees far around. Picking our way amid the pelting mist to the top of
a slippery hillock from which we can look right down into the very heart
of the fall, we see, swinging against the mist, a perfect rainbow, a
complete double circle, a blaze of lustre. The thrilling roar deepens as
we hang over the slippery verge, and sounds like voices, trampling of
armies, clatter of innumerable hoofs, rattling of artillery, all the
grandeur and frenzy of conflict, seem to rise from that wild gorge. Now
the mist eddies forth and blurs the vision, and then falls back, and that
dazzling bow hangs there unmarred. The bridge of Iris or Heimdall, we
say,--but no; it is no more a bridge, it is a perfect circle, the symbol
of eternity. The symbol also of peace, for eternity is peace. That
mist-hung bow becomes to us an emblem of the harmony of all jarring sounds
and discordant forces. And so with that bow of peace swaying behind us,
and the deep thunder fading in musical diminuendo, we pass on to the next
wonder; and this is not far, for every mile brings its special revelation.
Time forbids that we pause for more than one added scene on the Stehekin,
and this is the Horseshoe Basin, thirty miles up the river. This is in the
upper canyon. Imagine yourself perched upon a granite pinnacle, looking
possibly a little anxiously for bear in the thick copses at its bases, for
this is said to be the greatest bear region in the country, but soon
lifting your eyes to the heights on either side. Six thousand feet deep is
that stupendous gorge. On the south side you see the "castled crags,"
glacier-crested, while on the north, Horseshoe Basin stands revealed. A
long line of dark-red minarets, at whose foot stretches two miles of
glistening and twisted ice, then below that a great terrace, vivid green
with spring foliage, and over it falling a perfect symposium of
waterfalls, if we may be allowed such an expression. Twenty-one falls and
cataracts all in one view. They vary in descent from two hundred to two
thousand feet. Joining at the foot of the terrace in one foaming torrent
the waters of the Basin plunge in one fall of two hundred feet, thence
pass under a snow tunnel and down a rocky chute swept clean by the flood
to augment the already raging waters of the Stehekin. The Horseshoe Basin,
though not grander, not so sublimely terrible, in fact, as some other
scenes in the canyon, has that indescribable look of perfectness which
belongs to the immortal works of nature and art. It has a symmetry of form
and colour beyond any other in the entire region. The dark-red minarets
which form the outer escarpment, ten thousand feet above sea-level, form a
marvellous contrast and yet harmony with the green and blue and white of
the glacier and the snow-field, and this in turn is margined with the
deep-green and olive hues of the lower terrace, while joining and unifying
all is the flashing and opalescent splendour of the cataracts.
[Illustration: Cascade Pass at Head of Stehekin River, Wash. Photo. by T.
W. Tolman, Spokane.]
At the mouth of the Horseshoe Creek, lodged on a little rocky island, is a
shattered cabin. We camp near this, and while we are engaged in preparing
an appetising meal of fish and venison, a grizzled prospector appears
coming down the trail. After the manner of the mountains, he makes himself
at home and camps with us for the night. In the course of his conversation
he narrates many stories of this wild region and of the prospecting and
hunting adventures that have happened in it. Finally he tells us the story
of the lost cabin, a story that certainly contains all the elements of a
romance. It appears that some years ago two young fellows from the East,
cousins, had come to the Stehekin to prospect. The old man who told us the
story was then the only prospector in the canyon, and he soon made friends
with the two adventurers. From broken pieces of conversation and finally
some confidences on the part of one of the boys, he learned something of
their story. They had been bosom friends all their lives, but had fallen
in love with the same girl. The poor girl, not knowing which she did like
best, told them that the only thing was for both to leave her for two
years, and at the end of the time she would decide in favour of the one
that had showed himself the braver and more successful man. Each kept his
destination a perfect secret, but to their astonishment, within a month
after, they found each other in Spokane. They concluded that it was the
appointment of fate, and so went together to the wild country of Chelan,
to seek a fortune.
After they had been there a short time they found a mutual distrust
springing up, and finally, by the advice of the old man, they agreed to
separate. George was to stay below. He was the more sullen and selfish of
the two, and it was due to him that they had fallen out. Harry was of a
frank and generous nature, and when it became evident that they must part
he insisted that he should help build a cabin for George. And the cabin
that they built was the very one that we now saw lodged against the rocks.
