The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to Alaska

by Maturin M. Ballou

With well-screened foot-lights, verdant woodland surroundings, characters assumed by a trained ballet troupe, framed in the usual proscenium boxes, with orchestra in front, this would be a fitting entertainment for a first-class Boston or New York audience.

The Indians, or portions of the native race, seen in and about the streets of Victoria are of the most squalid character, dirty and unintelligent, being altogether repulsive to look upon.

The Indians of the west coast of the island are brought less in contact with the whites, and still keep up to a certain extent their native manners and customs, wearing fewer garments of civilization, and being satisfied with a single blanket as a covering during some portions of the year. They are fond of wearing curiously carved wooden masks at all their festivals,—some representing the head of a bear, some that of a huge bird, and others forming exaggerated human faces. There seems to be a spirit of caricature prevailing among them, as it does among the Chinese and Japanese.

These Vancouver aborigines have an original and extraordinary method of expressing their warm regard for each other, in isolated districts where they are quite by themselves. When they meet, instead of grasping hands or embracing, they bite each other’s shoulders, and the scars thus produced are regarded with considerable satisfaction by the recipient. Their sacred rites are sanguinary, and their notions of religion are of a vague and incomprehensible kind. They believe in omens and sorcery, suffering as much from fear of supernatural evil as the most benighted African tribes. The west coast of Vancouver is nearly always bleak; the great waves of the North Pacific breaking upon it, even in quiet weather, with fierce grandeur, roaring sullenly among the rocks and caves.

The distant view from the eastern side of Vancouver is of a most charming character, embracing the blue Olympic range of mountains in the State of Washington, whose heads are turbaned with snow, while the lofty undulating peaks, taken en masse, resemble the fiercely agitated waves of the sea; a view which vividly recalled the Bernese Alps as seen from the city of Berne.

Vancouver is the largest island on the Pacific coast, and is well diversified with mountains, valleys, and long stretches of low pleasant shore. Its name commemorates that of one of the world’s great explorers. Vancouver had served, previous to these notable explorations, as an officer under Captain Cook for two long and eventful voyages, and was thus well fitted for a discoverer and pioneer. He made a careful survey of Puget Sound with all of its channels, inlets, and bays, and wrote a faithful description of the coast of the mainland as well as of the islands. Though this was about a century ago, so faithfully did he perform his work that his charts are still regarded as good authority, though not absolutely perfect.

That practical seaman, in his sailing-ship, puts us to shame with all our science and steam facilities as regards surveys of this complicated region. The coast survey organization of the United States has done little more than to corroborate a portion of Vancouver’s work. It is surprising that the government should neglect to properly explore and define by maps the islands, channels, and straits of the North Pacific coast. Notwithstanding our boasted enterprise, we are behind every power of Europe in these maritime matters.

The island of Vancouver has an area of eighteen thousand square miles, and is therefore larger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware combined. It is only by these familiar comparisons that we can hope to convey clearly to the mind of the average reader such statistical facts, and cause them to be remembered.

Reference has been made to the favorable climate of Victoria. We should state that the maximum summer temperature is 84° Fah., and the minimum of the year is 22°.

From here our course lies in a northwest direction, leading through the broad Gulf of Georgia, which separates Vancouver from British Columbia. The magnificent ermine-clad head of Mount Baker is seen, for many hours, to the east of our course, looming far, far above the clouds, and radiating the glowing beauty of the sunset, which happened to be exceptionally fine at the close of our first day out from Victoria. The atmosphere, sea, and horizon were all the color of gold. The surface of the water was unbroken by a ripple, while it flashed in opaline variety the brilliant hues of the evening hour. The grand scenery which we encounter foreshadows the character of the voyage of a thousand miles, more or less, northward, to the locality of the great glaciers, forming a vast interior line of navigation unequaled elsewhere for bold shores, depth of water, numberless bays, and inviting harbors. The course is bordered for most of the distance with continuous forests, distinctly reflected in the placid surface of these straits and sounds. At times the passage, perhaps not more than a mile in width, is lined on either side with mountains of granite, whose dizzy heights are capped with snow, up whose precipitous sides spruce and pine trees struggle for a foothold, and clinging there thrive strangely upon food afforded by stones and atmospheric air. Occasionally we pass some deep, dark fjord, which pierces the mountains far inland, presenting mysterious and unexplored vistas. We come upon the island of San Juan, not long after leaving Victoria, which was for a considerable period a source of serious contention between England and America, the ownership being finally settled by arbitration, and awarded to us by the Late Emperor of Germany. San Juan is remarkable for producing limestone in sufficient quantity to keep scores of lime-kilns occupied for a hundred years. The island was only important to us by its position, and as establishing certain boundary lines.