For the first ten miles the scenery does not differ materially from that which we are accustomed to in the inland sea from Victoria to Alaska. Then we enter fresh water and for the next forty miles steam through one long mountain gorge, for here the river has cut completely through the Cascade Range. The mountains begin at the water's edge and rise almost perpendicularly to heights of from three to four thousand feet. Their lower limits are covered with dense green forests, which seem to grow out of the solid rock. The summits are smooth and glistening, and often covered with snow and ice. Here and there we can trace some tiny rivulet issuing from an ice bed high up among the clouds, and every portion of its course can be traced down the steep mountain wall until it gives one final and headlong plunge into the river. At times these streams, taking their rise in some extensive glacier, are of considerable magnitude, and fairly roar as they leap and hurl themselves downward from their dizzy height. And here we learned a curious fact about the river: in summer it falls when it rains, and rises when the sun shines, so rapidly do the pent-up snows of winter disappear and rush down the mountain sides under the heat of the spring sun.
Until noon of the second day we had been making good time, but now the fun began, for we had left deep water and had arrived at the first flight of the eight-hundred-foot stairway which the Caledonia had to climb ere Hazelton could be reached. The river had been gradually widening as one island after another had been passed, until now it was nearly half a mile wide and flowed through four channels. The captain attempted one channel, but we couldn't gain an inch, and in drifting back again down the rapids the current carried the boat against the rocks and, with a crash and a lurch, but minus some woodwork, she was in the stream again. Then two other channels were tried, but without avail, although the wheel was throwing water and gravel over the pilot house. The fourth channel was next tried, but the current was too strong. Then we "lined her out," and this novel method of getting a huge steamboat up a stream soon became only too commonplace. The method of procedure is this: The boat is forced against a sand bar and allowed to rest while men go forward in a skiff with a long four-inch cable, which is made fast to a tree on the bank or to a "dead man," a long spar buried deep in the earth of a sand bar and heaped over with bowlders. When all is ready, the boat is attached to the capstan and the wheel begins to revolve. It is tedious work and often provoking, as when the cable parts, or the "dead man" gives up his hold, and the whole work must be done over again. The boat quivers from stem to stern, and the wheel, with all possible steam on, is simply one revolving ball of water. We fairly hold our breath as we listen to the dull vibration of the boat, the rumbling of the capstan, and the grating sound of the keel of the steamer as she is being dragged through the rapids over the bar; but above all can be heard the voice of Captain Bonser as he shouts to his Indian pilot, "Go 'head capstan," "Stop steamboat," "Stop capstan," "Go 'head steamboat," "Go 'head capstan!" In four hours we have made about fifty yards, but we are in open water again and the boat settles down to its regular chug, chug, chug.
Eighty miles from Essington the Skeena in its flight to the sea makes its first plunge into the Cascade Mountains, and its entrance is indescribably grand. No pen or brush can do justice to the beauties of the Kitselas Cañon. At its mouth we are in a broad, deep basin, as if the river had felt depressed as it passed through the quarter-mile narrow gorge and had here spread itself out to breathe and rest before it started anew its downward journey to the sea. It was late in the afternoon, and the western sun threw long shadows of the lofty sky-crowned perpendicular walls of the left-hand side of the cañon over against the rocky islets and ragged, rock-bound eastern shore. Once we have entered, there is no faltering; "lining it out" is impossible here, and on and on the boat labors and climbs, twisting and turning through the narrow, tortuous channel. A quick eye and a steady nerve must command the wheel now, for a turn too much or too little would be fatal. One instinctively feels that the "Water of Terrors" is the proper name for this river, and with that feeling comes the other—that it was never intended for navigation.
A Skeena River Salmon Cannery.
After four days' grinding over sand bars and pounding against rocks we tie up for repairs. One of the boilers had sprung a leak which could be neglected no longer. The delay of thirty-six hours was not without compensation, for the country about was open, and proved a relief after the long ride through the high-walled river from the sea to the cañon. The banks were low or moderately high and of gravel or sand bluffs, and we could look off over a landscape broken here and there by solitary peaks or clustered mountains, their summits always covered with ice and snow. To the far east were the pure white peaks of the Five Virgins, their summits glistening under the bright sun. Even the character of the vegetation had changed, and the dense forests of somber firs, spruces, and cedars of the lower river had given way to great cottonwoods and underbrush of hazel and alder.
In the afternoon we climbed a bluff near the river, from which we could look off over a country that was wild and extremely picturesque. To one side of us could be seen a great mountain, its summit covered by a mighty glacier whose blue-white ice gleamed and glistened in the sun. And there was no mistaking the power of the sun that day; its warm rays being especially welcome after some weeks of the cold, depressing gloom and fog of the coast.
We were now really in the country of the Tsimshians, and every few hours we drew up in front of some quiet, peaceful village, its almost deserted cottages guarded by the totem poles of former days. In succession we pass Meamskinesht, Kitwangah, and Kitzegukla, with now and then a small salmon-fishing station. The villages proved disappointing both in their smallness and modernness, and none of them seemed worthy of any extended visit. From time to time we passed great black patches in the forest, the result of extensive fires, sure signs that the rainy coast was far away.
On Friday night we tied up to the bank within five miles of our destination, but we had yet to pass Macintosh's Bar. That was accomplished on the following day, after eleven hours' hard work, and by five o'clock we had reached "The Forks," or the junction of the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers. Our course was to the left, up the Skeena for half a mile, and in a few moments more we tied up in front of the stockaded post of the Hudson Bay Company; we had reached Hazelton. The region about us was "Dum-lak-an," "what will be a good place," the home of the Tsimshians.
Before 1870 the town was farther down the river, on the flat at the junction of the Bulkley and Skeena Rivers. It has had additions to its population from Kis-pi-yeoux, and from villages down the river. There are also to be numbered among the inhabitants the Indian agent, Mr. Loring, the Hudson Bay representative, Mr. Sargent, and his assistants, and Mr. Fields, the missionary. The Indian population numbers about two hundred and seventy-five. The town occupies a low, uneven plain, which, beginning at the water's edge, extends back for a quarter of a mile, where it is hemmed in by a high bluff on the face of the second river terrace. There are but few of the old houses left and still fewer totem poles, and they are without particular interest. Most prominent in the village is the warlike stockade of the company's post, with its two bastions at opposite corners, and the blockhouse in the center of the inclosure, but now hidden by the store which stands in front of it. The stockade was put up in 1891, when an Indian uprising was feared throughout the length of the river.