Harry went up the canyon toward the Skagit Pass, and there in the lonely
grandeur of the glaciers he plied his pick and shovel.
A few months later there came a mighty Chinook, the warm wind of the
Cascades, which strips the peaks of snow within a day, transforms the
creeks into raging torrents, and sends floods down every dry gulch. The
night after the wind began to blow the old miner came to George's cabin,
and in the intense darkness of the cloudy night they listened to the
hurtling of the storm and the roar of the rapidly growing river. About
midnight there came suddenly a succession of rifle shots near at hand, and
in a few minutes a thunder and roar of water beyond anything that they had
heard. Rushing out they saw that the water was already surrounding the
cabin and they had to run in the darkness for their lives. Stumbling among
the rocks they reached at last land high enough for safety, while the
floods went tearing by. With the first light they looked out to see that
the cabin had gone adrift, but sadder to tell, they soon found Harry,
mangled, tortured, at the point of death, just strong enough to tell them
that from his situation he had seen that a fearful flood was coming and he
was trying to save George. But he had fallen in the darkness and crashed
upon the rocks, and even in his suffering he had fired his rifle as a
warning, hoping that it might be heard and save, and so it did. And the
faithful fellow died content. "We tell the tale as it was told us." But
the poor old wreck of a cabin took on something of a new significance as
it leaned up against the rocks, while the restless river sobbed and
frothed about it.
[Illustration: Doubtful Lake, Cascade Range, Washington, near Lake Chelan.
Photo. by T. W. Tolman, Spokane.]
There is great strife among the Chelan people as to which is the grander
section, the Stehekin or Railroad Creek. As a matter of fact, both are so
superlatively magnificent that whichever place one is in, that he thinks
the finer. But there is one feature of the case, and this is that the
grandest part of Railroad Creek is seldom visited. Few have ever been to
Glacier Lake, North Star Park, and Cloudy Pass, at the extreme head of
the creek, and these are the central features of the scenery. They are
about twenty-five miles from Lake Chelan, and the road and trail are
mainly good, so that the journey to the head of the creek and return can
be made very comfortably in four days.
Neither words nor pictures are adequate to convey any true conception of
Glacier Lake and its surroundings. Imagine a park of four or five thousand
acres, set with grass and flowers, filled with ice-cold streams of water
clear as crystal, and dotted here and there with trees of the most
exquisite beauty. On every side except the one down which the creek
descends, stupendous, glacier-crowned, and pinnacled peaks penetrate the
blue-black sky at an elevation of ten or eleven thousand feet. At the
south side of the park lies Glacier Lake, a mile long and half as wide,
margined with vivid grass, brilliant flowers, and trees of the Alpine
type, clear as crystal, unless darkened by some sudden scud from the
heights. At the southern end of the lake is a bold bluff of five hundred
feet, over which fall the waters of Railroad Creek, a white band across
the darkness of the bluff. Above may be seen the source of this stream. It
issues from a smaller lake, which lies in the very end of a vast glacier,
a mass of ice two miles wide and about four miles long.
Passing west of Glacier Lake through the enchanted North Star Park, a
veritable land of Beulah (at least when the sun is shining), we climb a
thousand or twelve hundred feet higher, and find ourselves at one of those
thrilling points in the mountains, a "divide." We are on the crest of the
Cascade Mountains. To the east the water flows to Lake Chelan, thence to
the Columbia, and thence to the Pacific by a journey of six hundred miles.
To the west the water descends through the Sauk and the Skagit to Puget
Sound, only a hundred and fifty miles away. This pass is almost always
wrapped in clouds, and it is fittingly known as Cloudy Pass. The masses of
warm vapour rising from the Pacific are hurled against the icy crowns of
Glacier Peak, Mt. Nixon, Mt. Le Conte, North Star Peak, Bonanza Peak, and
the rest of the wintry brotherhood, most not yet even named, and make of
them a genuine "_patriam nimborum_," in Virgil's phrase.
[Illustration: Horseshoe Basin through a Rock Gap, Stehekin Canyon. Photo.
by T. W. Tolman.]
