It is the middle of the afternoon and we are just safely through the—to-day—tempestuous passage of “Dixon’s Entrance,” the thirty-three-mile break in the coast’s protecting chain of islands and the outlet for Port Simpson to the open sea. Yesterday we passed through the dangerous twenty miles of the Wrangel Narrows just before dark, and only the swift swirls of the fighting tides endangered us; they fall and rise seventeen feet in a few hours, and the waters entering the tortuous channels from each end meet in eddying struggle somewhere near the upper end. The boats try and pass through just before the flood tide or a little after it, or else tie up and wait for the high water. If we had been an hour later, we should have had to lie by for fifteen hours, the captain said. As we turned in from Frederick Sound, between two low-lying islands all densely wooded with impenetrable forests of fir, the waters were running out against us almost in fury, but in a mile or two they were flowing with us just as swiftly.
To-day we saw a good many ducks, chiefly mallard and teal, and small divers, and my first cormorant, black, long-necked and circling near us with much swifter flight than the gull. In the narrows we started a great blue heron and one or two smaller bitterns.
From the narrows we passed into Sumner Strait, and then turning to the right and avoiding Wrangel Bay and Fort Wrangel, where we stopped going up, passed into the great Clarence Strait that leads up direct from the sea. A sound or fiord one hundred miles or more long, ten or fifteen miles wide.
The day had been clear, but, before passing through the narrows, clouds had gathered, and a sort of fierce Scotch mist had blown our rain-coats wet. On coming out into wider waters, the storm had become a gale. The wildest night we have had since twelve months ago in the tempest of the year upon the Gulf of Finland. To-day, until now, the waters have been too boisterous to write. All down Clarence Strait, until we turned into Revilla and Gigedo Channels—named for and by the Spanish discoverers—and across the thirty-three miles of Dixon’s Entrance, we have shuttlecocked about at the mercy of the gale and in the teeth of the running sea. The guests at table have been few, but now we are snug behind Porcher Island and passing into the smooth waters of Greenville Channel, so I am able to write again. The Swedish captain says the storm is our equinoctial, and that may be, and now that the sun is out and the blue sky appearing, we shall soon forget the stress, although to-night, as we pass from Fitzhugh Sound into Queen Charlotte Sound, we shall have a taste of the Pacific swell again, and probably yet have some thick weather in the Gulf of Georgia. Considering the lateness of the season, we are, all in all, satisfied that we rightly gave up the St. Michaels trip, though it has sorely disappointed us not to have seen the entire two thousand miles of the mighty Yukon.
Already we notice the moderation of the temperature and the greater altitude of the sun, for we are quite one thousand miles south of Dawson, while the air has lost its quickening, exhilarating, tonic quality.
We are becoming right well acquainted with our sundry shipmates, particularly those who have “come out” from the Yukon with us. Among them we have found out another interesting man. Across the table from us on the steamer “White Horse” sat a shock-headed man of about thirty years, tall, very tall, but muscularly built, with a strong, square jaw and firm, blue eyes. A fellow to have his own way; a bad man in a mix-up. A flannel shirt, no collar, rough clothes. Possibly a gentleman, perhaps a boss tough. We find him a graduate of the University of Michigan. He has lived in Mexico, and now for five straight years has been “mushing it,” and prospecting in the far north; has tramped almost to the Arctic Sea, into the water-shed of the Mackenzie, and bossed fifty to one hundred men at the Klondike and Dominion diggings. His camera has always been his companion, and for an hour yesterday he sat in our cabin and read to us from the MSS. some of the verse and poems with which his valise is stacked. Some of the things are charming and some will bring the tears. This far north land of gold and frost has as yet sent out no poet to depict its hopes, its perils, its wrecks. It may be that he is the man. His name is Luther F. Campbell, and you may watch for the name. And so we meet all sorts.
Friday, September 25th.
Yesterday was a “nasty” day, as was the day before. Early, 2 or 3 A. M., we passed through the ugly waters of Millbank Sound, where the sweeping surge of the foam-capped Pacific smashes full force against the rock-bound coast. We were tossed about greatly in our little 400-ton boat, until at last, passing a projecting headland, we were instantly in dead quiet water and behind islands once more. About 10 A. M. we came again into the angry Pacific, and for fifty miles—four hours—were tossed upon the heavy sea, Queen Charlotte Sound. The equinoctial gales have had a wild time on the Pacific, and the gigantic swell of that ocean buffeted our little boat about like a toy. But she is a fine “sea boat,” and sat trim as a duck, rolling but little, nor taking much water. Toward middle afternoon we were in quiet waters again, and by nightfall at the dangerous Seymour Narrows, where Vancouver Island leans up against the continent, or has cracked off from it, and a very narrow channel separates the two. Here the tides—twelve feet—rise, rush and eddy, meet and whirl, and only at flood stage do boats try to pass through.
In 1875, a U. S. man-of-war tried to pass through when the tides were low, and, caught in the swirling maelstrom, sank in one hundred fathoms of water. In 1883, a coastwise steamer ventured at improper moment to make the passage, was caught in the mad currents, and was engulfed with nearly all on board; half a dozen men alone were saved. Hence the captains are now very careful in making the passage, and so we lay at anchor—or lay to—from seven to twelve, midnight, waiting for the tide.
To-day we are spinning down the Gulf of Georgia and Puget Sound, the wind direct astern, and have already left Vancouver and Victoria to the north. The sun is clear and soft, not hard and brilliant as in Dawson. Whales are blowing at play about the ship, gulls skimming the air in multitudes. All our company are over their seasickness and now mostly on deck. We are repacking our bags and the steamer trunk, taking off heavy winter flannels and outer wear, and preparing to land at Seattle clad again in semi-summer clothes.