If you ask what motive she who loved these scenes had in essaying to portray them with pen and camera, she would reply that like the Duke of Buckingham, when visiting the scene where Anna of Austria had whispered that she loved him, let fall a precious gem that another finding it, might be happy in that charméd spot where he himself had been.
Off to see the land of icebergs and glaciers; the land I have often visited in my imagination. It seems but yesterday that the first geography was put into my hands. O, that dear old geography, the silent companion of my childhood days.
The first page to which I opened pictured an iceberg, with a polar bear walking right up the perpendicular side, and another bold fellow sitting on top as serenely as Patience on a monument.
“What was an iceberg? What were the bears doing on the ice and what did they eat? Was that the sun shining over yonder? Why didn’t it melt the ice and drop the bears into the sea? No, that was not the sun, it was the aurora borealis. Aurora? Who was she and why did she live in that cold, cold country, the home of Hoder, the gray old god of winter?”
The phenomenon of the aurora was explained to us, but to our childish imagination Aurora ever remained a maiden whose wonderful hair of rainbow tints lit up the northern sky.
We talked of Aurora, we dreamed of Aurora, and now we are off to see the charming ice maiden of our childhood fancy.
Off to Alaska. For years we have dreamed of it; for days and weeks we have breakfasted on Rocky Mountain flora, lunched on icebergs and glaciers and dined on totem poles and Indian chiefs.
Much of the charm of travel in any country comes of the glamour with which fable and legend have enshrouded its historic places.
America is rapidly developing a legendary era. Travel up and down the shores of the historic Hudson and note her fabled places.
The “Headless Hessian” still chases timid “Ichabods” through “Sleepy Hollow.” “Rip Van Winkle,” the happy-go-lucky fellow, still stalks the Catskills, gun in hand. The death light of “Jack Welsh” may be seen on a summer’s night off the coast of Pond Cove. “Mother Crew’s” evil spirit haunts Plymouth, while “Skipper Ireson” floats off Marble Head in his ill-fated smack.
With a cloud for a blanket the “Indian Witch” of the Catskills sits on her mountain peak sending forth fair weather and foul at her pleasure, while the pygmies distil their magic liquor in the valley below.
“Atlantis” lies fathoms deep in the blue waters of the Atlantic, and the “Flying Dutchman” haunts the South Seas.
We have our Siegfried and our Thor, whom men call Washington and Franklin. Our “Hymer” splits rocks and levels mountains with his devil’s eye, though we call him dynamite.
Israel Putnam and Daniel Boone may yet live in history as the Theseus and Perseus of our heroic age.
Certainly our country has her myths and her folk lore.
In time America, too, will have her saga book.
Yonder, Black Hawk, chief of the Sac, Fox, and Winnebago Indians, made his last stand, was defeated by General Scott, captured and carried to Washington and other cities of the East, where he recognized the power of the nation to which he had come in contact. Returning to his people, he advised them that resistance was useless. The Indians then abandoned the disputed lands and retired into Iowa.
Just north of Chicago we passed field after field yellow with the bloom of mustard. Calling the porter I asked him what was being grown yonder. He looked puzzled for a moment, then his face lighted up with the inspiration of a happy thought as he replied:
“That, Madam, is dandelion.”
“O, thank you; I suppose that they are being grown for the Chicago market?” said I, knowing that dandelion greens with the buds in blossom and full bloom are considered a delicacy in the city.
“No, Madam,” answered my porter wise, “I don’t think them fields is being cultivated at all.”
I forebore to point out to him the well kept fence and the marks of the plow along it, but brought my field glasses into play and discovered that the disputed fields had been sown to oats, but the oats were being smothered out by the mustard.
Wisconsin is a beautiful state. Had the French government cultivated the rich lands of the Mississippi valley and developed its mineral resources as urged by Joliet, Wisconsin might still be a French territory. But all his plans for colonization were rejected by the government he served. A map of this country over which Joliet traveled may be seen in the Archives de la Marine, Paris, France, to-day.
The soil is light and farming in Wisconsin is along different lines from that of her sister state, Illinois. In every direction great dairy barns dot the landscape. Corn is grown almost entirely for fodder. The seasons here are too short to mature it properly. In planting corn for fodder it is sown much as are wheat and oats.
The principal crops of this great state are flax, oats, hops, and I might add ice. Large ice houses are seen on every side. Much of the country is yet wild. Acres of virgin prairie just now aglow with wild flowers, take me back to my childhood, when we spent whole days on the prairie, “Where the great warm heart of God beat down in the sunshine and up from the sod;” where Marguerites and black-eyed Susans nodded in the golden sunshine, and the thistle for very joy tossed off her purple bonnet.
Here and there in northern Illinois and Wisconsin kettle holes mark the track of the glaciers that once flowed down from the great névé fields of Manitoba and the Hudson lake district.
In traveling across Wisconsin one is reminded of the time when witches, devils, magicians, and manitous held sway over the Indian mind.
Milwaukee is a name of Indian origin,—Mahn-a-wau-kie, anglicized into Milwaukee—means in the language of the Winnebagoes, rich, beautiful land.
According to an Indian legend the name comes from mahn-wau, a root of wonderful medicinal properties. The healing power of this root, found only in this locality, was so great that the Chippewas on Lake Superior would give a beaver skin for a finger length piece.
The market place now stands on the site of a forest-clad hill, which had been consecrated to the Great Manitou. Here tomahawks were belted and knives were sheathed. Here the tribes of all the surrounding country met to hold the peace dance which preceded the religious festival. At the close of the religious services each Indian carried away with him from the holy hill a memento to worship as an amulet.
It was the greatest wish, the most passionate desire of every Indian to be buried at the foot of this hill on the bank of the Mahn-a-wau-kie.
Recent investigation has shown that Wisconsin was the dwelling place of strange tribes long before the advent of the Indian.
The Dells of the Wisconsin river was a favorite resort of the Indian manitous. Yonder is a chasm fifty feet wide, across which Black Hawk leaped when fleeing from the whites. He surely had the aid of the nether world.
In this beautiful region, hemmed in by rugged bowlder cliffs, lies a veritable Sleepy Hollow. In a dense wood back of the cliff stands the mythical “lost cabin.” Many have lost their way searching for it. The strange thing about it is that they who have once found it are never able to find it again. Weird stories are told about it. Its logs are old and strange, different from the wood of the dark old forest in which it stands. There are stories afloat that it is haunted by its former inhabitants, who move it about from place to place.
At the foot of this rugged cliff lies Devil’s lake. At the head of this fathomless body of water is a mound built in the form of an eagle with wings outspread. Here, no doubt, lies buried a great chief. Nothing is left in Wisconsin to-day of the Indian but footprints,—mounds, graves, legends and myths.
At Devil’s Lake lived a manitou of wonderful power. This lake fills the crater of an extinct volcano. Now this manitou, so the tale runs, piled up those heavy blocks of stone, which form the Devil’s Doorway. He also set up Black Monument and Pedestaled Bowlder for thrones where he might sit and view the landscape o’er when on his visits to the earth. These visits have ceased, since the white man possesses the country. One day this wonderful manitou aimed a dart at a bad Indian and missing him, cleft a huge rock in twain, which is now known as Cleft Rock. At night, long ago, he might have been seen sitting on one of his thrones or peeping out of the Devil’s Doorway watching the dance of the frost fairies or gazing at the aurora flaming through the night.
Every night at midnight Gitche Manitou appears in the middle of the lake.
In days gone by a strange, wild creature, known as the Red Dwarf, roamed the region of the great lakes, haunting alike the lives of red man and white.
The snake god, the stone god, the witch of pictured rocks, were-wolves and wizards held sway in that charméd region where San Souci, Jean Beaugrand’s famous horse, despite his hundred years, leaped wall of fort and stockade at pleasure.
At LaCrosse we crossed Black river into Minnesota and shortly after crossed the Mississippi. LaCrosse, although French, originally, means a game played by the Indian maidens on the ice. The heights on either side of the Mississippi river remind one of the Catskills along the Hudson. Indeed, the scenery is very similar. You easily imagine yonder cliffs to be the palisades. Here, a spur of the Catskills range and the little valley between might be Sleepy Hollow. But you miss the historic places—Washington’s headquarters, Tarrytown, West Point and others. Like forces produce like results. When you have seen the Hudson river and its environs you have seen the upper Mississippi.