This is the breeding place of tempests. We had just reached the pass on
one occasion, with a smiling sky below, and were just getting our cameras
ready to catch the westward maze of peaks, when almost instantly there
began to wheel and whirl above us great cloud-masses, seemingly from
nowhere, formed right there, in fact, and before we had time to think, we
were wrapped in a furious blizzard. With difficulty, benumbed, drenched,
and exhausted, we managed to pick our way to camp, four miles below. This
was in the early part of August. To be caught in a Chelan snowstorm is a
serious matter at any time, and later in the year, may be all a man's life
is worth.
But the greatest sight, the crowning feature, of all this panorama of
sublimities is Glacier Peak seen from Cloudy Pass. This is pre-eminently
the storm-king, the "Cloud-Compeller" (_Nephelegereta_, in the sounding
word of Homer), and rarely can one catch an unobstructed view of its
glistening cone. After much watching and waiting we caught the base and
part of the double crown of the mighty mass. Glacier Peak is the "Great
Unknown" among our Washington peaks. Every one has heard of Rainier, most
people know of Adams, St. Helens, Baker, and Stewart, but Glacier Peak,
alone in its solitary grandeur, not visible from the cities or routes of
travel, is little known even to the people of the State. As its name
denotes, it is the centre of a vast glacial system. To any tourist with a
taste for adventure, Glacier Peak affords the finest field, while it
offers an almost untouched mark for the scientist.
[Illustration: Lake Chelan. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]
CHAPTER III
In the Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden
Increasing Population and Cultivation as we go South--Chelan and
Wenatchee Orchards--The Wheat-plains East of Wenatchee to
Spokane--Spokane, the Metropolis of the Inland Empire--The Falls and
their Power--Interesting Points in and around Spokane--The Palouse
Farming Country--Snake River and its Orchards--Vast Irrigating
Enterprises of the Upper Snake--Shoshone Falls--Walla Walla--Waiilatpu
and Whitman Monument--Whitman College--Pendleton and its Wheat-fields
and Historical Characters--Wallowa Lake--From Wenatchee to Priest
Rapids--Origin of Name of Priest Rapids--Irrigating Enterprises below
Priest Rapids--By Steamboat from Priest Rapids to Pasco--The Yakima
Valley, its Fruits and Towns--Pasco and Kennewick and the Meeting of
the Waters--Prospects of the Future for the Irrigable Country--From
Pasco to Celilo--The Umatilla Palisades--Umatilla Rapids--Tumwater
Falls--The Canal and Locks at Celilo--What Will be Accomplished by
them for the Inland Empire--The Dalles--Its Historic Interest--Its
Wool Business, its Horticultural and Agricultural Resources, its
Scenery.
Our journey on the River thus far has been mainly in those sections where
scenery is the greatest product, and where the country, scantily
inhabited, has almost as primitive an appearance as when the gay songs of
the _voyageurs_ raised the echoes against the rock-walls of the lakes,
while paddles and bateau-prows started correspondent ripples on the clear
surface.
But as we proceed southward into the State of Washington, we find more
and more evidences of cultivation and inhabitancy. At the mouths of the
streams and on the frequent "benches" and islands, orchards and gardens
attest the enterprise and patience of the settlers. Around the lower end
of Lake Chelan the big red apple, luscious peaches, plethoric pears, huge
bunches of grapes, like the grapes of Eschol, make a picture of
fruitfulness and delight. When we reach Wenatchee on the Columbia,--a
river, a lake, and a town of the same name, meaning in the native tongue
the "butterfly,"--we find ourselves in the uppermost of those belts of
fruit land which have made the River so famous. As we stroll through these
model orchards and vines and berry patches and gardens, and see the
wonders wrought on the arid soil by the life-giving waters of the
Wenatchee, we are almost ready to join the throng that are continually
accepting the invitation to "be independent on ten acres of land and find
health, wealth, and happiness in Wenatchee." In truth, these irrigated
lands are marvels of productiveness. The valley of the Wenatchee is small,
and not over twelve thousand acres are yet in productive bearing; but in
1907 not less than five hundred carloads of fruit and vegetables were
shipped.
