I said I had, both in England and Canada, which pleased him, and he assured me that we should do splendidly, and again he said he hoped I'd join him.
Naturally, I did think this over. I heard about his antecedents from the bank manager, found he was a member of a good old English family, and that he himself was of good repute. I heard from the same source that it was true about the gold he had brought down, I saw his bag of nuggets, and I liked him. I was looking for some employment, I counted the cost, and knowing that if, at the worst, I returned empty-handed, I should not even then be quite without funds, I consented to share with him in the adventure. He was to defray all expenses.
It was early in April that he and I started in a steamer bound for Sitka and other ports in Alaska. She came from Tacoma, in the State of Washington, and picked us up at Victoria on her way to the north.
Meade having all plans cut and dried, it did not take us long to lay in our stock of necessaries. We purchased provisions, tinned meats and vegetables, flour and bacon, with plenty of various preserved foods, enough to keep us going well for at least a year. We took ample supply of tobacco, with guns, ammunition, a sheet-iron Yukon stove, picks, shovels, washpans, and we did not forget our axes. All these goods were done up in parcels covered with waterproof canvas, each in weight suitable for "packing," that is for Indians to carry.
Leaving Victoria, we travelled up between Vancouver Island and the mainland to Naniamo. Here we took in coal, then headed up the coast.
How am I to describe to you this wonderful journey? Words fail me. From the very start it was delightful. True, we were at sea; but being amongst islands, we were so sheltered that it was like a placid river. We traversed the grandest scenery that can be imagined, the water clear and smooth as glass, with air as soft as velvet. We sighted Queen Charlotte's Islands, but voyaged through channels nearer the mainland, between grand timbered islets, past rocky bluffs and gorges, always in sight of mountains, many being snow-covered and glaciered. Then on between Prince of Wales' Island and the mainland, and so to Fort Wrangel, where we left the goodly steamer. We had come seven hundred miles in her, and had been four days on the way.
Wrangel was just a rough group of shanties, with some stores and many totem-poles, as most of the few inhabitants were Indians of the Stickeen tribe. The whites were traders, or miners and prospectors, en route to the Yukon country. Here we hired a canoe to carry us to Juneau. It was an immense one, beautifully fashioned out of one huge log of cedar—a dug-out—but in shape and seaworthiness most excellent. We engaged four Indians to man it. Most of the trip was made with paddles; but sometimes a square sail was hoisted on a pole forward. We camped each night upon the rocky shores.
It took three days to reach that town. It is the metropolis of Alaska, Sitka being the capital. But most of the business is done in Juneau. It is, naturally, a rough and ramshackle place, yet we found it possible to obtain fair accommodation at a queer hotel, and every article of provisions and gear needed in the upper country. It has a city hall and court-house, waterworks, banks, and electric light and wharves! We had to wait two days for one of the two small steamers which ply between Juneau and Skagway. The Rustler is the one we took, the fare then being only 10 dollars each—but we had to feed ourselves.
After leaving Juneau we steamed along a narrow strait between Douglas Island and the coast, and entered the famed Lynn Canal, which is an arm of the sea running almost due north. It averages ten miles in width, and is about one hundred in length, having very regular shores, straight and uniform; but for its dimensions, it might be taken indeed for an artificially made canal. On our left we skirted the great Davidson Glacier. The whole journey was grand, sublime, and in many places awful.
We arrived in Skagway Inlet on the second day. A few miles from the head of it we came to the Skagway river or creek, 120 miles from Juneau, and here, amongst a wilderness of trees, mountains, and mud flats, a mere foothold in the snow-clad granite coast-range, were a handful of Indian rancheries and a few log shanties and some tents. There is a great rise and fall in the tides at Skagway. We had to wait some time ere the one boat belonging to the Rustler could land us and our stuff on the rock-strewn muddy beach. No one from the shore lent a hand. There was a rough wharf, it is true, in course of construction. The men building it, we understood, had gone to their camp, for it was late when we arrived.