St. Paul and Minneapolis form the commercial[10] center of the North. Although the ground freezes from fifteen to sixteen feet, the concrete sidewalks and pavements show no effect of the touch of Jack Frost’s icy fingers. The street-cars here are larger and heavier than any I have ever seen. Then, too, they have large wheels, and that sets them up so high. This is on account of the snow, which lasts from Thanksgiving to Easter, good sleighing all the time.
The French and Indian have left to this region a nomenclature peculiarly its own. There is Bear street and White Bear street. In the shop windows are displayed headgear marked Black Bear, White Bear and Red Cloud. There are on sale Indian dolls, Indian slippers, French soldier dolls, Red Indian tobacco, showing the influence still existing of the two peoples. One sees many French faces and hears that language quite often on the streets and in the cars.
The falls of St. Anthony are at the foot of Fifth street in Minneapolis. The water does not come leaping over, but pours over easily and smoothly in one solid sheet. On either bank of the river are located the largest flouring mills in the world. Not a drop of the old Mississippi[11] that comes sweeping over the falls but pays tribute in furnishing power for these mills. Huge iron turbine wheels that twenty men could not lift are turned as easily as a child rolls a hoop.
On the site of these mills long ago were camped the Dakotas. They had just come down from another village where one of the men had married another wife and brought her along. The woman was stronger than the savage in wife number one, and when the Indians broke camp and packed up their canoes and goods for the journey to the foot of the falls, the forsaken wife, taking her child, leaped into a canoe and rowed with a steady hand down stream toward the falls. Her husband saw her and called to her, but she seemed not to hear him and she did not even turn her head when his comrades joined him in his cries. On swept the boat, while the broken-hearted wife sang her death-song. Presently the falls were reached. The boat trembled for a moment, then turning sideways, was dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
Minnesota was the land of Gitche Manitou the Mighty and Mudjekeewis. Mackinack was the home of Hiawatha and old Nokomis. There[12] Gitche Manitou made Adam and Eve and placed them in the Indian Garden of Eden. One day Manitou or Great God made a turtle and dropped it into Lake Huron. When it came up with a mouth full of mud, Manitou took the mud and made the island of Mackinack.
As we steamed up the Mississippi to the falls of Minnehaha we had a good view of the bank swallows in their homes in the sandstone banks along the river. The action of the air on sandstone hardens a very thin crust on the surface, and when this is scraped off one can easily dig into the bank. The swallows are geologists enough to know this and hundreds of them have dug holes in the perpendicular walls. Here the chattering, noisy little cave-dwellers fly in and out all day long, flying up over the cliffs and away in search of food or resting in the shrubbery which grows in the water near by. It is a pretty sight to see the happy little fellows skim the water. It makes you wish that you, too, had wings.
At the entrance of Minnehaha park we were greeted by a merry wood thrush, whose voice is melodious beyond description. There he sat on a swaggy limb not ten feet from us. We were familiar with his biography and recognized[13] him by his brown and white speckled coat. We advanced cautiously. We had come six hundred miles to see him and I think he knew it, too, for when we were so near that we could have taken him in our hands he recognized our presence by nodding his graceful head first this way, then that, and sang on. We spent some ten minutes with him, then “bon voyage” he sang out as we passed on.
Three miles above Minneapolis are the beautiful falls of Minnehaha, Laughing Water. These falls are beautiful beyond the power of my pen to describe. The water does not pour over, but comes leaping and dancing, like one great shower of diamonds, pearls, sapphires and rubies. The vast sheet of water sixty-five feet high reminds one of a bridal veil decked with gems and sprinkled with diamond dust.
“Where the falls of Minnehaha
Flash and gleam among the oak trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley.”
It was here that Hiawatha came courting the lovely maiden Minnehaha. The falls are surrounded by a government park. Hurrying along through glen and dale, looking for the falls, we met a party of young ladies who were having a picnic in the park.
I accosted one of them, “Beg pardon, Mademoiselle, can you tell me where to find the falls?”
She looked astonished for a moment. “The falls of what?”
“The falls of Minnehaha.”
“O, I don’t know; never heard of her,” replied my maiden fair as she turned and tripped away.
It has always seemed so strange to me that people living near places of interest are oftentimes ignorant of the fact.
We next met a youth of some fourteen summers, who knew the history of St. Paul, Minneapolis and their environs. He could tell you all about the big mills, the soldiers, the barracks and old Fort Snelling. He knew the story of Minnehaha, too; had been to the falls hundreds of times, and knew the Song of Hiawatha as he knew his alphabet. Gitche Manitou had but to set his foot on the earth and a mighty river flowed from his tracks. Mudjekeewis was a great warrior, but Hiawatha was his hero. It was with genuine regret that we bade good-by to this interesting youth.
Our next visit was to old Fort Snelling, three miles out from St. Paul. This fort was built[15] in 1820. It is round, two stories high and is constructed of stone. The old fort, of course, is not used now. The regular soldiers stationed here are located in delightful quarters. The barracks are just beyond the old fort. The hospital is a large, commodious building of stone. The parade field is a delightful bit of rolling prairie. The barracks are quite deserted now, most of the regiment being in the Philippines. Only a small detachment of twenty-five troops remains to take care of the property. Fort Snelling was the rendezvous of the Chippewas and the Sioux in the old days of Indian occupation.
While the two tribes smoked the pipe of peace and made protestations of friendship they might not intermarry.
At one of these meetings a Sioux brave won the heart of a Chippewa maiden. Their love they kept a secret, but when the tribes met again at old Fort Snelling a quarrel arose among the young warriors which resulted in the death of a Sioux.
The Sioux fell upon the Chippewas with the cry of extermination.
In the midst of battle lover and loved one met, but for a moment. They were swept[16] apart and the young warrior knew that the fair maiden lived only in the land of shadows.
There dwells in the river at the falls of Saint Anthony a dusky Undine. She was once a mermaid living in a placid lake, longing for a soul which the good Manitou finally promised her upon her marriage with a mortal. The mortal appeared one day in the form of a handsome Ottawa brave, and to him the beautiful mermaid told her tale of woe. The two were wed. The mermaid received her soul and the form of a human, but her new relatives disliked her. They quarreled over her and at last the Ottawas and the Adirondacks fought over her, and threw her into the river. There she lives to this day, thankfully giving up her soul for the peace and quiet of a mermaid’s life.
This is the home of the pine and the birch. The white melilotus grows rank in the byways of Minneapolis.
The horse may not have to go, but the bicycle has surely come to stay. A unique figure on the streets of St. Paul is a window washer, black as the ace of spades, mounted on a wheel. Rags of all sorts and conditions hang from his pockets. He carries his brushes aloft a la[17] “Sancho Panza.” He rides up to the curbstone, dismounts, leans his steed against the curb, washes his windows and rides away at a pace that would make Don Quixote’s sleepy squire open his eyes in amazement.
A beautiful morning in June finds us aboard the Great Northern Flyer, bound for the Pacific coast. We were soon up on the river bluffs. Here is some fine farming land, the only drawback being the lack of well water. The geological formation is entirely different from that of Indiana and Illinois, where water may be had on the bluffs as easily as lower down toward the riverbed. Here the underground water current lies on a level with the bed of the river and a well must go down five or six hundred feet through the bluff before water is obtained.
Our route here follows the Mississippi, which in places is jammed with rafts of logs on their way down to the saw mills. Each log bears the owner’s mark. One sees many logs, big fellows worth ten or fifteen dollars, which have slipped from their rafts and like independent boys, get lost in all sorts of places.
George Monte was an Indian lumberman of the north. He worked at a chute where the logs[18] were floated down to the river and held back by a gate until it was time to send them through en masse. When all was ready the foreman ordered the log drivers to open the gate. One chilly night the order came to open the gate. The night was dark and the men drew lots to see who should attempt the dangerous feat. Monte drew what was to him the fatal slip. Without a word he opened the door and passed out into the night. The jam was broken and the logs passed through, but hours passed and Monte failed to return. Then his companions went in search of him. Investigation showed that the big gate which sank by its own weight when the pins had been removed, was held by some obstruction. The object was removed with long spike-poles and proved to be the mangled body of Monte. The chute was soon abandoned, for every night at midnight his ghost walks the banks. His moans can be distinctly heard above the swish and lap of the water.