Like all the irrigated regions, Wenatchee is a place of pleasant homes,
good schools and social advantages, and all the accompaniments of the
finest type of genuine, whole-souled, ambitious Americanism. At Wenatchee
we are on the main line of the Great Northern Railroad, and by it we can
go west through the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound, or east to Spokane.
We must return again to Wenatchee in order to resume our journey down
the River, but we will first turn eastward and make a tour of the great
"Inland Empire" of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.
[Illustration: A Harvest Outfit, Dayton, Wash. _Sunset Magazine._]
[Illustration: A Combined Harvester, near Walla Walla. Photo. by W. D.
Chapman.]
One must necessarily visit Spokane on a journey through the great wheat
country. Spokane, the metropolis and the pride of Eastern Washington, is a
wonder to the Eastern tourist. Such a city, over one hundred thousand
people, with costly brick and stone buildings, four, six, ten stories
high, impressive public buildings, schools, churches, hotels, hundred-foot
avenues well-paved, private dwellings of architectural excellence,--and
hardly a soul there thirty years ago!
A grand spectacle the falls offered the eye in old Spokane, but now, alas,
so cribbed and cabined is the noble stream by the march of industrial and
electrical power that its wild energy is well-nigh gone except at the
highest water. The total fall in the Spokane River is one hundred and
forty-six feet, and the horse-power capacity at low water is forty
thousand, at high water over half a million.
Many points of interest must be hastily passed. The author feels great
reluctance to omit a visit to the State College of Washington at Pullman,
and the University of Idaho at Moscow. There are also historic spots, as
one at Rosalia where a monument has recently been erected in commemoration
of the Steptoe defeat in 1858, and the site of the first church in Eastern
Washington on Walker's Prairie, where Eells and Walker started a mission
for the Spokane Indians in 1838. There is also at the junction of the
Spokane and Little Spokane, the site of Spokane House, a post of the
Hudson's Bay Company, started in 1811. One might also well desire to visit
the location of the old Spokane Bridge, where Colonel Wright crushed
forever the pride and power of the Spokanes by killing eight hundred of
their choicest horses.
On whatever side viewed, either past or present, or in the forecast of the
future, Spokane is worthy of careful study. Its extensive railroad system
and its network of electric lines reaching the many lakes, garden and
fruit tracts, and rapidly developing suburbs, are concentrating the
interests of a vast and wealthy region. But there are other cities to see
and other boomers to hear and other bright futures to forecast, and so we
turn our faces southward on the line of the O. R. & N. Railway, passing
through vale after vale between the swelling prairies, with wheat, wheat,
wheat, oats, oats, oats, hay, hay, hay, cattle, horses, hogs, apple trees,
and sugar beets, elegant farmhouses on the knolls and spacious barns in
the hollows,--the great Palouse farming country, one of the most
productive in the world. Whitman County has produced eight million bushels
of wheat in a season, besides vast quantities of other products.
A hundred and forty miles from Spokane the great wheat plateau is broken
by the profound abyss of Snake River. Dark, turbid, sullen, not so
beautiful as the northern branches flowing out of the lakes, this largest
of all the tributaries of the River goes on its swift and treacherous
course to the union with the Columbia. Snake River is famous for its
orchards. Almota, Penewawa, Alpowa, Kelly's Bar, Clarkston, Asotin, are
the most prominent among many points where the cherries, peaches,
nectarines, apricots, berries, grapes, go out by the carload and
steamerload, earlier than anywhere else except on the banks of the
Columbia itself, to all parts of the West and even at times to Chicago and
New York. The region of these enormously productive fruit ranches is a
narrow ribbon of fertile land at the bottom of a canyon fifteen hundred
feet deep. Hot? Yes, hot! They say the mercury sometimes boils out of the
top of the thermometer. But heat and water and good soil make the rich
juice and bright cheeks of the peach and nectarine. Hundreds of miles up
Snake River in the wide expanses of Southern Idaho the waters are being
diverted for some of the largest irrigation enterprises on earth. There
the Twin Falls canal, one hundred feet wide and deep enough for a
steamboat, conveys the water to two hundred and eighty thousand acres of
land. The Minidoka canal covers almost as much. That part of the Snake
River Valley, three hundred miles long by fifty miles wide, will ere long
count its inhabitants by the million.
