Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1883-07-28
TRIP TO ALASKA.
The Scenery OF the Northwestern Archi-
pelago-- Harrisburg and Its Mines
Need of IL Civil Government.
CHILKAT, June 3. 1883.

steamer on the ''inland passage" tt
Alaska is about as crooked as the
most fastidious could wish. For in
stance, we called at Victoria for ships
supplies and for discharge of freight
being detained thus for twelve hours
Then we steamed up the gulf oi
Georgia directly on our way for nine
ty miles TO Nanaimo, where we coaled
under difficulties from the great
Wellington mines. Across the little
Departure Bay, little more than q
pistol shot from the chute of the
North Wellington mine, we observed
a group of deserted and weather
beaten cabins on the point of the
beautiful little New Castle Island,
whence was quarried the fine build
ing stone for the San Francisco
Branch Mint. Putting off from this
same point of land is the wreck of a
pier, reaching back into the bluff and
losing itself in the cloud of smoke
which day and night fingers in eddies
over the same spot There, we are
told, was the famous New Castle coal
mine, the Oldest of the Pacific collier,
les, which was abandoned several
years ago because of the unquench
able fire which had been klndled with
in its walls and filled all its caverps
and corridors with death, and thus
shutting down one of the finest coal
mines on the coast. But l am imi-
tating the digressious of our steamer
From Nanaimo we returned over the
same course by which we came from
Victoria, to Port Townsend. This
doubling on our course cost us nearly
two hundred miles extra travel, and a
very annoying delay. Packed with
freight, we left Port Townsend at
midnight, and in the forenoon of the
next day we were off Nanaimo again,
on our journey up coast, and hence
forth we had no more delays to speak
of, and no particular incident or
event worth mentioning
GRAND. BUT MoNoToNoUs SCENERY.
For the tourist will see all through
this wonderland a thousand things
which he can describe neither by
mouth, nor pen, nor brush. There is
at first thrill of pleasure, mingled
with awe, as one enters this almost
limitless sweep Of inland, island
studded seas. The charm of the first
consciousness that you are being,
without q jar or jolt, borne over these
narrow seas. almost fathomless in
their unbroken depths, winding in
and out among tiny islands, covered
with forests and veined with various
minerals, is well-nigh irresistible.
The average tourist has no disposi-
ton to resist the spell He surren-
ders Internationally. But as the
scene broadens into empires and con
tinents, and sweeps on and on for
hundreds of miles in unbroken and
unvarying grandeur, the prisoner
chafes under the burden of his bond
age. There is surfeit of wonder,
the mind reacts, and the traveller
would hail with real pleasure the
sight of something common. Indeed,
when the morning broke upon us in
the little mining village of Harris
burg, there was .many an old miner
who almost wept as he recognized, in
the shadow of the mountains OF
eternal snow, the rude cabin OF the
gold hunter, and simultaneous ex-
clamation of pleasant surprise broke
forth from our uninitiated passengers.
HARRISBURG AND ITS MINES.
At Harrisburg many of our pas
sengers found their destination, at
least for the present. Their tents
We're soon spread upon the rainy
beach, and long before night scores
of them were off to the gold fields.
Strolling, or rather stumbling and
climbing through the dripping, mos
sy, muddy town, we found the whole
Of it mapped off in mining claims,
while through the centre a sluice was
running full of muddy water. Some
Of the miners gave us good reports
from their diggings, but there was
what at first seemed to us a puzzling
reticence and half -heartedness about
even the best reports, by which the
hurrying stranger would be easily
deceived. But If you could get into
the confidence of one of these same
men, you would readily have solved
the whole puzzle, and you would be
prepared better to estimate the
miners confidence in his mines l
found the absence of civil govern
ment serious barrier to all the
mining and industrial interests OF
Alaska. Men, as a rule, are a little
afraid to cay they have good mine
or a good business of any kind, lest
some adventurer in the absence OF
human law, and regardless of all
higher human law, should dispute
their right by superior force, cunning
or downright meaness, and thus in
directly rob prospectors of all they
have found or can hope to find. l
was shown what I am convinced is a
valuable quartz mine, one of the lar
gest in the world, l was assured,
which would long ago have been fully
developed but for this uncertainty.
As it is the proprietors are simply
holding it and waiting the dawn OF
the light of civil government. But
in spite Of all their rights and their
vigilance. large sums have been taken
from the "placers" that cover the
rock above, while hundreds OF thou
sands of dollars, 1 was assured by
the Superintendent of the mine, have