On the Coteau des Prairies (side of the prairies) in Minnesota, pipe-stone, a smooth clay, from which hundreds of Indians have cut their pipes, forms a wall two miles long and thirty feet high. In front of the wall lie five big[19] bowlders dropped there by the glaciers. Under these bowlders lies the spirit of a squaw, which must be propitiated before the stone is cut. This quarry was neutral ground for all the tribes. Here knives were sheathed and tomahawks belted. To this place came the Great Spirit to kill and eat the buffalo of the prairies. The thunder bird had her nest here and the clashing of the iron wings of her young brood created the storms. Once upon a time, when a snake crawled into the nest to steal the young thunderers, Manitou, the Great Spirit, seized a piece of pipe stone and pressing it into the form of a man, hurled it at the snake. The clay man missed the snake and struck the ground. He turned to stone and there he stood for a thousand years. He grew to manhood’s stature and in time another shape, that of a woman, grew beside him. One day the red pair wandered away over the plains. From this pair sprang all the red people.
From St. Paul to Fargo not a stalk of corn was to be seen, but there was field after field of fine wheat. This part of Minnesota is much more thickly settled than immediately around St. Paul and Minneapolis. Morehead in Minnesota and Fargo, across the line in Dakota,[20] are thriving towns. The country here looks like Illinois. The lay of the land is the same and groves and houses dot the landscape. Here dwelt the Dakota tribes from which the states of Dakota and Minnesota take their names. Here came Hiawatha and his bride, Minnehaha, whom he won at St. Paul when the tribe was visiting that country, for Minnehaha was a Dakota girl, you remember.
Hiawatha’s fight with his father began on the upper Mississippi and the bowlders found there were their missiles. Hiawatha fought against him for many long days before peace was declared between them.
The evil Peace Father had slain one of Hiawatha’s relatives. He engaged him in combat all the hot day long. They battled to no purpose, but the next day a woodpecker flew overhead and cried out, “Your enemy has but one vulnerable point; shoot at his scalp-lock.” Hiawatha did this and the Peace Father fell dead. Taking some of the blood on his finger the victor touched the woodpecker on the head and the red mark is seen on every woodpecker to this day.
Dakota as well as Wisconsin has her Devil’s Lake, about which hang many legends, but unlike[21] that of Wisconsin the Great Spirit, Gitche Manitou, does not appear in the middle of it every night at twelve o’clock.
Indians as well as whites believe in a coming Messiah. In 1890 a frenzy swept over the northwest, inspiring the Indians to believe that the Messiah, who was no less than Hiawatha himself, and who was to sweep the white people off the face of the earth, would soon arrive. Dakota was the meeting ground of the tribes. Sitting Bull, a Sioux chief, told them in assembly that he had seen the wonderful Messiah while hunting in the mountains. He told them that having lost his way, he followed a star which led him to a wonderful valley, where he saw throngs of chiefs long dead, as they appeared in a spirit dance. Christ was there, too, and showed him the nail wounds in his hands and feet and the place where the spear pierced his side. Then the old rogue returned to his people and taught them the ghost dance, which caused the whites so much trouble.
Dakota is a beautiful state. The land along the route of the Great Northern railway lies more level than in Minnesota. The crops are looking well in this region. There seems to be but one drawback to farming here and that is the[22] famous Russian thistle imported a few years ago. The principal crops are oats, barley and wheat. Rye bread is plenty and good, too. Out there on the broad cheek of the Dakota prairie the weeds are holding high revelry. Some of the same old weeds we have at home and many which are new to the writer. Wild ducks build their nests in the tall grass of the ponds just as they did in Illinois thirty years ago.
At Minot, Dakota, we set our watches to Mountain time, turning them back one hour. We arrived at Minot at 11:10 P. M., remained fifteen minutes and left at 10:25. At 9:15 o’clock the sun was just sinking in the west. It does not get dark here, only twilight. At 10 o’clock the moon came up and we bade good night to Saturday.
Sunday we spent in the Bad Lands of Montana. “Hell with the fires out” is the popular name given to the Bad Lands in the wild, fearless nomenclature of the west. It is an ancient sea bottom. The lower strata is clay and the one above it is sand. They are wild and rugged beyond description. The action of the air, wind and storm have worn them into towers, citadels and fantastic peaks.
The highly colored scoria rocks crop out here and there, adding a beauty of their own. Summer and winter, long before the advent of the white man the coal mines in this region were burning. Looking down into the fiery furnace one may see the white-hot glow of the coal and the heated rocks glowing with a white heat. Rattlesnakes wriggle through the short grass. Quails and grouse fly up and away.
There is a banshee in the Bad Lands whose cries chill your blood if you happen to hear her, which I did not. She is most frequently seen on a hill south of Watch Dog Butte, in Dakota, her flowing hair and her long arms tossing in wild gestures, make a weird picture in the moonlight. Cattle will not remain near the butte and cowboys fear the banshee and her companion, a skeleton that walks about and haunts the camps in the vicinity. Leave a violin lying near and he will seize it and away, playing the most weird music, but you must not follow him, for he will lead you into pits and foot falls. The explanation of all this is the phosphorus found in this vicinity, which glows in the night air.
Standing Rock agency is the best known of our frontier posts. The rock from which the[24] post takes its name is only about three feet high and two feet in width. This rock was once a beautiful Indian bride who starved herself to death upon her husband marrying a second wife. After her death the Great Manitou turned her to stone, and here she stands to this day.
Glasgow, Montana, lies in the midst of the Sioux reservation. Like the Spartans of old, these warriors of the plains dwell in tents during a part of every year. Just beyond the town tepees now dot the landscape where for a brief space the red man forgets the things taught him by his white brother and resumes his old wild ways, but at the approach of winter he abandons his tent and returns to his log cabin and to civilization.
The Indian costume is a mixture of savage and civilized dress, looking more like that of the Raggedy Man than any other.
Blackfoot is a village in the heart of the Blackfeet reservation, lying just west of that of the Sioux. These people, like the ancient Greeks, reverence the butterfly.
“Ah!” exclaim these red children of nature when they see one of these Psyches of the prairie flitting from flower to flower over the green[25] meadow, “ah, see him now. He is gathering the dreams which he will bring to us in our sleep.”
If you see the sign for the butterfly which is something like a maltese cross painted on a lodge, you will know that the owner was taught how to decorate his lodge, in a dream by an apunni,—butterfly. A Blackfeet woman embroiders a butterfly on a piece of buckskin and ties it on her baby’s head when she wishes to put it to sleep. Wrapped in their blankets the Indians stood about Blackfoot village as we came in reminding us of Longfellow’s address to “Driving Cloud:”
“Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city’s
Narrow and populous street, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown which have left to us only their footprints.
What in a few short years will remain of thy race but footprints?
How canst thou tread these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?
How canst thou breathe this air who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?”
When one has trod the velvety green turf of the prairies and breathed the sweet air of the mountains he is quite ready to sympathize with “Driving Cloud.”
The government schools for the Blackfeet Indians are located in a valley beyond Blackfoot village. The schools are conducted exactly as our public schools are, only that the Blackfeet children must go to school ten months in the year. Think of that, boys and girls. During July and August these dusky redskins get a vacation, which they spend with their parents and for the time being return to the savage state. The agent told me they were always quite wild upon their return to school after two months of hunting, fishing and living in tepees.
Now and then a fine covey of quails or prairie chickens flies up and away. How glad they would make a sportsman’s heart!
With our glasses we see easily two hundred miles in this rarefied atmosphere. I discovered several coyotes running along a ledge in the Bad Lands that I could not see at all with my naked eye. The Sweet Grass mountains, sixty miles away on the Canadian line, loom up so plainly that they appear to be only two miles distant. With the aid of the glasses we could see the vegetation and rocks on the sides of the mountains quite plainly.
The United States geological survey reports[27] Montana the best watered state in the union. It has more large rivers than all of the states west of the Mississippi combined. Milk river is five hundred miles long. This valley is one of the finest in Montana. Here irrigation is a perfect success.
Here one sees the cowboy in all his picturesqueness. The saddle is your true seat of empire. Montana cattle bring a big price in the Chicago market. The top price paid in 1897 was five dollars per hundredweight, and was paid to George Draggs for a shipment from Valley county. I would almost be willing to live in the Bad Lands if I might always have my table supplied with the juicy mountain beef which we have been eating since we arrived at St. Paul.