[Illustration: Inland Empire System's Power Plant, near Spokane, 20,000
Horse-Power. Photo. by T. W. Tolman.]
[Illustration: Lower Spokane Falls. Photo. by T. W. Tolman.]
No one could consider that he had really seen Snake River unless he had
visited the Great Shoshone Falls, or "Pahchulaka." This sublime
manifestation of nature's power is about forty miles from the town of
Shoshone on the Oregon Short Line. The total descent is nearly three
hundred feet, of which eighty consists of cataracts and chutes broken by
rocky islands, while the entire stream unites in the one final plunge of
two hundred and twelve feet. It is ten hundred and fifty feet wide, and
the walls of basaltic rock rise perpendicularly a thousand feet. Niagara
is the only waterfall on the American continent that can be compared with
Shoshone. Niagara is much wider but not so high. Its banks are tame,
while those of Shoshone are wildly sublime.
The spectres of history rise up at every stage of a journey along Snake
River. But we cannot pause. We pass on from the crossing of Snake River
and soon find ourselves approaching Walla Walla. This is the most historic
city of the Inland Empire and the oldest of the entire State of
Washington, with the exception of Vancouver. The pleasant-sounding name
signifies in the native tongue "Many Waters," though more literally, as
the author has been told by an old Cayuse Indian, "Place where four creeks
meet." The city of Walla Walla is thirty-two miles from the Columbia River
in the midst of a broad and fertile valley, through which dozens of clear
rivulets issuing from springs make their way through the birches and
cottonwoods. The warm climate, rich soil, and abundant water, with
multitudes of trees, give the "Garden City" an appearance of almost
tropical luxuriance. On all sides for many miles stretch the wheat-fields,
orchards, gardens, and alfalfa-fields. It is a land of plenty. It is
commonly said that Walla Walla has more automobiles, more bicycles, more
pianos, more flowers, and more pretty girls in proportion to population,
than any other town in the North-west.
The special historic interest of Walla Walla is found in the fact that it
was the location of the Whitman Mission and that the Whitman massacre took
place at the Mission Station, Waiilatpu, six miles from the city. That
spot is now marked with a marble crypt in which the bones of the martyrs
rest, and a plain but imposing granite shaft stands upon the crest of the
hill just above.
[Illustration: Canyon of the Stehekin, near Lake Chelan. Photo. by T. W.
Tolman.]
A more living monument to the missionary is found in Whitman College. This
institution, planned on the model of Amherst, Yale, and Williams, though
co-educational, was founded by Rev. Cushing Eells in 1859 as an academy.
It was not till 1883 that college work was undertaken. During that period
the self-denying missionary and his family supported the infant
institution by selling the products of their farm and devoting to it all
except what was absolutely necessary for their own support. During years
of slow, patient growth under very discouraging conditions, Whitman
College has made friends East and West, and within the last few years it
has become equipped with buildings and general facilities of high grade.
An effort is now in progress, apparently sure of fulfilment, to raise two
million dollars for buildings and general endowment. Walla Walla is
becoming peculiarly known as the educational centre and the home city of
the Inland Empire.
From Walla Walla we take a flying trip through the continued wheat belt on
the Umatilla and its branches in Northern Oregon, a region similar to that
around Walla Walla, rich and fruitful. Of this part of Oregon, Pendleton
on the Umatilla is the metropolis. The Umatilla Indian Reservation, one of
the most important in the history of this country, adjoins it. One of the
most interesting persons in North-west history, now deceased, lived at
Pendleton many years, Dr. William C. McKay, the son of Thomas McKay, and
grandson of Alexander McKay, the last named being that one of the Astor
company who lost his life on the _Tonquin_. Dr. William McKay was a
three-quarter-blood Indian, but he was well educated and one of the most
interesting men in our history. Another noted man, still living in the
prime of life, is Major Lee Moorehouse, famous in earlier times as an
Indian fighter and agent, and more recently as one of the most successful
students and photographers of Indian life. Some of his pictures have
gained national fame, and the publishers of this volume are indebted to
his courtesy for their appearance here. Another interesting fact in
connection with Pendleton is that here the Pendleton Indian robes and
blankets are manufactured, and these have borne the name of their home
place to all parts of the United States and even the world.
