PUGET SOUND, September, 1888.
We have all thought we were fairly appreciative of the wealth and wonders
of Uncle Sam's domain. At Niagara we have gloried in the belief that all
the cataracts of other lands were tame; but we changed our mind when we
stood on the brink of Great Shoshone Falls. In Yellowstone the proudest
thought was that all the world's other similar wonders were commonplace;
and at Yosemite's Inspiration Point the unspeakable thrill of awe and
delight was richly heightened by the grand idea that there was no such
majesty or glory beyond either sea. But after all this, we now know that
it yet remains for the Alaskan trip to rightly round out one's
appreciation and admiration of the size and grandeur of our native land.
Some of our most delighted _voyageurs_ are from Portland, Maine. When
they had journeyed some 1,500 miles to Omaha they imagined themselves
at least half way across our continent. Then, when they had finished
that magnificent stretch of some 1,700 miles more from Omaha to
Portland, Oregon, in the palace cars of the Union Pacific, they were
quite sure of it. Of course, they confessed a sense of mingled
disappointment and eager anticipation when they learned that they were
yet less than half way. They learned what is a fact--that the extreme
west coast of Alaska is as far west of Sitka as Portland, Maine, is
east of Portland, Oregon, and the further fact that San Francisco lacks
4,000 mile's of being as far west as Uncle Sam's "Land's End," at
extreme Western Alaska. It is a great country; great enough to contain
one river--the Yukon--about as large as the Mississippi, and a coast
line about twice as long as all the balance of the United States. It is
twelve times as large as the State of New York, with resources that
astonish every visitor, and a climate not altogether bad, as some would
have it. The greatest trouble is that during the eighteen years it has
been linked to our chain of Territories it has been treated like a
discarded offspring or outcast, cared for more by others than its
lawful protector. But, like many a refugee, it is carving for itself a
place which others will yet envy. But, to