This is a fine sheep as well as cattle country.
Montana is not all sage brush, coyotes and rattlesnakes.
Montana has according to the report of the secretary of the interior seventy million acres of untillable lands. A great portion of this land can be reclaimed by irrigation.
We passed the Little Rockies sixty miles to the north (the distance looked to be only about two miles). The Bear Paw mountains are[28] west of these. The Indians are very superstitious about the mountains. The great spirit, Manitou, they tell us, broke a hole through the floor of heaven with a rock and on the spot where it fell he threw down more rocks, snow and ice until the pile was so high that he could step from the summit into heaven.
After the mountains were completed, Manitou by running his hands over their rugged sides, forced up the forests. Then he plucked some leaves, blew his breath upon them and gave them a toss in the air and lo they sailed away in the breezy blue birds. His staff he turned into beasts and fishes. The earth became so beautiful he decided to live on it and starting a fire in Mt. Shasta he burned it out for a wigwam.
An interesting part of life on the plains is the prairie dog and his town, the streets of which were not laid out by an engineer. Each dog selects the site of his home to suit his taste. The houses are about the size of a wagon wheel, almost perfectly round. As the train whirls by they sit on top of their houses looking much like soldiers standing guard. The dogs are three times as large as a gopher and of a pale straw color. As one walks toward them, down[29] they go through the door, but they are very curious and presently back they come for another look. They are agile and graceful in movement. One handsome fellow lay on the projecting sill of a house basking in the sun. We approached very near before he saw us. The flies were annoying him. He shook his head and blinked his eyes at the flies, paying little attention to us.
The wild flowers of Montana are as abundant and beautiful as those of the Alps, and more varied. Shooting stars greet the spring. Dandelions abound but do not reach full rounded perfection. The common blue larkspur, however, revels in the cool air and warm sunshine. The little yellow violet which haunts the woods in the eastern states makes herself quite at home here. Blue bells nod and sway in the breeze, little ragged sun flowers turn their faces to the sun and mitreworts grow everywhere.
Along the shady streams wild currants flaunt their yellow flags while hydrangea, that queen of flowers, lends a shade to the violets blooming at her feet. Wild roses strew the ground with their delicate petals. Stately lilies, their purple stamens contrasting strangely with their[30] yellow petals, are abundant. The most dainty of this fair host is the golden saxifrage, and the most delicate gold thread, whose dainty, slender roots resemble nothing so much as threads of pure gold.
At Havre, Montana, the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry came aboard. They are stalwart colored soldiers who will do credit to the uniforms they wear. They go to San Francisco, where they take transports for Manila. The good-bys at the station between the soldiers and their friends and relatives were pathetic indeed. Not one of the brave fellows but acted a soldier’s part.
Just as the train was pulling out a handsome girl ran along one of the cars to the window calling out to her sweetheart:
“O, lift me up till I kiss you again.”
We were glad when two big black hands came out through the open window and strong arms clasped the maiden for a moment.
Every heart beat with the same thought; how many of these brave men would return from the deadly Philippines?
We were proud of the Twenty-fourth when they bade good-by to their friends at Havre; we were proud of them when they marched up[31] the street at Spokane; we are proud of them still.
The officers of this regiment are white. They and their wives came into our car.
The conversation was enlivened with tales of camp life. When a private, one officer was greatly annoyed by the Indians, who came day after day to sit in the shade of his quarters, when having been on night duty he wanted to sleep. He bought a sun-glass and when they began talking he would sit down at the window and carelessly with the glass draw a focus on one of his tormentor’s feet. With a yell worthy an Indian with the bad spirit after him he would bound away, followed by his companions. Soon they would return, when the glass would be brought into play with the same effect. At last the Indians came to believe the house haunted and our captain was no longer troubled by his red brothers.
After forty miles of mountain climbing we reached the summit of the Rockies. At nine o’clock we were still in the mountains and the sun was still shining.
The smallest owl in the world has his home in these mountains. It is the Pigmy owl, but you must look sharply if you see him as he flits[32] from limb to limb and hides in the dense foliage. The Rocky Mountain blue jay is not blue at all. His coat is a reddish brown, he sports a black-crested cap and has black bars on his wings like his Illinois brothers.
Flowers, ice, snow and mountain torrents spread out in one grand panorama. Fleecy white clouds not much larger than one’s hand float up and join larger ones at the summit of the peaks. There is no grander scene on earth than this range of snow-capped mountains spread out in mighty panorama, peak after peak and turret after turret glistening in the golden sunshine against skies as blue as those of Italy.
“Come up into the mountains—come up into the blue,
Oh, friend down in the valley, the way is clear for you;
The path is full of perils, and devious, but your feet
May safely thread its windings, and reach to my retreat.
The mountains, oh, the mountains! How all the ambient air
Bends like a benediction, and all the soul is prayer.
How blithely on this summit the echoing wind’s refrain
Invites us to the mountains—God’s eminent domain.
Oh, soul below in the valley where aspirations rise
No higher than the plunging of water fowl that flies,
Come up into the mountains—come up into the blue;
Leave weary leagues behind you the lowland’s meaner view,[33]
The autumn’s rotting verdure, the sapless grasses browned,
Come where the snows are lilies that bloom the whole year round.
Here in the subtle spirit of all these climbing hills,
Man may achieve his dreaming, and be the thing he wills.”
—Joseph Dana Miller.
When one has felt the inspiration which the air of the mountains gives, he feels that he may achieve his dreaming, may be the thing he wills.
Ten o’clock found us going down the western slope of the Rockies in the twilight. Daylight comes at two o’clock in the morning. All along the track over the mountains are stationed track walkers, who live in little shacks. Before every train which passes over the road each walker goes over his section to see that all is well.
All the Indians east of the Rockies located the Happy Hunting Ground west of the mountains and those west of the divide thought it was on the eastern side, and that every red man’s soul would be carried over on a cob-web float.
At Spokane we turned our watches back another hour. We are now in Pacific Coast time.
There is plenty of room in the great Northwest. For twenty-five years to come Horace Greeley’s advice “Go west,” will hold good. Charles Dickens once said that the typical American would hesitate to enter heaven unless assured that he could go farther west. “Go west.” Surely these are words to conjure with. “Go west,” thrills the blood of youth and stirs the blood of age.
The tide of immigration is turning this way. No matter what your trade or profession, there is room for you here.
Agriculture, the supporting pillar in the temple of wealth of any nation, stands in the front rank in Washington and Idaho, the soil being wonderfully productive. Stock raising, dairying and fruit farming are carried on with great success. But the great mining interest must not be forgotten. The annual rainfall varies from thirty-five to sixty inches. A[35] healthful climate meets one in almost every part of these great states. Malaria is practically unknown. As to scenery one may have here the sublime grandeur of Switzerland, the picturesqueness of the Rhine and the rugged beauty of Norway.
The lava beds of eastern Washington are wild and barren as to rocks, but the soil is very productive when irrigated. The lava is burned red in many places. Castle after castle with drawbridge, turrets and soldiers on guard, all of solid rock, greet the eye. Column after column stand hundreds of feet high.
The Cascade mountains surpass the Rockies in grandeur and ruggedness of scenery. We crossed on the Switch Back. This is by “tacking,” as a sailor would say. We had three engines, mammoth Moguls, one forward, the other two in the rear. There are but two engines in the world larger than these.
To explain more fully we went back and forth three times on the side of the mountain until we reached the summit, then down on the other side in the same manner. Going up we made snowballs with one hand and gathered flowers with the other, tiger lilies, perfect ones[36] one and one-half inch from tip of petal to petal on tiny stalks five inches high. Blackberry vines run on the ground to the summit of the mountains. They creep along like strawberry vines. They are in bloom now and the berries will ripen in time.
The snowfall last winter on the summit was one hundred and nine feet. Miles of snowsheds are built over the road and men are kept constantly at work keeping the tracks clear of snow and bowlders. Five huge snow-plows are required, all working constantly to keep the sixty-six highest miles clear. The fall of snow for one day is often four feet. The Great Northern road is putting a tunnel through the mountains now, and will thus do away with the Switch Back. Eight thousand men work in the shafts night and day. They have been at work two years and expect to finish in 1901.
For hours we traveled above the clouds and at other times we passed through them and were deluged with rain. Magnificent ferns grow everywhere on the mountain sides and towns and villages are to be seen frequently.