While in this part of Oregon we must take advantage of the opportunity to
visit Lake Wallowa, with its tragic and pathetic memories of Indian war
and early settlement and with its glorious scenery, almost equal to that
of Chelan. Right over the lake, deep-set in precipitous mountain walls,
towers the battlemented crest of Eagle Cap, which the people of Wallowa
now declare to be the highest mountain in Oregon, 12,000 feet in
elevation. Wallowa Lake is the veritable jewel of the Blue Mountains, a
chain which, while not in general equal to the Cascades for height,
grandeur, and variety, possesses in the Wallowa Basin a group of
attractions not surpassed in any part of the North-west.
[Illustration: Memorial Building, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wash.
Photo. by W. D. Chapman.]
And now we must retrace our course after this long detour through the
productive land bordering the tributaries of the River or we can in
imagination fly on the wings of the south wind, which almost always blows
across the Inland Empire, and find ourselves again at Wenatchee in order
to resume our interrupted journey down the River. From Wenatchee to the
foot of Priest Rapids, about sixty miles, there is no regular steamboat
communication. We can, however, use the same means of transportation that
we have hitherto used so liberally, imagination, and upon that airy and
convenient ship we can descend the swift and tortuous stream. The fur
brigades used to trust themselves to the skill of their paddles and boldly
descend the rapids, seldom meeting with disaster. There are three
principal rapids in this section of the River, Rock Island, Cabinet, and
Priest. In the first the River is very narrow and split in sunder by
ragged pinnacles of basaltic rock. At first observation it looks a
reckless thing to push a boat out into the white water whirling through
these fantastic points of rock. Yet a bateau or canoe skilfully handled
will plunge like a race-horse down the foaming stretch, and emerge below
bow down with little water aboard and inmates intact. Steamboats have both
descended and ascended this rapid, though it is considered a somewhat
dangerous performance. Cabinet Rapids are less picturesque and interesting
than Rock Island, but they offer even more serious obstacles to
navigation, the channel being narrow and the water shallow. The river has
cut this part of its course through the great plateau, and its banks on
either side are rocky walls a thousand feet high, with occasional sandy
stretches, sad, barren, and monotonous. There is, in fact, not so much to
catch the eye or enlist the interest of the tourist (if he were here) in
this dismal expanse of rock and sand as there is either above or below. It
is practically uninhabited. But as we proceed upon our way the banks fall
away, wider expanses of land appear, and we discover an occasional band
of cattle or a settler's hut on the generally bare, brown prairie. We are
now approaching the longest rapid and the most serious impediment to
navigation in the whole course of the River from Kettle Falls to Tumwater
Falls. This is Priest Rapids. It is ten miles in length and represents a
descent in the River of seventy feet. It would certainly be impossible of
navigation by steamboats, were it not that the descent is distributed
quite uniformly over the ten miles and the River in general is quite
straight and with a fair depth of water throughout. The old _voyageurs_
had little difficulty in racing down, and they seem to have usually
ascended by _cordelling_ their bateaux beside the rocks, and at some
especially difficult places by lightening the load and carrying around.
Steamers have both ascended and descended, but it is so slow and tedious
(on one occasion requiring a steamer three days to ascend the ten miles)
that it cannot be considered commercially navigable. It will doubtless
become necessary to construct a canal and locks at this point to render
the River continuously and profitably navigable.
Alexander Ross, in his _Adventures on the Columbia_, tells us how Priest
Rapids came to be named. The first expedition of the Pacific Fur Company,
of which Ross was a member, was making its way from Astoria up the River
in 1811, and had reached the lower end of this fall. While reconnoitring
and making preparations for proceeding, a large body of Indians gathered,
watching operations with great interest. Among them was a fantastically
dressed individual, with many feathers on his head, who was going
through some kind of a performance which the explorers conceived to have
a religious significance. Considering him a priest, they named the rapids
thus.
[Illustration: Starting the Ploughs in the Wheat Land, Walla Walla, Wash.
Photo. by W. D. Chapman, Walla Walla.]
