A Pacific Coast Vacation

by Mrs. James Edwin Morris

Wenatchee valley is famous for its irrigated fruit farms. A great variety of fruits is grown. Water is easily and cheaply obtained. Mission District is another fine fruit valley. The interest in agriculture is growing. Bees do well here. If you do not own all the land you want come west where it is cheap, good and plenty. The country is rapidly filling up with settlers. We passed fine wheat lands that stretch away across the country to Walla Walla. Men are now coming in to the wheat harvest just as in Illinois they come to cut broomcorn. But they are a better looking class of men. One sees no genuine tramp. There is no room for him here, there is too much work and he shuns such districts as one would a smallpox infected region.

Seattle.—The first white men to explore this coast was an expedition under command of Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot in the service of the Viceroy of Mexico. They explored the coast as far north as Vancouver island in 1592. Two hundred years later Captain George Vancouver, of the British navy, made extensive explorations along this same coast. The first overland expedition was commanded by Lewis and Clarke. The next was also a military expedition and was commanded by John C. Fremont. The first people to settle in the country were the fur traders. The first mission was established by Dr. Marcus Whitman at Walla Walla in 1836. It was Dr. Whitman who rode to Washington, D. C., leaving here in December, and informed the government of the conspiracy of England to drive out all the American settlers and seize the country. The first town was Tumwater, founded in 1845 by Michael Simmons. These are some of the people who helped make Washington.

General Sherman said, that God had done more for Seattle than for any other place in the world. It is destined to be the Chicago of the West. The largest saw-mills in the world are located here. The population is about eighty thousand and the increase is rapid. The University of Washington, supported by the state, is grandly located in Seattle. The Federal government has a fine military station twelve miles out of the city.

TANGLE OF WILD FERN IN A WASHINGTON FOREST.

At every turn Indian names meet the eye. We steamed down the bay on the Skagit Chief to the city park, where we lunched at the Duramash restaurant. In the shop windows Umatilla hats, Black Eagle caps and Ancelline ties are offered for sale.

Ancelline was an Indian princess, daughter of Seattle. Seattle was chief of the Old Man House Indians. These Indians had a big wigwam in which the entire tribe lived during the winter. They called this the Old Man House and the tribe took its name from this house. There is but one family of these Indians left.

The Indians on this side of the mountains have never received any support from the government. They are much more industrious than their red brothers on the other side. There are many tribes here and many of them are quite well to do in the way of lands and money. All talk English but prefer to speak Chinook.

Nokomis was an old Indian woman who did laundry work for a family in Seattle with whom I have become acquainted. Nokomis was exceedingly stubborn. She would permit no one to tell her how to wash for had she not washed in the creeks and rivers all her life? This old woman was somewhat deaf and when directions were being given her she could not possibly hear and continued the work her own way. But when the mistress would say, “Come Nokomis, have some coppe (Chinook for coffee) and muck amuck (Chinook for ‘something to eat’),” she never failed to hear, though this was often said in a low tone of voice to test Nokomis’s ears.

Wheat in this section easily goes fifty bushels per acre. The root crops, potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, beets and parsnips yield enormously, with prices fair to good. The fruits are fine and prices good. Strawberries sell here now three quarts for twenty-five cents. The fruits go to Alaska, Canada and east to Montana and Minnesota. Stock and poultry do well here and supply eastern markets at good prices. Another industrial resource in which many are engaged is fishing. The cod, halibut, oyster, crab, shrimp, whale and fur seal yield fine profits. Canned fish go to the Eastern States, to Europe, Asia and Australia. The timber, coal, iron, gold and silver industries are well represented.