Descending the mountains we came to the Flat Head valley, the scenery of which is wild and rugged enough to suit the taste of the most imaginative Indian. The Flat Head river, a wild, raging, roaring torrent which sweeps everything before it as it comes leaping down the mountains, flows peacefully enough in the valley. Here water nymphs bathe in purple pools, yonder fairies and fauns dance on the green.
On the trees we see such signs as “Smoke Red Cloud,” “Chew Scalping Knife,” “Drink Smoky Mountain Whisky,” “Chew Indian Hatchet,” “Chew Tomahawk,” “Drink White Bear.”
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.
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.
There is one industry that is not represented here at all, and that is the window-screen industry. There is but one fly in Seattle; at any rate I have seen but one. Meat markets and fruit markets stand open. The temperature has averaged sixty-two in the shade for several days. It is quite hot in the sun, however.
If you are out of a fortune and would like to make one, come to Washington.
Mount Rainier is the highest peak of the Cascade Range and the most beautiful. Though standing on American soil it bears an English name, that of Rear Admiral Rainier of the English navy. The local name was for years Tacoma, but in 1890 the United States board of geographic survey decided that Rainier must stand on all government maps.
The people of Washington speak lovingly of this splendid peak which was smoking so grandly when the Pathfinder found his way into this country fifty years ago.
From its summit eight glaciers radiate like the spokes of a wheel down from which flow[42] as many rivers. Its ice caverns formed by sulphur vent holes in the crater, its steam jets, its moss draped pines, its dainty vines and hemlocks, its grassy vales, where wild flowers are swayed by the breath of the glaciers, its beautiful lilies, remind one of “Aladdin’s” journey through the wonderful cave in search of the magic lamp.
Here blows the heather and the shamrock.
“With a four-leafed clover, a double-leafed ash, and a greentopped seave,
You may go before the queen’s daughter without asking leave.”
There stands fair Daphne, changed to a laurel tree.
In the legends of the Silash Indians Mount Rainier has always been held as a place of superstitious regard. It was the refuge of the last man when the waters of Puget Sound swept inland, drowning every living thing except one man. Chased by the waves, he reached the summit, where he was standing waist deep in the water when the Tamanous, the god of the mountain, commanded the waters to recede. Slowly they receded, but the man had turned to stone. The Tamanous broke loose one of his ribs and changing it to a woman, stood it by[43] his side, then waving his magic wand over the two, bade them to awake. Joyfully this strange Adam and Eve passed down the mountain side, where they made their home on the forested slopes. These were the first parents of the Silash Indians.
In the very center of the Cascade range stands another mountain of equal beauty, Mount St. Helens.
Washington is the home of the genuine sea serpent. He makes his headquarters in Rock Lake, where he disports himself in the water, devouring every living thing that ventures into it or dares to come on the shore. Only a few years ago he swallowed an entire band of Indians.
Expansion seems to be the law of our national and commercial life. Beyond the placid Pacific are six hundred million people who want the things we produce. China and Japan furnish a market for our wheat. The cry now is for more ships to carry our produce to Asia, Australia, to islands of the Pacific and to Alaska, not to speak of the Philippines. Manila is the center of the great Asiatic ports, including those of British India and Australia. Our trade with[44] the Orient is growing and Manila will make a fine distributing depot. These eastern countries use annually over eighty-six million dollars’ worth of cotton goods and nearly forty million dollars’ worth of iron and steel manufactures. This we can produce in this country as cheap if not cheaper than in any other country. Seattle is the best point from which to export, as the route is shorter than from San Francisco.
The battleship Iowa is in dry dock here. I should liked to have been a marine myself and have stood behind one of those big guns when Cervera left the harbor of Santiago. And now I’d like to train that same gun on the anti-expansionist and send him to the bottom of the sea, there to sleep with the Spaniards and other useless things. Officers and marines alike are proud of their ship and delighted to explain the mechanism of the guns.
We took a steamer over to Tacoma one morning, where we had the pleasure of seeing the North Pacific steamship Glenogle, which had just arrived from Japan, unload her cargo. She brought two thousand tons of tea, over two thousand pounds of rice, two thousand and twelve bails of matting, two hundred and eighty-six bails of straw braid, one hundred and thirty-nine cases of porcelain, two hundred and eighty-five packages of curios, three thousand packages of bamboo ware, silk goods and a multitude of small articles made the load. She had forty Japanese passengers for this port, and left forty-five at Victoria.
The air was fragrant with the odor of roses and beautiful pinks.
On the street we met a party of Indians in civilian dress, wearing closely cropped hair and moustaches.
Tacoma pays ninety dollars per ton for copper ore from Alaska.
Returning across the bay we met a flock of crows on the flotsam and jetsam which floats down from the saw-mills. Their antics reminded me of a party of school boys playing tag. At the steamer’s approach the leader gave a warning caw and they were up and away before the steamer struck their floating playground and scattered it to the waves.
At sunset the reflection of the sun-lit clouds on the waves and the fire and glow of the sparkling water, now ruby red, changing to turquoise blues and emerald greens, make a scene delightful to the eye of one who loves the sea.
“All aboard!” At ten o’clock we steamed out of the harbor of Seattle and headed toward Alaska, the land of icebergs, glaciers and gold fields. Seattle sat as serenely on her terraced slopes as Rome on her seven hills. The sun shone bright and clear on the snow-capped peaks of the Cascades. Mt. Tacoma stood out bold and clear against the sun-lit sky.
We steamed at full speed down Admiralty Inlet.
At noon we stop at Port Townsend, the port of entry for Puget sound. One sees at all these coast towns many Japanese, some dressed in nobby bicycle costumes, leading their wheels about the wharves, others wearing neat business suits and sporting canes. The less fortunate almond-eyed people are here too, dressed in the garb of the laborer, but it is to the former, the padrone, that the American employer goes for contract labor.
In any case the laborer pays his padrone a per cent. of his wages.
It holds true the world over that “some must follow and some command, though all are made of clay,” as Longfellow puts it.
We are soon out on the ocean, where it is all sea and flood and long Pacific swell.
All up and down the picturesque shores of Puget Sound live the Silash Indians, who to-day dress in American costumes and follow American pursuits. One sees them on the streets of the cities and towns. The Silash, like the ancient Greeks, peopled the unseen world with spirits. Good and evil genii lived in the forest; every spring had its Nereid and every tree its dryad. They believed the Milky Way to be the path to heaven; so believed the ancient Greeks.
One beautiful day there gleamed and danced in the sunshine a copper canoe of wonderful design. Down the sound it came. When the stranger whom it carried had landed he announced that he had a message for the red man, and sending for every Silash, he taught them the law of love. The Indian mind is slow to adjust itself to new thought. Such ideas were new and strange to these children of nature. When this beautiful stranger about whose head the sun was always shining, told them of the new, the eternal life in the world beyond, they listened with deep interest, but the savage was stronger than the man in the red skins and they dragged the stranger to a tree, where they nailed him fast with pegs in his hands and feet, torturing him as they did their victims of the devil dance.
Then they danced around him until the strange light faded from his beautiful eyes. Slowly the radiant head dropped and life itself went out. A great storm arose that shook the earth to its very center. Great rocks came tearing down the mountain side. The sun hid his face for three days.
They took the body down and laid it away. On the third day, when the sun burst forth, the dead man arose and resumed his teaching. The Indians now declared him a god and believed in him.
Year by year the Silash grew more gentle and less warlike, until of all Indians they became the most peaceful. My readers will readily see that this is a confused tale of the Christ.
Another fantastic tale of this region is that of an Indian miser who dried salmon and jerked meat, which he sold for haiqua,—tusk-shells,—the wampum of the Silash Indians. Like all misers, the more haiqua he got the more he wanted.
One cold winter day he went hunting on the slopes of Mount Rainier. Every mountain has its Tamanous, to which travelers and hunters must pay homage. Now the miser, instead of paying devotion to the god of the mountain, only looked at the snow and sighed, “Ah, if it were only haiqua.”
Up, up he went, and soon reached the rim of the volcano’s crater, and hurrying down the inside of the crater he came to a rock in the form of a deer’s head. With desperate energy he flung snow and gravel about. Presently he came to a smooth, flat rock; summoning all his strength, he lifted the rock. Beyond was a wonderful cave where were stored great quantities of the most beautiful haiqua his eyes had ever beheld.