The country around Priest Rapids is barren and unpromising in its natural
state, but just below the foot of the rapids is one of the most
interesting irrigation projects in the State. Along the west side of the
River for twenty-five miles extends a belt of the most fertile land. An
immense pumping plant run by electricity, which in turn is generated by
the current, has been put in at the foot of the rapids. By this the water
is conducted over the twenty thousand or more acres of land available, and
it is the expectation that within a few years a dense population will line
the river bank and repeat on a larger and finer scale the miracle of
redemption by water already performed at various points on the River and
its tributaries. Several town sites, of which the chief is Hanford, named
from the president of the company, have already been laid out, and
investments both in town property and orchard land are being rapidly made.
The same process of irrigating is becoming inaugurated at many points from
Hanford for a hundred and fifty miles down the River. It is plain to the
observer that it is but a question of time when the shores of the River in
this arid section will bloom and blossom like the rose, and repeat the
history of Old Nile in massing of population and creation of cities and
towns. It has been estimated that there are about a million acres of
irrigable land contiguous to the River between Chelan and The Dalles.
Since from five to twenty acres of irrigated land are ample to maintain a
family, and since cities and villages are bound to grow on such tracts
commensurate with their productive capacity, it seems probable that a
million people will sometime live on this long belt of fertile soil
redeemed by the River.
The beauty of irrigation on the Columbia is that it can be made to pump
itself. For by taking advantage of such a fall as that of Priest Rapids (a
half million horse-power at ordinary water), electric power can be
generated by which limitless water can be raised sufficiently to cover any
desired amount of land. Some have expressed the opinion that this process
would exhaust the River, but this is hardly possible. For the great
demands are in June and July when the River is at its flood. It has been
estimated that at low water the Columbia at Celilo discharges 125,000
cubic feet per second, and at extreme high water, 1,600,000 cubic feet per
second. Such a prodigious volume of water would be scarcely at all
affected by any possible withdrawals.
The River from the foot of Priest Rapids is regularly navigated by several
steamers connecting the new lands and towns with Pasco, the railroad
centre seventy miles below. This section of the River is deep and
tranquil, a superb watercourse. Below Hanford the River receives the
Yakima River, which is the important agent in the irrigation of the great
Yakima Valley. No one could say that he knew the Columbia River or the
State of Washington without a visit to that valley, the largest in the
State and the scene of the most extensive development in irrigated lands
anywhere in the North-west. Three thousand carloads of fruit and
vegetables were shipped from the Yakima in 1907. Buyers of Yakima fruits
come from all parts of the East, from England, and even from France.
Fortunes have been made in that fair land,--a fair land when supplied with
water, but an arid waste without it. The United States Government has
acquired control of most of the water system of the Yakima, and by means
of storage basins in the mountain lakes where the Yakima and its branches
rise, will be able to supply water for over a million acres of land.
[Illustration: On the Historic Walla Walla River. Photo. by W. D.
Chapman.]
The productive capacity of these fat lands when softened with an
irrigating ditch and tickled with a hoe or cultivator is almost beyond
belief. In 1907 an orchardist in what is known as Parker Bottom in the
Yakima Valley raised on fifty-eight pear trees a crop of pears which was
sold for over three thousand dollars. This statement is well attested,
extraordinary as it sounds. It should be understood that such production
does not represent an average yield. The trees were of large size and of
the choicest variety, while conditions of production, price, and sale were
of the best. Yet similar records may be found in Wenatchee, Hood River,
Walla Walla, and others of the fine fruit-producing regions of the
Columbia Valley. A man in the Touchet Valley near Dayton, who had been for
twenty years a teacher at an average salary of a thousand a year, became
discontented with his narrow conditions, and by making credit arrangements
for a rich body of land has devoted himself for some years to the
development of an apple orchard. He has a hundred acres of trees, young
and of choice varieties, from which in the year 1907 he sold thirty-four
thousand boxes of fruit for approximately fifty thousand dollars.
But while we have been flying in imagination over the spacious valley of
the Yakima, our steamer has been speeding down the broad River, and we are
now within sight of a vast prairie stretching east and south, bounded on
the southern horizon by the azure wall, ridged with white, of the Blue
Mountains. To the east, this great plain melts into the sky. In fact it
extends to the Bitter Root Mountains, a distance of over two hundred
miles. On the west bank of the River we see a narrower plain bounded by a
steep treeless ridge. On either bank we see taking shape before us houses
and trees, while extended over the River, like threads of gossamer in the
distance, a bridge is outlined against the sky. We soon discover that we
are near Pasco on the east bank and Kennewick on the west bank of the
River. The bridge is that of the Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland,
and Seattle Railroads. A mile below the bridge the Snake River joins its
greater brother.
