Canada, the Spellbinder

by Lilian Whiting

This new route to Alaska, which is under the auspices of the Grand Trunk Pacific, has greatly increased the tourist travel, as the safety of the "Inside Route," combined with the luxurious conditions and the ineffable panorama of beauty, render the journey as easy and feasible as it is delightful. There is a saving of three days by journeying over the Grand Trunk Pacific to Prince Rupert and there embarking for Alaska. In January of 1916, the well-known traveller and writer, Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, made this trip of which he wrote:

"... I despair of giving you any idea of the beauties of this voyage, they are so many and so varied. Now you have the wonders of the Swiss Lakes, now those of the Inland Sea of Japan, and now beauties like those on the coasts of New Zealand. There are all sorts of combinations of sea and sky, of evergreen slopes and snow-capped mountains. The colour effects are beyond description and the sunsets indescribable in their changes and beauties. The islands are of all shapes and sizes and they float upon sapphire seas. Many of the islands have snow-capped mountains that rise in green walls almost straight up from the water, and their heads are often crested with silver."

Juneau, the capital and principal metropolis of Alaska, is on Gastineau Channel, which is eight miles in length and more than a mile wide at the entrance, gradually growing less as it nears the mainland, till it becomes like a narrow avenue of blue water through which the sunset pours in the late afternoon with an almost unearthly beauty. Mount Juneau, in the centre of the town, rises to a height of 3000 feet, with sloping sides of a pale green down which rush numberless cascades of silvery, sparkling water. Juneau is already an important business centre, with incalculably rich mining properties tributary to the city, and with almost every branch of business and the industries represented. It is the commercial supply centre of all the camps; it is on the direct line of travel from Seattle to the Upper Yukon, and has its banks, assay laboratories, transportation facilities, and good schools, while it is the residence of the Governor of Alaska and the seat of all the Federal offices. There is a Chamber of Commerce, and there are women's clubs and imported gowns. The hospitalities of Juneau are already famous, and social life rises to a gaiety and whirl that leaves the Parisian life, as it existed in its social tide before the war, quite in the shade. The Parisienne is seldom reckless in her extravagance; a certain well-adjusted economy is a part of French life, even among the most fashionable and wealthy. But economy can hardly be said to have achieved much for itself in Juneau. Is not Alaska stuffed with gold? Not a few of its residents live as if that conviction were their financial basis. The entertaining is on a lavish scale; the women are dressed so smartly as to put a modest traveller quite to rout; and money is apparently regarded as something to be put into immediate circulation.

Life is at high tide. Juneau has a creditable library, it has several cleverly edited newspapers, and the general vitality of the social and commercial life is not unworthy of the sparkling splendours of the scenic setting. As Juneau was founded in 1880, its initial mining camp developing towards a town, the period of its existence that antedates the dawn of the twentieth century is regarded by its up-to-date residents as ancient history. The Rome of the fifth century is not more remote from the Rome of 1916 than is the decade of the 'eighties from Juneau. The people are the true "futurists" in every sense. No grass grows under their glancing feet. They drive, and dress, and dine, and dance. They begin where the older cities leave off, so to speak. If they are remote from the great world centres, so much the worse for the same centres! Life is perpetually en fête in Juneau. The vital exhilaration, the sparkling energy, the eye on the future, and the disregard of the past, are characteristics of the general march of progress.

It is interesting to recall that the first book ever written on Alaska was by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore of Washington, the capital of the United States, a book published by the Lothrop house in Boston (U.S.A.) early in the decade of 1880-90. Miss Scidmore was the first American woman to visit Alaska, sailing from San Francisco by a freight steamer some time before any passenger service was inaugurated for that wonderful voyage. An adventurous spirit, her eager imagination always flitting before to penetrate some unknown region, Miss Scidmore thus began, in her early girlhood, the extensive and somewhat remarkable travels which have been continued in her picturesque life. Since those days of her first youthful achievement her name has flown widely on the wings of fame as that of one of the most brilliant and able women writers of her country. Taking the Orient for her happy hunting-ground, Miss Scidmore has made numerous voyages over the Pacific, with many prolonged sojourns in China, Japan, and India; making a pilgrimage to Java and writing of its old temples and mysterious customs in a richly illustrated paper that appeared in the Century Magazine and which attracted wide attention. Among her books A Winter in China and Jinrikisha Days have come to be regarded as almost indispensable handbooks for travellers as well as the enchanters of the fireside or the summer piazza; and by means of many years' residence in Tokio and Yokohama, Miss Scidmore has become an acknowledged authority on Oriental art, a connoisseur whose judgment has been sought by more than one of the great art collectors in the States. With her keen intellectual grasp she has also entered into the politics of the Far East; and to The Outlook, and other leading reviews in both London and New York, Miss Scidmore has contributed articles so able in their discernment as to be widely quoted and discussed.

Miss Scidmore's initial trip to Alaska, interpreted in a book offering a series of singularly vivid impressions, combined, too, with a study of facts and prevailing conditions, and fascinating pictorial descriptions of this "water-colour land" as she termed it, from the faint evanescent hues of sunshine on the glaciers, perhaps contributed more than any other single cause to stimulate the demand for passenger excursions to this country.

Miss Scidmore's description of Muir Glacier, an exquisite piece of word-painting, has often been reproduced; and of her last, lingering view of this spectacle she wrote:

"The whole brow was transfigured with the fires of sunset; the blue and silvery pinnacles, the white and shining front dreamlike on a roseate and amber sea, and the range and circle of dull violet mountains lifting their glowing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and gold."

Somewhere about 1889 another gifted American woman, Kate Field, author, lecturer, and a charming figure in society, visited Alaska; and to Miss Field belongs the honour of having delivered the first lecture ever given in that country. It was in Juneau, in a primitive and unfinished room, that Miss Field gave this lecture, utilising a rough table as a platform. Her audience included miners in their working garb, prospectors, many of the usual camp-followers, a few Indians, and several of her fellow-passengers from the steamer. Her theme was that of good citizenship, and one of her hearers afterwards reported that she gave them wholesome truths with characteristic vehemence and earnestness. Miss Field was rewarded by being presented with the "freedom" of the town (then hardly more than a mining-camp), with a pair of silver bracelets made by the Indians, a bottle of virgin gold, and a totem pole. These picturesque tributes were highly valued by their witty and graceful recipient, and she often displayed them with pride and pleasure to her friends in Washington, New York, Paris, or London. Visiting the Muir Glacier at this early period when its unequalled grandeur was at its perfection (for of late years earthquakes and devastations have changed its contour) Miss Field thus described it:

"Imagine a glacier three miles wide and three hundred feet high, and you have a slight idea of Muir Glacier. Picture a background of mountains fifteen thousand feet high, all snow-clad, and then imagine a gorgeous sun lighting up crystals with rainbow colouring. The face of the crystal takes on the hue of aquamarine—the hue of every bit of floating ice that surrounds the steamer. This dazzling serpent moves sixty-four feet a day, tumbling headlong into the sea, startling the air with submarine thunder."