Winding string after string about his body, until he had all the haiqua he could carry, he climbed out of the crater and started down the mountain side. But the Tamanous was angry. Wrapping himself in a storm cloud, he pursued the miser, who buffeted by the wind and blinded by the snow and darkness, stumbled on, grasping his treasure. The unseen hands of the god clutched him and tore strand after strand from his neck.
The storm lulled a moment, but returned with renewed energy; the thunder and lightning increased; again the unseen hands held him in a vice-like grasp. Strand after strand the angry god tore from the miser’s grasp, until by the time he arrived at the timber line but one strand remained; this he flung aside and hurried on down the mountain. Not one shell remained to reward him for his perilous journey. Weary and foot-sore he fell fainting in the darkness. When he awoke his hair was white as the snow on the mountain’s brow. He looked back at the snow-crowned peak with never a wish for the treasures of the Tamanous. When he arrived at his home an aged woman was there cooking fish. In her he recognized his wife, who had mourned him as dead for many long years. He dried salmon and jerked meat, which he sold for haiqua, but never again did he brave the Tamanous of Mount Rainier. Thus ends the weird tale of Puget Sound.
Clearing this port, our course lay across the straits of Juan de Fuca, named for the Greek explorer before mentioned. The green slopes of the beautiful San Juan islands now came into view.
We landed at Victoria, the capital of the province of British Columbia, at eight o’clock in the morning. The city was still wrapt in slumber. A cow placidly munching grass in the street, looked at us inquiringly. We met a dejected looking dog and presently a laborer going to his work.
A handsome hotel occupies a commanding site, but the doors were closed. Not a store was open. The government buildings, naval station and museum are the only places of interest.
The Island of Vancouver is composed of rock and sand. All along the shore are magnificent sea weeds, ferns and club mosses, growing fast to the rocky side and the bottom of the sea. Many of these plants break loose and go floating about.
Imagine a perfectly smooth, flexible parsnip, from twenty to fifty feet long, with leaves of the same length like those of the horse radish in form, but the color of sapless, water-soaked grasses, and you have a kelp. Coming toward you head on, the long leaves floating back under it, you have a miniature man-of-war.
The fortifications for the protection of the harbor are submerged. You would never suspect that below that innocent looking daisy covered surface great guns were ready at a moment’s notice to blow you and your good ship to atoms should her actions proclaim her an enemy.
Farther up the coast Exquimalt, the most formidable fortress on the American Continent, occupies a commanding site.
We were glad to retrace our steps to the steamer and shake from off our feet the dust of that sleepy old town, which never felt a quiver when “Freedom from her mountain height unfurled her standard to the air,” and shake off too that strange feeling which possesses one when treading a foreign shore.
All day long Mount Baker of the Cascade range has stood like an old sentinel, white and hoary, to point us on our way.
Fair Haven and New Whatcomb, the terminus of the Great Northern railway for passenger traffic, are delightfully located on the coast. These towns are growing rapidly. The population is now twelve hundred. The largest[53] shingle mill in the world is located here. It turns out half a million shingles every ten hours. The saw-mill turns out lumber enough every day to build five ten-room houses, while a tin can factory turns out a half million cans a day.
In time Fair Haven and New Whatcomb will be two of the most beautiful towns in Washington. The streets are broad. Green lawns surround handsome homes and pretty cottages.
At noon we passed the forty-ninth parallel, the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions. What a vast expanse of territory had been ours had we adhered to our determination to maintain the fifty-fourth parallel. “Fifty-four, forty or fight,” we said, but gave it up without a blow.
Forty miles across from Vancouver lies the busy collier town of Nanaimo. The Indians discovered the coal fifty years ago. On the knoll near the coal wharves, there is a beautiful grove of madronas. In the surrounding forest gigantic ferns and strange wild flowers grow in great profusion. Berries are plentiful and game abundant.
At Cape Mudge we bid farewell to the Silash tribes. Cape Mudge potlatches are famous for their extravagance. In 1888 a neighboring tribe was worth nearly five hundred thousand dollars. The British Columbia legislature prohibited potlatches and in one year their wealth decreased four-fifths. The prohibition of potlatches quenched their desire to accumulate property.
The wild gorge of Homathco is the result of the relentless glaciers.
In Jervis Inlet is a great tidal rapid, the roar of which can be heard for miles. It is considered the equal of the famous Malstrom and Salstrom of Norway.
At Point Robert we pass the last light house on the American coast. The stars and stripes floated from the flag staff. With a dash and a roar the white crested waves tumbled on the beach. With a last farewell to Old Glory, we steam ahead and for six hundred miles plow the British main.
The scenery becomes more wild, savage, grand and awful. Snow-clad mountains guard the waterway on either side. Such Oh’s and Ah’s when some scene of more than usual grandeur bursts upon our view. A canoe shoots out from yonder overhanging ledge. The glasses reveal the occupants to be four Indians out on a fishing expedition.
Nearly every one of our three hundred passengers was interested in the first whale sighted. “O yonder he goes, a whale;” “O, see him spout;” “Now look, look!” “Ah, down he goes.” Then everyone questions everyone else. “Did you see the whale?” “Did you see our whale?” “O, we had whales on our side of the boat,” and adds some one, “They were performing whales, too.” Then the gong sounds for dinner and the whale is forgotten in the discussion of the menu.
Many of our passengers are bound for Dawson City, Juneau and other Alaskan points. One hears much discussion of the dollar, not the common American dollar, but the Alaskan dollar, which seems to be more precious as it is more difficult to obtain.
Here are young men bound for the frozen field of gold who could carry a message to Garcia and never once ask, “Where is he ‘at?’” “Who is he?” or “Why do you want to send the message, anyway?” Young men with backbone, muscle and brains, who would succeed in almost any field.
From Queen Charlotte’s sound to Cape Calvert we were out on the Pacific. Old Neptune tossed us about pretty much as he liked, although Captain Wallace, who, by the way, is a genial gentleman and a charming host, assured us that we had a smooth passage across this arm of the old ocean. Many suffered from mal de mer.
Wrapped in furs and rugs, we sit on deck, enjoying the panorama of sea and sky. Sun-lit mountains, white with the snows of a thousand years and green-clad foot hills covered with pines as thick as the weeds on a common. Here and there in a wild, dreary nook the glasses revealed an Indian trapper’s cabin. Here he lives and hunts and fishes. When he has a sufficient number of skins he loads his canoe and skims across the water, it may be eighty or a hundred miles, to a town, where he trades his furs and fish for sugar, coffee, tea, and the many things which he has learned to eat from his white brother. He is very fond of tea and rum. He does not bury his dead, but wraps them in their blankets and lays them on the top of the ground, that they may the more easily find their way to the Happy Hunting Ground. Then he builds a tight board fence five or six feet high about the lonely grave and covers it tightly over the top to keep out the wild animals which roam the mountain sides. A tall staff rises from the grave and a white cloth floats from its pinnacle. We sighted one of these lonely graves on the top of a small island on our second day out, and were reminded of that other lonely grave in the vale of the Land of Moab.
Bella Bella is an Indian town located on Hunter island. The houses are all two-story and nicely painted. There is nothing in the aspect of the town to indicate that it is other than a white man’s town, though the Indians who reside here were once the most savage on the coast. On a smaller island near by is a cemetery. Small, one-roomed houses are the vaults in which the bodies are placed after being wrapped in blankets. Here we saw the first grave stones. They stand in front of these vaults and are higher. On them are carved the owner’s name and his exploits in hunting or war in picture language.
The Silash Indians are very gentle and kind. If you are hungry they will divide their last crust with you. If you are cold they will give you their last blanket. They wear civilized dress, fish and hunt and are quite prosperous. Many hops are grown in the State of Washington and in the fall these Indians go down in their canoes to pick hops. They are preferred to white pickers, because of their industry and honesty.
Saturday night we crossed “Fifty-four forty or fight” and Sunday morning found us in Alaska.
There is also a big, black Husky aboard. He is a cross between an Indian (not an Esquimaux) dog and a wolf. He is a big, heavy fellow, large of head, strong of limb and feet widened in muscular development wrought in his race by generations of hard service in this rugged climate. He is valued at three hundred and fifty dollars. He will pull three hundred pounds and travel forty miles a day over ice and snow, being fed but once a day on dried fish.
