As the rainfall is frequent be sure to have a good stout umbrella. Ladies would do well to take a gossamer waterproof and gentlemen a mackintosh. Heavy shoes, that is with double soles, and a light overcoat should be provided. There is no occasion for full dress,—court dress, on this route, swallow-tails are so much needless baggage. Ladies’ skirts should be short so they will not draggle on the wet deck of the steamer, or in walking through the damp grass, or over the surface of a glacier. In the latter instance gentlemen generally carry portable spikes that can be screwed on to the bottom of the shoes, and a staff cane with a stout ferule. When a party is formed to ascend a glacier a small hatchet and small rope should always be taken by some one of their number. In case of an accident these often become of great importance. There need not be any accident, however, if ordinary prudence is observed.
A large and well-appointed steamer named the Islander, which plies regularly on this route, takes one across the island-sprinkled Gulf of Georgia in six or seven hours from Victoria to Vancouver on the mainland. This is the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, situated a short distance from the mouth of the Fraser River. From here the homeward course is almost due east through British Columbia, Alberta, Assiniboia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec to Montreal, thence southeast to Boston.
So late as 1886 the present site of Vancouver was covered with a dense forest of Douglass pines, cedar and spruce trees. The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed to Vancouver in May, 1887, when the first through train arrived from Montreal. The youthful city is well situated for commercial purposes on what is called Burrard Inlet. It has extensive wharves, substantial warehouses, and very good hotel accommodations. Well-arranged public water-works bring the needful domestic supply in pure and healthful condition from the neighboring hills. The surrounding scenery is strikingly bold, embracing the Cascade Range in the north, the mountains of Vancouver Island across the water in the west, and the Olympian Range in the south, while the great snowy head of Mount Baker rears itself skyward as the main feature in the southeast. The steamer which brings us here from Victoria passes through a beautiful archipelago of peaceful islands, verdant and wooded to the very brink. The busy population of this infant city number between thirteen and fourteen thousand, and the place is growing rapidly. It is lighted by both gas and electricity. Forty substantial edifices for business and dwelling purposes are in course of erection at this writing. There are steamers which sail regularly from here for Japan, China, and San Francisco. As it is in the midst of what may be called a wild country, there is excellent hunting near at hand and large game is abundant. Many sportsmen, especially from England, make their headquarters here while devoting themselves to hunting for a large part of the summer season. Four large English sloops of war were observed in the harbor at the time of the writer’s visit, together with a couple of torpedo boats bearing the same flag, destined for Behring Sea, to “emphasize” the British side of the Alaska fishery question as between our government and that of Great Britain.
As one stands on the shore the harbor presents a picture of great variety and interest, comprising men-of-war boats pulled by disciplined crews; canoes, paddled by Indian squaws wrapped in high-colored blankets; boats loaded with valuable furs and propelled by aboriginal hunters; here a raft of timber, and there a steam ferry-boat. Just in shore there is passing as we watch the scene a native canoe carrying a sail made of bark-matting, brown and dingy, steered with a paddle by an aged, withered, white-haired Indian, while in the prow is a four or five year old native boy, trailing his hands idly in the water over the side of the tiny craft. A striking picture of the voyage of life: thoughtless, happy, vigorous youth at the prow, with weary age and experience awaiting the end at the stern. A couple of large steamers close at hand are getting under way loaded with preserved fish, put up at the canneries near by; one is bound for Australia, the other for England, by way of Cape Horn.
Vancouver has many edifices of brick and stone, with good churches and several schools; some of the private residences being remarkable for their complete architectural character in so new a city as this which forms the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The principal part of the city occupies a peninsula, bounded north by the waters of Burrard Inlet, south by a small indentation called False Creek, and west by English Bay. The city is fast extending beyond these limits, both east and south. The peninsula rises gradually to an altitude of two hundred feet, more or less, affording the means of perfect drainage for the new city, which is laid out on a grand scale. A tramway, embracing the several suburbs, is in course of construction, the motor for which will be electricity.
We take the cars at Vancouver for our long journey homeward over the Canadian Pacific Railway, through the British Dominion to the Atlantic coast, indulging in a last admiring view of the grand elevation known as Mount Baker, which in these closing days of July is a mass of snow two thousand feet from its summit. Upon starting our attention is first drawn to the gigantic trees, big sawmills, immense piles of lumber, and extensive brick-yards in the environs of the city. Small villages are passed, straggling farms, Indian camps, mining lodges, and Chinese “hives,” where these people congregate after working all day at placer mining, and gamble half the night, sacrificing their laboriously acquired means. The grand winding valley of the Fraser River—a watercourse as large as the Ohio—is followed for over two hundred miles in a northeasterly direction, affording glimpses of most charming and vivid scenery, leading through cañons fully equaling in grandeur of form and beauty of detail anything of the sort in Colorado.
Now and again groups of Indians are seen preparing the salmon they have caught for winter use. The fish are split and stretched flat by wooden braces, then hung in long pink lines upon low frames of wood. They use no salt in this curing process, but simply dry the fish by atmospheric exposure, and succeed very well in thus preserving it. Dried salmon forms the principal staple of food for this people in the long Canadian winters. These natives, as in our own instance, are subsidized by the Dominion; that is, they are placed upon reservations and receive a certain amount of money and rations annually from the government. Light green patches of raspberries are passed here and there, where children are gathering the ripe fruit in abundance, the bright color about their mouths betraying how abundantly they have feasted while thus engaged. It was a pleasant picture to gaze upon under the pearly blue sky, where we were surrounded with the fragrant odor of pine and spruce, and the ceaseless music of hurrying waters.
At times the river rushes through deep rocky ravines, and at others expands into broad shallows with glittering sand bars, on which eager groups of miners are seen washing for gold. We cross a deep, cavernous gorge of the river on a graceful steel bridge, which, though doubtless of ample strength, yet seems of spider-web proportions, then plunge into a dark tunnel to emerge directly amid scenery of the wildest nature, set with huge bowlders and noisy with boiling flumes and roaring cascades, where color, splendor, and inspiration greet us at each turn, while every object is softened by the pale afternoon sunlight.
By and by we pass up the valley of the Thomson River, a tributary of the Fraser, finding ourselves presently in what is called the Gold, or Columbian, range of mountains, a grand snow-clad series of hills. Our route through them for nearly fifty miles is in the form of a deep, narrow pass between vertical cliffs, forming land channels similar to the water-ways which we have lately left behind us in the Alexander Archipelago.