This point is the very hub of the Inland Empire. Here the two great rivers
unite. Here steamboating on a vast scale will take place in the near
future. As soon as the locks are placed in the River at Celilo, a hundred
and thirty miles below, steamers can move freely to the ocean. Here three
transcontinental railroads pass, two down the River and one to Puget
Sound. Another is in process of construction to Puget Sound. Here a body
of the richest soil, on both sides of both rivers, embracing at least a
hundred and fifty thousand acres, waits only for water to bloom and yield
as Wenatchee and Yakima have already done. Here the long, hot summer
insures the earliest production of any part of the North-west, and in
early production the profit is found.
[Illustration: Blalock Fruit Ranch of a Thousand Acres at Walla Walla,
Wash. Photo. by W. D. Chapman.]
It is, in fact, obvious at a glance that here at the junction of the
Columbia and Snake Rivers, at the crossings of the great railroads, and at
the point of the greatest area of irrigable land in one body, with every
advantage of soil, climate, and transportation, there is bound to be in
the near future a large city. Already on the west side of the Columbia the
beautiful little town of Kennewick, of three thousand inhabitants, where
six years ago the jack-rabbits, coyotes, and sage-hens held sway, shows
what can be done with water. For at that point the first irrigating canal
was put through the waste, and the traveller can now see the results.
Other irrigating enterprises are now in progress, and by the time the
readers of this volume come to descend the River in the splendid
steamboats which will sometime run through canals and locks the whole
length from Revelstoke to the ocean, there will be one of the most
splendid cities in the North-west at this meeting of the waters. Pasco is
likely to be the location of the big city. From Pasco there are steamers
running to Celilo, conveying wheat. The traveller who desires to know the
River from its surface should take passage on such a steamer. We see the
same characteristic features of the inauguration of irrigating enterprises
from point to point, but mainly the shores are still uninhabited and
barren, and the River, mainly untouched by sail or steamer, sweeps on its
swift course, as lonely as when Lewis and Clark first turned their canoe
prows westward.
As we pass the desolate sand heaps near the disconsolate little old town
of Wallula, we can recall the old Hudson's Bay fort, the Indian wars, the
struggle for possession, the missions, the incoming immigrants, all the
tragedy and striving which marked the century just closed. Below Wallula
the Umatilla highlands throw a barrier eight hundred feet high athwart the
course of the stream, and the bold escarpments of rock, palisades grander
than those of the Hudson, attest the energy with which the River fulfilled
his mission of cleaving the intercepting barrier in two. Below these
palisades, a vast plain extends many miles on the south to where the
purple line of the Blue Mountains cuts the horizon. On the margin of this
plain the little town of Irrigon (where is published a paper with the
alliterative title of the _Irrigon Irrigationist of Irrigon, Oregon_),
green and flowery in the wide aridity, shows us again what part water
plays in reclamation of land. Of similar interest is Blalock Island,
commemorating the name of Dr. N. G. Blalock of Walla Walla, whom the
North-west honours as the father of great enterprises.
We pass several rapids on this section of the River, the chief of which
are the Umatilla, John Day, and Hell-gate. These are somewhat serious
impediments to navigation at low water. The Umatilla Rapid presents the
curious feature of a reef extending almost directly across the River with
the channel running parallel to it and at right angles to the course of
the stream. Hence when the water is so low that the reef cannot be passed
directly over, the steamer pilot must follow a channel running right
across the current, a current which tends to throw him broadside onto the
reef. The Government is at present engaged in blasting a channel
directly through this reef. The country becomes more rugged as we descend,
and at various points, if the sky be clear, we can see the great peaks of
the Cascades to the west. Passing through the wild water of Hell-gate,
where the steamer quivers as though great hands were reaching up from
below and shaking her, we soon find ourselves at Celilo.
[Illustration: Witch's Head, near Old Wishram Village. The Indian
Superstition Is that these Eyes will Follow Any Unfaithful Woman. By
Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse.]