The most curious and by far the handsomest dog aboard is a Malamute. He is a beautiful dog. His furry coat is heavy and his fine ears stand erect. For actions, manners and affection for his master he is a fine specimen of the canine tribe. His walk is somewhat of a stride like that of the bear.
His owner, who lives in Chicago, is aboard. He paid three hundred dollars for the dog and took him home, but it is too warm for him in Chicago, so he is taking him back to Alaska.
There are many cases of oranges, lemons, peaches, apples, apricots and plums and tons of groceries of all sorts for Skagway, Dawson, Juneau, Sitka and other Alaskan points. Also many pounds of dressed beef, mutton, flour, cornmeal, oatmeal and canned goods. There are one thousand cases of oil, lots of dry goods and many miners’ outfits. So you see there is quite a traffic up and down this coast.
As we steam steadily on toward the home of Hoder, the stormy old god of winter, the air grows colder, the scenery more wild and strange. Snowclad mountains, sun-lit clouds resting on their peaks and veiling their sides, blue sky and sparkling water make a scene which may be imagined but not described.
Alaska is the aboriginal name and means “great country.” It was at the request of Charles Sumner that the original name was retained. Seven million two hundred thousand dollars for a field of stony mountain, icebergs and glaciers! Had Seward gone mad? Ah, no. He builded wiser than he knew. Alaska is nine times the size of the New England States and cost less than one-half cent per acre.
The northwest coast of Alaska was discovered and explored by a Russian expedition under Behring, in 1741. Russian settlements were made and the fur trade developed.
The climate is no colder than at St. Petersburg and many other parts of Russia. The warm Japan current sweeps the coast and tempers the climate. Sitka is only three miles north of Balmoral, Scotland. The isothermal line running through Sitka runs through Richmond, Va., giving both points the same temperature. The average summer temperature is fifty-two degrees and the average winter weather thirty-one degrees above zero.
The average rainfall at this point is eighty-two inches. Native grasses and berries grow plentifully in the valleys. The chief wealth of the country lies in its forests, fish, fur-bearing[64] animals and mines. The forest consists of yellow pine, spruce, larch, fir of great size, cypress and hemlock. The wild animals include the elk, deer and bear. The fur-bearing animals are the fox, wolf, beaver, ermine, otter and squirrel. Fur-bearing seals inhabit the waters along the coast. Salmon abound in the rivers.
It is one of the secrets of the rebellion that the large sum paid to Russia for Alaska was to compensate her for the presence of her warships in our harbor during the early days of the Civil War, thus helping to prevent English interference.
Fort Wrangel is delightfully located on the green slopes of the mountains. It was once a Russian military post and takes its name from the Russian governor of Alaska, Baron Wrangel.
Here are some fine totem poles. Totemism is a species of heraldry. Their whales, frogs, crows, and wolves are no more difficult to understand than the dragons, griffins, and fleur-de-lis of European heraldry. The totem pole of the Alaskan Indian is his crest, his monument. The totem is his clan name, his god. He is a crow, a raven, an eagle, a bear, a whale, or a wolf. It is the old story of Beauty and the[65] Beast. The beautiful raven maiden may live happily with her bear husband.
Every Indian claims kinship with three totems. The clan totem is the animal from which the clan descended. There is a totem common to all the women of the clan. The men of the clan have a totem and each individual when he or she arrives at manhood or womanhood chooses a totem sacred to him or herself. This totem is his guardian angel and protects him from danger and harm. The Alaskan Indian believes the eagle to be the American man’s totem and the lion and the unicorn the two totems of the Englishman.
The civilized races of antiquity all passed through the totem period. Our Indians all had their totems as their names indicate, Blackfeet, Crow and Sioux. Totems are common to all savage races, but the Alaskan Indian is the only North American who erects a monument to his totem.
While the totem protects the Indian the Indian is in duty bound to protect his totem. He may neither kill nor eat his own totem, but he may with impunity kill the god of another. If you kill his totem he will be grieved and sorrowfully ask, “Why you kill him, my brother?”
These people were evolutionists long before Darwin. There are no monkeys, however, among the totems of the Alaskan Indians.
When an Indian marries he takes his wife’s name, the name of her clan totem. The children, too, belong to the mother’s totem, and, of course, take her name. The wife is the head of the family, managing it and transacting all the business.
These Indians and all the Indians of southern Alaska are Tlingits. Tlingit means people. There are many traditions among them of a supernatural origin; one to the effect that the crow in whom dwelt the Great Spirit lived on the Nass River, where he turned two blades of grass into a man and a woman. This was the first pair from whom sprang all Tlingits. They have tales of a migration from the southeast, the Mars River country. Their propitiation of evil spirits, their shamanism and their belief in the transmigration of souls, all point to Asiatic origin, yet there is no tradition among them of any such origin. Once, many thousands of snows ago, a Tlingit stole the sun and hid it, then nearly all the people died, but the crow found it and placed it in the sky again. After this the tribe increased.
The Tlingit idea of justice is something of a novelty. The code, however, is short; an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is always strictly demanded. A Tlingit once shot at a decoy duck, but he made the owner pay for the shot used. A young Indian stole a rifle and accidentally killed himself with it. His relatives made the owner pay for the dead thief. If a patient dies under a doctor’s care he pays for him.
Before the advent of the white man shamanism held sway. When a Tlingit fell ill he sent for his medicine man, who by incantations cured him, or failing that, accused some one of bewitching his patient. The wizard or witch was tortured and put to death, after which the sick Indian recovered or died, as the case might be.
Captain E. C. Merriman, of the U. S. Navy, destroyed the power of the shaman by rescuing the accused and punishing the shaman.
The shaman spends the greater part of his life in the forest, fasting and receiving inspiration from his totemic spirits. A concoction of dried frogs’ legs and sea water give him power to perceive a man’s soul—the Tlingit woman had no soul then—escaping from his[68] body and to catch it and restore it to the man.
The Tlingits practiced cremation, but the body of a shaman was never cremated, it would not burn. It was always buried in a little box-like tomb. The body was wrapped in blankets and placed in a sitting posture, surrounded by the masks, wands, rattles, and all the paraphernalia of the office of a shaman, ready for use in the heaven to which he had gone.
The missionaries have destroyed faith in the shaman and broken up the practice of cremation.
At Fort Wrangel we called on the chief. He has the tallest and the most handsomely carved pole in the Indian village.
Wrangel narrows is one of the finest scenic passages along the coast of Alaska. The magnificent range of snow-covered mountain peaks, the green-clad slopes on the shore and the Stickine delta compose as noble a landscape as one will see anywhere in the world. The sunset and sunrise lights in the narrows and on the snowy, cloud-wreathed mountains are marvelous pictures of beauty, beyond the power of pen or brush to portray.
At low tide broad bands of russet hued algae border the sea-washed shores. Giant kelp break loose from their moorings and go floating about, their yellow fronds and orange heads contrasting strangely with the intense green of the water. The Indians say these kelp are the queues of shipwrecked Chinamen. Many eagles build their nests in the trees, while myriads of seagulls skim the water.
The scenery of the Stickine river is equally[73] grand. Three hundred glaciers drain their waters into this river.
The tourist meets the first tide water glacier in the Bay of Le Conte. The Stickine Indians called it Hutli, Thunder Bay. Here, they say, dwells Hutli, the Thunder Bird. To their imaginative mind the cracking of the ice and the noise of the falling icebergs, is the cry of Hutli, and the roar of the falling water the flapping of his huge wings.
In Lapland the guardian spirit of the mountains is known as Haltios.
Juneau is located at the foot of Mt. Juneau, which is more than three thousand feet high. It is snow-capped and delicious water comes pouring down the mountain sides. Juneau is a newly built town and is the largest on the coast. It has a population of thirty-five hundred. Just below the town is a village of Taku Indians. Back of the village are the grave houses. Here we find totem poles and Indian offerings to the spirits. Steamers bring to this wharf fruits and vegetables. Radishes, lettuce and onions, also rhubarb, look tempting in the gardens. Juneau is the home of many miners and prospectors. The chief mining interest in this vicinity is the Treadwell mines,[74] located on Douglas island, just across Gastineau channel from Juneau. The ore runs from two dollars and twenty cents to four dollars per ton only, but the water power coming from the mountains makes the working of the mines cheap, so that the company is enabled to pay large dividends. Hundreds of sacks of gold, nearly free from rock, lay day and night on the wharves, waiting for the steamers to carry it away to the stamping mill. On the wharf at Treadwell lay twenty thousand dollars.
The mill spoken of is the largest in the world. It runs eight hundred and eighty stamps day and night. There is enough ore in sight to run the mill twenty-four hours a day for thirty years. The mountains are being literally blasted down and carted away. The Indians work in the mines, but they cannot compete with their Anglo Saxon brothers, they earning only about half as much. They will not trust the white man over night, hence are paid at the close of each day.
The Indians wear citizens’ clothes and carry watches. Many of them sport canes when walking about the streets. The women and girls do the family washing on the rocks in the mountain streams. One little black-eyed,[75] brown-faced witch who said her name was Troke Lewis, was washing handkerchiefs on a big rock over which the water poured. She paused to talk to us, a cake of soap held high in one hand, while with the other she held her handkerchiefs down in the cold water on the rock.
Just around the cliff, back of Juneau, lies the beautiful Silver Bow cañon.
There are plenty of fine fish in the bay. Salmon, trout and eels abound. The writer caught a trout weighing ten pounds and an eel weighing one pound.
Skagway is located on the Lynn canal at the foot of Mt. Dewey, which rises sheer fifty-five hundred feet above the sea. The climate is very mild, the thermometer never being known to register over six below zero. A veritable Ganymede sends down a vast supply of the most delicious water. Skagway is the coming city of Alaska. It will be to Alaska what Chicago is to the Middle Western States, what St. Paul and Minneapolis are to the Northwest and what Seattle is to the North Pacific coast. Streets are being laid out and other improvements are going on. Log cabins covered with tar paper[76] are being replaced by more substantial buildings. People are coming here to stay and the representative inhabitants of this youthful town are men and women of refinement and culture from the Eastern and Middle States.
At Skagway all sorts of vegetables are growing in the gardens, lettuce, radishes, onions, potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes.
We spent the Fourth of July in this place. Congressman Warner invited us to join him and the senatorial party for the day. We went to the summit of the Selkirk mountains, to the head of the Yukon River on the White Pass and Yukon railway, after which the party was entertained in Skagway.
There are plenty of fine fish in the bay. Salmon, trout and eels abound. The writer caught a trout weighing ten pounds and an eel weighing one pound.
Skagway is located on the Lynn canal at the foot of Mt. Dewey, which rises sheer fifty-five hundred feet above the sea. The climate is very mild, the thermometer never being known to register over six below zero. A veritable Ganymede sends down a vast supply of the most delicious water. Skagway is the coming city of Alaska. It will be to Alaska what Chicago is to the Middle Western States, what St. Paul and Minneapolis are to the Northwest and what Seattle is to the North Pacific coast. Streets are being laid out and other improvements are going on. Log cabins covered with tar paper[76] are being replaced by more substantial buildings. People are coming here to stay and the representative inhabitants of this youthful town are men and women of refinement and culture from the Eastern and Middle States.
At Skagway all sorts of vegetables are growing in the gardens, lettuce, radishes, onions, potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes.
We spent the Fourth of July in this place. Congressman Warner invited us to join him and the senatorial party for the day. We went to the summit of the Selkirk mountains, to the head of the Yukon River on the White Pass and Yukon railway, after which the party was entertained in Skagway.
The wagon relegated the trail to oblivion. Then came the railroad and travel and commerce deserted the wagon road. Here they lie, the foot trail on one side, the wagon way on the other, and just above the road way, the[79] railway. Three path ways: that of the untaught, unskilled Indian, that of the enterprising pioneer and that of the modern engineer, traverse this play ground of the Titans.
At the summit of the mountains Old Glory waves beside the British flag. Several British red-coated police are on duty at this point. They live in one-room frame houses covered with sail cloth.
The Yukon river rises at this point and flows four thousand miles into Behring Sea. Just now the head is a bank of snow from which we made snowballs.
The railroad will shortly be completed to Lake Bennett. From that point, with the exception of White Horse rapids, is a clear, unimpeded water route to Dawson City, in the heart of the Klondike.
From the Dawson City Midnight Sun we learn that this metropolis of the Northwest Territory is quite a busy place.
Hundreds are leaving for the Cape Nome country by every steamer, and many are making the trip in open boats.
A disastrous fire occurred on the hill back of Dawson on Wednesday last, when about forty cabins were destroyed by the blaze. In[80] many cases the entire contents were destroyed, while some few were enabled to save their outfits. The fire caught from a small bonfire down near the Klondike, and in the first ravine up that stream. It ran up the hill to the trail, and then burning down towards the ferry, also destroyed half the homes on the lower side of the trail. The loss is estimated to reach about five thousand dollars, and fell on a class who could ill afford the loss, some being left absolutely destitute.
Scows and boats through from Lake Bennett began arriving in great numbers the last of the week, and are continuing to do so.
Trunks and bandboxes are taking the place of dunnage bags heretofore brought into the country. Every steamer is unloading cords of them.
Men who during the winter were spending hundreds of dollars over the gambling tables are now looking for a chance to work their passage out.
The suspicious actions of two strangers over on Gold Run has caused gold sacks to be guarded more carefully.
Two men while poling a boat up the river, were overturned near the mouth of the Klondike,[81] losing a valuable kit of tools. The men were picked up by a boat pushed off from the river bank.
The grand opera house, built by Charles Meddows, is to be the finest building in Dawson. It is three stories high. The auditorium has a seating capacity of two thousand and a double row of boxes, forty-two in number.
From present indication Dawson will celebrate the Fourth of July as it was never before celebrated. Citizens of Canada are as eager supporters of this movement as are those of the States. There was a public mass meeting held in June at the A. C. warehouse, when there was about five hundred people present, and an executive committee appointed. Since then the different committees have been appointed and are meeting even better support from all quarters than expected.
The foreman of the Gold Hill mine saved from his washup a thousand dollars’ worth of handsome nuggets. Over these he kept a jealous eye continually until last Friday. Between seven and eight o’clock that evening he went to a neighboring cabin to bid good-by to Sam Miller, who was preparing to return to the States. During his temporary absence some[82] sneak thief entered the cabin and cutting open a valise secured the sack of nuggets, but in his haste overlooked fifteen hundred dollars in dust lying near by.
We learn that a responsible firm is organizing a properly conducted express company, which will be prepared to carry parcels, gold dust, and attend to commissions. Thus a long felt want will be supplied in connection with Dawson’s dealing with outside points.
The foreman of the Eldorado is doing the finest piece of mining yet seen in the Klondike. A passer by would think that his large force of men was laying off a baseball ground, so level is the entire five hundred-foot claim being stripped for summer sluicing.
Cards are out announcing the marriage of two of Dawson’s most prominent young people.
A beautiful baby girl born over on Bonanza claim the other day is considered the most valuable nugget on the claim.
Patrick O’Flynn, a prisoner serving a six months’ sentence, escaped Thursday and has gone, nobody knows where. He, with other prisoners, was carrying water from the Yukon when he bolted among the tents along the river[83] bank, mingled with the crowd and was lost sight of. One hundred dollars reward was promptly offered for information leading to his capture.
The Yukon has been steadily rising for the past week, and the high water mark is not yet reached. Water is backed up in the Klondike, overflowing the island.
This little city came near having a Johnstown flood last winter. An eye witness thus describes how the ice went out at Dawson. The river had been frozen all winter. When a few warm spring days came, the melting ice and snow in the mountains sent down immense volumes of water the strain of which the ice could not long withstand. All day the people stood helplessly about discussing the situation. A flood seemed inevitable; the greater part of the city was in danger of being swept away; until three o’clock in the afternoon the situation was unchanged, the ice gave no evidence of going.
Suddenly and almost simultaneously all along the city front the ice was seen to commence moving. A steamboat whistled and the cry went up, “The ice is moving,” and thousands of spectators rushed to the river bank[84] just in time to see it go. The dancing masses of huge pieces of ice weighing tons upon tons, reared high in the air and tumbling over each other as they fell, presented a most beautiful spectacle. At ten o’clock it jammed and raised the water about three feet, doing no damage except smashing the wheel of the steamer Nellie Irving. In ten minutes the jam broke and the next morning the river, which the day before was frozen solid across, was entirely free except for blocks of floating ice from above.
Last year ice jammed and, backing the water up, flooded the town, doing much damage.